Messages

I have a question regarding copyright/license info that is put at source file headers. I don't know about that stuff much. Should we keep those texts from CJ's code ("Copyright (C) 2000-2005, Chris Jones" etc), or write totally new ones?

Looks really good.

For rooms:
- The "Sort room by number" now sorts within folders. I actually don't understand why this feature is needed, if anyone
knows please tell me.

"Sort room by number" is useful if you added rooms with lower number after rooms with higher number. But with folders it will be obviously easier to group them. Actually I hope one day it will be possible to reference rooms by script name, rather than number.

When replying to an old issue and leaving reply text empty (just set status and issue type), I've got following error:

PHP Warning:  require_once(C:\Web\AGS\yabb\Sources\Subs.php): failed to open stream: Permission denied in C:\Web\AGS\yabb\index.php on line 51
PHP Fatal error:  require_once(): Failed opening required 'C:\Web\AGS\yabb\Sources/Subs.php' (include_path='.;C:\php\pear') in C:\Web\AGS\yabb\index.php on line 51

And another one


Trying to increase working efficiency and make parliament deputies stay at their places during meetings, officials decided to release lions in the lobby for the sitting time.
It all went nice until an emergency happened, after that lions were returned to the Zoo.
While in the cage, one lion sais to another:
- What the heck did you need that janitor for? I've eaten ten deputies and no one gave a shit.

A man is traveling across the mountain ridge. On the top he sees two other men who jump from the high rock into crater below, and, surprisingly, do not hit the ground, but rise back to the rock, then jump again. The traveler approaches two jumpers and asks:
- Whoa, dudes, how you do that?
- That's easy, - one of them answers, - there are strong ascending air streams, they carry you back up and don't let you crash.
Excited, the traveler jumps from the rock and crashes to death.
The second of the two jumpers shakes his head in reproach:
- Michael, you are such an asshole for an archangel!

If I make a private issue, who can see it?

[WOW!]

maybe you'll like the last of us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me0onHb4FTg

WOW!  ~   This is like cinema
... all those little details and such smooth animations and changing the view by "pivoting of the camera" ... 

Haven't noticed anything I didn't saw in Max Payne 3 , except for maybe animations are more elegant.
Guess that is becoming graphics standard now.

...and in fact that's little sad. If I saw that a year ago, I would be excited as much. Am I getting too used to all those wonders?

Hey, it can be tedious to be admin!

Done.

Do you like bugs where the version is not specified?

No
Well, there are versions for Engine now.

Ok, I'll do that for "Engine" project.
But actually you can post bugs there even if you can't set version, because it can be set later (by modifying ticket).

Now that we have an engine source this became little easier.
"Program pointer" is a special value that is being set throughout the engine (called our_eip).
our_eip = +379;
eip_guinum = 1; (from gtags)
eip_guiobj = 0; (from gtags)

Code: cpp

GUIMain::draw_at(int xx, int yy)
{
  <...>

  SET_EIP(379)

  for (aa = 0; aa < numobjs; aa++) {
    
    set_eip_guiobj(drawOrder[aa]);

    GUIObject *objToDraw = objs[drawOrder[aa]];

    if ((objToDraw->IsDisabled()) && (gui_disabled_style == GUIDIS_BLACKOUT))
      continue;
    if (!objToDraw->IsVisible())
      continue;

    objToDraw->Draw();

    int selectedColour = 14;

    if (highlightobj == drawOrder[aa]) {
      if (outlineGuiObjects)
        selectedColour = 13;
      wsetcolor(selectedColour);
      draw_blob(objToDraw->x + objToDraw->wid - get_fixed_pixel_size(1) - 1, objToDraw->y);
      draw_blob(objToDraw->x, objToDraw->y + objToDraw->hit - get_fixed_pixel_size(1) - 1);
      draw_blob(objToDraw->x, objToDraw->y);
      draw_blob(objToDraw->x + objToDraw->wid - get_fixed_pixel_size(1) - 1, 
                objToDraw->y + objToDraw->hit - get_fixed_pixel_size(1) - 1);
    }
    if (outlineGuiObjects) {
      int oo;  // draw a dotted outline round all objects
      wsetcolor(selectedColour);
      for (oo = 0; oo < objToDraw->wid; oo+=2) {
        wputpixel(oo + objToDraw->x, objToDraw->y);
        wputpixel(oo + objToDraw->x, objToDraw->y + objToDraw->hit - 1);
      }
      for (oo = 0; oo < objToDraw->hit; oo+=2) {
        wputpixel(objToDraw->x, oo + objToDraw->y);
        wputpixel(objToDraw->x + objToDraw->wid - 1, oo + objToDraw->y);
      }      
    }
  }

  SET_EIP(380)
  <...>
}

BTW, I like how "Illegal Inception" sounds .

