Topics

Hello,

I just moved to London to study, and I don't know the place very well. Me and Nelly are going to be flat / shared house hunting soon and we wanted advice on where we should be looking. Then I though, who better to ask than the lovely chaps and chappettes on the AGS forums.

If you know London, I'd be grateful for a little advice on where might be affordable, and reasonable pleasant (i.e. places where we won't be stabbed).

Metropolitanly yours, Ali

Hi guys,

I was amused by these oddly mismatched adverts which appeared when I logged into googlemail:



I rather think if I followed up the first, I wouldn't need the second. I'm also disturbed that including the word 'spirit' in an email lead googlemail to think I'm into faith healing.

This being only faintly amusing, has anyone else spotted any odd adverts or misguided marketing?

Shifter's Box crashed after the splash screens when I ran it in DX5 mode. I changed it to DX9 and it plays perfectly, but I thought I'd better post the error message and crash dump. If a non-agser had experienced the same problem they might not have known how to get such a lovely game working.

---------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------
An exception 0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x0052F6FF ; program pointer is +77, ACI version 3.11.1057, gtags (0,19)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and post the details on the AGS Technical Forum.



Most versions of Windows allow you to press Ctrl+C now to copy this entire message to the clipboard for easy reporting.

An error file CrashInfo.dmp has been created. You may be asked to upload this file when reporting this problem on the AGS Forums. (code 0)
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

Crash Dump file here

Hi chaps,

Has anyone succeeded in running Discworld Noir on XP? My version crashes after the opening spash screen. Searching seems to suggest that there are patches available, but most of the links seem to have been removed, and the ones I found weren't in english and were on a suspicious looking site.

I'd appreciate any advice,

Ali.

[this tech demo]

Cobbling together this tech demo for Nelly Cootlot II has identified some points which could improve the way AGS caters to hi-res games. I would be grateful if you would let me know your thoughts on the following suggestions. I know some have been suggested and rejected before, but in the light of higher resolution games I think they are relevant.

Automatically re-importing sprites from files
In the tech demo above Nelly has around 400 frames for walking and multiple talking views. They don't take very long to render, but painstakingly replacing the sprites in the editor is extremely time consuming. Escecially since I've done it four or five times now trying out different styles (and she's going to have several outfits!) It would be a terrific boon to be able to select sprites or sprite folders and simply click re-import. Since AGS now logs the file path, perhaps this would not be such a challenge to implement?

Adjusting the walking direction based upon horizon
The walking algorythm seems to choose which direction a character is facing as if they were viewed from the top down. For games like Ben Jordan with high horizons, this looks fine. Nelly Cootalot, and the tech demo for Nelly II have very low horizons, and so the character often appears to be facing left when she should be facing up-left.

From my point of view the solution would be to have a vertical slider for each room to indicate camera angle. The top could represent a 100% (top-down) and the bottom 10% (almost side-scroller). Before the engine chooses the view to display, the angle could be scaled based upon the percentage set on the slider.

16 walking views
High-res games are far more likely to have sprites rendered using 3D or 2D animation software, rather than drawn pixel-by-pixel or by tablet. I think the argument that no one will ever draw 16 different walking views will become less and less relevant. 8 walking directions looks much clunkier with larger and more detailed characters than it does in low-res. I think some people would use 16 directions if they were available.

Um... 1024x786
Would DX9 make it a realistic possibility?
EDIT: Well I'd heard rumours... Hurrah!

I make these requests like an ungrateful child, because the marvelous addition of AGS 3.0 and DX9 has made AGS far more capable of producing beautiful hi-res visuals, but these niggling points are something of a hindrance. Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,

- Ali

Hello folks,

After finishing Nelly Cootalot I decided to make a game that really that was thoroughly original and would really stretch our understanding of art and the adventure game format.

But, instead of doing that, I've started working on this:

Download Nelly Cootalot II Tech Demo (45mb)

Features:
No puzzles
800x600 resolution
Parallax and Vignette effects
Custom Dialogue / Speech GUIs
Patchy voice "acting" recorded with a �1 microphone.

I'd like your opinions on this tech demo for a sequel to Nelly Cootalot. Particularly I'd like to know your thoughts on:

The visual style and interface,
The voices (listening to them makes me cringe, how about you?),
How you feel it compares to the look of the first game,
And whether the game runs successfully on your computer.

