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Might & Magic: World of Xeen
Coolest enemy evar

Spoiler

[close]

1. Key.

The principle of the algorithm is that I start from the pixel on-screen, and calculate what pixel in the character sprite it should display. Therefore, x_on_screen (resp. y_on_screen) must always be x+i (resp. y+j).
But I can change the calculations of x_in_char/y_in_char to pick a different pixel from the character sprite. That's where the corrections steps in.

Well, In this case I don't understand.

Earlier you said:

No matter how perspective_correction_y varies, the final value of  y_on_screen stays the same

But I can't see why y_on_screen should depend on perspective_correction_y at all. There's no operation that would refer these two variables at once.

Yes, I am aware of this. http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47966.msg636460420#msg636460420
Should be fixed in the next update.

Error (Line 19) Undefined token 'SetVoiceMode'.

Read the "warning" section please: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47966.msg636460071#msg636460071

Yes, I will have to update templates.

[WARNING: this forum thread describes very old experimental version that is no longer developed or supported.I do not recommend to use it.]

WARNING: this forum thread describes very old experimental version that is no longer developed or supported.

I do not recommend to use it.

AGS 3.4.0 Early Alpha

Warning! Warnung! Alarma! НевлезайÃ'Æ'бÃ'Å'Ã'‘Ã'‚! 我不会说中国话!

This is early ALPHA release. It is a work in progress, and may be generally unstable. Please, be cautious and backup your game before using this version.

Or rather do not use this version except for testing purposes, unless you are desperate to get its features.

*** Download as ZIP archive ***

The archive includes only Editor/Engine binaries. Make a clone of your current AGS program folder (tzach's 3.2.2 or newest 3.3.0) and then copy archive contents over.

1 jan 2014: Updated with all the 3.3.0 Beta 12 contents

Please, understand that this is work in progress. The further updates may include new features and fixes, as well as change or even remove existing ones. While I'll try to keep compatibility with game files created by earlier alpha versions, I give absolutely no guarantee about savedgame format (i.e. saves made with early alpha engine may become unreadable by later updates).
3.4.0 meant to be fully compatible with 3.2.1 and 3.3.0 projects and will try to upgrade them automatically.

This version still undergoes tests. There's chance I haven't noticed something and you will receive an error when trying to open a game project. Good luck .

So, what's in this version?

--------------------------------------------------
Limits removal
--------------------------------------------------
Following limits were updated:

Item	Old limit	New limit	Comments
State-Saving Rooms	300	999	Max room number is still 999
Dialog Topics	500	unlimited
Options per Dialog Topic	30	unlimited
Controls on GUI	30	unlimited
ListBox Items	200	unlimited
Mouse Cursors	20	unlimited
Room Backgrounds	5	unlimited
Room Objects	40	unlimited
Room Hotspots	50	256	restriction imposed by palette of a 8-bit mask
Room Regions	16	256	restriction imposed by palette of a 8-bit mask
Room Walkable Areas	15	256	restriction imposed by palette of a 8-bit mask
Room Walk-Behinds	16	256	restriction imposed by palette of a 8-bit mask
Custom Properties	30	unlimited
Overlays	20	unlimited

--------------------------------------------------
Features and behavior changes
--------------------------------------------------
1. Every room has now a "StateSaving" property, which should be set manually by user. Default is TRUE. When importing old project, rooms with id <= 300 will have this flag set to TRUE, others will have this flag set to FALSE.
This property may be changed freely at design-time, however this may cause strange results if you try to load older savedgames in new game version.

2. Room region/areas number is currently set manually by editing corresponding Room property (HotspotCount, RegionCount, etc). Take precaution, as decreasing this number will delete last areas in the list, including all their setup and mask parts. Which means, if you make a mistake, you'll have to repaint them (or reimport mask) again.
Be informed, that when importing old projects you'll likely want to decrease Hotspot number, because previous versions of AGS created all 50 of them for every room.

3. Custom properties can be changed at runtime, and stored to savedgames. For each GetProperty/GetTextProperty script function there's now a corresponding SetProperty/SetTextProperty function. There's still a restriction that you can only get/set properties that are in the Property Schema.

4. This version includes support for extended WFN fonts with 256 characters (by Alan v. Drake).


--------------------------------------------------
What's next
--------------------------------------------------

I thought about adding a TODO list here, noting most important advancements I had in plans, but I need to think this over again first.
I have literally no ideas on when the 3.4.0. will be "completed". There might be a lot of more things to come.

Currently I am considering looking into display resolution problem, then game resolution. We'll see...

