AGS 3.3.0 final

[Crimson Wizard]

AGS 3.3.0 released

*** Download as installer ***

*** Download as ZIP archive ***

--- NO-MP3 engine variant ---

AGS source code central repository

Debug symbols database (for analysing crash dumps)

Please, read "Upgrading to AGS 3.3" topic in the manual that comes with this version before upgrading your game project to 3.3.0! It contains important information on few potential problems you may encounter.

Latest update: 29th July 2014

(includes hotfix 1 to the game compilation that could break if you moved item folders in project tree)

(includes hotfix 2 which fixes couple of minor bugs)

(includes update 1 with properly working letterbox and pillarbox graphic modes, the ones with side & top/bottom borders)

(includes hotfix 3 which fixes few more rare bugs, introduced between first 3.3.0 and update1)

Backup of the previous version (hotfix 2):

Spoiler

Installer: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/finals/AGS-3.3.0-hotfix2.exe
ZIP-archive: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/finals/AGS-3.3.0-hotfix2.zip
No-MP3 engine: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/finals/AGS-3.3.0-hotfix2-noMP3.zip

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This version is a product of collaborative work of the following people (who worked and contributed in different time, but whose work was used either directly or as a reference to make this release):

Spoiler

  Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
  Cristian Morales Vega
  Francesco Ariis
  Gilad Shaham
  Ivan Mogilko
  Janet Gilbert
  Jochen Schleu
  Michael Rittenhouse
  Paul Wilkinson
  Piotr Wieczorek
  rofl0r
  Scott Baker
  Shawn R. Walker
  Steve McCrea
  Steven Poulton
  Sunit Das
  Tobias Hansen
  Tom Vandepoele
  Tzach Shabtay

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...and of course Chris Jones, original creator of AGS .

For information on upgrading your game project to 3.3.0 please check "Upgrading to AGS 3.3" topic in the manual.

Changes since version 3.2.1:

* Editor UI now features docking panels. See video demonstration on how to use them.
* Project tree now features folders for characters, dialogs, inventory items, guis, rooms, scripts and views.  The "Sort room by number" menu command now sorts rooms within folders.
* In project tree respective script body and header files are now grouped under one item.
* Project tree now supports drag & drop operations to move items. "Move up/down" commands are removed from context menu.
* Added a "Find all usages" context menu item to find all usages for characters, dialogs, views, inventory items and global variables in script. NOTE: this only searches for script name, not numeric ID.
* Added a "Navigate (in tree)" context menu item for almost all document tabs, which navigates to their node on the project tree.
* In script editor, pressing Ctrl+G will now open the "Goto line" dialog. The shortcut to open global script has changed to Ctrl+Shift+G (and shortcut to open the global header - to Ctrl+Shift+H for consistency).
* Added a "Replace sprite(s) from source" context menu command in Sprite Manager.
* Added a "Browse" button to the "Create in folder" field in the Start New Game wizard.
* Sprite Import window is now resizable.
* Improved how autocomplete list in script refreshes its contents.
* Editor no longer allows to create more game items than engine supports (fonts, cursors, dialogs and inventory items), which could result in crashes in Editor or running game.
* Fixed incorrect selection of a new sprite, imported while the "Select sprite" dialog is open.
* Fixed sprite lookup in folders, differing only by name case.
* Fixed the script editor sometimes mistakenly notified that script was changed externally after it was saved in the editor.
* Fixed overlapping labels in the Editor Preferences dialog.

* Increased maximal Font number from 15 to 30.
* Implemented proper alpha blender for blending two 32-bit sprites with alpha channels. Added new option for gui alpha blending which turns the proper blender on. For the general cases (such as DrawingSurface.DrawImage function) a new setting is added in "Visual" group, named "Sprite alpha rendering style".
* Added "DialogOptionsRenderingInfo.HasAlphaChannel" property that lets you enable alpha channel for custom dialog option surface.
* The "Old-style game-wide speech animation speed" game setting in "Backwards compatibility" group is replaced with two settings in "Dialog" group: "Use game-wide speech animation delay" (switch) and "Game-wide speech animation delay" (value).
* Added "Translated" property to ListBox gui control, which forces engine to translate ListBox items.
* Added "Dialog.SetHasOptionBeenChosen" function which lets you to set or reset "option been chosen" flag.
* Added eKeyNone constant which lets you to set "no/undefined key" (whenever eKeyCode type is required).
* Added SkipSpeechStyle enum to define speech skipping mode instead of using bare numbers.
* Added two more options for the speech skip style: "skip by key only" and "skip by mouse only" (no timer).
* Added new Speech class which groups several speech-related properties.
This renders some of the previously existing variables and functions obsolete:

