AGS 3.0 Final - it's been a long road

[LimpingFish]

No ghosting as far as I can see.

Yay!

[subspark]

I think it should be possible for AGS 2.8 to be able to load plug ins from a directory just like with scripts.
I strongly believe the same for all things including templates but thats another ball game.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Ghost]

I just tried out Beta11. It might sound trivial, but the option to have the project tree switched to the left was surprisingly welcome. I've grown accustomed to the editor's new layout over the past few weeks, but now- no, there's no turning back, that panel stays to the left! Feels so much better!

Thanks for that little option, CJ!

[subspark]

I prefer the new layout to be honest. Having the pane on the right, for me, feels more like I'm using a newer engine.
I suppose that comes from the fact that most software in windows that include panes, such as Adobe Flash, have it on the right by default.

I welcome the option for left hand pane placement openly however.

Paul.

[GarageGothic]

* Added ability to RawDraw onto dynamic sprites (see new DynamicSprite.GetDrawingSurface method); started to port RawDraw functions to object-oriented schema

You, Sir, have just converted me to a 2.8 user!

[Pumaman]

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.

Hmm, well ideally I'd like to phase out the ID numbering, since it's not very user friendly and is rather '90s. This is already done for GUIs, Dialogs, Characters, etc which can now be referenced by script names. Fonts, sprites and views are (IIRC) the only things still referenced by number.

It might sound trivial, but the option to have the project tree switched to the left was surprisingly welcome. I've grown accustomed to the editor's new layout over the past few weeks, but now- no, there's no turning back, that panel stays to the left! Feels so much better!

Hehe, I actually have the same feeling as subspark -- I think it looks really odd with the tree on the left, but then I guess I'm just used to all the other modern applications like Visual Studio that have it on the right. If you want to live in the past, you're now free to do so

* Added ability to RawDraw onto dynamic sprites (see new DynamicSprite.GetDrawingSurface method); started to port RawDraw functions to object-oriented schema

You, Sir, have just converted me to a 2.8 user!

Hehe, glad to hear it! While we're on the subject of RawDrawing, are there any RawDraw functions that people would find useful but that AGS doesn't currently have?

[subspark]

Okay two things,
When in the GUI editor, and when your choosing a sprite for a button mouse state, if I choose to expand a folder, say, Overs or Downs in maybe a GUI folder, the next time I choose a sprite for the next state or the same one again the folders are collapsed.

It would be a far less tedious task if AGS remembered which folders I chose to expand.

The second thing is if I rename the first GUI, from say gActions to gMain the tab remains gActions even though the script-o-name had been updated.

Cheers,
Paul.

[SSH]

[quote author=Pumaman link=topic=31519.msg420261#msg420261
Hehe, glad to hear it! While we're on the subject of RawDrawing, are there any RawDraw functions that people would find useful but that AGS doesn't currently have?

[/quote]

It would be nice to have a RawDraw or Dynamic sprite function that had a "perspective squash", that is made a sprite drawn as if it were the a surface of a 3D object.

[InCreator]

It would be nice to have a RawDraw or Dynamic sprite function that had a "perspective squash", that is made a sprite drawn as if it were the a surface of a 3D object.

I thought about something like this 3 years ago. For making semi-realistic shadows... in which case, blend mode should be set too and whole sprite drawn in one color.

[SSH]

Tried out the D3D driver on my work PC and it gives me:

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
There was a problem initializing graphics mode 320 x 200 (32-bit).
(Problem: 'Failed to create Direct3D Device: 0x8876086C')
Try to correct the problem, or seek help from the AGS homepage.

Possible causes:
* your graphics card drivers do not support this resolution. Run the game setup program and try the other resolution.
* the graphics filter you have selected does not work. Try another filter.
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

This is the same with 16/32bit, and any size of window: 320x200, 320x240, 640x400, etc and this is running windowed, too. The other driver works fine. dxdiag confirms DirectX 9.0c installed OK.
#

Also, the welcome page still says "tree in the top-right" when you change the preferences to be on the left

[Pumaman]

When in the GUI editor, and when your choosing a sprite for a button mouse state, if I choose to expand a folder, say, Overs or Downs in maybe a GUI folder, the next time I choose a sprite for the next state or the same one again the folders are collapsed.

It would be a far less tedious task if AGS remembered which folders I chose to expand.

The second thing is if I rename the first GUI, from say gActions to gMain the tab remains gActions even though the script-o-name had been updated.

Fair points, I'll look into them.

It would be nice to have a RawDraw or Dynamic sprite function that had a "perspective squash", that is made a sprite drawn as if it were the a surface of a 3D object.