Regarding limits, there are still few to remove. Some weren't removed simply because I forgot to (e.g. max Fonts, Animated Buttons) - I will fix this bit later, others are unlikely to cause problems (e.g. Drawing Surface limit of 20), the last require additional code rewriting. For instance, Inventory Item limit is affected by Plugin API interface as well. Then, a sprite cache system should be changed to allow having >30k sprites without adding problems.

I think someone (Crimson?) did an interesting topic about the "Data Structure" of an adventure game as a sort of prelude to the discussion of adjusting AGS after it became open. Can't find it now .
But as far as comparing to AGS, perhaps having inventory items tieable to rooms as well (so you could have people dumping all their inventory in one room or something), and maybe having objects be tieable to multiple rooms? Or maybe just combine the two.

That was RickJ:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=45165.msg607273#msg607273
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/9957/entityconcept.pdf

I sorta have suspicion that you are applying corection to the wrong variable:

Code: ags

x_in_char = x_in_char /*+x_correction*/ +perspective_correction_x;
y_in_char = y_in_char /*+y_correction*/ +perspective_correction_y/*+ofs*/;

Shouldn't that be:

Code: ags

x_on_screen = x_on_screen  /*+x_correction*/ +perspective_correction_x;
y_on_screen = y_on_screen  /*+y_correction*/ +perspective_correction_y/*+ofs*/;

[always]

I was going to say something about this. The whole "checks for #ifver 3.2 and I suppose that breaks for 3.3" bit filled me with unfathomable rage. Especially when no one pointed out that since its induction, #ifver/#ifnver have always meant "version X or higher". This isn't explicitly stated in the manual description text

That's the point, isn't it? It is not explicitly stated in manual, and the name of the preprocessor command does not explicitly imply it either. Is there really a reason for "unfathomable rage"? Doesn't your religion teach you of understanding and forgiveness? Oh well, doesn't plain common sense teach to understand such situations?

Without looking through your code, when you say you've added a constant, which of the following do you mean?

What can I say? Just *facepalm* maybe.
Definition:

Code: ags

#ifver 3.2
#define USE_OBJECT_ORIENTED_AUDIO
#endif

Usage example:

Code: ags

#ifdef USE_OBJECT_ORIENTED_AUDIO
// In AGS 3.2 you do it this way:
//   Audioclip *openDoorSound = aDoorsound;
AudioClip*  openDoorSound,  
            closeDoorSound, 
            unlockDoorSound;    
#endif

Regarding STRICT_AUDIO, as I mentioned several posts above, this is theoretically possible that user writes 3.2 game while backwards compatibility is enabled to allow him/her to use old PlayMusic functions along with AudioClips.

Hehe - never noticed this too. I don't even know to which background that mask belonged to.

Could that be:

I never paid attention to this before, but there's a Walk Behind mask in the first room, looking like a rope bridge shape.

I didn't mean to be rude Crimson, you're work with AGS is something fantastic.

Err, I never thought you are rude, just noting we are fixing the language a little.

If so, what I find time consuming with AGS script is looking (example here) for a function like

Code: AGS

SetSkipSpeech

. Although it's obvious, I keep forgetting all this specific functions and it's not easy to find it in the manual.
I always get by using the forum "search" and that's okay, I end up reading and learning more than I was looking for. But I think that all code related to Speech (in this case, of course) should be extended from typing...Speech.

Ahem...
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47966.msg636459390#msg636459390

[need]

I second this. Until then we also need to get the source .psd file for dark#1 and dark#2. Otherwise it's no better than before - nifty screen but just a flat jpeg in the end.

The irony...

Or, it will be even more ironic if when searching for that psds, we'll also find the psd for original splash .



Ops, I forgot to vote myself!

My votes go to
Clean #4
Dark #3

Oh. Now, after I read that thread... heheh.

Well, that might be possible, although I should point out that with current engine ports the way this message is displayed varies from platform to platform. E.g. on linux it just prints to console.

Yeah, dunno where this one stands, or if it's a good idea at all (probably not), but maybe QuitGame could be extended to give a message on exit?

What kind of message do you have in mind?

With there being so many votes in every direction of the spectrum, perhaps after voting is finished having a final vote on the top 5? Of course it's up to you though, I don't mind the highest chosen to be the winner.

I thought about this, may be it is what we should do.

I upgraded to Beta5 two days ago I think, and had no crashes. But that doesn't mean anything I guess. I'll keep you informed about any issues I have.

I hope it won't cause any problems with OROW participation.

To make it fair.... I'll tie one hand behind my back!

Too bad it was your good hand that you tied.

How's this possibly a counter-insult? If he tied his good hand, this only means he is confident that he'll defeat you with his bad hand.

I think you should install this (3.5 SP1)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=22

Not sure if you must reinstall what you already installed, but if you want to, go to Control Panel -> Programs & Features, find "Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0" and click Uninstall.