AGS v2.6 is now unleashed!

[Pumaman]

Just in time for Christmas, Santa brings you a new version of AGS. If you haven't been keeping up with the betas, this is a fairly major release, so check out the new features below.

* Added AnimateButton, ClaimEvent, DeleteSprite, DisplayTopBar, GetInvGraphic, GetTextHeight, GetTextWidth, LoadImageFile, LoadSaveSlotScreenshot, PlayMusicQueued, RawDrawFrameTransparent, RawSetColorRGB, SetAmbientTint, SetAreaScaling, SetCharacterSpeedEx, SetCharacterViewOffset, SetGUIClickable, SetGUIObjectSize, SetGUIZOrder, SetTextBoxFont, StopObjectMoving text script functions.
* Added plugin API functions MarkRegionDirty, GetMouseCursor, GetRawColorComponents, MakeRawColorPixel, GetFontType, CreateDynamicSprite, DeleteDynamicSprite, and new plugin API hooks AGSE_FINALSCREENDRAW and AGSE_TRANSLATETEXT.
* Added 24/32-bit colour support.
* Added alpha channel support for 32-bit sprites.
* Added room script support for on_key_press and on_mouse_click, so that the current room can handle the input rather than having it all done by the global script.
* Speed enhancement for rooms with relatively few objects.
* Added ability to import PNG and TGA files in the Sprite Manager.
* Added option to automatically outline fonts.
* Added support for saving screenshots into save games.
* Added GUI Z-order support, so that you can choose which order overlapping GUIs are drawn in.
* Added Crop Sprite Edges option to sprite manager, to crop the edges off a group of sprites down to the size needed by the largest of them.
* Added ability to specify character X and Y walking speeds seperately.
* Added Quick Import Multiple Sprites and Export All Sprites In Folder options for sprite folders.
* Added ability to re-order sprites within a folder by dragging them around.
* Added "Assign to view" right click option in Sprite Manager, to allow a group of sprites to easily be added to a view.
* Added script names for views, working similarly to GUI and character script names.
* Added editor option to show outline of all GUI objects, to allow you to find blank or transparent controls.
* Added FOLLOW_EXACTLY feature to FollowCharacterEx, to allow you to easily keep a sprite on top of a character.
* Added Show Usage option for sprites, to find out where they are used in the game; and tied this into the Delete Sprite option.
* Added ability to have only left/right walking frames for characters (just delete all frames in loop 0).
* Increased max GUIs to 40, max GUI buttons to 200.
* Increased max views to 400.
* Increases max objects to 20 per room.
* Added auto-complete for plugin functions and functions defined in the script header.
* Added ability to manually set X and Y position of GUI controls.
* GUI Editor and Font Editor now show full detail in 640x400 games rather than a scaled down version.
* Rearranged options on the main Game Settings tab to make the order more logical.
* Made only the options area of the dialog editor scrollable, to improve its usability.
* Added system.vsync script option to smooth full screen scrolling. Note that enabling this will cap your game frame rate at the screen refresh rate.
* Built-in inv window now sets player.activeinv while using an item on another (to make it consistent with custom inventory).
* Disabled deleting sprites while selecting a sprite for something, to prevent crash if you deleted the old active sprite.
* Made the tabbing order of the controls in Setup more logical.
* IsSpeechVoxAvailable and IsMusicVoxAvailable now return 0 if the user has no sound card or sound is disabled.
* Stopped the user loading in a different room while editing the room script.
* Loading a new room now properly resets the Room Areas undo buffer.
* Disabled anti-aliasing on text drawn on transparent GUIs, to fix the pink effect.
* Improved alignment of portrait with text window when using Sierra-style speech.
* Increased text script stack size to 4 KB.
* Fixed large memory leak which could cause slow loading and Out of Memory errors in games that used TTF fonts.
* Potentially fixed game hanging on exit on some computers.
* Fixed editor crash if you used return without a semicolon.
* Fixed script editor not properly parsing functions where there was a { character in a string.
* Fixed script errors if you declared a variable in a room script with the same name as one which was in the script header.
* Fixed positioning issue with some TTF fonts at 640x400.
* Fixed objects 10 and above not being able to move.
* Fixed changing room settings not marking room dirty.
* Fixed mouse cursor not changing back to arrow pointer in dialog windows.
* Fixed music not always being restored correctly when restoring a save game.
* Fixed narrator speech not being cancelled when the user skipped a text window.
* Fixed GUI textboxes to not allow the cursor to extend beyond the end of the text box.
* Fixed crash clicking scroll bars in save dialog when no save games.
* Fixed rare random crash with small GUI labels.
* Fixed lockup using NewRoom from within the default inventory window.
* Fixed editor not to allow Test Game feature with DOS-compiled games.
* Fixed @overhotspot@ not removing item name if you moved the mouse off of all inventory items but within the inventory GUI.
* Fixed GUI not detecting clicks when it first appears until the mouse moved.
* Fixed GUI buttons being greyed out on Persistent GUIs when "GUIs turn off when interface disabled" was set.
* Fixed parser-in-dialog to use the same font as the dialog options.
* Fixed parser-in-dialog text not being erased when you pressed backspace with the default dialog options display.
* Fixed problem creating GUI controls if you dragged the rectangle up-left.
* Fixed idle animations using loops 4-7 of view, even if "No diagonal loops" was set for the character.
* Fixed following characters so that if you leave a room, then quickly come back, the following character is still there.
* Fixed converting a GUI to a text window sometimes corrupting other GUIs.
* Fixed compiler allowing assignment to string in declaration.
* Fixed crash if game.text_speed was zero (now error out instead).
* Fixed keyboard focus in editor being lost when selecting the GUI editor from the left hand tree.
* Fixed editor crash compiling a script with no right hand side of an operator.
* Fixed crash using nested imported function calls in script.
* Fixed black palette entries getting remapped to dark grey in 256-colour sprites.
* Fixed import rectangle changing size when switching import images if the importer was zoomed in.
* Fixed editor crash if you deleted the last selected sprite.
* Fixed system.screen_height returning 200 even when it was actually running at 240.
* Fixed speech positioning problem with GUIs Turn Off When Disabled setting.
* Fixed crash loading a room if anti-alias sprites was enabled and the room palette was corrupt somehow.
* Fixed fade-in problem with 256-colour animated backgrounds in a hi-color game.

