AGS 3.0 Final - it's been a long road

[LimpingFish]

Yep, I'm getting a ghostly overlay of the previous room on the screen after a room change...



...I'm using the "Crossfade" room transition style, if that helps. I know the transitions weren't working properly in the D3D engine, but I'm using the DX5 option. 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I was going to test crossfading because I remember it working fine in the previous version and then this happened:



I'm running Boyd Quest in 16-bit mode.

Still can't delete views (or move anything into/out of folders for categorizing like you can with 2.72).

Didn't really notice anything else that wasn't working.

[Pumaman]

It has happend couple times when i have tried open a room (i think it doesnt matter witch room number i try to open). And when i get this error message once, i keep getting it everytime i press any 'edit room' button. But when i save, close AGS and open it again, everything works fine.

Hmm, strange. If you notice any pattern to what makes it start happening, please do let me know.

I am running 2.8b9 and just tried the 'Check for updates' function in the editor, knowing that there was an update to b10.  The editer *seemed* to do a check and found no new beta updates.

Hehe yeah sorry, I forgot to update the server to tell it beta 10 was out. This should now be fixed.

One little thing I noticed: When you press CTRL-(character) in the scripting window, chances are that the editor prints the corresponding escape character. So when you close the tab by pressing CTRL-W you may end up with an unintentional end-of-transmission-character in your script for the interpreter to choke on.

Hmm yeah, this has been mentioned before, I'll see if I can fix it.

I have a request... and I would think this would be a quick easy addition to AGS. I am use to having my object panels, "The windows with views, and Gui's etc." on the left side of my workspace. Can you impliment a drag and drop control, or even just an option in preferences that flips sides.

Stuff like draggable/dockable windows and customizable toolbars are things that take quite a while to implement compared to the benefit that they offer, so I can't really see the point at the moment. However, since some people seem to feel strongly about having it on the left, I'll see if I can add a Preferences option.

Just tried beta 10: it's rather strange, but while D3D works perfectly, i get a probleem with directDraw : i don't know how to explain it, but there's some "residual" of the precedent backround on the new one, when switching to another room...

Hmm, which screen transition are you using?

I have one character named cMichi (realname "Michi") and i have a view named "Michi". When i rename the view into "vMichi" the debug-run and the built works without errors.
But when i run the game (DirectDraw or Direct3D) and talk to the character Michi the second time,  i get the following message: 

Beta 10 fixes a bug where the "MICHI"-type thing wasn't defined for characters, which was causing backwards compatibility problems. This has been fixed, but it means that if you have a character called "cMichi" and a view called "Michi" they will conflict. However, you shoudln't be getting a crash like that. Are you sure you're not using "MICHI" somewhere in the script where you want a view number, but are providing a character number instead?

There are possible solutions to the RawDraw issue, but first I want to get this engine to a stable state.

You think there is a chance of implementing that into this version?

Probably not in 2.8. If you use a lot of RawDrawing you can continue to use the DX5 graphics driver, which should behave the same way as 2.72.

Just letting you know, there's a bit of a slowdown with D3D on a game with 32bit, 800x600. Yeah, I know, hardly surprising. But there was no slowdown before, and there's no slowdown with DirectDraw. The game is mostly static slideshows, so the only point where the slowdown is perceptible is the mouse - it doesn't move smoothly at all, it jerks around.

I wouldn't expect any speedup if it's just a room with a background and nothing else. D3D is mainly for speeding up rooms with lots of objects/alpha blending/etc.

Yep, I'm getting a ghostly overlay of the previous room on the screen after a room change...

Interesting, could be a problem with the crossfade transtiion. I'll look into it.

I was going to test crossfading because I remember it working fine in the previous version and then this happened:

Thanks for the report, I'll look into it.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I wouldn't expect any speedup if it's just a room with a background and nothing else. D3D is mainly for speeding up rooms with lots of objects/alpha blending/etc.

Well, the thing isn't that I was expecting a speedup - it's that with D3D there's a slowdown. And with DirectDraw there is no slowdown, and in the *previous* build of the engine there was no slowdown.

This happens obviously on the first screen which consits of a screen-size GUI, and less obvious throughout the game whenever the mouse is on a hotspot - which is a situation in which many things occur in rep_execute, checking a room array to see if the hotspot's been clicked on before and performing some more checks to see whether the hotspot it's currently under is STILL the hotspot it was under when the game first detected there was a hotspot under the mouse (close-together hotspots with this interface were a pain in the behind, but I managed). All that just to make sure the mouse sets to the correct mode.