Of course any other comments are welcome. I'm very aware that the download size is three times as large as the completed original game, and this is just one room!. It's a consequence of multiple talking animations, which you'll see if you play. I'd like to know if you think the extra work and filesize is worth it. If you're on a slower connexion, I'd still appreciate your thoughts on the image above.

I hope you are pleased to see this project beginning, but remember that (apart from a few other completed characters) this represents the entirety of Nelly II so far. It will be a long while before a proper demo appears in the Games in Progress Thread.

Thanks,

Ali.

I've been having trouble using .ogg files as speech. Occasionally a file simply will not play, but if I change its number, it will.

Things got stranger when I had a footstep sound effect called 9001. When the walking animation happened, the music stopped and I cot an message in the warning log that "music 8001" couldn't be found. Replacing the files with .Wavs solved the problem.

I'm using version 3.0.2 and the .ogg files were created in Audacity.

Hello gentlefolk of the AGS woodland,

It's my birthday at the end of the month, and I thought I would finally buy myself a Wacom (or any other brand). I've never owned one before, and I'm sick of drawing with a mouse! I would like your advice regarding what would best suit my needs and price range. I'd particularly like to know if I can trust second hand/ebay, and how cheaply I can get one in the UK.

My priorities would be:

1) In the £50-£150 area (could go a little higher, but will feel guilty).

2) Sufficient range of resolution / sensitivity for drawing/illustration.

3) Reliable and hardwearing (because I don't want to have to buy another for ages).

I'd be very grateful if those of you who use a tablet could offer your thoughts,

-Alasdair.

Hi,

I've run into a couple of problems with fade ins and fade outs which I couldn't find when searching. I'm not using the beta, because I'm still getting to grips with the 3.0 release. These problems have become apparent while working on creating a parallax effect.

GetViewportY seems to return 0 until the screen has faded in. This means that my parallax objects appear in the wrong places momentarily and then snap into position after the fade in. I don't know if calling GetViewportY in a BeforeFadeIn script was possible in earlier versions.

I have a Player Leaves Room Event in a module, and using DX9 the script executes before the fadeout. This means that the player character vanishes and my parallax objects reset their positions. Using DX5 the screen fades out normally and the changes happen invisibly.

I hope those problems are genuine, and that I haven't just overlooked something.

[EDIT:]

I've just uploaded three low-budget shorts I directed to YouTube. I know there are some film enthusiasts around, so I hoped you might be interested:

Flapwing & The Last Work of Ezekiel Crumb (10 mins 2005)

An expressionistic science fiction about mushrooms and inspiration.
www.flapwing.co.uk

The Cardiac Oak or a Death in the Darkling Wood (3 mins 30s 2006)

An experimental short about a clockwork tree.
www.cardiac-oak.co.uk

And in a different vein:
Swashbuckle Your Seatbelts (5 mins 2006)

A musical puppet pirate adventure, made in two days, which I've posted here before.

If you find the films interesting, please pass the links on to your friends. If you find them boring and rubbish, pass the links on to your enemies. If you have any feedback or criticism I would love to hear your thoughts.

-Ali.

EDIT: There should now be audio on the films.

[Rellax]

For a more up-to-date module, consider downloading Rellax:

The Smooth Scrolling & Parallax module is available here:

Version 1.7.1

Download: Smooth Scrolling & Parallax Module

(Please reply or PM me if you can host a mirror)

Module History:

v1.7.1 Fixed bug that disabled parallax when smooth scrolling
       was off.

v1.7 - Added targetCharacter pointer to make camera animation possible without switching player characters. Enabled Smooth Scrolling and Parallax on Linux.

v1.6 - Added LucasArts style scrolling triggered by proximity  to the edge of the screen.

v1.5 - Fixed a major problem with objects not returning to the correct position when leaving and re-entering a room.

v1.4 - Cleaned up script and improved suspension of scrolling effect.
        Added this module history!

v1.3 - Added option to switch smooth scrolling off and on.

v1.2 - A wider range of parallax speeds.
        Less jerky stopping.
        Pixel perfect object movement at slow speeds (not for animated objects, requires a bit of work).
        Up to 25 parallax objects.
        Smooth sun/moon parallax.
        LENS FLARE EFFECT!

v1.1 - Formatted module according to AGS programming conventions.

Notes:

For better lens flares talk to Mr Ryan Timothy...