Please download it from the website Download page.

[deltamatrix]

And along comes da praise.

Well done and Merry Christmas!

[Scorpiorus]

Just in time for Christmas, Santa brings you a new version of AGS.

High thanks Pumaman Santa!

** Merry Christmas! **

*unzipping a package

[TerranRich]

Gah! It's about damn time! Now to work on By the Sword...

[MrColossal]

THE hardest working man in show business...

[Robert Eric]

Great!  And I didn't have to sit on your lap this time to ask for it.

[jannar85]

...but I've been a bad boy this year, santa! I don't deserve any gifts!

* jannar85 throws the zipfile on the ground, and runs away screaming

[Spyros]

The are so many bug fixes
That proves taht the previous version was full of bugs.
That's a buggy program, I won't be using it anymore.... this year.

[GarageGothic]

Woohoo, it's final! Now I can get cracking re-importing all my backgrounds and adding out-of-focus/semi-transparent foreground object sprites.

Thank you so much CJ. This is an awesome Christmas present. I hope you'll have time to relax over the holidays after the amount of work you put into this version.

[Pet Terry]

Ack, serious bug spotted! Yes, I'm using v2.6.

It's kinda like the bug Dave had with RC5, so that graphics get screwy when changing background frame manually. When moving mouse cursor around on the screen it "paints" the background as Dave said in the earlier thread. And I'm using Snow/Rain plugin in that room, so it looks like all the snowflakes and raindrops stay on the screen, kinda like using brush stroke in Paint Shop Pro.

Well duh, I have only two days to finish the game... I guess it would work if I use separate rooms instead of different background frames, that is if you don't get the bug fixed in a couple of days

EDIT: Okay, I tested it and it seems to be happening when I use the plug-in. I turned the plug-in off and it worked fine (thanks to SSH) so I guess something needs to be done with that. I also tried it with different rooms and it didn't seem to help, so it doesn't have anything to do with changing background frames.

EDITEDIT: If it's any help, my game is 640x480, 16-bit colours, anti-alias on scaled sprites. The room works fine until the rain/snow plugin gets in action.

EDITEDITEDIT: Just noticed this:

Of course, if your plugin draws over the whole screen (like the snow/rain plugin does), it will have to do a full screen refresh anyway.

So... should I finish the game without rain/snow plugin, or is there a way around this? I got little confused here...

[jetxl]

AGS is getting bigger. The help file can't fit on a floppy disk anymore.

[Pumaman]

Petteri: ah, the snow/rain plugin will need to be upgraded to work with 2.6. Because it bypasses the AGS Engine interface and uses Allegro directly, AGS can't provide backwards compatibility for it - talk to Scorpiorus and see if he's willing to make an upgraded version that's compatible with 2.6.

[After]

I'm almost afraid to upgrade*.
I'll never finish anything with all these new features tempting me to go the whole hog.
(*typed during download)

[Pet Terry]

Okay, thanks anyway. I finished the game without the plugin. Great version though! Lots of nice features.

[evilspacefart]

w00t w00t!  

[LOGAN]

hehe...

IBK error....

<twitch>

[a-v-o]

Is there a workaround?  

[Scorpiorus]

PlayMusicQueued (int music_number)
I just found it in the manual. It's a new function introduced in 2.6 but there is no word about in the header post.