Hmm, this seems a bit of a specialized request, but I guess it would be useful for drawing shadows. I'm not sure what sort of algorithm would be necessary to do a perspective squash though.

There was a problem initializing graphics mode 320 x 200 (32-bit).
(Problem: 'Failed to create Direct3D Device: 0x8876086C')

A quick google for "0x8876086C" seems to indicate that you need to update your graphics drivers. As it's an office PC, they could well have deliberately installed some very basic drivers that don't have 3D support, since obviously employees like yourself are there to write documents, not play games 

Also, the welcome page still says "tree in the top-right" when you change the preferences to be on the left

Well that's your fault for changing the preferences

[tristan78]

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?

Again the "Michi" problem: it seems to be a problem with the dialog I will start. Each time the dialog shoud start I get a crash. If I change the global script to start another dialog it will work.

Is there something wrong with my diaolg script?

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
An internal error has occurred. Please note down the following information.
If the problem persists, contact Chris Jones.
(ACI version 2.80.948)

Error: Out of memory: failed to allocate -120586240 bytes (at PP=77)

---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

Code: ags

// Dialog script file
@S  // Dialog startup entry point
return
@1
player: Can I enter the next room?
Michi: You're welcome
return
@2
player: Show me the next room
Michi: I have to stay here
return
@3
player: Bye
Michi: Bye
stop

[subspark]

Chris, when I import a module script, I think the script name in module information should also be used in the list pane window instead of 'module'. Also in that regard is that if I paste a new name for the list pane, and the script editor is open, it pastes the text into the script rather than in the selected field in the list pane.

Also, it would be really handy, particularly for beginners, if you could copy the text of an error output for use with the forums.

Cheers,
Paul.

[mchammer]

Would be great if there were an option to show objects while creating walkable areas. If you have objects witch affect to the walkable area, you have to alternately click 'show objects' and 'show walkable areas' all the time to set the area right.

Btw, thanks for increasing max. object amount. Very useful to me

[Khris]

One useful method is to save the background with all objects in place and use it as reference to place the AGS objects and draw the different areas, then import the normal, object-free background afterwards.

But it would still be great to be able to e.g. see walkable areas when drawing regions.
Although this can theoretically be worked around using the same method.

[mchammer]

Thanks for tip,
Im working on game witch has a lot of objects and have had a little problems (not really problems, I'm just lazy) drawing the walkable areas.

[subspark]

Actually, to unify that idea, I would like to see the room editor be able to blend things like walkable areas over walkbehinds and objects, etc. I hate having to click back and forth different displays to guess by eyeball. Would be nice if we could display everything at once like looking through layers of glass. If you know what I mean.

Cheers,
Paul.

[monkey0506]

Would be nice if we could display everything at once like looking through layers of glass. If you know what I mean.

Welcome to Photoshop.



You can use an external program that supports layers and then save each layer to a different BMP file and import them as masks.

[subspark]

I use Photoshop frequently, and it is great for layers. That said, AGS doesn't always translate bitmap masks well when importing and it would still be nice to be able to view elements in the editor.

Also, Chris, I don't know if anyone has asked this before but it would be really nice for AGS 2.8 to be able to combine the lighting amount with color tinting for regions. This makes a lot of sense particularly if your game is set in dark moody places like mine. I use a lot of greens and blues and I'm simply desperate to make the light color affect the character along with the light amount without having to use different character sprites for each room. Can we unify this system, please?

Cheers,
Paul.

[GarageGothic]

Gotta love how the shadow and sprite deformation modules that I spent years coding might now be replaced by engine-internal functions. Serves me right for wanting to show off...

As for new RawDraw routines:

1) Copying the transparency map (either single color or alpha channel) from an existing sprite to a DynamicSprite of the same size. To support alpha channels, it would of course be necessary for DynamicSprites not to automatically remove the alpha channel (but this should probably be an optional, since that also has it's uses).
2) Not quite RawDraw, but DynamicSprite.Tint as someone suggested in another thread would be great.
3) It would also be great to be able to set linewidth for the RawDraw routines to only draw a single pixel in hi-res mode. Currently I use all kinds of workarounds (drawing double scale, then resizing) for this.

I've been working a lot with RawDraw, and I'll probably think of more suggestions. But these are things I've been missig just off the top of my head.

Edit: As for this -

It would be nice to have a RawDraw or Dynamic sprite function that had a "perspective squash", that is made a sprite drawn as if it were the a surface of a 3D object.

I tried to implement this in my shadow module, but it turned out to be too slow, so I do support an engine function to do it. I think a geometrical deformation of a rectangle to a shape where you specify new coordinates for each of the four corners (similar to Photoshop's 'Distort' transformation) should do the trick.