Like I said, work's been discontinued because I just didn't have the time and the guy who asked for it seems to have found someone else using some other engine, and there's a lot of stuff going on making it hard to pinpoint what causes the slowdown, so I just thought I'd mention it in passing.

[khnum]

Just tried beta 10: it's rather strange, but while D3D works perfectly, i get a probleem with directDraw : i don't know how to explain it, but there's some "residual" of the precedent backround on the new one, when switching to another room...

Hmm, which screen transition are you using?

Crossfade; anyway, i have the same problem LimpingFish has

[subspark]

Hey, Chris. I'm 99% sure these are bugs and not something I'm confusing with normal program behavior.

------
BUGS
------

EDIT: //SOLVED//  Thankyou chris!
'Animated Cursor View' adds +1 to specified view number. If told cursor to use view 6 for animation, the game will use 7. //SOLVED//

**************************************************************

Functions in script like function trashcan_Look() don't work unless you have clicked the button on the right of the field in the 'Look at hotspot' field of the visual scripter. The field must also be empty before hand.

The same goes for any function for any room item. (hotspot, region, object) Clicking that button does not remove previously manually scripted functions, however, which is good.

**************************************************************

When using an if statement with an external variable such as 'import int DoorKeeperIsAgreeable;' in a room script, if the code ran due to the variable being equal to 1 is SetBackgroundFrame(1); the main character's color table becomes shifted. (The ego sprite looks somewhat inverted.) The game is set to 32 bit and if I choose the same background as frame 0 for frame 1 the problem still persists. If in the code I choose to set the background frame to the same number it is currently set on then no problem occurs.


-----------------
SUGGESTIONS
-----------------

'MinScalingLevel' & 'MaxScalingLevel' should be swapped and when 'UseContinuousScaling' is set to true, it should preserve the previous scaling value in 'MinScalingLevel'.

**************************************************************

'SetHotspotWalkToPoint' needs an x,y picker.

**************************************************************

Ability to delete Views.

**************************************************************

Remove automatic spaces after comma's. They are annyoing when going back over grammer.

**************************************************************

'AnimatedView' option in room object properties.

**************************************************************

Be able to change a hotspot's walk to point during gameplay.

**************************************************************

When right clicked 'Inventory Items' and chosen New Inventory Item, the properties for the new inventory item just created should be displayed below and not the properties of a previous item.

**************************************************************

When clicking inside a field in the properties panel of any game item the entire field sholuld be highlited for easy replacing. At least this should be the case for numeric fields.

**************************************************************

In addition to or instead of OnClick functions for buttons, include OnMouseDown and OnMouseUp options.
This is usefull for things such as scrolling invatory arrows particuarily when the user has set mouseOver sprites but doesnt want those mouseOver sprites to be displayed before the mouse button is released and the button can be disabled.

It's basically a much easier way to prevent buttons from flashing before they are turned off in addition to allowing users a more simplified control of buttons under both mouse states.

**************************************************************

Add 'Is Clickable' option to objects. Basically returns 'mouseover' functionality to an object behind the current object.

**************************************************************

The suggestions above are not demands and should require community approval before implmentation. If I have listed a bug or a suggestion for 2.8 that has already been posted then take my sincere apologies as i am using pay per use internet in the singapore airport and cant afford enough time to browse through other peoples post.

Cheers AGSer's.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

As soon as I saw this thread's title, I thought, "why didn't he just post this in the AGS2.8beta thread?"

As soon as I read

'Animated Cursor View' adds +1 to specified view number. If told cursor to use view 6 for animation, the game will use 7.

I confirmed that this is exactly what you should have done, because the issue has been adressed and I believe has been fixed in a latest beta.

No point in even reading the rest of the post now.

[Pumaman]

Well, the thing isn't that I was expecting a speedup - it's that with D3D there's a slowdown. And with DirectDraw there is no slowdown, and in the *previous* build of the engine there was no slowdown.

Hmm, interesting. Would you mind uploading the game so that I can give it a go and see if I can trace the source of the slowdown?

Just out of interest, have you got the "anti-alias scaled sprites" enabled in Setup? If so, can you try turning it off and see if you still get the slowdown?

Functions in script like function trashcan_Look() don't work unless you have clicked the button on the right of the field in the 'Look at hotspot' field of the visual scripter. The field must also be empty before hand.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you just manually add a function called "hDoor_Look" to the script, then it won't be picked up automatically, by design. The Events pane is where you tell AGS how to hook up the various events; however it's an interesting idea for future to pick these up automatically.

