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One of my testers is reporting that that her desktop's normal mouse overlays the in-game mouse and causes the game to not take her input.

I asked her to generate a log file. Any light-shedding appreciated!

Code: ags

Adventure Game Studio v3.4 Interpreter
Copyright (c) 1999-2011 Chris Jones and 2011-2018 others
ACI version 3.4.1.13

Installing exception handler
Initializing allegro
Initializing game data
Looking for the game data file
Located game data file: c:/PROGRA~2/Steam/STEAMA~1/common/Unavowed/Unavowed.exe
Opened game data file: game28.dta
Game data version: 49
Compiled with: 3.4.1.13
Setting up game configuration
Setting up window
Initializing TTF renderer
Initializing mouse: number of buttons reported is 5
Checking memory
Data directory: c:/PROGRA~2/Steam/STEAMA~1/common/Unavowed
Initializing speech vox
Voice pack found and initialized.
Initializing audio vox
Audio vox found and initialized.
Initializing keyboard
Install timer
Initialize sound drivers
Sound settings: digital driver ID: 'AXA ' (0x41584120), MIDI driver ID: 'Auto' (0xffffffff)
Installed digital driver ID: 'AXA ' (0x41584120), MIDI driver ID: 'W32M' (0x5733324d)
Install exit handler
Initialize path finder library
Load game data
Game GUI version: 118
Requested script API: v3.4.1 (5), compat level: v3.2.1 (0)
Built library path: agsteam-unified.dll
Plugin 'agsteam-unified' loading succeeded, resolving imports...
Game title: 'Unavowed'
Checking for disk space
Initializing MOD/XM player
Initializing resolution settings
Game native resolution: 640 x 360 (32 bit)
Device display resolution: 1280 x 720
Game settings: windowed = no, screen def: explicit, screen size: 1280 x 720, match device ratio: ignore, game scale: stretch
Using graphics factory: OGL
Created graphics driver: OpenGL
Supported gfx modes (32-bit): 
	320x200;320x240;400x300;512x384;640x400;640x480;800x600;1024x768;
	1280x720;1280x768;1280x800;1280x1024;1360x768;1366x768;1400x1050;1440x900;
	1600x900;1680x1050;1920x1080;
Attempting to find nearest supported resolution for screen size 1280 x 720 (32-bit) fullscreen
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 1280 x 720 (32-bit) fullscreen
Running OpenGL: 4.4.0 - Build 20.19.15.4364
Succeeded. Using gfx mode 1280 x 720 (32-bit) fullscreen
Render frame set, render dest (0, 0, 1279, 719 : 1280 x 720)
Requested gfx filter: StdScale
Graphics filter set: 'StdScale', filter dest (0, 0, 1279, 719 : 1280 x 720)
Using gfx filter: StdScale
Mouse control: on, base: 1.000000, speed: 1.500000
Mouse confined: (0,0)-(1279,719) (1280x720)
Check for preload image
Initialize sprites
Initialize game settings
Prepare to start game
Audio is processed on the main thread
Checking replay status
Engine initialization complete
Starting game
Game GUI version: 118
Unable to write log to ''.
***** ENGINE HAS SHUTDOWN
[/quote]

So one of our Unavowed testers has had a very strange problem. He launches the game and nothing happens. The task manager lists the game as active, but the game isn't displaying. I asked the user to open winsetup to change the display driver, but the same thing happens when running winsetup. On a whim, I asked him to try running Shardlight (made in the non-openGL version of AGS) and he had the same problem. What's weird is that he used to be able to play Shardlight just fine.

He found a weird workaround -- he went through the Windows compatibility troubleshooter and set it to "Windows XP Service Pack 3" -- and now it's working.
We asked him to try launching Shardlight and see if the same thing happens. So it seems like either something has changed in Windows or something changed on his computer that's causing a problem. But no one else has reported this, so I'm confused!

Any light shedding would be appreciated! Thanks.

-Dave

edit: Here's his DxDiag.txt, just in case that's helpful.

I haven't done anything different as far as I know, but now when I compile my game and try to run it, I get the error "Unable to read voice pack, file could be corrupted or of unknown format. Speech voice-over will be disabled."

As a test, I moved all of the speech files out of the Speech folder except for one and recompiled it. I received the same error. So it appears to have something to do with the game/engine and not the speech file itself.

Any ideas are appreciated!

Thanks,

-Dave

Edit: I have also tried rebuilding all files. Nothing appears to work.

One of my beta testers for Unavowed is telling me that the game is disabling his audio hardware. Here is his message describing the issue:

I still have the old issue, that the game disables my sound. As I start the game I get a pop-up from Adventure Game Studio: Unable to initialize your audio hardware. [Problem: ] The game starts after this error anyway.

