Messages

Everyone seems to have more specific critiques, but what stands out to me is the path.  It's going up, but it doesn't appear to; so my brain tries to fix and it looks weird.  Am I explaining this right?  Like one of those images like the stairs that lead
to nowhere.

Maybe darkening or shadowing the cave wall on the lower level would fix it.

I think stuh505 makes a great, although hidden, point at Erwin's remark.  People don't associate with a character's look as much as they do the ordeals the character's faced with and how the character reacts.

My 4-year-old loves to pretend she's Blue from Blue's Clues.  My daughter's not a blue dog with a species-identity crisis, but she relates to the experiences the dog has.  She and her friends also love Kirby.  He's a pink marshmellow who only seems to have hands, or arms for that matter, when the animators need him to grab something.  Anyone who doesn't think characters made of primitive shapes are well received should watch a popular kids television show called Rollie Pollie Ollie

As far as character shadowing, it's almost impossible to do in AGS, (it would have to be room by room or straight down).  You should take the advise to lessen the reflectiveness of the floor.

Poser 4?......You're making this a lot harder than it is Candle.  Just make the character a decent size, make the background that weird pink colour, activate the walk designer at 30 frames, turn off anti-aliasing, export every "other" frame to a bmp or png, & voila!! You have good, 15-frame walk animation in AGS using only Poser.

Poser won't use that colour in their characters because it doesn't mix well; so when AGS ignores that pixel you won't lose any of the image, (you may have to scale it in AGS but then you'll get anti-aliasing back anyway).

First of all, I can't believe it took "15"!! posts before someone commented on, "I've studied time travel", but I guess that's why you're a moderator Andail....

Down to business....I'd stay away from agencies, operatives, etc.  It's being done to death right now, and although your plot may be very good, it might not be good to throw it in a mix with so many losers.

Time travelling is one of those ideas that people argue about so much, that some of the best sci-fi authors chose to forgo 2 major points in their stories:
(1 - How someone obtains the technology to travel through said 5th dimension)
(2 - Any and All quantum rules & regulations regarding their actions)

Look at Harlen Ellison, or Gene Roddenberry.  Time travel is in the story, but never THE story.  Don't focus on what resources I would need to build a time machine, just give him one.  If the character kills Hitler, don't go back & have the world worshipping turnips, (OH NO!!! I SHOULDN'T HAVE MEDDLED).  Do something like....the time machine suddenly doesn't work because the Nazis invented the Enigma machine, (aka - the first computer).  Don't bother with facts, it only bores people to death.

Wait a minute...Loominous made the woman's chest smaller & her skirt higher

I don't think he should get any points just because he's a "Leg" man.

I'm glad to see the forums are back.  I know you always joke about money, but maybe it's time to set up a paypal donation thread on this board.  There are people here who could, (and should), help keep AGS alive. 

For Example: Just Adventure ran this long article on AGDI's "NEW" developments.  They, pretty much, owe their entire fame to AGS.  There are others who feel they owe AGS in the same way.  No one would have to pay for the software, but after switching to a more expensive site,  while keeping the old site up so people can still get their game on until YOU fix it.  Well, it's starting to fell like one Worker Bee making honey for 100,000 Queen Bees.

Wow!  I had asked everyone I know, and gone to numerous message boards and no one could give me a straight answer.  I didn't come here for a while because my first game isn't finished.......

Thanks, I should've come here sooner.

I just started working on 3D art, and I have a fast system & video card, but my computer seems to top out at 1 million polygons in design programs.  Now I understand that in modeling cpu performance takes a hit, but I loaded an entire level of Unreal 2004, (which runs on my system fine at topped-out settings, into Lightwave, and it was just under a million polys.  What gives, my Card should run 353 polys per second, and Unreal looks better than any N64 game I've ever seen, (1-million polys per second specs).  What does all this mean?  How do people rate Poly levels?  All I know is, if games ACTUALLY ran a million polygons, they'd look a lot better.

I didn't think about this before, but  the lighting might seem wrong because it's volumetric & bouncing off things in the room that aren't visible in the picture.

- If this is not true, I appologize, but this may have something to do with it.-

Cinema 4D does have an excellent global & vertex radiosity engine, but that leads to other problems.  I, initially, converted all my textures to the HDR format; then sent it through C4D's advanced radiosity renderer.  God, it looked real.......too real.  Unless I were to use actual human beings, my characters wouldn't mesh.  No matter how hard I tried I couldn't make my characters look as real as my background.  I had to use for volumetric radiosty, (most radiosity engines only support vertex radiosity).  Although I am, generally, happy with the results.

