Messages

Hi Dan. Can you calm down a bit please? We don't want to put you in the naughty corner with all the other bored kids on their summer break.

Congratulations on the 1st class honours, sir. Having just graduated with the same distinction myself I know how much hard work you must have put in to achieve that and how chuffed you must be!

Just unstickied the regular stickies so folks can see this a little better.

See the sticky, add Don Henry to your PM ignore list, delete any offending PMs and just ignore it. Good advice to everyone!

Some loser is currently spamming the forums with obscene posts and has now moved on to private messaging everyone currently online, if you have recieved a PM from him delete it immediately (especially if you are at work) and do not indulge his ego. Thanks.

Hi Bovine, could you give me some hints as to what to do on the final sequence?

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I assume it's a talking puzzle, but every verb i try is a dead end!

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People looking for the professor:

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Try the alternate dimension

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As for myself I'm a little further on...

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I've seen the painting cutscene, opened the safe, and used the crowbar on the door to the exhibition room in the alternate hotel. Now not much seems to be happening and I've probably missed something!

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Adamski I'm stuck in the same place. Did you get past it? If so, how?

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I waited until i was in the alternate dining room, took a pill and walked into the exhibition room. Quite obvious when you think about

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The end sequence has me... stumped... if anyone has a clue they can throw out I'd be happy!

I believe zooty should

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Take one of the pills

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As for myself I'm a little further on...

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I've seen the painting cutscene, opened the safe, and used the crowbar on the door to the exhibition room in the alternate hotel. Now not much seems to be happening and I've probably missed something!

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Okay, I guess I was mis-reading your points and making unnecessary rebuttals. Unfortunatly the fact remains that you can't hide behind "I only have the most mimimal setup in the world" if you are deadly serious about what you're doing, because it doesn't take a lot these days to have a semi-professional setup. I think the NIN comparisons are not based on technical finesse either, more on the overall aesthetic of the music.

A simple example, is that when you're talking about orchestral music well, in the end I consider professional tracks the ones produced with an orchestra and not the ones produced with a sampler and 2-3 computers. Not that there can't be exceptions but the rule of thumb is that a sampler can't sound as good as a live orchestra. Same goes with rock-probably pop style. Especially when software has taken over where hardware was used (drums, amps, mics, comrpessions etc...). Dance music  is a different thing which can probably be produced in a bedroom, or some exceptional lounge tracks but still I stand to what  I said.

Just want to address this quickly. A sampler not sounding as good as a real orchestra is an entire other WORLD away from whether or not you can produce amazing sounding music in a non-studio environment (terrible example anyway as you don't record an orchestra in a studio, you do it in the correct acoustic space). Hardware processing does not = professional sound! It's how you USE the equipment you have, not WHAT you have.  The Futurehead's latest album was recorded in a Cowshed, Tom Waits' last album was recorded in an abandoned school house, OK Computer was recorded in a mansion - all completely far and away from the conventional studio space (there are a million other examples I could give but you're likely to have heard of these folks). There are no excuses anymore because even on a low budget you can record great sounding music anywhere.

Yes it was what I wanted to do in life. To be recognised as a musician before I die.

No worries, there's still lots of time left. The potential is there, but if you really really want to do this then you're going to find it's a lot of hard work full of disappointment and fustration. You can't have any false illusions that you are fantastic and everyone will want to buy your music, and you must also take honest criticism and say "so how do I improve?" instead of feeling glum about it.

Ah, would that be a lack of a mixing engineer/knowledge?

No excuses here, you want to sell albums you have to learn engineering skills. Start reading Sound on Sound's back catalogue (all online free) and learn how to use a compressor, how to equalise, how to record vocals, the correct use of reverb, pick up as much mixing, mastering and production theory as you can. Ditch Fruity Loops or Magix Music Maker or any Playstation mentality you have, save up pennies and buy yourself a Digital Audio Workstation (this can be any computer with a fast processor and plenty of ram and hard drive space) and load it up with Voxengo and Kjaerhus plugins. Get Sonar or Cubase and learn how to use them inside out. Get a nice firewire audio interface with balanced inputs you can plug your guitar and microphone in to, and if you haven't already got a nice condersor mic to record with then get one. Lots of great budget stuff out there, don't listen to Nikolas - you don't need £50,000 worth of gear to make great music. Pick up some better soft synths too, lots of free stuff out there  (start at kvraudio.com and work your way onwards).

The most important thing is to know that nothing will get handed to you on a silver plate, and at every moment you have to push the boundaries of your skills beyond what you think you're capable of. Instead of making excuses, knuckle down and work at things you know you are not good at. Just having raw talent means nothing these days because *everyone* has raw talent and a myspace account - if you want to get to the top of the pile you have to work at it.

It's not pleasent taking criticism over your own music, especially if you have complete conviction that the last batch of tunes you have just written are the greatest thing ever (something every musician feels), but all composers will take a lot of criticism in their lives - a lot of it can be completely shattering too - but the truly great and sucessful ones are those that have soaked up everything negative that has come their way and channeled it into improving their work. The comments you have recieved so far may seem terrible now, but it is mostly accurate  - I will pose a question for you now however and base any followup on the answer:

Are you completely serious about writing music, is it your life's passion and the only thing you want to do with your life, or is it just a hobby for a bit of fun?

Helm (and everybody else, not pointing at helm in particular, cause actually I'm really sure that helm knows): There was bound to be a huge difference between NIN and Matts music. Matts music (unless he spends another 50,000 GBP (just a number at almost random)), will always sound amateur. Home studios, the cheap ones, only take you this far... I mean no matter how you or companies try a software guitar amp emulator (NI, Waves etc...) won't sound the same as having 10 amps in the room and playing with the mics and everything else. The same goes with drums, no matter how cool or good is drums from Hell, having a good drum booth with a good enginer will sound better in the end (and at least 8 mics...)

You can produce professional sounding music in your bedroom, it's been going on for almost two decades now so this is really not an excuse

Joke accounts are rarely funny too!

is actually correct, AGS doesn't show the transparencies in the editor itself but it does at run time. Try test-running the game with the sprite on show and it should display as intended.

The mouse.SetPosition wierdness also seems to extend to mouse.SetBounds.

No.

My second question is, do I understand correctly that the "Run the next loop after this to create a long animation" does not apply to walking animations?

I can only assume so, due to the above reason. 30 frames for a walking animation is overkill though!

AGS never uses the first frame when playing walking animations, it loops back to frame 2. You must be doing something unusual if this isn't happening for you.

This thread is locked locked locked before it erupts. People who have raised personal issues, take it to PM.

With the original Sam & Max so deeply rooted in the nostalgia-happy part of my psyche, I can't look past the fact that the voices sound so wrong (and boringly acted). Sorry Telltale

Edit: Not that I don't feel terrible for writing the game off purely on the trailer, but it just doesn't seem to stimulate anything other than an 'oh' out of me. It feels like it's going to be a poor cliche of what they achived in the original game over a decade ago, and that makes me sad. I do hope to be proven wrong!