When using an if statement with an external variable such as 'import int DoorKeeperIsAgreeable;' in a room script, if the code ran due to the variable being equal to 1 is SetBackgroundFrame(1); the main character's color table becomes shifted.

Are you using a 256-colour character sprite in a 32-bit game?

Remove automatic spaces after comma's. They are annyoing when going back over grammer.

Hmm yes, this shouldn't be happening inside strings.

When right clicked 'Inventory Items' and chosen New Inventory Item, the properties for the new inventory item just created should be displayed below and not the properties of a previous item.

Well, this applies to all the different types of pane and is because AGS doesn't automatically open the newly created item. It would probably be a good idea if it did, actually.

Thanks for your other suggestions, if anyone else would find any of these useful, please do post and say so.

[subspark]

Excuse me pal. Would you mind cooling your temper. I'm overseas, I've got severe jet lag and If you go back over my post that I wrote only 4 minutes ago youll see I have added SOLVED to that issue. I did't realise beta 10 was out til i browed back in through the forums.

I suggest excersinging a little patience and self control when deciding to blast someone who has taken their time to look for bugs and think of improvements.

I should have posted it in this forum, sure. My apologies to the moderators. I'm a little zonked right now. I'm sure everybody else understands my situation.

No point in even reading the rest of the post now.

Rui, that last comment was beligerant and immature. The rest of the bugs i listed have not been solved and I beleive I have some important suggestions for Chris to look over. So, please, please, grow up, son.

A toast to Chris Jones for eight years of hard work on the greatest thing to ever happen in the classic adventure game business.

Paul.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Me, a temper? Your own post sounds a lot more temperamental. 's ok, it's probably the jet lag speaking. Maybe you should rest for awhile, assume that you have that extra bit of time before the world ends in which to post. Best to post rested, this way you won't expose a tired you to the internet, where we can't see the jet lag. Which is something you say "everyone else will understand". I understand it perfectly well, I just had no idea you had it, seeing as I can't read minds yet. The last comment seems immature and beligerant to you, sure, because you're tired, and you've been trying to contribute to AGS despite your rough shape and what you get is a comment from one person saying that because you didn't notice a couple of minor things he won't bother with the rest. But here's the catch - that person is the only one who said it, and that person's opinion simply won't matter in the general development of AGS. What the jet lag stole from you is perspective. Which doesn't mean I like being patted on the head condescendingly... "daddy".

Hmm, interesting. Would you mind uploading the game so that I can give it a go and see if I can trace the source of the slowdown?

Sorry, but the game is 100+mbs. I can try, if you still want me to, it's just be quite a process, but if you think it can be tracked down some other way, it might be better all around. Let me know if you have any suggestions, feel free to PM me for anything I should double-check that might be causing the slowdown.

Just out of interest, have you got the "anti-alias scaled sprites" enabled in Setup? If so, can you try turning it off and see if you still get the slowdown?

Assume you mean "smooth scaled sprites"? No, it's not enabled. FOr fun, I enabled "Downgrade to 16bit", but it made no difference.

[subspark]

Are you using a 256 bit sprite in a 32 bit game?

Yes actually. Thanks again Chris, I havent drawn any art for my main character yet. I'm using Roger right now.

Cheers.

[SupSuper]

I show my support for these suggestions:

Ability to delete Views.

**************************************************************

'AnimatedView' option in room object properties.

**************************************************************

Be able to change a hotspot's walk to point during gameplay.

**************************************************************

When right clicked 'Inventory Items' and chosen New Inventory Item, the properties for the new inventory item just created should be displayed below and not the properties of a previous item.

**************************************************************

In addition to or instead of OnClick functions for buttons, include OnMouseDown and OnMouseUp options.
This is usefull for things such as scrolling invatory arrows particuarily when the user has set mouseOver sprites but doesnt want those mouseOver sprites to be displayed before the mouse button is released and the button can be disabled.

It's basically a much easier way to prevent buttons from flashing before they are turned off in addition to allowing users a more simplified control of buttons under both mouse states.

**************************************************************

Add 'Is Clickable' option to objects. Basically returns 'mouseover' functionality to an object behind the current object.

**************************************************************

[ciborium]

I am also getting ghost images of the previous room.  It may be related to the garbage matte problem that I spoke of earlier.

I am running 800x600 32bit w/ alpha'd sprites.

EDIT: I stole LimpingFish's dark background to test for my garbage matte problem.  Here is that pic.



You can also see that the cursor has left a reverse shadow of its garbage matte along with my player character.

