Messages

I understand why some people say that AGS should maintain its focus, and that if you want 3D, go to a different engine like DarkBasic.Ã,  However, there is a very good reason for some of us to wish and hope that AGS adds 3D character ability rather than forcing us to go somewhere else, and that is that AGS has unsurpassed facilities specifically built for writing adventure games.Ã,  Something as broad as DarkBasic simply will not be as easy as AGS for this type of game.

Some may argue that the purpose of AGS is to make old-style adventure games.Ã,  But today, even games like The Longest Journey (my all time favorite) is quickly becoming an old game, and has 3D characters atop pre-rendered graphics.Ã,  Adding new technologies will allow AGS to attract the younger generation that doesn't know what a Sierra or Lucas adventure game is, and longs for the olden games of crisp pre-rendered graphics and 3D real-time characters.

I congratulate CJ for adding modern features like high resolutions, true color support, and transparency effects.Ã,  Ultimately, having all the modern features to make the best adventure games possible will bring much more attention to AGS, something that will benefit the entire AGS community--including those that choose not to use the latest features.

I wait with fingers crossed for 3D character support.Ã,  I don't want to have to go to a different engine that is less efficient at making this type of game.

Atlas

The biggest stumbling block I found was trying to get a 3D program to export a file format that AGS could read in easily. Not managing to find one was what put pay to my experiment. Even 3dsmax's "ASCII export format" was hideously complicated and seemed to be missing bits.

Have you tried the forums at gamedev.net?Ã,  People there are bound to know the best 3D format for your needs.

Could someone tell me how to keep the kitchen door open to get Rufus in there?Ã,  Thanks!

Great game by the way!Ã,  The humor and writing is all very nicely done!

EDIT:Ã,  Never mind.Ã,  I found the walkthrough posted in the Hints and Tips forum.Ã,  Thanks anyway!

I just finished the game and it was really great.Ã,  I was a little suprised at the end though when it suddenly quit and left me in Windows--it left me wondering if it had crashed.Ã,  Maybe it should put you back to the main menu instead after you beat it.

Atlas

Hey Pumaman,

Turns out that issue where AGS won't open a font in the Windows fonts folder can probably be solved fairly easily:

I was writing a program the other day that used the standard Windows File Open dialog.  I noticed a field that can be set to true called "DereferenceLinks".  If you set this, than rather than returning links for files in special Windows folders, it will dereference the links and return the actual file name that the link represents.  I was coding in C# at the time, but probably something similar is available for the MFC or whatever you're using.

Just wanted to give you a heads up about that in case it's useful for you.

Atlas

Genetica, a node-based seamless texture editor: http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/genetica.htm

Chris,

Thank you very much for considering my suggestions.

I admit that I have not yet tested how well the AGS compression algorithm works, so I will definitely take your word in the meantime when you say it does a good job.

I did want to suggest though, that in my experience the opposite is true for high quality images: lossless compressions such as winzip don't do much good, while JPEG does a great job.  Lossless works well on retro-style graphics with many block areas of color.  But we're creating fully-textured scenes in 3D.  Since fully-textured models are by their nature full of random noise from end to end, lossless often doesn't do any good, while JPEG thrives in this arena.

To give you an idea of the kinds of noise-filled visuals we're creating, I've attached to the bottom of this message a work-in-progress model I was working on today.

Thanks again for considering my suggestions!  I have been very impressed with AGS overall.

Atlas

Thanks, guys, for teaching me something new.  I was indeed going to the Windows font folder.

Next time I report a bug it will be a real bug, I promise!  

Atlas

About my JPEG suggestions:  I am a graphics programmer, so I already took these issues into account in my original post.  Please note that I did not suggest that sprites should be JPEGed.  My only suggestion was the we have the option to JPEG *background* images.  Also note that I did not say that this would improve RAM efficiency.  Of course the same uncompressed format is used internally to matter where the image came from.  However, what I did point out is that for large high-res true color background images, this would be a great help for reducing finished game file size, and therefore download times.  Since I'm sure the Allegro library has a JPEG decoder already written, I see it as an easy thing to give users the option to keep their large backgrounds saved as JPEGs if that's what they want to make them as.

As far as my automatically shading around the true type fonts suggestions: We needed a similar thing in a graphics app we were working on several months ago.  I came up with a solution that was extremely easy and quick to implement.  You just take the same font, make it black, and print the text 2 pixels above the final location, 2 pixels below the final location, 2 pixels to the right of the final location, and 2 pixels to the left of the final location.  Then you set the font color back again and print the text at the final location.  That's it!  If you want a thinner border, then use a radius of 1 pixel instead of 2.

Atlas

I'm using Windows XP Home.  Perhaps the bug is specific to my operating system?

Hello again,

We're considering using AGS to make an 800 x 600 resolution adventure game.  I thought of 2 new features that would help a lot:

Suggestion 1:

At 800 x 600, the default fonts look pretty blocky next to the high-res graphics, so one of the first things I did was to import a true type font instead.  The problem is, if I import a true type font, then I have no outline font to stick behind it so that conversation text shows up over the background.  I think it would be wonderful if a future version of AGS got an option to automatically shade around any true type font imported in this situation, to save the trouble of having to create a shadow font from scratch.

Suggestion 2:

I would love to see AGS support JPEG image imports for room backgrounds.  Even a little big of JPEG compression can significantly reduce the hard disk (and download) requirements of a game that is full of 800 x 600 16-bit images!

Thanks for listening to my suggestions!  If this wasn't the best place to post this, please let me know.

Atlas

BUG 1:
Did you set up the yellow lines in the room editor correctly?

No, I didn't touch them.  Sorry guys, this was a case of a newbie not knowing what he was doing.

BUG 2:
I don't know if this is a bug!

In all other programs, clicking a file, and then clicking the open button, will open the file.  On my computer doing this does nothing--it just sits there.  Double-clicking does something, but not what I wanted (it launches the font viewer instead).  This definitely seems like a bug to me!


Thanks for clarifying that first one for me.  I'll go play with the yellow lines.

Atlas

Hello,

I just started using AGS and overall have been very impressed.  I have found 2 bugs though:

Bug 1:

- I created a new game and told it to use 800 x 600 resolution.
- I made a new room, and imported a 1024 x 768 image, so that the screen would scroll.
- In the Interaction Editor, I told it to move player to another room upon the "Walk off right screen edge" event.

On testing the game, I found that AGS did a poor job of detecting the walk off right screen edge event.  If the player is towards the middle of the screen in terms of the y-axis, AGS will fire the event at x-coordinate 800, without letting you walk all the way to the right of the screen.  If you are at the very top or the lower portion of the screen, then you can walk all the way to x-coordinate 1024, but AGS won't fire the event at all.

In other words, AGS' calculation of when to fire the walk off right screen edge works as if this were an 800 x 600 room, ignoring the fact that it is actually a 1024 x 768 scrolling room.  (I tried some of the other screen edges as well with this configuration, and discovered they were buggy as well.)

Bug 2:

In the Font tab, if I click "Import Font...", and then navigate to where my fonts are stored, I cannot click a font name and then click open.  Double-clicking a font name doesn't work either--instead of opening the font, it launches Windows XP's font viewer instead.  After 10 minutes of struggling to open a font, I finally discovered that if I manually typed in the font path and name in the filename field, and then clicked open, it would work.

In case it makes a difference, I'm running Windows XP Home.

Once again, great product!  

Atlas