Spoiler

Deprecated function/variable	New property
SetVoiceMode	Speech.VoiceMode
SetSkipSpeech	Speech.SkipStyle
SetSpeechStyle	Speech.Style
game.close_mouth_end_speech_time	Speech.AnimationStopTimeMargin
game.speech_text_align	Speech.TextAlignment
game.skip_speech_specific_key	Speech.SkipKey
game.talkanim_speed	Speech.GlobalSpeechAnimationDelay

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* Added Speech.CustomPortraitPlacement, Speech.PortraitXOffset and Speech.PortraitY properties which let you to customize the position of speech portraits on screen.
* Added Speech.DisplayPostTimeMs property that makes speech portraits and/or text stay on screen some more time after speech was finished playing.
* Added Speech.UseGlobalSpeechAnimationDelay and Speech.GlobalSpeechAnimationDelay properties that let you to dynamically enforce and alter game-wide speech animation speed.
* SetMusicMasterVolume legacy script function now accepts volume values between -210 and 100 (was between 0 and 100). This may be used as a workaround for guaranteed music mute if using old audio system.
* Fixed "savegameindex[]" array was declared with incorrect size in script (20, while it must be 50).

* Engine can now load and run old games made with AGS 2.5 and higher (the level of compatibility may vary).
* Enhanced winsetup by moving many options under "Advanced" section and removing "Replay" option which was not usable for years.
* Reimplemented alternate display modes, now side-borders and top/bottom borders should work properly for all game resolutions.
* Added x5, x6, x7 and x8 scaling filters, as well as "Max nearest-neighbour filter" option in setup which automatically finds maximal supported scaling filter for your screen.
* The game automatically fallbacks to Software graphics driver if the Hardware one could not run or initialize gfx mode for any reason.
* Windows version of the engine will now write crash dump on "out of memory error" to help diagnose the situation if this occured due bug in the engine.
* Improved character walking animation at 60%-80% scaling.
* Game.ChangeTranslation() script function no longer causes game to quit if the translation file belongs to different game or has unknown format.
* Fixed inventory items and cursor crosshair with alpha channel not being drawn properly.
* Fixed side-borders that were not applied properly at newer (larger) widescreen resolutions.
* Fixed crash that occured when ListBox.GetItemAtLocation() is called from repeatedly_execute_always() just before the list box is about to be drawn on screen for the first time.
* Fixed custom dialog options clickable area by correcting its horizontal coordinate range.
* Fixed error which took place when user restored a game saved with background music playing, in case the music is not found in resources anymore.
* Fixed audio behavior during cutscenes (error caused audio volume to reset to default). Also AudioChannel.Volume will now return correct value when called from skipped cutscene.
* Stopped play.close_mouth_end_speech_time variable from making effect in voice mode and Sierra-style speech (which it wasn't supposed to do).
* Fixed return value of the AudioChannel.PositionMs for MOD/XM clips;
* Fixed division by zero which occured if there was a 1px tall walkable area (a precisely straight horizontal line) with vector scaling applied.
* Fixed OGG speech ending prematurely if the audio file size is a multiple of 32 KB.
* Fixed bug that could let user to load corrupted savedgame, which in turn could cause more trouble.


Some optional engine features:

* Log output. Enabled either in setup file, by putting "log=1" line under "[misc]" category, or "--log" parameter if running from command line; also "--no-log" command line parameter overrides setup file and disables logging.
Log file is called "ags.log" and it is saved in "Users\<Name>\Saved Games\.ags" on Vista, Win7 and Win8, and in "Documents and Settings\<Username>\My Documents\My Saved Games\.ags" on WinXP.
Other platforms have their respected paths, e.g. Linux will write to "$HOME/.ags".
* Threaded audio support. This feature has both pros and drawbacks, and is not currently recommended to be used for your project on desktop platforms by default and without testing. You may enable it in setup file by manually adding a "threaded=1" line under "sound" section.
* Added three "overriding" options for setup file:

Code: text

[override]
multitasking=0/1
os=dos/win/linux/mac
upscale=0/1

Multitasking - overrides game's multitasking mode. Useful if game has lengthy unskippable sequences. Keep in mind that this will lock game in the given mode and make it ignore script commands that change it.
Os - overrides System.OperatingSystem return value. Useful for ports when game disables some feature for the system because it thinks it's not supported.
Upscale - lets to run lo-res (320x200/240) games in "hi-res" mode (640x400/480). May be useful for running old pre-3.1.0 games with new interpreter.
* For every "long" command line argument the traditional GNU form (--arg) is supported, for example "--windowed", "--letterbox", etc.


* Additions to Editor Plugin API:

* Added property for getting playable character.
* Added property for getting ScriptsAndHeaders collection.
* Added methods for refreshing project's tree.
* Added method for refreshing property grid.
* Added methods for controlling output panel.

[selmiak]

WOW, COOL! CONGRATULATIONS!

[Billbis]

Congratulations!
This version is fantastic. Well done community!

