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Oh man...I had that problem with Prodigal...I can't remember how to fix it though...it is kinda fussy...are your actual background screens 640x480 images? loading 640x400 images into the game can befuddle its mind if you have it set to 640x480...

I'm sure someone here must know...?

I'm gonna hafta start Prodigal 2 over again on AGS three...so I feel your pain there...

Ben

Very nice! Thanks so much for the help on this!

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean...so you could have the engine supersample the movement so the character would seem to move smoothly about, a lah Longest Journey as opposed to "jumping" the sprite from one pixel to the next. (Yeah, they are 3D in Longest Journey it's just an example.)

One other question, then...is a 640x400 game still limited to 320x200 for the actual movement calculations? 800x600 limited to 400x300? And how about the new 1024 resolution?

Again, thank you so MUCH for taking the time to answer...my animator is right at the point of finalizing this stuff, so I need to know ASAP. You are saving me alot of time and giving alot of help!

Ben

Walk speeds are still not capable of sub pixel movement?

Woohoo! Thanks a million! That is great to hear! I was begging Thep Umaman to fix that! He's my hero! Thanks for the heads up!

Hey all...I've been, for over a year, trying to get a 3D animator for rendering monsters in Prodigal 2...in that time I've been totally inactive in AGS, so coming back to it looks like QUITE a bit has changed since I did Prodigal. Version 3 of AGS is out!!! o_O

I looked around a bit for this, but I haven't found much...so can someone please tell me quick if animation loops are still limited to 19 frames? I'm about to have the 3D animator start making walk frames, and if this limit is fixed, I sure as HECK don't want to limit him to only 19 frames.

Again, I did look through some version histories and such but I didn't see anything...can someone please just tell me quick if the artificial limit has been removed?

Thanks a million in advance,
Ben

Yeah, luckily I hadn't paid all at once, I paid him %25, and probably got about that much of what he was supposed to make out of him, so I didn't loose my shirt on it. It's a bigger pain because he was really really good and replacing him might be hard. Mari has already offered to take a look at what I need, so that's good.

Dave Gilbert - yeah, I've had it happen often enough before that I recognized all the warning signs pretty quickly, put the screws in, got the "I have a life" speech out of him and sent him on his way. That at least helps keep it from dragging on for months while you agonize over it. I was able to move on quickly and, I hope, get somebody else...Also, yeah I agree with looking other places too. I have a friend who works for Lucasarts, and he was able to point me to some good websites for 3D artists where he used to hang out. He said they are all good spots to find artists willing to work...

Nikolas - I'm definitely going to go for "X amount of dollars per finished model" as the way to pay from now on. Payment over time or %payment just gets too complicated to figure out if someone does leave.

Vertigoaddict - I really don't mind if someone leaves because they are legitimately too busy...with this guy that quit on me though...he didn't even have a JOB. He was a single guy that just sat around on his butt all day and played Mythos. For him to claim he was too busy was a complete and utter joke...but even that wouldn't have mattered so much if he hadn't been so danged GOOD at it. I had hoped to get more out of him.

Thanks everyone else for your words. It's nice to know I'm not alone in running into this. Makes it easier to bare if I know I'm not alone and somebody else was able to work through it, so I can TOO!

Ben

Yeah, I agree with you totally Auriond, the need to share your vision for the project is vital...but that can be hard to do when the guy helping is in another state or even country! The crisis that causes the leaving is just hard to accept when the person is uncommonly talented and you HATE like everything to loose them.

Even though I'm paying, it probably isn't what the modeling is worth as I'm paying out of my own pocket, so ultimately it does boil down to the person having to have a passion for doing it...and that is harrrrd to instill.

And James, I hear you on that. I do as much of the game myself as I POSSIBLY can for that reason. But I just don't want to take the months and months required to learn how to render and animate 3D models. Even with my background in rendering 3D geometry...organic things like creatures are a completely different art form.

