Messages

Pumaman:

A drawing surface is just a way that the script can access the various bitmaps that already exist in AGS. So potentially some sort of Overlay.GetDrawingSurface would allow you to get a drawing surface that is drawn on top of other things, it's something I'll look at for a future version.

I was just now working on a particle system module, when I realized that I would need some kind of Drawing Surface to draw the particles on. I could of course use 50+ objects in each room, but that will never happen.

An Overlay.GetDrawingSurface() would thus really be useful for this application. Please, if you could consider putting it into one of the next updates, I would jump high with joy!

I just added a new function to my global script, and an import of this function to the global header file. This resulted in all my rooms needing to be rebuilt, of course. During the course of the rebuilding, AGS crashed during the build of room 21. I could open the game again and tried to compile again (in retrospect that might have been a bad idea). Now the compile continued, skipping room 21 and continuing to room 33 before the same happened again. I restarted and compiled like this a couple of times until all the rooms had compiled (or been skipped). Now when I tried to edit room the rooms that were skipped I got the following exception:

Code: ags

Error: Load_room: old room format. Please upgrade the room.
Version: AGS 3.1.2.82


AGS.Types.AGSEditorException: Load_room: old room format. Please upgrade the room.
   at ThrowManagedException(SByte* message)
   at load_room_file(SByte* )
   at load_crm_file(UnloadedRoom roomToLoad)
   at AGS.Native.NativeMethods.LoadRoomFile(UnloadedRoom roomToLoad)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.LoadNewRoomIntoMemory(UnloadedRoom newRoom, CompileMessages errors)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.LoadDifferentRoom(UnloadedRoom newRoom)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.LoadRoom(String controlID)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.CommandClick(String controlID)
   at AGS.Editor.ProjectTree.ProcessClickOnNode(String nodeID, MouseButtons button)
   at AGS.Editor.ProjectTree.projectTree_NodeMouseDoubleClick(Object sender, TreeNodeMouseClickEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.OnNodeMouseDoubleClick(TreeNodeMouseClickEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Now, the rooms in question are not older than the others in the game so there is something fishy here.

First of all, why did the editor crash during the compilation? I have not changed the header file in a long time, during which I have updated the AGS version several times.

Secondly, why did this cause an "Old room format" exception? The rooms that are corrupt are rather old and were all created with old AGS versions (v2.6-2.7), but they are only 4 rooms out of at least 20 rooms which are equally old.

I would really appreciate if you could look into this, CJ! And I sure hope there is a simple way to restore the game into a working state again (I have backup of all the rooms that are not working).

Thanks!

PS. I am using AGS 3.1.2.82.

I agree!

Keep 8-bit sound volume.

Oops. Feel a bit stupid but I have found the problem. I usually fade out before playing the flic cut scenes. In 2.7 this didn't matter for the flic, but in v3 it doesn't show up! Doing the following fixed it:

Code: ags

FadeOut(10); //fade out before play
FadeIn(64); // <--- Added instantaneous fade in
PlayFlic(1,1);

[CJ: Do you have an idea to what it could be?]

I've been using FLC files for cut-scene movies, since they keep file size small and does not introduce artifacts such as those introduced by for example Xvid.

However, ever since I switched to AGS v3, my FLC movies don't show up on screen. There is only a black screen for the entire video duration and then the game returns as if the movie had played. It appears to me that the FLC support might have broken in the transition from 2.72 to 3.0. I haven't seen anyone else complaining about this, though.

Some details: It doesn't matter whether I use full screen or not, or DirectDraw or Direct3D. It makes no difference if the video files are located in the Compiled folder or in the main game folder. The same video files worked fine before the upgrade to v3, the only thing that changed was the AGS version.

Does anyone else have this problem? CJ: Do you have an idea to what it could be?

I am very impressed by this development!

The difficulty of lip-synching is one reason I have never tried to do voice-acting in my games. Now suddenly it all seem much more appealing! The idea to put the application as a plugin is just plain marvelous! Good work!

You might sound strange, but writing a 3d physics engine is TONS more complex than writing it in 2d! I know because me and friend of mine are doing it. Just the math becomes super complex as soon as you go over into 3d. For example, a rotation around x, y and then the z-axis is not the same as y, x and then z.

My point is that it is easy to write a 2d physics engine which doesn't require the whole processor capacity to run, which is all what you would need for a 2d adventure game. So don't bother about using a full-scale 3d physics engine. Just a waste of processing power.

I love the new zoom function!

I think I found a bug though:

I imported my game from 3.0.0 and now all of my rooms have a black border in the editor. It is like the background is smaller than the room size. See this image:



When I try to reimport the background image I get the question if I really want to import this background since it is of another size than what is already there and all my hotspots and so on will disappear. My guess is that this is a bug related to the zoom function. When I zoom the amount of black frame changes and it even vanishes at the highest zoom level. Could it be that the size of the room somehow becomes different from the background because of the zoom?  There is no problem when I run the game, it is just that I cannot import a new background over the old ones. Which I need to do since I want to change almost every background in my game (my new lcd revealed that the colors are too bright).
The background size is normally 640 x 480, but the same black border appears also when the size of the background is larger.

