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[EDIT:]

Since my last post, I think I've worked out how to make the character rotate in the quickest direction. Once I've scripted it I'll post the code at the first opportunity I get.

Good day to you, sir!

EDIT:

This is what I have. It's nothing special and it's probably not very efficient. All it does is make the tentacle rotate smoothly towards the mouse when I right-click:

Code: ags

//In repeatedly_execute_always:

		if (cTentacle3D.OrientationY>360.0) cTentacle3D.OrientationY=0.0;// Limit the character's orientation to above 0 degrees.
		if (cTentacle3D.OrientationY<0.0) cTentacle3D.OrientationY=360.0;// Limit the character's orientation to below 360 degrees.

// in on_mouse_click, after the left-click part.

Ã,  else {// right-click, so cycle cursor
		
		SideX=IntToFloat(mouse.x-cTentacle.x);// make a right angled triangle between the mouse and the character
			
		SideY=IntToFloat(mouse.y-cTentacle.y);

		SideY=SideY*1.7; // Stretch the triange to account for the angle of the camera (Not sure about this, but it seems to look right)
		
		RotAngle= Maths.ArcTan2 (SideX, SideY);// find out the goal angle of the triangle
		
		goalAngle = Maths.RadiansToDegrees(RotAngle)+360.0; // Make sure the goal angle isn't below 0

		if (goalAngle>360.0)goalAngle=goalAngle-360.0; // Make sure the goal angle isn't above 360 
		
		startAngle=cTentacle3D.OrientationY; 
		
			if (startAngle<goalAngle){ //find out which is the quickest way to rotate
			
			AngleA = goalAngle-startAngle;
			AngleB = (360.0 + startAngle) - goalAngle;
			
			if (AngleA>AngleB) {//Rotate Clockwise
				while (!(cTentacle3D.OrientationY>goalAngle-1.0 && cTentacle3D.OrientationY<goalAngle+1.0)){
					cTentacle3D.OrientationY=cTentacle3D.OrientationY-2.0;
					Wait(1);
				}
			}
			
			else {//Rotate Anti Clockwise
				while (!(cTentacle3D.OrientationY>goalAngle-1.0 && cTentacle3D.OrientationY<goalAngle+1.0)){
					cTentacle3D.OrientationY=cTentacle3D.OrientationY+2.0;
					Wait(1);
				}
			}
			
		}
		
			else{
				
			AngleA = startAngle-goalAngle;
			
			AngleB = (360.0 + goalAngle) - startAngle;
			
			if (AngleA>AngleB) {//Rotate Clockwise
				while (!(cTentacle3D.OrientationY>goalAngle-1.0 && cTentacle3D.OrientationY<goalAngle+1.0)){
					cTentacle3D.OrientationY=cTentacle3D.OrientationY+2.0;
					Wait(1);
				}
			}
			
			else {//Rotate Anti Clockwise
				while (!(cTentacle3D.OrientationY>goalAngle-1.0 && cTentacle3D.OrientationY<goalAngle+1.0)){
					cTentacle3D.OrientationY=cTentacle3D.OrientationY-2.0;
					Wait(1);
				}
			}
				
				
		}
		
		ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, eModeLookat);
				
	}

I hope that's at least a little bit useful. I'm just irritated that my maths teacher was right, I did use trigonometry after leaving school.

Don't forget traditional music. You can always make your own midi 'House of the Rising Sun' or 'Scarborough Fair' without getting on the wrong side of the law. Eveyone likes folk music!

If you look around you can probably find many classical performances in the public domain, or under licenses that allow you to use them in your AGS games, that's usually not the case for music created after the 1920s however.

Bah, there's no good music after the 1920s!

Here's a screen from the November 'Release Something':



There's light at the end of the tunnel, this game will be finished!Ã,  See the first post for a progress update.

[far]

I didn't have problems with turning to face directions or turning before walking, at least I think I didn't. I vaguely remember some problems with it but I figured something out. But I can't remember, so sorry 'bout that

I beg your pardon, the character does turn before walking, but not smoothly. I'll modify my earlier post.

Actually, a bit of experimentation has sort of got me round this problem. I can make the character rotate smoothly to face any location I choose, but my grasp of trigonometery and floating point mathematics is far too weak to make the tentacle turn in the most economical direction (so he often turns 200 degrees rather than 160).

I do think it would be handy if this feature was built-in to the plugin. Of course, that's at the discretion of Mr Besh!

You're clearly very busy Besh, but I thought I'd make another request all the same...

The 3D characters don't turn before walking, or turn before facing a location. A simple solution I found was to have the character face an invisible object in repeatedly_execute, and to reposition the object to the mouse's position on a click.

EDIT: I was wrong, the character does turn before walking! What I say next is still relevant though...

What still looks a little odd is the way the 3D characters have only 8 directions. I guess that this is a consequence of there being 8 directional views in AGS, however it makes turning look distinctly jerky in comparison with other animations. One person had asked if the number of directions could be increased to 16 (before your plugin existed) but no-one thought it would be much use:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=22322.0

I'm wondering if there could be a solution that didn't need more directions in AGS. Might it be possible to smoothly rotate the 3D characters on their Y(/Z/up) axis using a separate function? Then we could make the AGS character face east, and smoothly rotate the character3D character until he faced east too.