[monkey0506]

In addition to or instead of OnClick functions for buttons, include OnMouseDown and OnMouseUp options.
This is usefull for things such as scrolling invatory arrows particuarily when the user has set mouseOver sprites but doesnt want those mouseOver sprites to be displayed before the mouse button is released and the button can be disabled.

It's basically a much easier way to prevent buttons from flashing before they are turned off in addition to allowing users a more simplified control of buttons under both mouse states.

Initial impression: RTFM.

Although, I think more specialized functions would/could be useful.

Along the same lines as this I think it would be even more useful if there were some type of function for simulating a click on a GUIControl. I can think of several instances where I have wanted to perform the normal "OnClick" functions of my GUIControls without actually clicking the mouse (for example, using keyboard keys to simulate mouse-clicks). There's no solution other than simply by-passing the "OnClick" function(s) altogether and using on_event instead.

Add 'Is Clickable' option to objects. Basically returns 'mouseover' functionality to an object behind the current object.

Are you talking about this? I'm not sure what "'mouseover' functionality" you're referring to, but the Object.Clickable property handles whether or not the object "'Is Clickable'".

[Ishmael]

Stuff like draggable/dockable windows and customizable toolbars are things that take quite a while to implement compared to the benefit that they offer, so I can't really see the point at the moment. However, since some people seem to feel strongly about having it on the left, I'll see if I can add a Preferences option.

That would be very enough to have at hand

[SupSuper]

Along the same lines as this I think it would be even more useful if there were some type of function for simulating a click on a GUIControl. I can think of several instances where I have wanted to perform the normal "OnClick" functions of my GUIControls without actually clicking the mouse (for example, using keyboard keys to simulate mouse-clicks). There's no solution other than simply by-passing the "OnClick" function(s) altogether and using on_event instead.

Event functions still work like regular functions:

Code: ags

function on_key_press(int keycode)
{
  if (keycode==9) // Tab
    btnIconInv_Click(btnIconInv, eMouseLeft);
}

function btnIconInv_Click(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button)
{
  gInventory.Visible = true;
  mouse.Mode = eModeInteract;
  mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModePointer);
}

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Only with SupSuper's example, you'd get an error because you call the function before you define it. It takes a little juggling with placement of functions within the code, sometimes, to get it all tip-top, but apart from that he's totally right.

[monkey0506]

Apart from that he's still totally wrong if you want the function to be declared in the global script but called from a module script. :-

Another alternative to on_event would be putting the event functions in the module script...but I was hoping for a more generalized function. And even with the on_event method, if I want the normal event handler and the module's on_event handler to run the same code then I have to duplicate my code. If there were some type of click-simulation function...maybe a GUIControl.Click function...then I could simply code the interaction once and then simulate clicks as necessary.

I mean, we've been able to simulate mouse-clicks for ages using ProcessClick...but that ignores GUIs altogether.

[Pumaman]

Ability to delete Views.

The reason this isn't implemented is because views are still referenced by number, and thus if they could be deleted all the numbers could go out of sync. However I guess it could allow view 3 for example to be deleted, and rather than shuffling them all down one it could just leave a gap at 3.

When right clicked 'Inventory Items' and chosen New Inventory Item, the properties for the new inventory item just created should be displayed below and not the properties of a previous item.

This is now in beta 11.

Add 'Is Clickable' option to objects. Basically returns 'mouseover' functionality to an object behind the current object.

Not really sure what you mean here, as monkey_05_06 says, there's already an Object.Clickable property.

I am also getting ghost images of the previous room.  It may be related to the garbage matte problem that I spoke of earlier.

Ok, this should be resolved with beta 11, please let me know if you still have problems.

[subspark]

The reason this isn't implemented is because views are still referenced by number, and thus if they could be deleted all the numbers could go out of sync. However I guess it could allow view 3 for example to be deleted, and rather than shuffling them all down one it could just leave a gap at 3.

Why not implement the ability to change the view numbers like you can with sprites. In fact why not unify the numbering system in the following ways:
Instead of Sprite 'Number' call it sprite 'ID' (like Rooms, GUIs and Views).
Unlock the ID field for GUIs, Views, and Sprites to be modifiable.

If we can rearrange our stuffs Id's regardless of them being in use and perhaps with a more user friendly warning system that allows editing of the Id's before we go and change them in the script to match then life would be a load easier.

Not really sure what you mean here, as monkey_05_06 says, there's already an Object.Clickable property.

Forgive me there Chris. I must have missed this one.

Cheers,
Paul.