AGS 3.2 Final 5 - Recession-busting edition

[JD]

Helloes!

I'm experiencing some StartCutscene/EndCutscene problems. I have a small script with a door opening, a character walking in, two characters having a conversation, and the door closing again. At the start I've put a StartCutscene(eSkipESCOnly); and at the end there's an EndCutscene(); And it works fine. The only problem is that when I skip the cutscene it skips to the end but it plays all the sound effects I've used in the cutscene (someone knocking on a door, the door opening, and the door closing) at the same time. It skips all the conversation etc. but it still plays the sound effects. I only have this problem in the 3.2 RC2 edition. I quickly recreated a similar scene in 3.1.2 SP1 and it works fine. So perhaps it's something with the new audio system?

[Electroshokker]

Hmm... finally decided to give this one a go. (Finally got some time )

I'm experiencing the following: when playing a sound clip through the editor, and then whilest playing double-clicking on another sound clip 'hangs' the editor.

I had to kill the process and restart. This doesn't occur every time though.

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As a sidenote, I mostly like the new audio system, except... why only have a master volume setting?

I would like the player to be able to change the volume of ALL music, or sound clips, or speech (the last thankfully still being possible) separately.

What if the player doesn't hear the voice over the music playing in the background so he/she only wants to tune down the music but wants to hear the special sound effects crystal sharp?

Just one of the possible examples, but my point is:

I would like a System.MusicVolume, System.SoundVolume and a System.AmbientSound setting, in addition to the general System.Volume

I don't want to deprive any player (hard-hearing or not, full-sound spectrum hearing or not) of the possibility to tweak these to his/her liking.

Considering you can set the default volume of a clip, I would be happier if I would at least be able to change this default volume in code, as I could then build a workaround for not having the multiple system volume settings

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Just my 2 cents.

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EDIT:

PlayAmbientSound, PlayMusic, PlaySound are not marked as old style.

I set the general setting to 'Enforce new-style audio scripting' and those commands were still considered valid. (Even though the help says they're obsolete)

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I can partially confirm Def's problem.  It seems the latest ags plays a single sound from each cutscene when skipped.  I tested this with having only one sound in the entire cutscene which plays once every time I skip it and a scene full of sounds and it played the second to last sound when skipped.  Again, I want to add that it does not play all of the sounds for me but it does play one from each cutscene.

[Pumaman]

I had a room with very thin walkable area (couple of pixels in height) and some object, that stood right "on top" of that area, it's Y coordinate equal to Y of highest walkable line of pixels. There were characters, that had same Y coordinate.
Object's basline was NOT overriden.

Do any of the objects/characters have the Ignore Walkbehinds property set? Does the problem happen with both DX5 and D3D drivers?

while (IsSoundPlaying()) Wait(1);

The thing is that if I disable the music and the sounds from the game setup, the game hungs up. It just stays there, animating things in the background.

Interesting thanks, I'll look into it.

I noticed, there's is a mistake in code tips that show function prototype. When return value is of managed type, it shows no pointer sign (*), like

Ok thanks, I'll bear this in mind. I don't think I've got time to change this for 3.2 though.

I'm experiencing some StartCutscene/EndCutscene problems. I have a small script with a door opening, a character walking in, two characters having a conversation, and the door closing again. At the start I've put a StartCutscene(eSkipESCOnly); and at the end there's an EndCutscene(); And it works fine. The only problem is that when I skip the cutscene it skips to the end but it plays all the sound effects I've used in the cutscene (someone knocking on a door, the door opening, and the door closing) at the same time. It skips all the conversation etc. but it still plays the sound effects. I only have this problem in the 3.2 RC2 edition. I quickly recreated a similar scene in 3.1.2 SP1 and it works fine. So perhaps it's something with the new audio system?

Thanks, I'll look into it.

I would like a System.MusicVolume, System.SoundVolume and a System.AmbientSound setting, in addition to the general System.Volume

AGS no longer has a concept of "sound", "music" or "ambient sounds" -- these are just some default Audio Types but you don't have to keep them.

However, I do plan to address this volume issue by adding a SetAudioTypeVolume command that will allow you to adjust the volume of all audio clips of a particular type. This has already been requested and I would say it is essential to be added before 3.2 can be released.

PlayAmbientSound, PlayMusic, PlaySound are not marked as old style.

I set the general setting to 'Enforce new-style audio scripting' and those commands were still considered valid. (Even though the help says they're obsolete)

Thanks, I'll check this.

[Crimson Wizard]

I had a room with very thin walkable area (couple of pixels in height) and some object, that stood right "on top" of that area, it's Y coordinate equal to Y of highest walkable line of pixels. There were characters, that had same Y coordinate.
Object's basline was NOT overriden.

Do any of the objects/characters have the Ignore Walkbehinds property set? Does the problem happen with both DX5 and D3D drivers?

1. No
2. It happens only when using DX5.

[Pumaman]

1. No
2. It happens only when using DX5.

If you have multiple characters/objects with the same Y co-ordinate, AGS does not make any promises about which one is drawn in front. If you are relying on one being in front of the other, can you not change its Y co-ordinate?

[Crimson Wizard]

1. No
2. It happens only when using DX5.

If you have multiple characters/objects with the same Y co-ordinate, AGS does not make any promises about which one is drawn in front. If you are relying on one being in front of the other, can you not change its Y co-ordinate?

Well, there's some sly scene where characters are shown at a large distance in pefect side-view, and they should go before the large car; so character's Y and car's Y should actually match.
(And the car has to be an object, not background, well, that's long story)

Anyway, I solved the problem by overriding baseline for the object. It isn't a big trouble for me at all, I was just wondering if it is some kind of bug or not.

