Messages

Alright.  I think I've got exactly what I'm looking for now.  Here's what I did:

Code: AGS

void SayY(this Character*, int textHeight, String text){ //Text height declared for use on other characters
  int x = this.x - 200-GetViewportX(); //subtracting 200 as well because "SayAt" width messes with the
                                       //coordinates
  int y = this.y - GetViewportY();
  textHeight = y - textHeight;
  this.SayAt(x, textHeight, 400, text);
}

calling:
cFeynman.SayY(220,"Okay...");

Works pretty perfectly.  Didn't change it drastically from Khris' recommendation, but I should be able to use it whenever my characters heads don't match up with their sprite heights.

Thanks!  I appreciate it.

Edit: And I did typo the header file.  It says "import void SayY(this Character*, int textHeight, String text);" now...  In case anyone needs to know in the future.

I thought I'd done that.  Maybe I just typo'd it or something.  I'll test it out again...

@Khris

Using that I get a "SayY is not a public member of "Character"" error.

It is a cutscene, but I'd rather not have to make a new character every time my camera moves on this guy.  But if there is no other way then I'm going to have to...  Just want to explore my options first.

Making the hat a separate character sounds crazy hard since my walk cycles and every other animation are relatively high frame-rate (by AGS standards).  I can easily see this causing problems.  I'd like to figure out a better system anyway because I may have to use it on other characters down the line, and having their speaking animations synced up to their hats/wings/whateveriuse doesn't sound too practical.

I'm trying to keep my frame count down as well (as much as possible) since hitting 30,000 is actually a concern, and rendering out 2 images for every frame of animation on certain characters could impact that.

I may still go with making it a new character if need be...  I've actually used objects for certain character animations too when it seems like the best way.  Thanks.

Weird thing I can't seem to get to work.  I have a character with a very tall hat, and due to this I'd like his text to appear lower than normal (so it's over his head, not his hat).  So I've been using SayAt for this, and it generally works fine... until now (dun dun dun).

The camera pans up to him in a window.  I have him say something from the window.  Camera pans down.  He moves Then walks left and speaks again.  Like this: 

Code: AGS

function room_FirstLoad(){

player.Walk(205, 1772, eBlock, eWalkableAreas);
player.Say("Feynman!  Come down!  It's important!");

int xpos7 = 0;
int ypos7 = 1035;
while (ypos7 > 125) {
  SetViewport(xpos7, ypos7);
  Wait(1);
  xpos7 = xpos7+5;
  ypos7 = ypos7-5;
}

cFeynman.Walk(1840, 688, eBlock, eWalkableAreas);
cFeynman.FaceCharacter(cPlayer, eBlock);
cFeynman.SayAt(cFeynman.x, cFeynman.y -350, 400,"I have a doorbell ya know!");
cFeynman.SayAt(cFeynman.x, cFeynman.y -350, 400,"I'll be right down...");
cFeynman.Walk(2044, 688, eBlock, eWalkableAreas);

while (ypos7 <= 1035){
  SetViewport(xpos7, ypos7);
  Wait(1);
  xpos7 = xpos7-5;
  ypos7 = ypos7+5;
}

cFeynman.x=1174;
cFeynman.y=1790;

cFeynman.Walk(550, 1780, eBlock, eWalkableAreas);

cFeynman.SayAt(cFeynman.x, cFeynman.y -350, 400,"Okay...");
cFeynman.SayAt(cFeynman.x, cFeynman.y -350, 400,"What did you want now?");
}

But when he says "Okay..." it's off screen somewhere instead of over his head.  I can't see where it's ending up so I can't really tell what's going on exactly.

Would changing his position with "cFeynman.x=1174;" and "cFeynman.y=1790;" affect this or maybe the camera pan?  I'm kinda at a loss.

Also:  Is there any way that I can have the position of his text permanently set instead of using SayAt every time?  It's not a big deal, but it'd be nice to know. 

Project:
Covling - An adventure game!

Details:
I spose you'll want more than that.  It's part comedy (nothing zany or wacky though) part serious. 1024x768 resolution.  Logical puzzles for the most part.  Fantasy, but not traditional elves/goblins fantasy.  Link to announcement post: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47029.20

Positions Available:
UI/puzzle/game mechanics scripter/idea-bouncer-off-er.  Maybe we can become friends too.  I need some help scripting some UI things, and puzzles to free up time for me to focus on art.  Unpaid initially, but that could change if I end up in a position to sell the game (Which I hope to, but who knows).

Deadline:
No deadline at the moment, just kinda working through to getting a playable demo.

Comments:
Interested parties can reply to this thread or contact me via PM.  I can provide greater details about the plot and what-have-you through PMs if need be.