[EDIT:]

A thought struck me just yesterday, and I can't find it on the tracker.

I would find it immensely useful to hear sounds in the View Manager Preview. I'd be happy to have to wait a little while while the sounds 'render' or 'compile' but it would be worth it if it was quicker than having to run the game and cause a particular animation to play.

EDIT: Ahem... thanks for pointing that out Gilbot! That thread offers a work-around for OGG users, but I do think OGG-compatible previews would be a boon.

This is a bit of a sloppy paintover, but I think there are a couple of things that I've improved:


I've drawn a line through the centre of your troll, that illustrates how much he's leaning back. You can also try flipping your image horizontally while you work - it will accent any unbalanced parts.

You're shading lacks a light source. I've imagined that the light is coming from the top left and only added areas of shadow on the bottom-right edge of his volumes.

Finally, your troll was looking upwards, which doesn't seem right for a great big troll. So I straightened his brow.

Like Ghost, I'm not very happy with the feet I've drawn. Trolls' feet are hard to draw!

I think you need something a little more lumbering. This is a rough example of what might work better:


I tried to keep the basic shape of the biker, but I lowered his painfully high crotch. It's far from perfect, and it plays a little too fast, but I think it has a little more 'attitude'.

I think the problem is that we are habitual polluters. We're not proud polluting, it's just comfortable and familiar.

I think the only thing to do is for us to change our habits. This is unpopular because it will mean short-term upheaval and we won't see the benefits. It seems to me that the best thing to do is make what changes we can, whether or not our neighbours do the same. The more normal an ecologically sound lifesyle seems the more people will adopt one.

Either that or edge our way slowly uphill.

The Dig

Agreed. The Dig had the worst payoff for the most amount of effort I've ever put into a game.

Seconded. I mean, thirded. I loved The Dig, and I remember being thrilled by...

Spoiler

...the threat that the main character risked losing his mind in the last stage of the game. When the silly looking alien appeared and Brink was returned to normal I thought that this was me losing my mind, and seeing what I wanted to see. I was very disappointed to realise that it was really the game's ending.

[close]

This looks really useful! By the time I realised AGS lacked this feature, you'd already made a module for it.

If I complained being poor and unkempt in the technical forum, how long would I have to wait before 'SSH's Make Ali Rich and Sophisticated Module' was released?

I feel bad for the Photoshopping contest. It used to be really popular at one time, but now seems like a dud. I hope it can be resurrected somehow. Maybe DGMacphee will have to take the reigns of it again.

I agree, it hasn't been the same since DG passed it on to some loser to look after...

*Ali coughs and looks around shiftily.*

This is off-topic, but I'd happily pass the Photoshop Contest on to a single individual who wanted to set the topic every week. Perhaps that would give it the boost it needs.

This has great graphics, a nice premise, but I particularly  like the names. I think they'll prove to be memorable!

I find myself more prepared than most people I know to walk across town visiting the same locations over and over.

I think the source of this is apparent.

I certainly wouldn't object to a competition like this, but agree that we don't have enough modellers to make it worthwhile.

There's nothing that says entries in the Sprite Jam or Background Blitz can't be 3D. Perhaps it would be better to encourage a wider range of media in the existing contests.

This is an amusing video, but I find cars and the drawing of cars immensely dull.

Come on Helm, your smarter then that to know what I mean.

To head-off a problem, I think this means: "Come on Helm, you're smart enough to know what I mean."

I also think it's perfectly acceptable to criticise something you can't do. I can't sing, but I know James Blunt's songs are awful.

This may be possible, but I've never noticed such a feature. I would like an easy way of identifying frame number in the View Manager, like a mouse tool-tip. I would also like to be able to drag and drop sprites from view-to-view and within views.

These are minor suggestions, but I'd find them useful.

This could be a beginners problem I'm not sure. I've found a work-around bit I thought I'd mention the problem all the same.

I have a character animation that was made up of two loops, with the "play the next loop to make one long animation" option checked.

The character is singing in the background, so every-so often I create a textual overlay and cause him to animate. (I know I could have used Idle Animations and SayBackground, but they would cause problems with other parts of my game). I want him to stop animating smoothly so I used this line:

while (cT.frame!=0) Wait(1);

before I unlocked his view.

This works when the animation is only one loop long, but not when it's two. The animation terminates on the wrong frame when the animation is made up of two loops. I tried changing the line to this:

while (cT.loop=0&&cT.frame!=0) Wait(1);

Which I thought would solve the problem, but it stayed the same.

As I say, I solved the problem by making the animation shorter, but I'd like to know what I was doing wrong.

EDIT: Thank you sir!

I think I'm pretty much finished with this one now:


It may not be perfect, but I think it works better now.

I don't visit many other forums, so I have no idea what the ironically-used abbreviations in these posts mean.

RTFM!

Except that!

I'm happy not knowing really. One other forum I visit is Blenderartist (né Elysiun) where they don't allow 'political content'. I never visit their off-topic board because I don't feel very comfortable with that degree of censorship. Like many others, I'm happy to put up with a degree of flaming in exchange for greater freedom of expression.

I do think that the phenomenon of flaming comes about as a consequence of the linearity of forum threads. Debates awork laterally, but back-and-forth arguments are linear. For that reason, discussions narturally tend towards the back-and-forth.