AGS 3.4.0.6 (Alpha) - Builder Patch

Started by Crimson Wizard, Sat 27/09/2014 17:25:18

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proximity

#360
selmiak is right. Avast deep screen does it all the time to NEW builded settings.exe and game.exe if there are none already. I didn't turn it off though, because it takes 3-5 seconds to complete.
Proximity Entertainment

Snarky

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 14/12/2015 08:31:19
I can not see any shadow jittering on video, probably I do not know what to pay attention to.

I can't see any jittering on the shadows either. The only problem I can see with the walk (nice models and animation, BTW!) is the "moonwalking" effect: the steps are faster than the character movement speed, so the feet look like they're sliding backwards over the ground.

proximity

Quote from: Snarky on Mon 14/12/2015 09:40:09
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 14/12/2015 08:31:19
I can not see any shadow jittering on video, probably I do not know what to pay attention to.

I can't see any jittering on the shadows either. The only problem I can see with the walk (nice models and animation, BTW!) is the "moonwalking" effect: the steps are faster than the character movement speed, so the feet look like they're sliding backwards over the ground.

I guess i can't describe it. I should make a video which explains exactly what i try to tell. About moonwalking, current x-speed is 1 and raising it to 2 makes the character too fast. It may be good opportunity to ask for fine-tune character speed settings such as 1.3, 1.7 etc. :)

Thanks Snarky. I'm glad you like them.
Proximity Entertainment

proximity

#363
Ok. In the first video, the character has no shadow.

[embed=560,315]http://youtu.be/kTNHV-zXO9Y[/embed]

In the second video, the same character has shadow. It's a soft shadow so alpha transparency level is not the same everywhere. Some areas are darker,near to black and some areas are brighter.

[embed=560,315]http://youtu.be/50EtZ0OkHW4[/embed]

You see the difference ? In the second video, the character looks terrible. Vibrating, jittering, whatever you call it is much more noticable.
Proximity Entertainment

Crimson Wizard

Quote from: proximity on Mon 14/12/2015 10:35:35
You see the difference ? In the second video, the character looks terrible. Vibrating, jittering, whatever you call it is much more noticable.

Well, this is totally not what I was thinking about. It is even not about drawing speed, is it?
It looks like AGS has troubles defining sprite's position on screen.

Snarky

#365
Quote from: proximity on Mon 14/12/2015 09:52:41
I guess i can't describe it. I should make a video which explains exactly what i try to tell. About moonwalking, current x-speed is 1 and raising it to 2 makes the character too fast. It may be good opportunity to ask for fine-tune character speed settings such as 1.3, 1.7 etc. :)

Because AGS can only position characters on integer pixel positions, that would result in uneven movement speed. The best way to fix this in AGS is to adjust the number of frames in the walkcycle. (Fortunately this shouldn't be too difficult when you just have to reexport an animation from 3D.) Basically, you should measure the total stride length (usually about 0.8*height for realistic characters, but of course different in perspective), and divide that by the movement per frame to get the number of frames you need in the walkcycle.

Edit: Oh by the way, since Darth doesn't like critique on the GIP thread I'll take the opportunity here: that first video is too dark to see anything, as are several other clips in your pitch video. When you're trying to convey darkness, don't make things pitch black (unless that's the point) or just muddy dark all over: use contrast between dark regions and highlighted areas to convey overall darkness without making players squint. If you check out e.g. Gemini Rue or Blackwell Epiphany or The Journey Down you can see that good nighttime backgrounds aren't made just by banishing bright values.

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 14/12/2015 10:49:54
Quote from: proximity on Mon 14/12/2015 10:35:35
You see the difference ? In the second video, the character looks terrible. Vibrating, jittering, whatever you call it is much more noticable.

Well, this is totally not what I was thinking about. It is even not about drawing speed, is it?
It looks like AGS has troubles defining sprite's position on screen.

I'm guessing this doesn't have anything to do with the shadow directly, but is a function of the dimensions of the sprite and the scaling. What I'm thinking is, again, that since AGS can only place sprites on integer pixel positions, when it smoothly scales down a sprite it has to round up the dimensions (so it doesn't cut off the edge). Then I'm guessing it takes that integer-sized sprite and centers it around the pivot. Depending on whether the scaled width is even or odd, it will effectively shift it a half-pixel left, and you get jittering.

It might be possible to fix this without completely redoing the basic AGS architecture by adding a special case for scaling character sprites centered on the pivot, where the scale sprite is always padded on the sides so the width is the same parity (odd or even) as the original size.

Edit: And the vertical jittering is probably caused by the scaling of the z-displacement value: it gets rounded in order to place the sprite on an integer coordinate. Hmm... I think to fully solve this you'd need a scaling function that lets you define a scaling origin that is guaranteed to lie on an integer coordinate.

selmiak

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 14/12/2015 08:31:19
Quote from: monkey0506 on Sun 13/12/2015 23:01:11
I'm not sure when this issue first started occurring (I have been busy with other things for some time and have been away from AGS), but Avast antivirus is apparently now blocking AGS executables on my system.
Quote from: MiteWiseacreLives! on Mon 14/12/2015 02:01:20
I still have problems with Avast even with Deeps Screen off, I have to disable all file screening..
Are we the ones who should be responsible for this, or Avast team is :undecided:? Have anyone tried asking their support/developers about why this may happen?

