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Would using a beamer, a laptop and WinAMP or Windows Media Player visualizations not work?

For WinAMP there are even some plug-ins that specialize on visualizations, allowing a "visual DJ" to actually have full control over how the different visualizations are used and you download a shitload of them etc.

Yes, extremely good work there. Of course, everybody would go a little different about explaining some stuff, but all in all you've provided a very good starting point for any newcomer to the engine. Also, the speed at which you published these and the overall work that must've gone into these videos (including the zooming parts, etc.) is astonishing.

After watching the first video, I wanted to create another video-tutorial series called AGS Essentials, but then I watched the rest of your work through in one series and realized that I couldn't add much information anyways!

Also, another thumb up for coming up with the idea, can't believe nobody has thought of this before, but that's the thing about good ideas most of the times. I saw that GameMaker already has this, so it might also really help AGS's publicity.

[EDIT:]

Well, it would be very practical to figure out a way to use the user's standard browser. Some people don't even have the Internet Explorer installed, etc.

I totally agree with you, ideally, the default browser should pop up. It's an extra mile I was too lazy to go through, but I will look into it. But as for IE not being installed, I guess it's not even possible... IE is buried way too deep inside Windows.

I see, well, just a suggestion for a version 1.1, I guess!

How did you do it?

In the most simple way possible, using ShellExecuteEx(). CreateProcess() is also a way, but that would be a little more trouble.

That's just what I tried, whatever, must've messed up something.

And, is this really safe? I mean, if I download some guy from some guy, possibly from some[/b] webside, I don't want it to call porn or virus-infected sites or whatever.

That's definetly an issue, but you incur that risk whenever there's a plug-in involved. Any plugin can be used to host malicious code, since it is a DLL. I mean, even if you trust a plugin, there's nothing that guarantees that the DLL you're using is 'safe', unless you inspect the code and compile the plugin yourself. But that's not feasible, especially in windows-land.

Unless CJ implements code signing in the engine somehow, there is no way to prevent malicious code inside the plugins. It would be simple to do it, though. The plugins could be signed using a MD5 hash of the original source file, for example. Then in the editor, you should enter this hash in order to use the plugin and compile the game. Of course, the plugin author should publish the proper MD5 hash for his plugin, as well as having his plugin code verified by some trusted source, like CJ himself... 

EDIT: Maybe I misinterpreted your post. Of course, using such a plugin, any game writer potentially could open a page to whatever website he wants. I wouldn't want to ask the user to confirm whether he wants to browse to some site or not, but that's a possibility.

You're absolutely right, there's no way to be safe with (AGS) games... ever. Any plugin could contain malware and in the end, people could even write their own malware and easily make it look like an AGS game in no time, just change a few names and icons and there you are. As you said in your edit, my concern is just that allowing people to redirect users to websites makes it all a lot easier. I mean, with the amount of joke-games we have and are still getting every month, I wonder how many would use this to direct you to questionable content just because the author thinks its funny. I'm undecided on this issue.

Good work though and I think that - at least in theory - it's an important feature for AGS to allow this, especially for demos to redirect players to the project's website after ending the game, like many commercial games do.

Well, it would be very practical to figure out a way to use the user's standard browser. Some people don't even have the Internet Explorer installed, etc.

I tried this myself with a plugin once, too, couldn't get it to work (although I'm really not that experienced with the win-api) and just concluded that AGS was not allowing these calls for safety purposes. How did you do it? :p And, is this really safe? I mean, if I download some guy from some guy, possibly from some[/b] webside, I don't want it to call porn or virus-infected sites or whatever.

inside lab:something awful --> awfull
in diary in lab: leave house altogether --> alltogether

Both these are actually correct in the game and it's your correction that's wrong.

Isn't until Oct. 6th a little long for a normal Tune Contest? It's over three weeks!

Thanks!

A few questions, the vocal track sounds a lot clearer but at the same time sounds a little strange in places (high in pitch?) i'm not sure but i do like it!

I didn't change the pitch of the vocals (at least I hope I didn't), what I did was add a very late reverb/delay. It's pretty wierd and experimental but I liked it as well, so I went with it. Think it fits the grunge-genre. Could've left it out for a more conservative mix though.

Also some of the vocals are missing in the last chorus and end part of the song

That's true, I didn't cut them on purpose, I ran out of disk-space while exporting the tracks from the Audacity format to mp3 and thus, the last vocals were replaced by shrill noises and beeps. I could've just exported it again but ran low on time, so I decided just to cut it for the moment. Also, it gives a better impression as to what the instruments sound like in the mix without the vocals in the foreground.

Still looking forward to yours Damien!

So am I!



Some general pointers as to what I did and what you can do to improve your mixes:

- Get good studio monitors or headphones, preferably both. You can not create a good and balanced mix without hearing what you're doing. Laptop speakers and cheap music speakers don't do the job.

- Your main objective when mixing a project is to clean out. Get rid of the mess and try to give each instrument its space so that it doesn't collide or overlap with another instrument...

- ...for doing this, you should know that there are actually three dimensions in music productions (just as much as there are in real life): left/right panning, volume (sounds nearer the louder it is) and how much reverb you use (sounds nearer the less reverb you use).

- Concerning left/right panning, you should: leave the bass in the middle (as long as it's not double-tracked, ie. recorded twice), leave the drums in the middle (as long as you only recorded the drums with one microphone/overhead) and leave the vocals in the middle. Anything else can be panned. In your song, I took the dist. gtrs. and panned one -60% and the other +60%. Cleans up the guitar-sound in an instant.

