Time for a new object limit increase?

Razorback · Sun 12/03/2006 15:37:00

I have a room in my game that has a keypad interface. When you press the buttons they go in, so I'll be needing a lot of objects to achieve that effect. It has 1 object for each number plus two others for OK and CLEAR. That makes 12 objects. Then I have the LED display. And for that I need 10 more objects. One for each asterisk and an Access Granted and Access Denied message. 22 objects in total.

A friend of mine asked CJ personally for an object limit increase and he said that we should ask in here to see what the community had to say.

Do you guys think its fair to ask for an object limit increase at this point? Any other people here who would benefit from it?

Pumaman · Sun 12/03/2006 15:43:08

While it is possible for the object limit to be raised, have you considered perhaps using the RawDrawing functions to draw the LED display? It might be easier than having to fiddle around with 10 objects.

Ashen · Sun 12/03/2006 16:12:41

Couldn't you double up on a couple of them? The access granted/denied ones, for example, probably won't be on-screen at the same time, so why not just use one object and change it's Graphic as needed? And for the LED display objects - surely you'd only need 10 if you've got a 10 digit password to enter.
Also, maybe you could use a GUI for the keypad, rather than Objects.

That said, I've got nothing against raising the limit.

Razorback · Sun 12/03/2006 16:17:21

I wouldn't know, I'm the art guy. But I'll see what Kikuta has to say about all that, he's the tech guru.

Akumayo · Sun 12/03/2006 20:14:34

A GUI seems to be the most logical answer here, as there is no limit to GUI buttons.

Ashen · Sun 12/03/2006 20:28:51

Actually, according to the manual you're limited to 30 controls per GUI, so I guess the effective limit would be 29 Buttons, and a Label for the display - unless you wanted to use a couple of GUIs in tandem.
But it's still probably the most logical way to do it.

Kikutaâ„¢ · Sun 12/03/2006 20:33:02

Well, I've thought in re-using the same objects, but I would be very hard and troublesome. Adjust an image by his size to a certain pixel can be very troublesome, yet doable.

About the Gui thing, I've already thought that. Sure, it's the most logical anwser and it would have endless possibilities, but it wouldnt work in this case;)

So, an easy way to deal with this and with future problems, would be asking CJ (who has done a brilliant work in AGS) to raise the object limit a little more:)

As I said, I'm not looking for an awnser to deal with the problem, I just wanted to know if the object counter could be raised.

SSH · Mon 13/03/2006 09:47:03

It seems far more sensible to use a GUI label or some kind of text for the LED display. Or you could use my SpriteFonts module to render some text as an object

Wretched · Mon 13/03/2006 10:31:16

I think a limit increase would be a double edged advantage. Admittedly almost every game I've made I've hit the 20 object barrier at some point, though in doing so it has made be think about doing things differently, and sort of forces you to look into the other aspects of AGS, GUI, RawSprites, characters, etc. so I'd opt to leave it at 20 as an inspirational limitation. If that makes sence.

nihilyst · Mon 13/03/2006 11:10:47

That might be right for a normal room, but imagine, you had a very large scrolling room with many possible interactions and animated things. Then you have to work around, what is generally possible, but much more complicated.

Razorback · Mon 13/03/2006 14:26:30

Why even have limits? Wouldn't it be the designer's responsibility if his game gets slow? How about just displaying a message after the player reaches 20 objects in one room, warning that after this point the game will have performance issues on slower machines.

Or maybe that's not the reason there are limits.
Why are there limits again?

SSH · Mon 13/03/2006 14:36:16

Well, I suspect that there is a hard limit of 256 deeply embedded into AGS, but there's a soft limit because room files and savegame files are probably all ijncreased in size if the limits get bigger.

Pumaman · Tue 14/03/2006 16:45:37

The reason for limits is to speed up data loading and saving, since the data structures are a fixed size. It would be possible to remove most of the limits, but this would probably make save game and game loading times slower.

However, I can appreciate that in large scrolling rooms 20 objects may not be enough, so would 25 be reasonable as a compromise?

Razorback · Tue 14/03/2006 20:10:11

That would be fantastic!