Maybe it is because AGS is not digitally signed (or has no contract with microsoft/avast) and thus not recognised as a trusted source and the game.exe files AGS creates are even less so.

proximity

 In the first video, the character sprites have 119 pixels width and 337 pixels height, 147 KB size each. In the second video, the character sprites have 286 pixels width and 372 pixels height, 415 KB size each. Thanks for helping. I think i figure it out now and i know what i shouldn't do next time.

@Snarky, at the beginning i thought realistic darkness was a good idea to make a realistic atmosphere but i agree with you, it affects gameplay in a bad way. I will work on those dark scenes to make sure player feels comfortable with it. Thanks for the advice.

Next time, i won't share a feedback unless i'm absolutely sure it's about the engine (3.4.0.6) (nod)
Proximity Entertainment

Snarky

Oh, but this is an interesting and rather serious problem, so it's good to have it reported!

It's just that (if my speculation is correct) there's not a lot to do about it without going in and changing some pretty fundamental parts of the engine. And as for being in the wrong thread, we moderators can fix that. (Or we could, if people would stick to one topic per post... :P )

proximity

#369
Quote from: Snarky on Mon 14/12/2015 15:22:31
Oh, but this is an interesting and rather serious problem, so it's good to have it reported!


Really ? When you explained about sprite position I thought that was a known issue from older versions. OK then, i will report anything interesting I've experienced :)

In case they are unnoticed on my previous messages, i want to re post that i found few things :

* You can't take screenshots by pressing PrtScr (print screen) button on a full screen game. Anything you shot and paste it to your paint program will be black. You can take it by external capture programs though, like Fraps.
* AGS doesn't compile a template. I encountered this with compressed sprites option. I've no idea if it compiles it with uncompressed sprites.
Proximity Entertainment

Crimson Wizard

I keep asking to report the bugs in the issue tracker :(.
(This for now: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=projects)
I really cannot keep track of the bugs reported in the 20-pages long forum thread.

Sslaxx

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Tue 15/12/2015 13:46:05
I keep asking to report the bugs in the issue tracker :(.
(This for now: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=projects)
I really cannot keep track of the bugs reported in the 20-pages long forum thread.
It's clear people aren't getting the message about this, but what to do about it?
Stuart "Sslaxx" Moore.

Crimson Wizard

Quote from: Sslaxx on Tue 15/12/2015 14:00:18
Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Tue 15/12/2015 13:46:05
I keep asking to report the bugs in the issue tracker :(.
(This for now: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=projects)
I really cannot keep track of the bugs reported in the 20-pages long forum thread.
It's clear people aren't getting the message about this, but what to do about it?

I guess I could make a sticky topic.

Snarky

Would it be possible to have the issue tracker appear as another sub-forum? I think the problem is that (despite being accessible from the top menu) it's rather hidden away and hard to find.

Though I suppose with the plan to change to an external system, that won't really be relevant any more.

Personally I think it's just a lost cause. People are inevitably going to make requests whenever a thread jogs their memory or creativity, in those threads. I think it'll be easier to just move or copy any feature requests over into a dedicated thread whenever they're made, and maybe someone could then go through it and copy them over to the issue tracker if that's worth doing.

proximity

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Tue 15/12/2015 13:46:05
I keep asking to report the bugs in the issue tracker :(.
(This for now: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=projects)
I really cannot keep track of the bugs reported in the 20-pages long forum thread.

You're right, sorry. We should make things easier for you. I submitted them to tracker.
Proximity Entertainment


Gord10

#376
I am having trouble with the Default Game template. It says ProcessClick is undefined (and I know it is). But how am I going to solve this? I tried changing ProcessClicks with Mouse.Click's, but now after clicking with a left button, I can't change the mode with the right one.

Edit:
I solved the problem. I disabled "Enforce object-based scripting" option in Game Settings to allow ProcessClick.
Games are art!
My horror game, Self

Crimson Wizard

Quote from: Gord10 on Thu 31/12/2015 22:35:55
I am having trouble with the Default Game template. It says ProcessClick is undefined (and I know it is). But how am I going to solve this? I tried changing ProcessClicks with Mouse.Click's, but now after clicking with a left button, I can't change the mode with the right one.

Edit:
I solved the problem. I disabled "Enforce object-based scripting" option in Game Settings to allow ProcessClick.

This is one of the solutions, but the new name of ProcessClick is Room.ProcessClick, as mentioned in the first post:

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Sat 27/09/2014 17:25:18
Global functions moved to Room class
GetRoomProperty ---> Room.GetProperty
ProcessClick -> Room.ProcessClick

GetRoomProperty is now Room.GetProperty to match Room.GetTextProperty. The old ProcessClick is now Room.ProcessClick.
You may need to fix your scripts if you use any of these, or disable "Enforce object-based scripting" option in Game Settings.

Gord10

Yes, I have noticed it after posting the problem (my bad here). Though, I think it would be best if the game template that comes with 3.4.0.6 has ProcessClick problem fixed.

I have noticed some minor problems, as well. Start Page and splash screen are still about AGS 3.3. You may want to fix them.
Games are art!
My horror game, Self

Crimson Wizard

Yes, all this is still in TODO list, as well as manual update.
My first priority now is to release AGS 3.3.5 update, which is supposedly the last update to 3.3 version; then I'll focus on finishing 3.4.

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