Messages

From those choices I'd say focus on features and keep AGS3 bug fixing legacy support for a few years.

I'd say don't be afraid to demolish as much as you have from the old code (or even start from scratch taking advantage of newer technologies) and focus on easy of portability to newer platforms.

It's been a while since I used AGS, but I noticed that most of my user base plays my games on mobile.
And every now and then I talk to fellow developers talking about picking engines and a lot of the time they skip over AGS because of this same reason.

Edit:
As for the legacy AGS engine, I'd say to wrap it around some ScummVM-like UI to help people that use it to run older games to have a tool just for that.

Also, following files are created by the Editor as you work, and should not be inside the template source:

Game.agf.bak <--- I think this one is actually packed inside agt file right now, it appears when I create new game
Game.agf.user
backup_acsprset.spr

Added them to git ignore and removed them from the repository.

As for the license, I'm unsure as where to put it.

I tried to put the license in the template.txt so it is shown the first time the user imports the template, but it just overflows the message window and it's no good.
Should I put it in the GlobalScript header? Won't that imply that any new code put there by whoever uses the template will fall into that category?

Would it be enough to mention in the template.txt that the template falls into the CC BY license and maybe add a link, or do we need the whole license to be there?

@CaesarCub, could you also put the License.txt into the template source itself?

Is it enough with adding it to the directory or do you want me to add it to the script header as well?

Also, idk if anyone noticed, or is it intended, but the template.ico still has old roger sprite on it.

Updated the icon with a new one.

there is no improvement in the scripting part between the two modules, only a cosmetic change on the surface, a stylish uplift of the art, right?

I think the only change is that this template uses a custom Quit gui instead of the system one to preserve the look and feel.
It has been a while since I touched this code.

I agree on the removing of Default in favor of Sierra-like

[Update:]

If this still needs clarification, have you tried contacting ProgZmax? It looks like he was visiting forums recently.

I sent him a message, so now it's time to wait for a response I guess.

Update:

Got the ok from ProgZmax, added a CC BY license to the template.

I feel this really needs a specific clearance / licensing  on it. If someone just uploads the demo game to Steam, I doubt they'll be looking to credit the authors.

I was planning to go for a CC BY (Attribution) or even CC-0.

Everyone on the team except ProgZmax (whose art was made for a previous attempt of the template that was never made), is aware that this is meant as a template and a basis for a demo and that a CC BY license was to be expected when participating in it.

We could infer that ProgZmax work was also meant to have a license that allows reuse, but since I never got confirmation of this, I decided not to add the corresponding license file until it was clear.

I can add a license file saying that everything but nu-Roger is CC BY (or even CC-0) but I have no idea what to say about the character art itself.

Hello.
Sorry for the delay but the couple of weeks I decided to spend visiting friends and family are the ones this thread gets active again.

Hello. I just got a PM from selmiak who suggested to add this template to newest release of AGS.
Is it actually complete? I noticed it was not posted in Templates and modules section yet.

The template is finished (it can always be improved) but it is on a working state.

To have this template in the Editor you need to put it in the Templates folder when you prepare release package.

If you make release package by hand, then you are manually copying all required templates there, obviously.

Earlier, when Nick Sonneveld was around, we had automatic building script that took all templates from the ags-templates repository, and copied them into release package. So, having them updated in that repository was important. Now, when auto-building is not working, that's rather an option, but still useful, because you may just blindly copy all the files from there when preparing a release.

To put the new template there you need either someone who has commit rights, or make a pull request.

The template file is available here: https://github.com/caesarcub/AGS-SCI-Template/tree/master/template
If you want me to I can add it and make the PR.

PS. The template's repository does not have any license, only list of contributors. Maybe this is just a formality, but is there supposed to be one?
I'd rather have a confirmation from the template author(s) that the template is complete and may be used in release.

Also, this reminds me that if the template is replaced, we also will have to replace credits in the manual.

I wasn't sure which of the open licenses applied to it, so I decided not to add one until I got the confirmation.
While everyone I asked to contribute myself agreed (and understood) that this template was meant to have an open license (after all the code is based on the old default AGS code), the nu-Roger sprites are created by ProgZmax and modified by Hobo.
ProgZmax created them for an older version of the new template, so I guess it could be assumed they were created with an open license in mind, but I really can't tell for certain.

Other than that everyone else contributed to it knowing it was for a template that people might reuse.
At least for what I am responsible (UI icons, cursors and code modification) I'm open to whatever open source license is more compatible for people to reuse and modify things as they see fit.

If you want to reproduce their results, I'd say draw the background you want, trying to mimic their style.
I have not seen many originals, but my guess is that they probably used acrylics and/or markers.

Just like Khris said, the art should have the same ratio as the screen 16:9 if you aim for most modern screens (to export at 320x180), going for the older ones will be picking between 320x200 (the actual resolution of the old games) or 320x240 (the "correct" resolution for a 3:4 screen with square pixels, but this is a debate for some other time).
I'd recommend drawing a little more than what you plan to use, just to make sure you have a bit of wiggle room in the borders.

Once the art is done, you just scan it, resize and crop to the resolution you want, then and adjust brightness, contrast, and color (scans always look different, so you might want to do some adjusting).
Finally you might want to convert it to an indexed palette, to reproduce the technical limitation of the time. I'd say you limit it to 150~200 colors instead of 256 (Back then they had a limit of 256 colors total, so they had to dedicate part of these to the characters that would show on that room and also the UI including the items).
Here is how you change the color depth in GIMP: https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tutorial-quickie-change-mode.html.