Here are some things that is really bugging me with the new editor (other than that it works great!):

* "Assign to view..." doesn't remember previous view used. This means that if you for example want to add a couple of sprites to the down, left, right and up loop of some view (other than 1) you have to reenter the number between each assignment. And if you forget you might end up overwriting some of the loops of view 1. Very irritating and should be an easy fix!

* When doing tiled import and selecting the area for import (right mousebutton) the selection
  can go outside of the image. This makes the whole procedure more time consuming.
* Moreover, the import area is not remembered as it was in 2.72, so you have to define the area for each animation you import even if it quite often can be the same.

* Suggestion for further improving tiled import: Being able to specify size of import area (x times y pixels) for tiled import. This would remove the need of precision work with the mouse, which often ends up in the wrong import area because you accidentally release the mouse button prematurely.

These are things I've come across many times in the few days I've been working in AGS 3.0, and they really become a pain after a while. None of the things should be very time consuming to implement, but would really improve the smoothness of my work flow.

Thanks for the great work, CJ!

batch convert from tga to png? Should be possible I guess. I think I've got a handy software for a thing like that lying around somewhere... Anyway, thanks for the great job in putting together ags 3, CJ!

Downloaded version 3.0 and like the new editor a lot. One problem I found out though:

What happened to the tga support? I only use tga-files for graphics, since I've got the alpha-blending to work with both photoshop and ags for those files only. But now it seems I can no longer import tga-files into AGS!? Why the hell not, I must ask?

Long time since last update, I know.

Just want to let people know the project is still ongoing! Currently I am working hard on the last part of the game, which involves a lot of complicated scripting and animations. It is fun, but takes time to get right. The next two weeks my girl is going on vacation, meaning that I'll be a bachelor during this time and have lots of time at night to work on Woodlands! Hopefully I can get lots of things done during these weeks. Of course I still have my full time job to take care of. But the evenings are free! Looking forward to it!

I will write again soon and give you a fuller update of what I am doing and what's left to do!

Really love the idea and the graphics! And since I am a nanotech PhD student, I of course have to give you my special thumbs up for making a game about nano. Keep it going!

From the screens this game seems very childish. Apart from the KKK hero and the racism, the "sperm bank" just oozes teenage (read < 13 years) humor. It is highly unlikely that someone like that could manage to joke about a serious subject like the KKK in a manner that won't just upset a lot of people. My advise to you, "police brutality", is to either go about this with great care and insight, or if you can't do that then instead make a game about a teddy bear and his lost lollipop.

I'll try to keep the promise.

You don't have to worry, though. I will work on the game until it is finished. It may take a while, but finished it will be. I prefer it to be high-quality throughout than feel like I rushed to release it. I am using most of my free hours for it, so it IS progressing...

See ya

Wow! I am still alive!! 

It was ages ago that I updated the progress of Woodlands. Don't think I haven't been working on it, though. I have finished off day 3, bug tested the first 3 days, and added stuff that wasn't in there; like interactions, music, sound effects, extra animations, dialogs... I still have to finish the cut-sequence between day 2 and 3, otherwise the first three days are done. Now I am painting the backgrounds for day 4. I have them all (7) sketched on paper, and three are coloured and finished. They are very nice looking, I must say. I would show them, but I promised I wouldn't show any more screens. Don't want to spoil the ending for you!

Just wanted to let you know I am still on the project!

Story: 100 %
Graphics: 85 %
   1. Backgrounds: 4 left
   2. Cut-scenes: 1½ left
Sound and Music: 75 %
Animation: 90 %

We're getting there...

Hi.

I've been doing some digital art the last week, and this is the result. It will be a gift for my cousin. (We have a joke about having cheese in your pocket (meaning being rich) and also climbing the mountain of cheese (meaning becoming increasingly rich). Well anyway, I decided to draw him the mountain of cheese for his birthday. Here it is.

x0.25


It is too big to put full size in the forums, so instead I'll give you a link to the full HI-RES picture.
http://www.fovmester.se/images/ostberget.png

What do you think?

4. Create a ball with gravity and bouncing:
I actually coded exactly that for my next game. I must admit it was quite possibly the hardest (most mathematical) code I've ever written. But yes, it definitely can be done.
However be prepared to use a lot of workarounds or 'pseudo-physique' as - after all - AGS is not a physics-engine

This should not be very hard.

Do something like this:

struct Ball {
      float vx,
      float vy,
      Object* o
};

Then create an object and point the o pointer to that. Then in repeatedly_execute:

//gravity
Ball::vy = Ball::vy + 9.82*1/40; // every frame is 1/40 s long.

//update position
Ball:: o.x = Ball:: o.x + vx;
Ball:: o.y = Ball:: o.y + vy;

Of course you then need to change the sign of the velocities when the ball bounces against something.

If it is an illusion then it is a nice one.

And the game will be yours in due time.

I am done with day 1-3 now, and will be starting on day 4 (which is mostly the end scene) this week. The game is right now about 50 rooms big, and I have 96 views of animation. So I have come a long way now. (~85-90 % I would say). Then of course there is the bug testing 

I really like the story! Has always been a sucker for apocalyptic sci-fi!

Really nice thing to be able to play four different characters. A great idea which should add a lot to the gameplay if it is well done.

Good luck!