EDIT: If you can run engine and your game in MSVS debugger, you could find exact point. Also you may give your game to some of the active devs for a test.
EDIT2: I've actually forgot about the dump. I guess it can be used to check the program state at the moment of exception.

Is the backwards compatibility really something that needs to be held onto when it's a change this drastic and important for AGS? I'd personally ditch it.

This is a question of version planning. In my opinion it all depends on what do you expect of future versions of AGS. So far I see people here wanted to have a development branch which is fully backwards-compatible with previous releases of AGS, then, after some time, cut the ties and develop something totally new. At least that is what I heard (read).

There are tons of those non-OO functions we should must ultimately remove.

What's wrong with the function if it simply exists?
It is pretty possible to hide the obsolete functions: switch them on and off depending on the compiler setting.

EDIT: Wait... I missed the word "ultimately".
Well, if we are speaking of some future version with no backwards compatibility, then it's true

I say a setting in the general properties which will allow us to choose which scripting language we would be using, eg: Legacy AGS Script 3.2 and below or New AGS Script 3.3.

Unfortunately this won't always work. What if you are going to use script module written for older version of AGS?
Global setting may define default mode, but there's still should be way to set this for each separate script, I think.

My question now is this, if we decided to use another scripting or embedded engine, would that break the engine's backwards compatibility? I mean, JJS ports can support games all the way to 2.5x. Will that break with a new scripting engine?

Exactly my thoughts. If we just plain put any change, like something mentioned above by Ryan, into script system, older scripts, even 3.2 scripts, will not work.

This surely will require some workaround. The two most simple options that come to my mind are:
1) introducing some "preprocessor command", that would switch compilation to newer version, e.g.:

Code: ags

// the script module start
#enable_new_compiler

// rest of script

2) doing the similar thing but via script properties.

But, when I use <Import New Background... I get that black screen effect! Will I be able to use the <Import New Background function in the future??

I'll try to elaborate.
By using "import new background" you import NEXT background picture, and the editor switches to it. What you see now - is the SECOND background picture. In the editor you can switch between first and second backgrounds by choosing them in that drop-down list; you can also CHANGE any of them if you want. You can also add more backgrounds (up to 5).

However, when game starts, by default it starts with FIRST background. That's why you were getting black screen: you imported SECOND background, but the FIRST one was left black.
If you want to set active background during game, you should use script command:

Code: ags

SetBackgroundFrame (frame_number);

For example, if you want to start with SECOND background active, put this into GlobalScript's function game_start:

Code: ags

function game_start() {

   SetBackgroundFrame(1);

Backgrounds are enumerated from 0 to 4 (that's total five: 0,1,2,3,4).

If you want them animate (i.e. cycle over time):

Code: ags

function game_start() {

   SetBackgroundFrame(-1);

Can I ask? What is " <Import New Background"  used for, then?

Well, as I said, there may be up to 5 background pictures for the room. They are used to make background room animation. If you want to animate lots of objects at once this may be better choice than create many objects and animate them altogether.

Or, if you want room pic change over time for any other reason. Like changing day  and night, etc.

Yes Wizard! That is how I import backgrounds.....that is the way you are supposed to do it!???

Hahaha! It is all clear then.

You see, there can be 5 backgrounds for the room. They are switched by that list. You import SECOND background. But when the game starts the FIRST one is active.
To change first (primary) background you should select "Main background" in the list and click "Change" button.

I agree that may be a bit confusing if you are making your first game.

I guess we should remember this and add some comments to tutorial to prevent this problem in the future.

Arj0n
Check the list of games he tested.

To be honest, that's one of the weirdest errors in AGS I ever heard...

It sounds like graphic data does not save properly to the room file.

Wait a second....
How do you import background? can you tell your steps?

Can it be you choose "Import new background" in the dropdown list?