There is a good chance that after resizing and retouching and changing the color depth of the image some details might be lost, look wrong or have some dithering you dislike.
This you just have to fix pixel by pixel.

And I think that's pretty much it.

I'm enjoying Discovery so far.

I'm making an effort not to read much of the fan theories, so I don't get spoiled/disappointed because they do or don't follow the one I would like the most.

My main issue with the Klingons is that they are not re-dubbed. The prosthesis make a mess on the actors  ability to speak, making their dialogue too slow and broken. They should have had the actors talk faster and not caring much about the sounds and then re-do the dialogue later without the make up, so they wouldn't have that kind of speech impediment.
I'm really hoping they will add some of the other Klingon designs, just so they can establish that these are just how some of them look, and tie-up with the TOS and TNG/Movies looks.

As for the Orville, despite what some of us feel about Seth MacFarlane's comedy, he has always been a die-hard Star Trek fan (with actual cameos on the TV series), so I wasn't surprised to see his show become a sort of alternate reality version of the Next Generation. It did feel weird how the pilot episode was so heavy on the jokes (a lot of which didn't land), but they were mostly absent by the third episode.

I found a small problem: the string "voice and text" is too big for the button. See the image:

Otherwise, no complaints from me.

This is fixed, I added a second longer button to the template to accommodate for this.
The main issue of using sprite buttons is that the size becomes static, but they look much better than the ones the engine provides.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/HKBkrvQ.png[/imgzoom]

I modified the Verb buttons to be thinner but retain the curved borders.
Both changes are already pushed to github, so the template is updated. [Link here]

somehow I think the statusbar icons could benefit from a smaller rounded corner than the rest of the elements, but for now I removed the background on the statusbar as a suggestion. I like it better this way
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/7NTwahq.png[/imgzoom]

This looks nice, but will require some coding, otherwise the status bar will be peeking out because it doesn't hide automatically when the icon bar is shown. (As well as making sure it shows again when the other GUIs are showing, lilke the Item window).
Another solution would be to make the iconbar solid but add a border to the bottom of it so it looks less plain.

[in this other topic]

Neat! Looks good enough for me.
What's next for the template?

Honestly I'm not sure, we have made most of the essentials by now.
I updated the template on GitHub and added some screenshots of how it looks like now in this other topic.

[https://github.com/caesarcub/AGS-SCI-Template/]

Ok, I did some work on the Template.
I mostly added the winning GUI elements and extrapolated them to the rest of the UI.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/Z51aSAK.png[/imgzoom]	[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/VRlzpVC.png[/imgzoom]	[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/qahRtjF.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/9I5I7JH.png[/imgzoom]	[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/0WliVTU.png[/imgzoom]	[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/wY6BdMt.png[/imgzoom]

Here is the GitHub for the template: https://github.com/caesarcub/AGS-SCI-Template/
It contains all the used sprites and fonts in the resources folder.
Anyone wanting to be a collaborator let me know, and I'll gladly add your github user to the repo.

The template folder contains the template itself. Here is the download link for the template as it is so far: https://github.com/caesarcub/AGS-SCI-Template/raw/master/template/sierra.agt

I'm not sure that there is much more left to do. I think it would be a good time to decide if we should take this template and start working a new demo, or some tutorials from here.
If anyone wants to contribute, maybe clean up the code or add some extra features (I still think it would be nice for the SCI/Sierra Template to implement a portrait) we should discuss it further.
Also, it's on github, so anyone can fork the template and then offer enhancements to merge back.

Ok, I've done some animating, got a few extra moves for Roger and a female base with three possible heads/colors on different layers:

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/ZW1xwUH.png[/imgzoom]

I really like them, maybe we could have some voting to decide which Roger should be the Nu-Roger based on all these variations.

And the voting is closed. Thanks everyone for participating.

Here are the winning GUI elements.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/HKLFECD.png[/imgzoom]

Textbox and Button design by Selmiak.
Slider by Jim Reed.

[Text WindowButtonSlider]

And it's time to vote!

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/B5TZxS2.png[/imgzoom]

Please vote one for each of the three categories:

Text Window
Button
Slider

The deadline for voting will be the September the 21st.

[restart]

Defibrillators.

I hate hate hate hate hate when people use defibrillators to restart the heart.
Defibrillators stop the heart, and it's the CPR the one you use to restart them.

So every time I see someone in a movie using a defibrillator (or sometimes any type of electricity) all I can think is "Great, now you made sure his heart stopped for good" while they electrocute the body over and over again until it magically starts the heart by itself.

I think one problem is that this thread does not stand out for people to realise what it is.
Maybe I should sticky this thread? I'm afraid that would make it even less noticeable though.

Hopefully the deadline extension will give them more time to notice it and enter the contest.

is it possible to extend the time on this? like 2 weeks or something?
I was hoping to see about trying some ideas out of which I have not got around to yet, but I think it also might give others a chance to try get an entry in too?

I guess we can do that, specially considering no one has entered it yet.

[1st place: Blondbraid - The eerie Eepuot]

And the winners are announced!
And we have a shared third place!

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/dYErsVL.png[/imgzoom]
1st place: Blondbraid - The eerie Eepuot

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/GhIFp39.png[/imgzoom]
2nd place: Rocchinator - Revernaut the Revised Edition

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/ewdZdmE.png[/imgzoom]
3rd place: Izera - The aplty named Antititties
3rd place: Nixxon - And his hideously deformed teleported creature

Congratulations to all the participants!
Great entries all around!

Yes it is! Your turn Cassie!