[Pumaman]

PlayAmbientSound, PlayMusic, PlaySound are not marked as old style.

I set the general setting to 'Enforce new-style audio scripting' and those commands were still considered valid. (Even though the help says they're obsolete)

Are you sure about this? I just tried it and PlaySound/PlayMusic didn't work when New Stlye Audio Scripting was turned on.

Anyway, I solved the problem by overriding baseline for the object. It isn't a big trouble for me at all, I was just wondering if it is some kind of bug or not.

I don't think it's really a bug, since AGS doesn't claim to sort things in any particular order if they have the same baseline. Glad you sorted it out.


Anyway, RC 3 is finally up! This fixes various reported issues. Please try it out and let me know of any issues.

[bicilotti]

I don't know if this is a thing that can be asked for during RCs, but I'd like to have the 'exact colour import' option when importing a background back.

It seems crucial for 8-bit palette effects, otherwise they screw up. More info on this post.

[Pumaman]

I don't know if this is a thing that can be asked for during RCs, but I'd like to have the 'exact colour import' option when importing a background back.

This option is already present, in the Preferences screen (not an ideal place for it, but 8-bit games are so rare now that it was just the easiest place to put the option).

[bicilotti]

I don't know if this is a thing that can be asked for during RCs, but I'd like to have the 'exact colour import' option when importing a background back.

This option is already present, in the Preferences screen (not an ideal place for it, but 8-bit games are so rare now that it was just the easiest place to put the option).

Silly me, thanks.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Rooms create at the resolution of whatever the default setting was, which I consider a bug.  I have the settings at 320x240 and it is consistently creating 320x200 rooms which I must then load a background into to adjust to the proper resolution.  Normally I wouldn't have noticed but I was testing a gui in the empty room and since 40 pixels were missing I couldn't see it and spent 20 minutes wondering why.

I'm not sure if I'm right or not but gui's seem to be ignoring transparency adjustments of 1 entirely.  I have a function that fades in a gui and when I set it to decrement the transparency by 1 nothing happens; when I up it to 2 it suddenly works.  Again, there could be some kind of flaw somewhere in my function but I haven't found anything that is incrementing it by 1 or in someway obstructing it.

[Gilbert]

Rooms create at the resolution of whatever the default setting was, which I consider a bug.

I think you can change that just by replacing the default room file with whatever you want. I forget the name of the actual file and I'm too lazy to check it ATM.

[monkey0506]

Prog, are you directly modifying the GUI.Transparency variable? Coz, per the manual:

Some rounding is done internally when the transparency is stored -- therefore, if you get the transparency after setting it, the value you get back might be one out. Therefore, using a loop with gInventory.Transparency++; is not recommended as it will probably end too quickly.

If you're not already, see if doing this:

Code: ags

int trans = gThegui.Transparency + 1;
gThegui.Transparency = trans;

...makes a difference. Obviously it might not (for a change by 1 since it's doing the same thing), but that's the recommended route for modifying the transparency.

The default room file is called _blank.crm. If your game has one of those it will use that as a template when creating a new room. Try deleting/replacing it and see if that helps.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Hmm, could've sworn I never had the rounding thing come up before.  I guess I didn't pay much attention because I wasn't as concerned about the speed of the transition.  Thanks guys, though I think that deleting the default room shouldn't be necessary!

Edit: Also, deletion didn't fix it ;(.

[monkey0506]

I think it might have the same template built-in. Have you tried replacing it?

[Pumaman]

Rooms create at the resolution of whatever the default setting was, which I consider a bug.  I have the settings at 320x240 and it is consistently creating 320x200 rooms which I must then load a background into to adjust to the proper resolution.  Normally I wouldn't have noticed but I was testing a gui in the empty room and since 40 pixels were missing I couldn't see it and spent 20 minutes wondering why.

This is because the default room template is a 320x200 room. You're right that it's counter-intuitive but you can easily fix it by creating your own New Room Template at the right resolution, and then using that for your new rooms. I need to consider how to improve this.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

This build seems to have the potential for breaking as far as room creation and transitions go.

I've sent you a build that illustrates the issue with switching rooms and having completely new rooms remain entirely black in spite of having backgrounds.  I tried deleting and re-creating every room but aside from objects the rooms stay completely black.  Some kind of bug got triggered somewhere because the problem carries on to every room beyond the first.  

In the meantime I've gone back to 3.1, converted everything I had over to it and am having none of these problems.

Edit:  I may have fixed this by making a new room and saving it as a template.

[Crimson Wizard]

I noticed this bug occasionally.

On the AGS Preferences window there's a New Game Directory option. When typing in custom folder, I found it only allows to manually type in 5 characters...

Same with "Import directory".

[Pumaman]

This build seems to have the potential for breaking as far as room creation and transitions go.

I've sent you a build that illustrates the issue with switching rooms and having completely new rooms remain entirely black in spite of having backgrounds.  I tried deleting and re-creating every room but aside from objects the rooms stay completely black.  Some kind of bug got triggered somewhere because the problem carries on to every room beyond the first. 

I tried out the game you sent, the problem seems to be caused in your Rain.asc module, it's probably something to do with the DrawingSurface routines in there. If I remove the Rain module, room 2 fades in fine.

On the AGS Preferences window there's a New Game Directory option. When typing in custom folder, I found it only allows to manually type in 5 characters...

Same with "Import directory".

Well spotted thanks, I'll fix this.