no more than 16 hotspots...

[urbain]

AGS is great, of course...  but 16 hotspots is really too short if you want to make a decent game.

I made some rooms that will need up to 50 hotspots  

So what could i do?  wait for the next version of AGS?  Use another adventure-game making tool?  Use tons of scripting to "emulate" additional hotspots?  search for an explanation in other threads (uhhh... done!)...  

Or make rooms that will not exceed 16 hotspots?  



thanks for your help  

[Ishmael]

Taking advantage of those 16 hotspots, then the 15 (or is it 20?) objects, and additional scripting is the best way I can think of...

[scotch]

I have to use more than 16 now and then.. only way around it is to make one hotspot do two seperate things depending on if(mouse.x>300) or similar.  It'd be nice to be able to have more hotspots, but most people don't seem to use more than 16. For the way my game is set up I need a different set of actions for every little thing on screen so 16 is a bit of a restriction.

[Scummbuddy]

can you give us a description of your room?

[urbain]

I wanted to made a BIG room     It's the offices of a company.  

It's approx. 1100*600 in size.  Its kind of "isometric" view and it will scroll.

Since there's no limitations for objects, that solve my problem...  

But I also just realized i could only set up 16 different walk-behind areas, too.  There's many "props" in my room, such as desks, coffee machines, paper-copy machine,  desks with computers, small walls between the different desks, etc...  so it'll be impossible to set up as much walk-behind than i wanted...

I think it's a bit too ambitious for AGS.  

I'll probably cut it into different 320*240 parts...  obviously this is the only way

[Quintaros]

Well objects can be used to define walk behind areas as well.  Still I think it would be more efficient to break it down to multiple rooms.

[Ishmael]

You can chop it down, but paste a like 160 pixel area of the "next" room to the edge of the previous, and set the screen transition to "instant" when entering the office, and back to the previous when leaving it. There, you have seemles transitions. Just make sure the character is moved to EXACTLY "same" cordinates (same spot on the background).

[Scummbuddy]

you were talking about making small walkable areas around desks... why not just continue the same walkable area with the one touching it?

[urbain]

Here's the room i was talking about.

Its not even colored, sized down and in JPG, so don't pay attention to the quality...

It's approx. 1000*500 in size.

Finally I think the best method is to cut it down, cause there's really too many walk-behinds and too many objects/hotspots.

Thanks anyway for your help  

[Paper Carnival]

well, in my opinion having too many hotspots may confuse the player and there is a way to use less hotspots on that room

Take for example the top right desk. It has three drawers, two printers, a telephone and three chairs. You can have one hotspot for all of them. If you examine that hotspot for example, the character will say "It's a desk with drawers, printers, chairs and a telephone".

[scotch]

There's no problem with walk behinds there and the hotspots are spaced apart so you could easily make enough with some scripting, but if you're not used to ags then you might want to simplify.

[Scummbuddy]

you could just make one color for one walkbehind,and one for walkable, since you dont need to size the character any differently if they walk around the front, or the back

[urbain]

you could just make one color for one walkbehind,and one for walkable, since you dont need to size the character any differently if they walk around the front, or the back

Of course, i always set only 1 walkable color.  I don't need any zoom since this room has no perspective...  

But i don't understand your tip for walk-behinds: if i set only 1 walk-behinds color, i'll only have 1 baseline...  and my charater will be behind everything...    

[After]

walkbehinds: All that share a common baseline can be combined, so you have 15 'depths' available. But the biggest problem I see is managing the isometric view; you will either have to make large non-walkable areas around the walls where they slope away from their baseline, or dynamically modify baselines, being careful to prohibit any conflicts with other objects or characters.

hotspots: If you're not using regions, you can have hotspots*regions effective hotspots and still distinguish them by testing both.

[Spyros]

But i don't understand your tip for walk-behinds: if i set only 1 walk-behinds color, i'll only have 1 baseline...  and my charater will be behind everything...    

You can move the baseline up/down depending of your character position (this can be done in the rep exec function)

[urbain]

Thanks all for your answers.

Finally, by setting precise walkable areas and by using walk-behinds carefully, everything works just fine!  

The character can't go everywhere he wants since he follow strict paths.  No big deal.  After all, Monkey Island works the same way, ain't it?  

For the hotspots: i will use them very carefully and some things will be objects so i can set at least 30 "interactive" things in the room (15 hotspots + 15 objects).  I think it'll be enough.

My room will still be scrollable.  Kewl  

Thanks all for you tips