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You can find free TTF fons (most of them with special characters) at http://www.larabiefonts.com/

Moho (http://www.lostmarble.com) has a particle sistem ideally for things like that. I've seen some great samples of smoke.

Prime case of reasons why not to go down the 3d route:

http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,433

Yes, it LOOKS fantastic. Yes it resembles Monkey Island 3's artwork. Yes, it needs a 3d graphics card to run a 2d game.........

I've played the demo and its graphic quality is superb. The download is big (because it includes voices) but is worth in.  However, I think everybody agrees good 2D graphics are better than bad 3D ones.

Ok, thanks for your explanation. And thanks for the great effort to move AGS towards OO in order to make our scripting easier.

Sweet! AGS is becoming quite the powerful programming language...

That make me think if embedding javascript* would bring more or less problems than extending the AGS script with objects and pointers.


I'm not saying that's a better option nor trying anyone how things should be made. I just have curiousity if there are technical, license, or personal  reasons that makes the adoption of a general script language a worse option.

*I've put the example of javascript because it's very similar to the idea of OO that has been explained in this thread and has similar syntax to AGS script (as far as I know because I'm not a javascript expert).

Using default parameters would be a great improvement because:

-The syntax is easy (for defining and using them)

-The number of instructions is reuced (bye to all the __Ex functions) so the manual would be more searchable.

-The code is more readable (you only specify the things you want to make "in a different" way)

Scorpiorus, thanks for the reference.

I think goot misunderstood the problem, maybe I didn' explained it wery well.
The idea is to allow the character to cancel the movement to the hotspot and the assigned interaction isn't performed.
So the movement should be non-blocking(in order to be interrupted) but the interaction should only be performed if the movement has been completed.

I hope now things would be more clear.

When I click on something I want the character to move there and then perform an interaction, but if the player clicks anywere while the character is walking, both (the movement and the interaction) should be cancelled.

It's any simple form of doing this? O have I to control that by hand checking the last clicked element (to know that it's the current transacton), the .walking status (to know if the destiny has been reached) and the position of the character (to know if has arrived to the point), for every object/hotspot/character in the game?

It looks grate, but I think that with loominous 's modifications (and resizing it) it will be near perfect.

Openoffice.org will open word files AND convert to PDF. Free, open source, and almost as good as MS Office.

I use OpenOffice and I like it, but the pdf conversion lacks advanced features like links or bookmarks (it seems pdf995 can do that, I'll probably try it).

[Inkscape]

There are not many free vector graphc editors.
One of the most matures is Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/)

I've just found Creature House Expression (http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/). The samples at the page are amazing.It's a beta version, but it seems there are no limitations. (I hope it is not time-limited.)
It has lots of features letting use anything (other images, vector-based traces with transparencies...) to do your drawing lines and make a vector-based drawing look as if it was a scanned picture:

That background is great, I can't find anything to critisize. (Maybe the office door seems a bit wide).

I don't think that the wheels should be visible from the views position.

I think that's a consequence of the planometric perspective where front and top wiews mix together.

There are tons of 3d engines out there and they are not ment for 3d shooters. So stop.

I completelly agree. And even if an engine is focused in 3D shooters could be used for creating adventures. Just don't use the shooter features.

I think the problem is that a great number of engines require C/C++ and you need to go throu compiling, linking, dependencies, segmentation faults...

So for making a 3D adventure the most appropiate engines will be the ones that could be completelly accessed with a scripting language because programming complex puzzles could be done easilly.

For example the ones shbazjinkens said are scriptable using Python (I don't know if a full game could be done with Crystal Space using only scripting). If you prefer lua (the language used to program the scripts in GF) you can try Apocalyx engine (http://apocalyx.sourceforge.net/) .

I think the key (and the most difficult part) will be to create a very dynamic system.

Imagine the case referenced before. I need an object that someone has, then the game could create a puzzle where the other player needs some of my objects and we have to find each other and exchange them in order to solve the possible interblocking situations. (The difficult part is to make it fit into the history).
Also the disconnection of a player could be problematic.

People actually didn't want 32 bit graphics, a plugin system, or a Linux port?Ã, 

32 bit graphics didn't recapture the style and spirit of the old-school adventure games (which was your argument against 3D).

I think the only problem here is to determine if the great effort of introducing 3D capabilities will repercute in better games. As I also said before, I prefer more 2D features to be introduced first, but I think 3D characters could be a great feature if it's used correctly.

And, in last term the screen is a 2D surface and you always see the game on it so real-time 3D chars, pre-rendered ones or even scaled sprites are the same, emulations of the real behaviour of the perspective over 3D objects.

how would you make 3D characters? I don't think you can easily configure that.

What I was talking about was how the character shadow could interact realistically with the background.

In order to create a character you'll need a 3D modeler program that could export to the proper 3D format.

About the lightning, someone said that a 3D model of the room was needed, but as far as the camera doesn't moves in 3D, you can use a mask (256 levels of gray for example) to determine the z coordinate of each pixel of the backgroud. So you can do it easilly using the degradation tool of any paint program. This way tou can have moving lights with real-time shadow casting.

Maybe that was the idea when you were talking about a 3D model of the room, but I was trying to clarify that there is no need for a complete one (like a character would need)

One thing about The human element some of you have previously talked about:

Here in Spain if there were not barriers at the underground the people will get into the subway without buying the ticket for sure.

When I was in Prague there were no barriers at the underground but the people there bought the ticket because they were educated that way (They do it as a natural thing). The ticket inspectors only ask the tourists because they know local citiziens are acting correctly.

So I think all of this is a problem of education, if you are educated in an egoist (or capitalist) system It's hard to understand any other behaviour. And considering that capitalism is very powerful worldwide, is't very difficult for alternative sistems to survive.

Probably you won't understand how a massai could be happy without a car the same way he won't understand how are you happy without a cow.

Nobody will be forced to use 3D if that is implemented. You could continue using 2D and maybe use 3D in some details, making a mix to get something new.

Imagine a scene in the space, the characters and background are 2D but the spacecraft  is 3D and you can push it and make it rotate in order to find the entrance.

In 3D you can have an idle animation (the radar of the spaceship moving...) and combine it with the rotation if the character pushes, and continue with the idle animation in a new angle, once it's stopped by the character.

In 2D to make this you'll need a animation of the rotation and an animation of the idle animation for each rotation...

So I think the key is not to use the features just because they exist. I know 3D features could became the new lens-flare fever (and some of you are afraid of that), but it also could bring us a lot of possibilities to create innovative concepts and improve the adventure games.

I also understand that is not a HI priority task as I said before, but it could be interesting.

For an easy 3D format, you cold take a look at the .egg format. It's used by the panda3D engine http://www.etc.cmu.edu/panda3d/ (a engine released opensource by Disney). This format has exporters for max and maya. I'm not an expert in 3D but that maybe could be useful.