Known Issues:

If your character changes view from a tall to a short sprite, the module screen will snap into a new position. This is because it's aiming for the 'head' of the sprite. To get around this, switch targetCharacter to a dummy character (at the same co-ordinates) while you make the transition.

If you're playing as a different character to the player character at game start, and the module has been off, then when you switch it on you the camera will pan from the old character it was following to the current character*. To get around this, set the targetCharacter to the player before calling ChangeRoom, so the camera starts out looking in the right place.

Similarly, if you change a player's X and Y position in room_load, the module will pan from where they used to be to where they are now. If you can, include the desired co-ordinates in the ChangeRoom function. If not, try using a Dummy character who's already in the right place.

*This would be desirable behaviour if you were using it to pan between characters in a cutscene, etc.

I have to admit that I was self-indulgently searching for 'Nelly Cootalot' to see if I could find some feedback for the game, when I found this website which seems to think Nelly Cootalot could be spyware.



It says the file path and stucture are suspicious! Axes of Evil? Is Nelly working with Osama Bin Laden?

It says that :

NELLY COOTALOT.EXE is a file recently detected by the Prevx database. This file is yet to be determined globally as Good or Bad, therefore it is currently classified as Unknown. However if it is malware then it may well be caught by the behaviour protection in Prevx

If this file breaks one of the 4 Prevx "Axes of Evil", it will be immediately determined as a Bad. The only way to safeguard against this possible threat is by installing Prevx which has the ability to protect you from all bad files from the instant they are determined.

So it's not evil just yet, but they're encouraging people to buy their software in case a game about spoonbeaks tries to steal their credit card number. Most depressing of all is the 'very low' propagation rate. I'm never going to get enough credit card numbers at this rate.

I really enjoyed the conversation simulation in Starship Titanic, which used a text parser to allow the player to type their own dialogue. I have been working on  a module which provides basic functionality for conversation simulation in AGS: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=32129.0

I hope this doesn't seem like cross-posting, but the distinct lack of interest in that thread has led me to wonder if I might be wasting my time. I wanted to post here to ask how people feel about this kind of interface in adventures, whether you would be put off by having to type, and whether you agree that this kind of character-interaction is potentially interesting.

Needless to say, I will be grateful for any feedback!

Thanks,

-Ali

[simulating conversations]

I've been working on a basic script for simulating conversations as in the game Starship Titanic, in which the player can type their own dialogue. It is based on this tutorial. It is not intended to evolve by learning new words, like Alice, but rather to simulate the responses of a character in a game.

The module refers to a .dat file and searches the user's input for keywords, then chooses responses accordingly. It is also able to feed the user's input back to them to create the illusion that it understands more than it does. The module can choose certain responses over others based on trust, and can alter trust levels and run scripts during conversation. It is very easy to add to and expand upon the .dat file.

So far I've produced a simple demo in which the player can interrogate an old man called Crookshanks about a recent crime in order to discover the name of the culprit. The game folder can be downloaded here:

http://www.filefront.com/15731565/Dialogue_Parser_Demo.zip.

You've 'won' once you know who did it, and you can bring up the quit dialogue by saying bye.

I would really appreciate the input of more experienced programmers. I feel my scripting is probably not very efficient, and I would be very interested to know how it could be made more effective too.

At the moment it cannot do the following things:

Recognise pronouns, particularly 'it' and interpret them to mean the key subject of the previous line.

Gather information about the player.

Encrypt the data file.

I think I can use monkey_05's module for the last point, but I would appreciate suggestions regarding the other two. I would also like to know if you feel other important features are missing.

Edit: I forgot to say, he doesn't know any expletives yet. Feel free to edit the data file and teach him some.

Hello,

These aren't wholly new suggestions, but I felt there were a few features which might strengthen character movement in-game and I wanted an opportunity to discuss them together. I don't know what their implementation would entail, but from my perspective they would be extremely valuable additions.

1. Setting the 'angle' of the camera in a room.
This may be what is tracker'd here, but I'm not certain. It seems to me that AGS decides which direction characters face while walking as if they were viewed from top-down. This looks fine in Ben Jordan where the camera is usually at a high angle, but in Nelly Cootalot (see below), where the camera is at a low angle it results in Nelly's movements looking odd at times. When she is moving slightly north-west Nelly displays her left view, however to look correct she ought to display her up-left view.
This is entirely based on my perception, but I think I would be very useful to be able to 'skew' the way the engine decides which loop to display.