Thanks for the heads up, Radiant. Folks, I would seriously suggest the use of the Better Business Bureau whenever you are going to purchase something online.

Personally, whenever I am going to buy anything online from a questionable website, I check bbb.com and if they aren't listed, I FORGET IT. If a company isn't registered, it doesn't instantly mean it is a fraud, but to me it puts up alot of warning bells. It just isn't worth the risk.

For our UK friends: is there a UK equivalent of the Better Business Bureau?

I'm sure that any veteran AGS developer has felt what I'm feeling right now...is it even possible to get good help on a game project? It always starts the same way:

1) You find someone who is really talented in the art of what you need. They are interested in your project and agree to help you.

2) You share with them sensitive game materials including story elements and art materials. You give them the work you need done.

3) Over several weeks they produce some tantalizing bits of great stuff. You are excited, they seem to be having fun.

4) Something happens. They either get really sick, or move, or some such thing which interrupts their work. This is bad because they get out of the groove of the game for a while.

5) The crisis which interrupted them passes, but for some reason you now notice that they aren't producing much, if anything for your game. You begin to worry, but hope that their explanations of, "I'm really busy with this and that" are true and they will return to your game soon. In reality, they are out of the groove and are sick of working on your project.

6) Days stretch into weeks and you begin to apply pressure because you are stalled waiting on materials you need from them. They get defensive, sighting "hectic life right now" or "just unbelievably busy at the moment" and you get a sinking feeling in your stomach. You now know deep down that you aren't going to get any more from this person, and all the time and energy you spent on them is going to come up for naught. Even worse, you've shared game specific story elements/art/code with them, and now have the extra worry that they may share it with others for "revenge" when you inevitably have to kick them off the team.


It is a cycle I've repeated many times in both Prodigal, and now Prodigal 2. I know I'm not alone, as Himalaya talked about the difficulty of finding a good, dedicated 3D modeler for Al Emmo. (I'm lacking a 3D modeler as well.)

In Prodigal it was no big deal for me. I realized I wasn't paying anybody anything, and it can be hard to share someone else's vision and enthusiasm for a project that is not your own. I figured "easy come, easy go."

It is harder for me in Prodigal 2 because I am actually PAYING for these services and still have had no luck with the people I hire. I find it comical at the same time that I find it frustrating and demoralizing. It's ALWAYS been the same M.O. for me exactly as described above. You get to feeling like, "what kind of idiot do these people take me for, anyway?"

So, now I'm back to trolling 3D modeling websites to try and find someone interested in helping on an indie project...I wonder if indie film makers have to deal with this as well?

Anybody out there had similar experiences? I could use some commiseration right now, as I'm feeling pretty demoralized. 

I'm in need of processing help for the animation in Prodigal 2. To this end, you will need a basic working knowledge of Photoshop. MUST BE PHOTOSHOP! I don't have time to try and figure out how to do my process in any other programs. You'll need to know how to:

-Run actions
-Do simple line tracing/reinforcement with a mouse/tablet
-Have a basic knowledge of working with layers/alpha channels
-Follow directions

You will be taking frames of video of actors shot in front of a green screen and converting it into cartoons. There is no upper limit to how much you can help. You'll get your name in the credits if you do 10 frames or 100.

If you are interested, email me at real_trisk(at)yahoo(dot)com

I've run into the 19 frame limit for walk animations in an individual loop. Prodigal 2 is going to have live actors for its characters, and they have been filmed at the standard 24 frames per second. When I went to load the first animation into AGS, I ran out of frames about half way through the animation...MAJOR bummer!     

I can, of course, drop HALF the frames and make the cycle 12 frames per second, but this kills a TON of the smoothness on the loop, which I really, really don't want to do!

So...sound off- is there anybody else out there who would like to see CJ increase the archaic and outdated 20 frame loop limit in AGS? Please post a reply here!