Edit:  I feel like I should add - I already have most of the UI done.  The inventory gui, verb coin, main menu, save/load menu's are all done.  And I can pop out some less advanced scripting as well as tweaking existing scripts to make them fit animations or what-have-you.

Yeah.  It didn't look hopeful before I asked the question, but I figured I'd give it a go.  My fake gui looks fine anyway.  No mouse hiccups or anything.  It was just a weird thing to have to do.

If I run into a similar problem later I'll give setbounds a go.

A complete shot in the dark, but have you tried setting the visibility property of the save gui to "Pause game when shown"?

I didn't even know that existed and must've looked it over.

I'll try that and if it doesn't work I'll give Murray's idea a go.

EDIT:  Nope.  None of that seemed to keep the mouse-over images from showing up.  I tried setting the main menu gui to unclickable outside of the savegui(or whatever) being open, as a test, and the buttons still lit up (though unclickable).

Doesn't seem to keep the mouse overlay images from triggering.  I was thinking that I could just put in something like...

Code: AGS

//in REA
if (gSave.Visible == true){
    btnNewGame.MouseOverGraphic = Normal graphic;
}

But that doesn't seem very clean either, since when you mouseover the buttons you get a slight hiccup as well.  Not that noticeable, but it's more noticeable when there are 2 GUI's up.

Since the save GUI is accessible from more than one location I can't really do anything simple like deactivate the main menu GUI and put a false one in its place without going through a check to see what GUI's are open and what not.  And I would still have he button mouseover lag as well, though maybe not as much.

So say I have my save GUI overlapping my main GUI, but when the save GUI is visible the buttons on my main GUI (Main Menu, Save, Load, Quit Game etc) still light up with the mouseover image.  I can't click the buttons or anything, but it's still distracting and pretty sloppy looking.  Is there an easy way to freeze gui's that aren't active, or a hard way even?  Or to freeze the rooms for that matter.

Edit (Solved):  I just ended up brute forcing it with a visibility swap.  I just made a gui with the background image being the main menu image with the buttons just drawn on.  When you open the save gui, the original main menu disappears and the fake main menu becomes visible to take it's place.  Best way I could come up with, and it works well enough for me to stop worrying about it.

Voted on Green Light.

NO THANKS.  I'm kidding, I hit 'Yes'.

Hopefully I'll have money for it.  Look great.

That's some mighty fine pixel art you got there.

yeah, I would be very surpised too, but wasn't there something about everything has to be open source or GPL or so under linux?

Just the operating system itself as far as I know.  There are a lot of games that aren't open source on Linux as is.

If I remember correctly they also said they noticed their games ran better when ported to Linux.  Apparently OpenGL is faster than D3D by far.  A similar speed increase occurred when they used OpenGL on Windows as well.

Next time I format this machine it's getting dual booted with Linux.

I completely forgot you could break apart strings.  This seems about perfect.  Thanks man!

Wasn't planning on asking a tech question so shortly after my last problem, but:

I have a custom save gui that is working quite well.  It has 4 save slots, and in each slot I'd like to put a save description, then the date, then the time onto labels like so:

Jims Save (save description)
10/31/2012 (label 1)
23:40 (label 2)

But I can't figure out how I'd get the labels that hold the date and time to stay after you quit the game/start a new game.  From what I've read the easiest way would be to use the save description as the date/time, but I'd like to have both.  Is there a way to store the information in-game, or to pop it out into the save file or another external file or some-such?  If all else fails I can always fall back on using the save description, but I'd rather not compromise.

Edit: Solved in next post.  Gracias.

I'm blown away -- you've started down the path of something wonderful here.  I get a real Rice Boy vibe from it.  I'll be sharing this post as an example of how alive and well the adventure game genre is.

Wow.  Thanks!

I'd never heard of Rice Boy.  Similarly with Samorost (though I loved Machinarium).  Beat the first Samorost last night and checking out Rice Boy now.  I really dig the art in it, and the crazy little creatures.

I really appreciate the kind words all.  Makes me warm and fuzzy inside.  Could be something medical though.

That last screenshot sold me.  Always wanted to punch a giant hole in a plant.

3d? Wow, what kind of shader are you using finalToon, Illustrate or did you make it?

Out of Maya it's just a ramp shader and a toonshape paint effect.  The rest is painted on the texture.


^Here's his walk cycle
edit:  Now you can see his walk cycle.  Messed up image path. :-p

Thanks all!  While it may look cartoony the story and characters aren't so kid-friendly.  It's not like southpark levels of vulgarity or anything, but like I said Cecil is an alcoholic and there's some language and what-not.  Mostly what-not.

If these are originally yours then I have to say they are so cool..........

Yep.  They're all mine.  Characters are 3D, and the background are sketches overlayed on photoshop paintings.