Disabling and enabling my sound device doesn't fix it, only restart. Not sure if there is another way to fix this and get sound for the game. I have this mainboard with only the integrated sound card:
https://msi.com/Motherboard/970-GAMING.html

Here is a screen capture of the error the tester received:


Any light shedding appreciated! The game was built in AGS v3.4.1.12.

Hi all. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing something obvious here.

I have four characters, all with the same view number. They are alien creatures with slight tinting applied to differentiate them. They are called "ligamentals," so their script names are cLig1, cLig2, cLig3, etc.

My issue is that whenever any of them speak, the text always appears over "cLig1". Each of the aliens uses a different text color, and the text color changes depending on who is speaking, but the text position remains the same.

See this video for an example of what I mean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf_FtQQc_OQ

I've scoured the code and can't think of any reason why this happens. I can animate, move, change the transparency, etc of each of the aliens using their proper script name. I can do everything except make the speech text appear where it is supposed to.

Any light-shedding is appreciated!

-Dave

Hello hive mind! Some Blackwell Epiphany players have come across one of those pesky exception errors and I have no idea what the problem is. The game has been out for three years and now two players have come across this error at once. Here is the error:

---------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------
An exception 0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x0050594B ; program pointer is +5, ACI version 3.21.1115, gtags (39,210)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and post the details on the AGS Technical Forum.

in "GlobalScript.asc", line 2891

Line 2891 in question is simply an animation call. Specifically:

Code: ags

cJoey.Animate(22, 3, eOnce, eBlock, eForwards);

Any light shedding appreciated!

Thank you.
-Dave

Hopefully I am posting this in the correct place! This is one of those AGS-isms that has been bothering me for a very long time, but never thought to make a feature request until now.

Currently, when an idle animation is playing for a character, AGS treats the idle view as its CURRENT VIEW. So if you try and call an animation loop while the idle animation is playing, the game will crash with a "loop not found" error.

Here's an example of how it currently works:
Character "Eli" has a main view called vEliAnims, which contains his walk cycle and his various animations. He has a jump animation at loop 23.
Eli's idle animation view is called vEliIdle.
If I want Eli to jump and his idle animation is playing at the time, AGS will look for loop 23 in vEliIdle instead of vEliAnims. The game will crash.

I know there are ways to get around this problem (like passing an idle of -1 before any animations are played) but they are fiddly and easy to forget. Ideally, AGS would look for his loop in his default view, not his idle view.

Thanks! If I posted this in the wrong spot, feel free to move it.

-Dave

Very often, a tooltip remains on the screen and won't go away. Like this:



Usually if I just go back to the script or module that the tooltip came from, the tooltip disappears. But as my project grows I often have 10-20 scripts open at once, so it takes while before I find the right one. And if I close all the scripts using "close all", then it never goes away at all unless I close and restart AGS.

Is there any way to prevent this from happening? Or if not, is there a quicker/easier way of getting rid of the permanent tooltips when they appear?

Thanks again in advance!

Hi hive mind.

I have a room in my game where a bunch of characters are sitting on subway seats. You can select which character goes with you on a mission by clicking on them. When you click on them, they play an animation where they stand up. So far so straightforward.

I added some background banter conversation between the characters, using the SayBackground command. When the characters are seated, it displays normally:



But after I click on a character and they stand up, the text is always displayed at the "seated" Y position, covering the talking character:



How does SayBackground determine the Y position? Can it be changed or adjusted in any way? I'm sure the solution to this is something obvious that I am missing, but any light shedding is appreciated!

Thanks,

-Dave

edit: To clarify, I am not clicking on the character while the text is being displayed. The character is already standing when the SayBackground command is called.

Hi hive mind. I have an issue that is stumping me. Basically, I have an inventory bar that appears when you move your mouse to the top of the screen. When the mouse cursor enters the "trigger area", the inventory bar drops down. When you move the mouse away, the bar disappears. This is a pretty standard system. 90% of my games have used it.



Typically, when there is a dialog option menu up on the screen (where you choose from a list of things to say), you can NOT activate the inventory bar. This, again, is standard behavior.



However, I am noticing that the inventory bar occasionally DOES appear when there is a dialog option menu up under very specific circumstances.

If GAMEPLAY is interupted - e.g., you are walking across a room and a character calls out to you and begins a conversation - the inventory bar appears underneath the dialog options:



If the conversation is initiated by the player - e.g., you click on a character to begin a conversation - the inventory bar does NOT appear. This is the desired behavior.

I've coded dropdown inventory bars in almost all of my games and this has never happened before. Any light shedding is appreciated!

