buildings and structures in AGS: do you think about it?

[DanClarke]

Im in the process of doing all the BGs for a house in part one of my game atm, and one of the things that struck me as difficult was actually laying out a house correctly so that it all fits together and makes sense. Ive been desinging hallways etc, and having to figure out widths of walls and floors etc so they correspond with rooms above or below can be quite a hefty task. Ive found a good way to deal with it is to draw a rough floorplan 1st, but there are also things like perspectives of rooms to consider, and continuity. (eg. if you walk left into one room you dont want the character appearing on the left side of the next screen.

Anyone else had this 'hurdle'?

[Andail]

Well, I think it comes pretty naturally after some trials and errors. To get it all perfectly correct is very hard and not really needed; just make sure the player can maintain an overall sense of direction.

[DanClarke]

Well, I think it comes pretty naturally after some trials and errors. To get it all perfectly correct is very hard and not really needed; just make sure the player can maintain an overall sense of direction.

Yeah i know what you mean, its just ive had to alter and flip certain things, because with certain layouts, rooms would be found hovering in space that doesnt exist, and windows would be placed where theyre not visible outside etc. I guess as you say its just one of those things you get used to with time.

[Nikolas]

I'm sure that a floorplan would work.

I have my wife who's an architect and uses Autocad to help me, if I ever need something like that.

But a floorplan will definately give you the "form" on which to base all your renderings. And btw how big a house are we talking about? I always try to have some kind of logic in what I do and it might struck out to have a 3-storey house with 5 bedrooms 6 bathrroms blah blah blah. But noone said that you have such a big house in there...

[DanClarke]

I'm sure that a floorplan would work.

I have my wife who's an architect and uses Autocad to help me, if I ever need something like that.

But a floorplan will definately give you the "form" on which to base all your renderings. And btw how big a house are we talking about? I always try to have some kind of logic in what I do and it might struck out to have a 3-storey house with 5 bedrooms 6 bathrroms blah blah blah. But noone said that you have such a big house in there...

mines a 2 story house with an attic, 2 main rooms and a hall downstiars, 2 rooms upstairs and the attic too.

[Miez]

The best way to do this (IMHO), especially complicated architectural stuff like this, is to make a quick-and-dirty mockup in your favourite 3D program, cover all of it with a grid texture, put the camera where you'd like and use the renders as a basis for paint overs. No worries about perspective and you can make sure that the building "makes sense".

[edmundito]

I do. But Here's the thing about the traditional graphic adventure: There's always a missing wall (the fourth wall where the "camera" is placed). Sometimes, when I'm desigining a room that I want to make realistic, it's hard for me to design it without a fourth wall. Why do you think saturday school is top-down? 

[Kweepa]

I think as long as it mostly has continuity (as you define it in your first post) then anything goes - unless the relationship of the rooms is important for a puzzle of course.

[Snarky]

I know a couple of (otherwise great) AGS games had this problem, and it bothered me: 5 Days a Stranger and Stranger at Midnight. If I remember correctly, they both included floor maps, and this made it painfully obvious that certain rooms on the second floor were hovering in space, as there were no rooms on the ground floor in the same position.

[Anarcho]

I've been dealing with this problem lately, trying to fit in every necessary object or room feature with the floor plan fighting me the whole way.  I think planning is obviously the best policy, but a little creative deviation isn't a big deal.  So what if the floor plan doesn't completely make sense...9 times out of 10 the player will  never notice (unless you give the player a floorplan like in 5Days, which i noticed as well).

[He-Man]

As you guys allready mentioned the player won't notice if the arcitecture of a building isn't perfect. The player will automaticly figure out that if he/she walks out of a door in the first screen and comes into the next screen through a door then it is the same door.
If you are making a cartoony game I don't think it will matter at all. It might be a little more important in serious games like 5DaS.
I don't say that you should not consider making your buildings make sense but I for one have never really given much though into this issue. I guess that's why my games suck...