2. 16 walking directions.
I'm aware that this has been discussed here, but it doesn't appear that CJ has been convinced of its use. I acknowledge that 16 walking directions would be of no value to a pixel artist but for a pre-rendered 3D character it would be as easy as pie to produce 16 walk-cycles and would distinctly improve the appearance of the sprites in-game.

3. Turning animations.
I think it would be a marvelous addition to allow the user to create turning animations that would play whenever the character turns (or whenever they turned more than a user-specified threshold angle). This would be very useful for higher resolution games with larger characters where turning can looks distinctly jerky.
If there were more than 8 walking directions, I doubt this would be necessary during walking, but it would still be useful to stop the characters appearing to 'spin' when turning on the spot
I attempted to find a simple solution here but it quickly became apparent that my solution was simplistic and flawed, and that a plugin would be required. I felt this was beyond my meagre programming capacity.

None of these suggestions would impact all users of AGS, but I think they would make significant differences to some, like me. I would like to know how others feel about them.

[Oliver Drummond]

This is Oliver Drummond, Junior Clerk and Stenographer at the Edinburgh Philosophical Society. He's the lead character in a game I'm working on called 'It's Not Nelly Cootalot 2*'.

I intended this character him to be reserved but likeable, rather like the illustrations of Edward Gorey. He's in his early thirties, and the early 20th century. I'd welcome any feedback on his design and walkcycle, but I'm particularly concerned with whether his face is sufficiently expressive. I wanted to give him a tiny mouth, but I wonder if it's too small to be seen - particularly in the walkcycle.

I had to shrink the walkcycle and lower the colours in order to upload it. It should be 133% of that size. I'll try to upload a better compressed version soon.


*Working title.

Hi guys,

I know Myst isn't hugely popular on these boards, but I'm a fan and I love puzzles where you have to get machinery working. My problem is, I have no idea how to go about inventing a good machine puzzle (as anyone who's played the end of Nelly Cootalot will attest).

The machines I come up with are either efficient and unchallenging or too 'puzzley' and contrived. I don't plan to make a myst clone, so it's important to me that these kinds of puzzle be well integrated and plausable within a story world, rather than puzzle moments that take the player out of the story.

I was wondering if anyone could make suggestions or point me towards any resource for deleoping this kind of puzzle. I'd also like to hear what people think about this kind of puzzle, and whether it is as widely despised round these parts as I suspect.

This isn't for a game, but I could do with a little help. I've been working on an Art Nouveau poster in the vein of Mucha. I feel I've got most of the ingredients right, but something about her face isn't quite right. I can't put my finger on it, though.



I thought it best to ask you guys to take a look at it to see if you can spot what I'm blind to. I welcome any suggestions or paintovers, and more broad criticism. I should mention that the angle of her head has to stay like that, but all else is malleable.

Also, the message of the poster is: 'Smoking is cool and elegant.'

My avatar goes through anonymizer. I haven't been able to see it for years, because the system I'm using doesn't allow anonymous surfing. I visited the forums through a Wii the other day and with a mixture of horror and Wii-induced delight, I saw that my avatar didn't display!

So, can anyone see my avatar? If not, can anyone recommend a place for me to put a new one? I don't like not having an avatar, it's like having no face.

A couple of people have reported this error message in Nelly Cootalot:

An internal error has occured [sic]. Please note down the following information.
If the problem persists, contact Chris Jones.
(ACI version 2.72.920)
Error: run_text_script1: error -6 running function 'LoadList_SelectedIndex':
Error: Array index out of bounds (index: 23, bounds: 0..19)
in Global script (line 1494)

I can't recreate the error, but I'm not actually sure what the error report means.

Below is the script in question. It's called when the selection is changed on a listbox called LoadList. The idea is to show a screenshot from the currently selected game on the button called LoadScreen.

Code: ags

function LoadList_SelectedIndex(GUIControl *control) {
  
if (buttonSprite != null) {
buttonSprite.Delete();
}
listselected = LoadList.SelectedIndex;
buttonSprite = DynamicSprite.CreateFromSaveGame(savegameindex[listselected],82,61); //this is line 1494
if (buttonSprite != null) {
LoadScreen.NormalGraphic = buttonSprite.Graphic;
}
}

As I say, this worked fine when I tried it, I wondered if you could spot a potential problem.

Thanks,

Ali.