Thanks a million,
Ben

As previously stated, the sprite itself grows in subsequent frames, so I can only do a very small amount of "adjust speed with scaling." about 35-75% is the outer limit of what I can do. Even at that it starts a bit too small and ends a bit too big.

It's not a cutscene, it's supposed to happen as you play. General traffic is supposed to come along all three lanes of the road randomly as you move about the room...I'm just trying to get one car working for now and then do more after that...

That said I could probably still do it manually, but it would be very annoyingly time consuming. 

...I was hopin' one of you programming gods would have a magical formula to apply to situations like this.

Ben

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. I did not know about the negative speeds thing, which may definitely help me to get it working.

The problem with that, is that the speed is still linear, so the car appears to be moving slower the closer it gets on the street.

Adding to this is that the footage (animation frames) of the car I've already shot grow larger 'cause I wasn't thinking about using this as a character and adjusting the speed with scaling. I suppose I could re-shoot it with the car's size staying a constant, but then I am still limited in number of frames that the car animation can contain to one loop, as I want the car to perspective correct as it nears. The problem with THAT is that then I am limited to a very JERKY movement as I must have the car move a large amount of pixels per frame to keep it from looping back to the first frames...unless there is still a way to have a character move independently of its animation cycle, a la Quest for Glory 4 1/2 (hopefully you know what I mean by that,) I just don't see how this can work...

Sorry if I'm not making sense. I'm not very good at explaining the problem, but hopefully you begin to see why I'm banging my head. 

Thanks a ton for your help,
Ben

OK, I've been banging my head against the wall with this, maybe someone else with madder skills can help me. I need to move a car along the middle lane of this street:



Now, because of perspective, it obviously needs to move faster the closer it gets...

I have the animation for the car so it perspective corrects and looks cool, but just moving it as an object, you can't move it any slower than 1 pixel per game cycle, which translates into the car SHOOTING 48 pixels a second down the road. It looks really stupid to say the least...

So, I need to figure out a way to get the car to move realistically, slower in the distance and faster as it closes.

is there a way to make a function that would do this? Ideally, I want to have multiple cars running down this street, all three lanes, so having a function that I could call would be the best way to do it, but it is kinda beyond me at this point...

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

I notice Neole's thing doesn't work anymore...you should remove it from this guide...

Ben

Yes, you can usually do small chunks animating like TLJ, but you can't do things like camera pans with that. There is also a point of animation where there is so much moving on the screen you might as well animate the whole screen as try to animate chunks of it. Ulisigi Ela was like that in Prodigal. You had everything but the sky flickering with light...there will be areas like that in Prodigal 2 as well.

Reguardless, this is getting far off topic. What this thread is supposed to be about is for people to weigh in whether they would like CJ to up the background frame limit. 

Reeelax 'em! Reeelax 'em!  And btw, I watched MST3K episode 903: Puma Man last weekend and laughed my head off! Great episode! Awful movie!

Garage - verrry carefully. I actually only have my theories right now, and haven't been able to test them 'cause of the background thing. I will basically have to move the character(s) based on math, and tweak the math to get it right so that they move along with the background. I have a little room for fudging it as the character will be walking, which will hide a bit of jitter if I don't get it bang on.

I'll know how it works soon...I'm about to set it up and try it.  Should be a cool effect if it works.

Yes, there are certainly workarounds...with an engine as powerful as AGS, there always is...That said, GarageGothic, yours looks alot more elegant than mine. I shall probably integrate something like what you've put here.

As for fullscreen objects slowing things down, they don't. I've tested 640x480 at 24fps (film industry standard) and they run just beeeotiful. Only trouble, as noted, size.

Monkey, I like my aisles to be isles!  But no, you are misunderstanding me. I mean, for instance, changing the camera location from facing north showing the whole area, to the camera facing south showing the whole area. This means frames of animation as the camera moves and rotates...not just sliding an oversized background...all slidey. :b

I just mean the easiest solution to all this would be to up the background frame limit, as a 5 frame limit seems kinda arbitrary and low anyway...