- Concerning reverb: there's no need to reverb low frequency tracks such as the bass or the bass drum (if you have it on a single track), because the human ear can not localize low frequencies very well anyways, just keep it dry. Everything else should get reverb, because whatever has no or little reverb sounds very, very close, and if we hear something very close, we feel insecure, just like somebody using a cone to whisper something in your ear. Don't use too much either. Compare the track your putting reverb on with the whole mix all the time.

- Be careful that your final file (mp3 or whatever format it's in) doesn't exceed but stays just under the 0dB mark. This makes sure that it's not louder or quieter that other music. It's a standard.

- Don't forget to clean out your frequencies. This step is crucial. It's about equalizing where you can boost or cut off certain frequencies. The exact numbers are always subject to change and vary from one person's taste to another, but roughly, bass should go between 50-150Hz, guitars should be 150-450Hz, Vocals 450Hz-2kHz or something. It's important that you create holes in the drum-frequencies (say, from 150-350Hz) in order to bring out the guitars which are present there etc.

- The drums were a little inconsistent with the volume and intensity of the snare drum hits, so I used a compressor with a ratio close to 30:1 meaning it worked almost like a limiter (because I had no limiter-plugin available) - in order to understand limiters/gates/compressors all the way, you should read up on some reference material, all I have time to say right now is that this equalizes your drum hits, because it makes everything that's louder than a certain threshould more quiet, so that a light and a hard hit on the snare sound the same volumewise. This kills dynamics but works very well if you want snare-hits to sound the same every time.

- For other recordings, I would strongly advise you to try and use several mics for the drumset. If you end up with one mic for your bass-drum, one for your snare, one for the hihats and maybe one overhead for a general overview, you can make drums sound way better.

That's some real roughly put together information for now, hope it helps and feel free to ask further questions if you're responsible for the mixes in your band or are interested or whatever.

Okay, alternative link to my remix:

HERE

Hope this works for you!

Yes, everyone's having a hard time with hosts...

Works for me, try to download it if the streaming won't start.

What do you think of this?



Only spend an hour, so it's not fine-tuned or anything, but I like it. I'll come back and tell you what I've done if you're interested!

Tried it twice, archive is broken...

EDIT: Third time did work, trying out some stuff now.

Code: ags

if (GetGraphicalVariable("ratvar" == 1) 

should be:

Code: ags

if (GetGraphicalVariable("ratvar") == 1) 

[Troopers]

For the record, Troopers is still actively in development. I'm working on a new layout for the GUI (take a look over here for some screenshots), I'm working on my A*-pathfinding skills in C++ currently in order to later add them to the AGS project and I'm always working on the GFX and, of course, the design of the two races and their units and buildings. Especially the last part is a hard bit of work, but I have it almost down now. Won't post my stuff yet, though, as it gives away all units and their functions and stuff and I want to keep that a secret because discovering all this is pretty much the game's objective.

Thanks for the interest!

Didn't get anything yet... How big is that mail? I don't think my account can take the load... Can you upload the zip-file somewhere like http://www.mediafire.com/ maybe?

I'd like to try and re-master it in order to bring some points across about mixing and frequencies and such. Please e-mail the tracks to me at checker_at_work (at )web(dot)de, split them up if they get too big or something, don't know what size mails and accounts can take. Also, what does Audacity native format mean? I have Audacity but don't use it too much, can they be extracted to .wav or .mp3 or something or does this mean I have to work with the freeware-tool?

For the record, it's says nice and reasonably motivating for me to try and give it a last push through my mixing abilities... 

Last question: did you use several mics on the drums or one overhead? This is crucial for the mix.

Oh, the first song you have one myspace will do it for the moment!

No problem, I know you're a decent guy and didn't mean to rip anybody off on purpose or anything.

About the player-sprite: I have to play your game to judge all frames of the animation but the frame in the screenshot you posted is definitely a one-to-one copy of a frame of Ninja Gaiden 1. Really just changed a bunch of colors around. That's not altering at all in my book. Maybe other frames are edited slightly, but I think the general consensus on these slight edits and recolors is it's still a rip.

The tiles are recolored from the same game, Ninja Gaiden 1 for the NES. I don't have the time to post side-by-side comparison pictures right now but it's easy to see for yourself, take a look at Act 1 - Stage 1 - colors have changed but in general it's VERY heavily referenced and some parts are just copied.

Anyways, I won't mess your topic up with any more of this, especially since you're not the one doing the art anyways. I'll come back once I've had some time to play it!

Well, as I said in the in-production thread, the player sprite is ripped and recolored from Ninja Gaiden 1 and - turns out on closer inspection - even most parts of the foreground tiles are.

Please mention this in the future, especially since you know it because people have been pointing it out in the in-production thread which you visited recently to update.

Also, I don't think it's a good idea to steal art without giving a reference and then entering the product in a contest (especially since it clearly states that you can NOT use copyrighted material).

I know you're not doing the art for this so I'm not blaming you for this entirely, but you must have read what people said in your first thread?

Well, the player sprite is ripped from Ninja Gaiden 1 in fact, just sloppily recolored. I just checked it in Paint. Check that out with whoever does the "art" for the game, especially since you're trying to enter it in a contest!

Concept is nice, I love the looks and feel of Mirror's Edge so far.

Yes, a quadruply linked list wouldn't really be efficient for ANY game except for one where you NEVER change the room in any other way or direction than north, south, east or west. That means, no "jumps" (like teleporting) and no more than 4 exits per room. Even a black room for the intro or cutscenes that use room-graphics would have to be embedded in that system.

Overall, I'd say, go for a simple array or a std::vector for the rooms. Since the number of rooms won't change dynamically, a simple array would be my choice. Then just implement a Character.ChangeRoom function that removes a character from one room and adds it (at a specific position maybe) in another. Depending on the rest of your engine, this should be a more or less trivial implementation.