[miguel]

Thank you so much!
Congratulations!

[Crosco]

Congratulations!

[abstauber]

Great show! Thanks and congrats!
Hooray for the first post-Jones release.

[DoorKnobHandle]

Nice work, great to see this release! I'll give 3.3.0 a try and finally update from 3.2.1 for my next project, let's see how stable it is! :p

[Gribbler]

Congratulations on the release! Thank you so much for all your hard work.

[Crimson Wizard]

I would also like to thank everyone who tried out and tested the Beta, your help was invaluable!

[dbuske]

Do I need the extra dx9 dll's for this version of AGS. I put them in the documents game directory.

[Joseph DiPerla]

Great work everyone! Thanks for the release.

[Crimson Wizard]

Do I need the extra dx9 dll's for this version of AGS. I put them in the documents game directory.

You need DirectX 9 dlls installed to make D3D9 renderer to work. But, first, this is optional, because you may use software graphics (DirectDraw 5). Second, you don't put them in the game directory, but usually in Windows/System32 directory. Also, if you install them properly as a part of DirectX 9 package they will be put on a right place automatically:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

EDIT: Now that I read same question in the Calin's AGSBlend plugin thread, I begin to wonder what specific dlls do you have in mind? Have the AGSBlend.dll required some extra dlls to work?

[Radiant]

Excellent!

[Ghost]

Congratulations Team BlueCup! \o/

[kconan]

Kudos to Crimson Wizard and everyone who spent time developing 3.3.0 Final.  Your hard work and efforts are far from unnoticed, and very appreciated by AGSers all over the World!

[Snarky]

Woo-hoo! Congratulations and thanks to all who've worked on this, and to Crimson Wizard in particular. Outstanding effort!

I've been using the betas and RCs for long enough that this doesn't feel to me like a major update any more, but the leap from 3.2.1 is really quite significant.

[deltamatrix]

Congrats! A superb release

[AnasAbdin]

Congratulations! Thanks a lot for all your effort and time

[selmiak]

I'm in love with the window docking and the correct rendering of the alphachannels of PNGs in GUIs already. Great work Crimson and contributors!
Is there a manual entry somewhere on what the different blending modes in genset do with the alpha transparency on PNGs on GUIs? Didn't find anything. I might as well play around with it some more later...

[hedgefield]

Awesome update, some really cool features! I was just lamenting yesterday the fact that I had to reimport 23 walkcycle sprites one by one. And here comes reimport from source!
Just sad to see there's no custom resolution support. I'm building a game in 1280x720 with the Skygoblin build so I can't upgrade to this yet. Any plans to include that in future releases?

[EDIT]I was too excited, I see the thread for the custom resolution build ha, cool!

[Crimson Wizard]

I have replaced the distributives with a hotfixed version. which corrects the bug reported here:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47966.msg636481544#msg636481544

It was only couple of days, so I didn't change version this time. If anything else surfaces, I'll do that in a proper way (with version change etc).
Sorry for inconvenience.

[dbuske]

Wonderful, fine working version. I switched my Science Fiction game to 3.3.0
No problems at all

[Monsieur OUXX]

A warmful thank to all the contributors. <joke>I'm sure Chris can see you from up there, and is proud of you.</joke>
Amazing job.

[Khris]

Absolutely, awesome job!

Spoiler

Here's to hoping the Ctrl-Tab issue is fixed soon because that completely breaks my workflow

[close]

[Dropped Monocle Games]

I love this version

and Thank you, thank you, thank you for

* Added a "Replace sprite(s) from source" context menu command in Sprite Manager.

[Crimson Wizard]

Please pay attention: a new hotfixed version uploaded, which fixes this bug:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50101.msg636483057#msg636483057

New engine version: 3.3.0.1158.

[unixfan2001]

Just came here to say my heartfelt thanks to the community and the developers.

Been an AGS user since the very beginning (probably had a forum account once, but I don't remember the login) and love how this project has evolved throughout the years (there are even highres patches. Kudos for that).

I'm running this under Ubuntu 13.04 with wine 1.7.11 and I have to say: If it wasn't for the ugly Windows buttons/decorations, I could very much confuse this for a native Linux application.

In case anyone else is interested in Linux. I currently work on a universal wrapper, so that people can just go ahead, download a binary, execute it and install AGS from a native GUI, rather than going through the headache of installing wine/winetricks themselves. Still waiting for permission though. I didn't change any code but removed the Windows installer. Furthermore, I use a custom .desktop icon. Not sure whether this is against the license (Artistic 2.0, same as for the source, I assume) of the binary, so I sent snarky a PM last night.

Once perceived legal issues have been cleared, I'd very much like to upload this to sourceforge and, perhaps, include it with my own distro (once that one is ready).

[Radiant]

Just a funny anecdote is an issue report I received today for one of our games.