[Pumaman]

Hmm you're right well spotted, I've now cunningly edited in my omission

[LightBear]

---------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------
An exception 0xC0000094 occured in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x0043D1D9 ; program pointer is +6, ACI version 2.55.547, gtags (0,368)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and notify CJ on the Tech forum.

(Room 6 script line 27)


Most versions of Windows allow you to press Ctrl+C now to copy this entire message to the clipboard for easy reporting.
---------------------------
OK  
---------------------------

[Pumaman]

Please don't report problems with older versions in a new release thread. That's a divide by zero, so check what your script is doing in room 6 script line 27.

[LOGAN]

I just wanted to say this tool keeps getting better and better. Some recent additions make it finally a product that can match itself against any other Adventure Creation Tools, even in the professional corner.

So thanks for the 800x600 hi color possibilities. I know they might be slow but on today's computers (or on the computers running whenever I might finish a game) are able to cope with the power needed me-thinks

The new features and list of improvements seems endless with every release. And one of the main attractive things about AGS is the frequent updates and the active community.

One thing I did not like in the new release, the error you get when playing it at christmas with a message I beter should get drunk Oh well I wanted to open my gift so I set the date back to sneaky enjoy it

Greetings from the Master Of MOTAS

[Scavenger]

Here's something: An editor bug?

If you open a 32bit game while in 16bit desktop when you've JUST OPENED AGS, it errors with 'backgrounds and sprites may not display properly' and exits. BUT if you open that same 32bit game from the Game/File menu (meaning you opened an 8bit/16bit game first) it displays the SAME message and you can edit it as per normal.

In short: From Initial Screen - No workie. From Menu - Does work. It's not really top priority, but its kinda annoying for those WITHOUT 32bit colour.

[ratracer]

I've been trying out 2.6 and it has great improvements since the previous version I tried (2.54)...

However, there seems to be some kind of a bug when trying the cropping sprite feature: I cropped some sprites (a hundred or so) and it worked fine. "Now", when I try cropping newer sprites it seems to work right (they appear cropped when viewing) but after I save the game and run AGS again, those newer sprites are still with the size prior to the cropping (I repeated that again, one at a time or as a group as the result is the same).

The game is 800x600, 32bit color...  

In any case, congrats, Chris, AGS is even better!!!!

Edit: OK, some more clues about the cropping problem: I also have a testing game at 640x480 16bit, and it happens the same... when? my older sprites were 640x480 (huge, I know) and I could crop them right - my newer ones are 320x240 (and although when I crop AGS delivers the msg: "n sprite(s) were cropped to 52x117" after I save and exit AGS, when I run it again those sprites are still at 320x240...

Edit again: No, that's not it... I tried again: imported some 640x480 sprites. Tried cropping a few - it worked... exit and run AGS again - OK... Tryed cropping some more of those 640x480 sprites - message says it works... but, after saving, exiting and loading game again, the last batch of sprites are still at 640x480... just out of the top pf my head: could it have to do with memory management or something (BTW I'm using Win XP Pro)

[Kweepa]

When I try to run a game made with 2.6, it pops up a messagebox that says "Failed to your initialize audio hardware" unless I change the Digital Sound from 'Default DirectSound Device' to 'Default WaveOut Device'.

This happened on both machines I tried it on - both were running Win2000 and DirectX 9 I think.

[Pumaman]

Scavenger: Hmm, it's not supposed to quit, it's supposed to let you continue anyway. But why would you want to make a 32-bit game if you can't run at 32-bit colour?

ratracer: Thanks for the bug report - you're absolutely right. What's happening is that the Crop Edges option isn't marking the sprites as "modified", thus they don't get saved to disk when you save the game. In order to save the changes, you also have to make some other modification in the sprite manager (eg. import a new sprite and then delete it).
I'll get it fixed.

SteveMcCrea: is this a new problem with 2.6? I'm running Win2k with DX9 and haven't seen this problem.

[Kweepa]

Yes, it's new. I've been writing and playing AGS games from most versions up to 2.6 and this is the first time I've seen it.
I'll check what version of Direct X I have installed here.

[edit] The problem was just my Hardware Acceleration level for Direct Sound. I turned it up to full acceleration and the problem went away. Weird.

[Matt Goble]

I think this is a v2.6 issue.

The Apprentice II Demo seems to exhibit some severe graphics smearing on my Internet machine, where AGS does not seem to be 'clearing' the screen each redraw, so the text appears on top of each other and the sprites draw each frame on top of each other.

This occurs at both 320x200 and 640x200 resolutions.

Basic specs - 1Ghz AMD Athlon, 256Mb RAM, 8Mb ATI All-in-Wonder Pro.

I'll try it on my GeForce machine later today.

The EXE version number is 2.60.678 but when you select 'Product Version' the value is 2.5.  Is this v2.6?

Matt

[Pumaman]

That's a beta version of 2.6, which did indeed have that smearing bug (but it only affects some computers). Really, the game needs to be upgraded to 2.6 Final.