Hi all. So I am using Sierra style portraits in my game. Here are some examples:





I am trying to readjust the portraits so the characters' faces are level with the text (that way the player's eyes are more drawn to their expressions, which are easy to miss). I tried changing the Speech.PortraitY parameter, but it moves the TEXT along with the portrait. Is there any way to move the portrait by itself? Or a way to move the TEXT by itself? Either will do!

Thanks in advance,

-Dave

I just spent the last half hour giving tech support to a customer whose Winsetup file looked like this on his computer:



The bottom half of the window is missing, so he was forced to go into the config file to change the settings, which led to... weird results.

It turned out that he has a 4k monitor, and scaled everything up by 200% because text was so tiny. When he ran Winsetup.exe, the TEXT scaled up just fine, but the WINDOW did not.

He reset the scaling on his display and the window displayed normally:



Is this an setting that can be taken into consideration in a future update or is this something that's out of our control?

I am encountering a bizarre problem and hopefully someone can help!

I am using the font "Cambria Bold" at size 16. When I set "anti-alias TTF fonts" to TRUE, The letter "S" goes magically missing:



But, when I set it to FALSE, the S displays just fine, but slightly smaller than it should be:



-Dave

I experimented with this font at various other sizes, and other letters go missing (or are shrunk). Specifically, the letter "H" at size 15.

Any light shedding is appreciated!

Is there a reason why the sprites are capped at 30,000 and the dialogs at 500? I am currently at ~10,500 sprites and ~150 dialogs. I am taking preventative measures to conserve (multiple conversations within the same dialog topic, removing unnecessary frames, etc) but it would be nice not to have to worry about it.

Thanks in advance!

-Dave

So lately I've switched to using FRAPS for screenshots. It's quicker and more flexible. However, it does one weird thing.


As you can see, the portrait is displayed but the text is not. I've tried it numerous times and the problem remains.

When I take the screenshot using the standard print-screen button, it works fine:


Does anybody know how FRAPS works and why this could be happening?

Thanks!

-Dave

edit: I am using the F10 button to take screenshots with. I have tried tying it to other keyboard keys but I still have the problem.

Pardon me if this is the wrong place to put this.

In my current game, all my characters have 50+ animation loops thus far and it got so complex I had to create a function for each animation so I could keep track of them properly. This has added a lot of coding to my project, but I figure that could be eliminated if we could name loops the same way we can name views.

For example, ifI have a character named Eli I named his view "vEli", which makes his view easy to refer to in script. But he has a jump animation which is loop 45 and I have to remember that number every time I want to make him jump. It would be nice to be able to name his loop "eliJump" (or something better) and refer to it like this:

cEli.Animate(eliJump, 4, eOnce, eBlock, eForward);

Is such a thing possible?

Happy Holidays!

-Dave

Pardon if this is in the wrong place. I looked in the manual to see what the keyboard shortcuts were (as I vaguely remember there was one to switch between any script and header file) and I saw that the list was really out of date. It still lists control-G as a method for opening the Global Script, for one thing. I searched on the forum for an updated list but there doesn't appear to be one. Does such a thing exist?

Thanks and apologies if this is an obvious question that everyone but me knows the answer to.

Specifically room_AfterFadeIn() and room_Load(). I know I can easily click on the event buttons to create them myself, but since both functions are used in 99% of all cases it would save a tiny bit of time if they were automatically added. Would such a thing be possible?

I have set up my game to have several layers of sounds. Each with their own set of priorities:

1-  Music layer (set to priority Normal)
2 - ambient layer (also set to Normal)
3 - footstep sounds (set to VERY LOW)
4 - sound effects - (set to VERY HIGH)

I have one location where a character is doing a NON-BLOCKING animation - practicing with a sword - and everytime she swings the sword a "swish" sound plays. However, the swish does NOT play when the player character is walking (e.g., footstep sounds are playing). This most likely means that the footstep sounds are overwriting the sound effect, but that theoretically shouldn't happen because the footstep sounds have a lower priority level than the sword swish sound.

Here's an video showing the problem:
[embed=720,405]http://youtu.be/l1vzUJ0n1kI[/embed]

I am totally at a loss. Any light-shedding is appreciated!

-Dave

June 1st will mark the 10 year anniversary of when I sat down to make The Shivah, our first commercial game. I decided to do a little victory lap and commission a piece of artwork to commemorate the occasion:



This includes every player characters from every one of our games that we wrote or published. All the successes, all the flops, everything in between, all together.

Thanks to everyone on this forum. Even though I don't post often anymore, this place has always been our foundation.

Ten frigging years. An exhausting prospect, but a satisfying one. Here's to ten more!

-Dave, feeling old