The issue turned out to be that the user opened setup without understanding what it did, changed some settings more or less at random, and now the game won't work (i.e. a PEBCAK). This issue was solved by resetting to the default values.

So yeah, I'm happy that we simplified setup.

[Crimson Wizard]

3.3.0 hotfix 2 version is released.
Fixed this bug: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50273.0
Fixed a bug which allows a corrupted savedgame to load, causing random troubles in the future: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50217.msg636485019#msg636485019
Fixed a bug which made Character.Transparency and Object.Transparency properties return slightly incorrect values (different from the ones you've set before).


Also introduces a new configuration option which runs lo-res (320x200/240) games in hires (640x400/480). This is useful for running certain pre-3.1.0 games which could have special features for hires mode. For example, that scales fonts up, making them look better. One of the games that benefits from this option is an old version of "Blackwell Convergence", which speech font is almost unreadable in lo-res mode.
To enable in acsetup.cfg:

Code: text

[override]
upscale=1

The new installation package includes Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2008 SP1, that is required to run Editor.


AGS InnoSetup installer script (for developers): http://www.mediafire.com/view/780i2zwcyp5iacs/AGS_3_3_0_final.iss

[Crimson Wizard]

3.3.0 update 1 released.
Reimplemented alternate display modes, now side-borders and top/bottom borders should work properly for all game resolutions.

One setup option was renamed to provide clearer description:
"Force alternate letterbox resolution" - now is - "Enable top/bottom borders".

Deprecated "Enable letterbox mode" option in project's General Settings, because it's no longer makes sense (letterbox mode may be enabled in game setup).

Since this is a significant change, I made a backup of previous update, hotfix 2:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/finals/AGS-3.3.0-hotfix2.exe
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/finals/AGS-3.3.0-hotfix2.zip
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/finals/AGS-3.3.0-hotfix2-noMP3.zip

[abstauber]

Hooray, thanks a lot.
I especially appreciate it, since I'm totally helpless when even looking at the ags code.

[Radiant]

Very good, we've re-released Heroine's Quest with this and it works great.

One small question: is there a limit to how high a resolution multiplier the engine will consider? For example, if somebody has a 3840x2160 monitor and plays a 320x200 game with scaling set to max, will it end up magnified x10?

[Crimson Wizard]

One small question: is there a limit to how high a resolution multiplier the engine will consider? For example, if somebody has a 3840x2160 monitor and plays a 320x200 game with scaling set to max, will it end up magnified x10?

No. The way filters work in 3.3.0 does not allow any random magnifier, only hard-coded numbers (1-8).

[Electroshokker]

I've released a new version of the Verbcoin template for AGS 3.3 and send you a PM about it.

It addresses most concerns that have been raised over the years and adds a few spiffy new things.

[monkey0506]

Bug in 3.3.0 regarding audio timestamps: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?issue=566.0

[Baron]

Nice!

But I can't open the Demo Game in the editor....

[Sslaxx]

Nice!

But I can't open the Demo Game in the editor....

Odd, sounds like a permissions issue. Does it happen with any other project with a Speech directory?

[Radiant]

Is your AGS executable installed under Program Files? Because under more recent windows versions, a program can't just write to that folder or any of its subfolders. Solution: move the demo game to e.g. D:\my games\demo

[Crimson Wizard]

We need to change the place where demo game is installed...

[Baron]

Is your AGS executable installed under Program Files? Because under more recent windows versions, a program can't just write to that folder or any of its subfolders. Solution: move the demo game to e.g. D:my gamesdemo

Yep, that's it.  I just moved the demo game files to my regular AGS folder and it opens fine in the editor.  I can't actually play it (apparently I don't have the right graphics drivers, even when trying the compiled version through winsetup using every combination of Direct Draw/Direct 3D and filters and trying Saurabh's magic .dlls trick that normally gets older games working on my latest Win7 computer).  But that's a little off topic, so.... thanks for getting my into see the code at least!

[Julius Dangerous]

Great Work, Thanks !

[Crimson Wizard]

3.3.0 hotfix 3 version is released.
Please refer to the first post in this thread for download links (they are same as before).

This fixes few rare bugs and updates two game templates.

- Provided error handling for several exceptional cases on graphics mode initialization (program
  should at least close normally, showing comprehensible error message).
- Fixed crash in legacy built-in inventory screen (called by InventoryScreen() script function).
- Fixed screen size was incorrectly calculated in letterbox mode when the scrolling room is loaded
  (this could cause some GUIs or Overlays refuse to take requested position, and also slightly
  affected "box in/out" translation effect).


Updated two game templates:
* 9-verb MI style (1.3.2 of July 2014) by abstauber;
* SCUMM Verbcoin (2.0.0 of June 2014) by Electroshokker.

[Monsieur OUXX]

EDIT: I'm a dumbass.