panorama

[Barbarian]

Cool, thanks Ashen. I'll soon play around with it.
   This gives me some ideas about how to better implement some certain actions to within my game currently in production.
   

[Candle]

I'm still trying to understand how to do the picture but I'll get it. lol

[Elliott Hird]

say 1-9 is your picture, 1 being the left edge 9 being the right. make it as a panorama, and it'll be
123456789

you must change it to

8912345678912

see?

[esper]

Nice'n, Ashen. Are you going to put it in the tech archives now or what?

[Play_Pretend]

I'd been thinking about something like this myself, in Myst-style, only without the really good 3-D animation of movement between different screens/rooms.  If you can get it to do side-to-side panorama viewing, and didn't care if it could panorama vertically, couldn't you just set it so when the mouse goes into a long hotspot all around the top of the room's screen, the pointer shifts to an up arrow (a la Myst) and then when you click in that hotspot, it just player.Changeroom's you to another room whose background looks exactly as if you were just looking up in the original room?

[Candle]

OK, this should be it. Documentation included. PM me if you need something explaining better, or if there's something that doesn't work/you'd like it to do that it doesn't.

I just love this Module you did for the  panorama .
It is my fav one, going to use this a lot. thanks so much.

[esper]

I had a question... Thanks, Ashen, by the way, for setting up my background for me. The only thing i don't quite understand is exactly how much space to put in the extra edges, and since I don't quite understand how it works in the first place, I don't get how you're supposed to know exactly where to cut the image off so it goes seamlessly into the loop. BUT that isn't my question...

I set it up like this:

Panorama.Start (eDragProportion, true, 2);
Panorama.Scroll (true, 20, 2, -1, -1);

However, it isn't dragging proportionately... It moves at uniform speed no matter where the cursor is... and it doesn't seem to matter how far the cursor is from the edge of the screen, it drags based on where the cursor is in relation to here it was when you pressed in the right mouse button. What is going on?

[Ashen]

OK, it's because those two weren't really meant to be used together. Panorama.Start(...) sets up the 'Scroll while mouse button is held' function, while Panorama.Scroll(...) is for when you want it to scroll when the mouse is near the edge of the screen, and is always by a fixed amount (overriding the proportional setting from Panorama.Start(...)). Could've made the documentation clearer on that point (in fact, I thought I had, but looking at it, I didn't), sorry.

You either need to choose one over the other, or re-write the module slightly to allow both (since I re-use variables, making them mutually exclusive). Or, wait for me to re-write the module which I can do later, if you really need it.

[esper]

Ah.

I've got it. It would be a useful thing to have the scrolling be proportionate to the distance from the edge of the screen, but that is not necessary at this time. Thanks for the reply. I only hope I don't wind up being too bothersome in here while I work on getting the game finished!

[ShadeJackrabbit]

Pardon me for asking, but will this work like the Journeyman Project 3? And I'm not sure wheather I got this right. You have to add the code for every room you want to have a panoramma in right? And the image has to be tall too right? Example:

HIABCDEFGHIAB
8912345678912

So you can look up and down... right? (And sorry for aking all these questions.)

[Ashen]

You'll need to call either Panorama.Start(...) or Panorama.Scroll(...) in every room you want to be panoramic. If you want EVERY room to be panoramic, and want the same settings for every one, you can just call it once at the beginning of the game.

If the room is taller than the screen, you can scroll up and down as well. It doesn't include looping for vertical scrolling though (so, you can't tilt up to the ceiling, then do a backflip 'till you're looking at the floor).

[ShadeJackrabbit]

Okay. Thanks. Glad I now know how to use this.

[td]

I wonder when appear panorama-plugin like in Aadventure Maker (background will roll in cylinder or sphere) ? It's will be hit!! Or it's exists already?

[Ashen]

Well, the Panorama Module is like a Plugin. Possibly better, due to cross-platform compatability. I never did get round to posting it in the Tech Forum, though. And I've made a few changes since - I should dig it out again. I doubt adding that functionallity to AGS is a priority, as it's so easy to code for yourself.

The problem is the 'sphere' scrolling - I think you'd basically have to have the room background twice the normal height (more than, allowing for the overlap), and including an 'upsidedown' version of itself. And again, this is do-able with the Module, and a little re-coding. (EDIT: Actually, it might be more that a 'little' re-coding, but I still think it'd be do-able.)
To make real 3D panoramic scroll, you could use the AGS 3D plugin - I think adding it to the engine iteself would require a great deal of work, for a function that probably has limited usefulness

[td]

I'm sorry Ashen. Many words is difficult for understand for not english speaker... U has mention words "to make real 3D panoramic scroll, you could use the AGS 3D plugin".
Is that plugin that i already can download???
If not, exists some way to realize "sphere" panorma?

Thanks.

[Ashen]

AGS 3D Module & Plugin

Go read that thread for more detals, but basically it'll allow you to create a 3D envirnoment to move around in (like a First Person Shooter) - as opposed to the pre-drawn, 2D backgrounds usually used in AGS (and by the Panorama module). It's not the easiest thing to use, but with some work you can do it.

It's not easily do-able because it's really of limited use in the traditional adventure games that AGS is geared towards. That's not to say it's impossible, though. There may be a way to reailise it (I still think it can be done with the Panorama module, eventually), but the 3D plugin/module might be your best bet, if you don't want to stop using AGS.

[td]

Ashen:
>To make real 3D panoramic scroll, you could use the AGS 3D plugin<


No... This is not it.
My understand of "Myst" structure: used flat images, but program "twist flat image into cylinder". Therefore this give effect of 3D. I hope this Plugin appear someday...

[Ali]

Myst is a poor example because it uses still 2D images.
As I understand it, games like Zork Nemesis, Black Dahlia and Post Mortem work like Quicktime VR. A panaromic 2d image distorted with a sort of fish-eye so that when you pan and tilt it creates the illusion of a three-dimensional environment. I'm not sure whether AGS 3d would be suited to this kind of thing currently.

A distorting panorama would be a great feature, but would require AGSers to master panoramic rendering/photgraphy before it would be very useful. I something like this was developed though I think it would encourage people experiment, though I can't say I have any idea of how real-time distortion would work.

[Kweepa]

Ags3d can do this easily. I put together a demo a while ago:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=25492.msg327790#msg327790

[Ali]

My apologies Steve, I'd seen those images but I'd misunderstood what I was looking at. I was also under the impression that Quicktime VR used a cylinder or a sphere rather than a cube. 

Now I understand I wish I had the time to play around with this.