P.S. - To be fair, Cinema 4D is not designed to make video games, it is designed to make movie special effects, (where artists often have to make their images mesh with live actors, not match images to CG characters).  A program like Lightwave or Maya (designed for gaming), use lower-colour radiosity engines & would probably work better.

Much Better!  The Seamless textures change the whole appearance of the room.

You might try to redo the lamp in a painting program, (Pixia for Freebies!).  That is, assuming that you drew it by hand - which it looks like.  It's sometimes easier to get uniform shapes.

Your textures look good - the floor and the walls could do with some seamless textures, but the room items look great. 

Hope that helps.

You should get back to it, Darth.  Anyone who's worked with 3-D imagery in the past needs to take a fresh look at it.  You'll be amazed at how much easier it is to get commercial quality art than it was even a year ago.

Thanks everybody,  thanks especially to Intermalte.  I kept turning up my brightness so people could see it, but I didn't realize the lighting errors were more complicated than their brightness.  I used to work at an office at night, the bathrooms only had safety lights, (until you hit the main light switch), and the back wall looked like a mirror to me, (I'll turn down the reflection since the effect doesn't seem realistic),

To James Kay - I hadn't even noticed my UV's, and I'm glad people in the CL forums are so perceptive.  I use Cinema 4D; which has a very realistic shadowing system.  Those spots on the floor are from the sinks.  I think the reason the shadows look weird to you is because the lighting is off.  If I fix this, it will probably look better.

- I'm just getting into 3D art.  I seem to have a knack for it, (meaning it's coming easy not "My Art is Awesome"), and I'm going to need all the help I can get to use it in Rogue Saga

http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/NewBath.png

I took everyone's ideas, and tried to implement them, except the organizing the tiles due to Boyd's & Darth's suggestions.  Tell me what you think.

P.S. - I'm still working on the mirrors, and I haven't addressed Intermalte's question of the gravity-defying sinks yet.

- I keep posting because I'm trying to get it right.

Thanks for the Help

You can view the original pic here:
http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/bath.png

I use the interaction editor all the time.  It saves so much time when adding a lot of detail to the game.  I use the scripting when I have to, but if it's in the editor I cut my production incredibly!!!!

P.S. - If adding DisplayAt & DisplaySpeechAt is decided for the interaction editor, it would be nice if the values someone allocates remains until the person changes them.  When I use these commands, I often place them in the same programmed position for many messages before I change them.


--PRESERVE THE INTERACTION EDITOR, IT'S BEAUTIFULL--

Masks would work, I still think Zooming background would be easier, and it could help other situations too.

I'm not downplaying what you're saying.  Thank you for the resolution.

I'm sure I'll get banned from posting any more suggestions, but here goes one more.

It would be nice if the main background screen had a zoom feature in the editing room.  On high resolutions, it can be very difficult to colour a "walk-behind" area with much precision.  Once you play the game, however,  the sloppiness of drawing your walk behind in 320x240 box is all too obvious.

(P.S. - This is the last suggestion.....Promise)

These are the ones that I type most often.  I hope more people respond to this.

DisplaySpeechAt
DisplayAt
SkipUntilCharacterStops
DisableCursorMode
EnableCursorMode
SetCursorMode
AreObjectsColliding
AreThingsOverlapping

[By moderator:(See next post)...So, everyone is encouraged to post your suggestions about adding more functions to this thread, to let Chris knows more about what we really want.Note that this is NOT a thread for posting general suggestions/feature requests, it's just for posting something that is already possible via text scripting but you want it to appear directly in the interaction menu.]

It's not like it's life-threatening, but I always see a lot of new scripting functions and no expansions to the point & click options, (give inventory, move character, etc.....you know the options in the main list).

Is that not how it works.......Scripting eventually gets shortcuts in the main option list???

Do these options ever get upgraded, or am I just not noticing.

By moderator:(See next post)...So, everyone is encouraged to post your suggestions about adding more functions to this thread, to let Chris knows more about what we really want.

Note that this is NOT a thread for posting general suggestions/feature requests, it's just for posting something that is already possible via text scripting but you want it to appear directly in the interaction menu.