Complete Newbie Present & Future Resolution & Vid question

Started by Jesus DeSaad, Thu 03/07/2003 21:26:37

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Jesus DeSaad

Hello, I'm a complete newbie.

a) I read that AGS supports resolutions up to 16bit 800x600.
Is a later version gonna offer a bigger resolution choice, for example 1024x748 or 1280x1024?
If not, does anyone know of a program that might just do that?

b) I'm not sure I saw it anywhere, but can you use DivX videos for intro/cut-in/finish scenes? If not, which format is preferrable?

Meowster

I'm also a complete newbie but... :)

First off, I'm not sure why (It's explained somewhere) but the higher the resolution the slower the game plays. This is explained in the FAQ on the main page, I think, if I remember correctly. Besides, most game makers using it are fans of old school style games, so 320x200 is perfect for the old pixel style. That's probably why there isn't a huge demand to higher the resolution capabilities.

Second, for 256 colours FLC is preferable, and for Hi Colours AVI is preferred. You can use any file type supported by Media Player, I believe.

That's my two, unproffesional cents worth. If you're stuck between choosing this engine and another, read http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=6980 .

Also, if it helps, I started AGS recently and the scripting langauge doesn't take to long to learn, there's a community here always happy to give help or critique on your work and you can advertise your upcoming games here too. There's also a thread for recruiting voiceactors, artists or programmers and/or offering your services. It's a free program (swap ware) and you can even submit suggestions as to the upcoming releases. The community alone makes AGS stand out among the rest.

Okay, Welcome :) :) :)

TerranRich

Why on Earth would you want an adventure game in any resolution higher than 800x600? I personally think 800x600 itself is too high, but it was added after many newbies requested it.  ::)

You can play AVI, WMV, and FLI/FLC files at the moment with AGS. MPEG might be supported in the future, but that's a big maybe. :)
Status: Trying to come up with some ideas...

Ben

Isn't Mpeg already supported? I always thought you could use any format you wanted as long as you had the codec for it..

TerranRich

Meh, I should just stop answering questions. I can't keep up with AGS.  ::)

:P
Status: Trying to come up with some ideas...

SSH

Yeah, and AGS now supports 2048x1600 graphics, didn't you know that TRich? As used by RPGMaker in his game ;)

Has anyone actually made an 800x600 game yet? Is there even one in production? It's a shame that you can't search the games page on the AGS site by resolution
12

Jesus DeSaad

No, seriously, if you want to make a descent looking game nowadays you 've got to make it presentable. 800X600 may seem okay, but I think the bigger the better. Specially on today's 19 inch + large monitors.

Monkey Island 3 had 800x600 resolution, didn't it?
Longest Journey had 1024x748 or something, didn't it?

I'm not being greedy or anything, I'm not demanding anything, I'm just asking if there are plans about it.

Meowster

The longest journey was BULLSH**!!! I regret wasting my hard earned money on that crap.

In other news... Good games aren't just about graphics. Graphics may be eye candy, but it's the storyline, characters etc., that are gonna make people like it. Unless you're talking worse-than-Kings-Quest-1-on-prozac.

Also, aye do believe MI3 was indeed.

But that doesn't mean that MI3 or Longest Journey were better than the original Sam N Max or MI games.

scotch

Monkey Island 3 was 640x480 and 256 colour..
I'm making an 800x600 game at the moment, it's 256 colour though so it's pretty fast.. I really don't think you need more than 800x600 though..

Divx is supported, anything that will play in media play is.. but people have to ahve the codec of course.

I don't thinkAGS will support higher resolutions any time soon, and it's not really needed IMO..

Jesus DeSaad

640x480 maybe, but definitely not 256 colour. I just reinstalled it and checked it out. If it really is the resolution you mentioned, then maybe I underestimated 800x600 a bit.
Well, at least DivX is supported, which is a HUGE plus.
What the hey, the software's still free, so what am I complaining about?
Thanks for the info.

Meowster

Yes, stop whining and get back to work, slave! AGS doesn't have many limits that you can't work your way around, a higher resolution isn't gonna make a HUGE difference so long as the rest of your game is great... nobody is gonna play gorgeous graphics. They're gonna play a game. :)

Hey, I like that. It's not the graphics you play, it's the game :) :) Let us all remember that for years to come.

I'm ready for my close up.

scotch

Seriously Jesus, it's 256 (and definately 640x480).  And looks it, check out the dithering.. but does it look bad?  No.

800x600 art is pretty unpixelly unless you have a huge monitor (19 inch or more..) and most people don't.

32 bit colour would be a more noticable improvement (and less art work increase) and even that wouldn't be really noticable.  1024x768 is a waste of filesize, cpu time and art effort IMO and I'm not some die hard low res pixeler by any means.

As you can see CMI looks great at 640x480, 800x600 is a slight gain in quality (Why I'm doing it for my game..) but it is a lot more work.

Remember DVD video is 720 x 480 and that's sharp, picking a full screen graphics mode is much different from picking a desktop res..


Edit:  Also, TLJ is 640x480 - as a minimum, not sure if you can increase that.

Ferret

DVD video resolution changes depending on region (either 720*480 NTSC or 720*576 PAL). DivX video does work and works well, but there's a few easily spotted problems with it.

For starters, DivX video is encoded at 24bit color depth and when played back in AGS (which only does up to 16bit color), the resultant video output looks pretty psychadelic. Another major problem occurs if you want to sell your game later on. The MPEG-LA requires you to purchase a license to use the DivX codec (this applies to DivX and other MPEG-4 codecs, inc. XVid). I'm not sure of the actuall fee amount, but since most indie devs are broke, I doubt they could afford it.

Another alternative to DivX (shameless plug ahoy) is On2 VP3.2 video codec. It's free, opensource and you don't have to pay any licensing fees to use it in commercial or non-commercial software. Playback speeds are very fast, and although it too gets encoded in 24bit color, viewing a video in 16bit color depth will look no different to higher color depths (it does some realtime color dithering thingamajigs). Used along with OGG Vorbis for the sound, and you're pretty much set.

Hope this helps.

One problem I have seen in AGS for video playback though... even though the resize video tag has been set in the script, the video is not enlarged to fit the screen and remains a little box in the middle (applies to both DivX and VP3).

Meowster

Is MI3 seriously 256 colour? That's amazing. Truly heroic! Where did you hear this?

Hm, they must have sketched them, scanned in the backgrounds and coloured them painstakingly on some paint program... How on earth did they keep the colours down to 256?! And... why?

scotch

Why? So more people could play it, it was a fair while ago, my PC could just about do 16 bit colour in 640x480 but a lot couldn't.
It really is 256, they've managed the palettes well and probably spent time hand dithering stuff after the program has done it.  It's not really hard to to that yourself.  When painting your backgrounds just try to use a limited range of colours in each one.  There are programs like debabeliser which manage palettes and they probably used something like that on CMI, but you can do it ok just with PS or PSP probably.

(CMI is the main reason I don't mind using 256 colour, and the higher the res, the less noticable the dithering is.)

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