I had this brilliant idea and I don't think it can be pulled off...

Started by Noto, Sat 07/11/2020 14:52:12

Previous topic - Next topic

Noto

Does anyone remember the Monkey Island remaster on Steam? I was thinking about it while developing my game and I thought about how you could flip between the "classic" and "remastered" graphics and sound with just the press of a button. Besides being a really cool visual effect, I started thinking about some ways I could turn that into a gameplay mechanic - by having certain cues, dialogues, and objects only accessible from one "side" (kind of like Super Paper Mario, flipping between a 2D and 3D world) My game is a satire on old skeevy point & clicks like the original Leisure Suit Larries and it does just feel very fitting that the game be able to be played in a very small 320x180 resolution as well as my original 1920x1080 graphics.

I'm pretty well aware my desired effect (switching resolution/graphics in-game) isn't feasible in AGS, so I have a workaround... I'm thinking I upscale all my 320x180 graphics manually in photoshop (the multiple is x6, which gets me to 1920x1080) and just have it *look* like it's switching res without actually doing so.

My question is: is this going to look absolutely godawful on resolutions that are not 1920x1080? I would test it but I don't have any monitor that isn't 1920x1080, and tbh I don't really fully understand how to play with the resolution that well. If anyone has any other ideas on how to go about my gameplay mechanic as well, please let me know. Everything I've searched for regarding changing res mid-game is a few years outdated so I'm not sure if AGS has updated anything like that in the time being.

Crimson Wizard

I think this is doable in 3.5.0 using camera zoom. For example, you make game in high-res default resolution, then you have high-res and low-res rooms, you may display high-res rooms normally 1:1, and display low-res rooms zoomed-in using viewport/camera relations.

Quote from: Noto on Sat 07/11/2020 14:52:12
My question is: is this going to look absolutely godawful on resolutions that are not 1920x1080? I would test it but I don't have any monitor that isn't 1920x1080, and tbh I don't really fully understand how to play with the resolution that well. If anyone has any other ideas on how to go about my gameplay mechanic as well, please let me know. Everything I've searched for regarding changing res mid-game is a few years outdated so I'm not sure if AGS has updated anything like that in the time being.

If you are asking what happens if you downscale 1920x1080 graphics to lower res monitor, then the answer is that your concerns are valid as bitmap graphics dont downscale well at all. From my own tests they start look bad when downscaled more than 20%. But what is worse, AGS currently does not support switching font resolution, so all fonts will be downscaled too and text becomes unreadable.

On the other hand, you may take something smaller resolution, like 1280x720 or 1280x800 etc depending on wanted aspect ratio, then it will upscale to larger monitors instead and will work better.

Noto

Thanks a lot Crimson. I'm suddenly very glad I asked, since I had no idea camera zoom was a thing (it's seriously been way too long since I've properly used AGS). I'll have to screw around with that and get back to this thread once I do. Now that I know it's doable I'm feeling a lot more heartened about doing this.

Let's say I wanted to create a script that immediately flipped my 1920x1080 room into a 320x240 one on a button press. I'm guessing I would need to switch rooms on said button press - and the new room would be 1920x1080 with a specific camera/viewport? In this case I'll probably be pasting my tiny backgrounds on a huge canvas and just zooming in real close. I've never tested out the viewport stuff so hopefully there won't be any distortion or anything.

Crimson Wizard

Quote from: Noto on Sat 07/11/2020 16:31:34
Let's say I wanted to create a script that immediately flipped my 1920x1080 room into a 320x240 one on a button press. I'm guessing I would need to switch rooms on said button press - and the new room would be 1920x1080 with a specific camera/viewport? In this case I'll probably be pasting my tiny backgrounds on a huge canvas and just zooming in real close.

Having two separate rooms and switching between is an obvious default solution, but there is an alternative one: have both backgrounds in same room, just separated with some space to prevent player see both at the same time. With this second method when switching "mode" you move camera to another place and change zoom setting. The choice depends on what is more convenient in your circumstances.

Quote from: Noto on Sat 07/11/2020 16:31:34
I've never tested out the viewport stuff so hopefully there won't be any distortion or anything.

It all depends on size proportions of viewport and camera, if they match then there's no distortion, if they don't then there will be (may be used as a gameplay effect too).


There was an unfinished camera demo I was making with Blondbraid as an artist, it's sort of suspended now, but it has a 1 working room. It's open source too: https://github.com/ivan-mogilko/ags-camdemo

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk