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Just a tiny little update to show that there is still some progress.

The tank is back on the ground where it belongs, and a new real air unit is implemented. At the moment it functions as scout mostly (fast moving air-unit with little damage), but that function will most likely soon be taken by a dedicated, smaller scout-unit that actually looks more like a scout. The unit above will then most likely be transformed into a heavy air-unit, maybe an air-superiority fighter or something along these lines.

Concerning the unit-design, I have now finally designed to go the "Blizzard"-route where every unit will be counter-able. Some examples:

Code: ags

Unit Name       Position        Countered by    Additional Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worker          Ground          N/A             Unarmed, builds new buildings, gathers resources
Marine          Ground          Bike            First fighting unit player can build, cheap, harmless alone, dangerous in groups, can hit both ground- and air-units
Bike            Ground          Tank/Air        Very fast, moderate damage, good against marines, can only hit ground-units
Tank            Ground          Marine Mass/Air Expensive, slow, high damage (with splash), good against bikes/buildings, can only hit ground-units
Heli            Air             Marine          Fast, little damage, good against Tanks/Bikes, can hit both ground- and air-units

Or, put in a graphical way and showing the way it's going to be soon, I guess:

Arrows indicate "are good against" or "smashes [whatever the arrow points at] right into the ground"...

This will all have to balanced, but I think it's just the way to go for a RTS-game. This will allow different strategies and actually mean that players have to scout the enemy in order to find out what he/she is building in order to counter that. Remember that nothing is final in that list above, I will be open for suggestions as well as try to play around with different unit-concepts as much as possible before calling it final.

Then just do it like this:

Code: ags

// TODO: add real value
Wait ( GetGameSpeed ( ) );

Now press CTRL+F and enter the mark-ID "TODO" for example and it'll always take you there.

The moment you went into cheaply insulting my music taste you lost all integrity to me and continuing this discussion with you is pointless.
I do understand deep satire btw, and South Park does that much better than Simpsons ever did.
And if Simpsons did the same thing for 19 years wouldn't it be boring? yes, and it probably won't last 19 years if they remained exactly the same.

I did not insult you. I simply said that the music that "G-unit" or "Sean Paul" "create" is not exactly deep. It's mainstream. You can not argue with that. It's pop, it's made to be liked, it's mainstream.

Yes, I'm a Southpark-Fan as well, and they are great at doing satire. But they are not "better" at it then The Simpsons are. They used to be great at it as well, they just haven't been the same in the last 10 seasons.

Really, I don't mean any offense to you and I have made that clear in the last post and this one. All I'm saying is that a.) The Simpsons have changed and b.) in my personal opinion, they used to be a lot deeper and more meaningful before.

That's all.

I don't agree and I hate all that internet wave of nonsense that says "Simpsons have stopped being funny after the Xth season". Internet people, you guys are bitching way too much. Nowadays it seems people on the internet aren't satisfied by anything and rant about everything. IMO the 18th season is one of the best if not the best Simpsons season ever, and I watched the WHOLE series TWICE. In the 18th season almost every episode was hillarious and amazing in its concept. The 19th season so far isn't as good as the 18th but it's still good and has generated some great episodes, for example the one where Homer lost his memory. The concept and the way it was built was brilliant.
Why would you like a season you like so much to end???  Why the hell do people call for series they love to end???   It's better to have some average episodes and some great episodes in a season than not have it at all. You gotta realize in two decades, times change, humor changes, writers change, a series can't stay the same for 20 years. The Simpsons has survived so greatly for 19 seasons because it adapts to the times, because they refresh their writers so it won't get stale.
I say they've been here for 19 seasons and I'd like them to ahve 19 more, if you don't like it now just stop watching, but why ruin it for everybody else?

Well, you like the later seasons, good for you, but it's undeniable that The Simpsons have gone from a deep, satirical and provocative description of a middle-class family to hysterical slapstick comedy (just compare episodes if you need proof, compare the scene where Homer gets a gun [early season] to the spider-pig[from the movie]). I'm not saying that one is necessarily better than the other, but you've got to allow people to have opinions on this. This might come off a little mean but judging on for example your taste in music (G-unit and Sean Paul) it probably ain't much of a wonder that you're not into the deep and meaningful satire and rather like the mainstream-comedy in the later seasons.

Also, quite funny how you say "internet people, you guys are bitching way too much [...] rand about everything" when what you have up there clearly is a rant as well.

The problem you're having at the moment doesn't seem too be coding- but rather design-related. You can only begin worrying about how to implement (program) something if you know exactly how you want it to work, if it is designed. What I do in these cases is sit down with Paint or equivalent opened up and just sketch out ideas of how I want it to work. Also, try thinking about how other games present this feature.

Once you have that down, come back, tell us what you have in mind, then maybe try doing it yourself first and you will get all the help you need here.

Welcome!

I'm sure he meant season.

Simpsons stopped being funny around the 11th season... Futurama lost some quality with the 5th season (but it still didn't fall nearly as far as The Simpsons did)... Family Guy, yeah, can't quite pinpoint that, it never was THAT great, although the series has its moments, but it lost some quality in the two latest seasons as well... Southpark's new, 12th season isn't nearly as good as the rest either so far (with small exceptions) although all Southpark seasons have their ups and downs... That 70's Show's 8th season is unwatchable with the exception of the final episode, 7th season isn't very good either... Malcolm in the Middle slightly fell in the last three seasons with the final one being the worst by far...

That means the only shows I watch that didn't lose any quality in time are Rocko's Modern Life and Tom and Jerry.

I'm actually working on a plug-in for AGS 3.0 that will directly use the new Direct3D 9 graphics driver to render 3d graphics

In how many time do you think it will be available?

Since I can not do much work (except D3D tests without the AGS part) because AGS requires Pixel Shader model 1.4 or higher, I can't really tell when it's going to be finished. Won't be all that quick though. In addition, I'm much better with OpenGL than Direct3D, so that might be another obstacle to overcome. I wouldn't exactly count on it coming out in "the next weeks".

is it supposed to complement or replace the existing AGS3d plugin? Or do they bear no relation? Or was that plugin an inspiration?

Hehe, well, in fact, I was the one who actually wrote the first bunch of versions of the AGS3D plugin. Then I gave the source-code to Steve McCrea who had a lot more time and knowledge about the mathematical stuff at the time. You could say I'm working on version 2.0 (although it's not yet decided whether or not I'll be able to release it as AGS3D 2.0 or give it an entirely new name). They bear relation because they're both 3D plugins, but things will be a tad bit different. When you use it, it'll allow you to create new 3d-objects such as levels (from files, possibly bsp-files as they were used in half-life 1 and 2 etc.) and charactors/actors/items (.mdl, .obj, .x or whatever) and set up cameras etc. by calling simple functions. The main difference is going to be speed though (and with more speed comes more ability to render better looking scenes with more polygons) since I'm using D3D directly which is nowhere near possible at the time the original AGS3D plugin+module was written. If everything works out, it should yield amazing speed-increases depending on the user's graphic card. With todays techniques (if D3D is running normally) it should handle 100k polys per scene, possibly more. That gives you enough space for very good looking, round backgrounds and still greatly detailed character-models.

I'm actually working on a plug-in for AGS 3.0 that will directly use the new Direct3D 9 graphics driver to render 3d graphics. This would allow normal Direct3D 9 "graphics" in AGS (D3D 9 is used by tons of today's 3d-games).

Put short, I'm putting you out of business here...


[now if my GeForce 4 would only support PS1.4... I'm gonna go and buy a new card asap]

Using plug-ins, it shouldn't be that hard to either write your own simple 2d-physics engine or to import an existing one.

[EDIT: Oh, and there's a thread already... It's HERE... :p]

Also, and low priority one this, if there was a way to block out the DX5 option in games that rely on the DX9 interface, that would be great. A couple of times team members have been getting broken versions of the game and it has turned out their settings have somehow ended up on DX5. No biggie for now but for release it could cause a lot of problems.

I just started out with AGS plugin-development (and I'm not writing a .NET but a "normal" one), but can you not use GetGraphicsDriverID ( ) and then compare the returned string (pointer to const chars), strcmp ( ) it and then - if the user is running the DirectDraw 5 driver - abort using AbortGame ( ) and tell the user to use the D9D one instead?

EDIT: Oh, and there's a thread already... It's HERE... :p

Well, as far as I know, AGS does run on win32-emulators on Linux, right? So that just leaves the Mac-snobs and... really... who wants them to play your game? :p

Anyways, I'd be very surprised if "porting" was possible there, so there really isn't any other option than to write for two formats if you must.

Well, the SCUMM engine format is completely different to the AGS engine, so I guess there just isn't a way to "port" them. With games it's not like going from .wav to .mp3. It probably be the easiest to rewrite the game if you want it in both formats. But why do you even want that? What advantage does it give you? What can the SCUMM engine do that AGS can't replicate?

Won't run on my computer... It shows the loading-screen (?) (which doesn't work properly either, that peanut is drawn in its entirety way before the loading-process is actually finished). I then see a green full-screen rectangle for a split-second and it just throws me back to the desktop. Since there are almost no options to configurate nor is there a human-readable log-file, I guess there's not much I can do.

That's what they get for using Visionaire, I guess. :p

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I'll have to implement a simple system that tries to find a spot that is yet unoccupied and the closest to the factory.

What about moving the first soldier after it's created so it's out of the way?

Well, then I'll still have to find a spot for the unit to move to... I'll see what I can do, though. It's no biggie.

Are you adding hotkeys as well? Or is it all point and click?

There will be hotkeys. At the moment, grouping units is already supported (select a bunch of them by drawing a selection-rectangle, then hit CTRL plus a number and they will be grouped, a small number next to the unit, if selected, will indicate the membership; pressing a number selects that unit or group of units). There will most likely also be hotkeys for build-commands etc.

dirk delshire: Yep, AI is very important in RTS games, however I'm really not that far yet. I think it's going to be one of the hardest tasks to realize.

1. Define them as an array:

Code: ags

int test[10];

This means you now have 10 instances numbered 0 to 9. Access them like this:

Code: ags

test[3] = 1;
test[1] = 0;
test[7] = 15;
// etc...

2. To count their values, loop through them and check their values like this:

Code: ags

int num_var_equal_zero = 0;
int num_var_equal_one = 0;

int i = 0;
while ( i < 10 )
// loop through each variable of the array
{
      if ( test[i] == 0 )
            num_var_equal_zero++;
      else if ( test[i] == 1 )
            num_var_equal_one++;

      i++;
}

After running the above piece of code, the variables should be counted and "num_var_equal_zero/one" should contain the number of variables out of the test[]-array that contained zero (or one respectively).

Any questions? :p

I think that support for models (3d characters etc.) is perfect for modules/plug-ins. It's not that hard to write your own 3D API for any experienced programmer. The main thing holding these kind of projects back is the lack of struct-in-struct-support, it's that way for me at least. Since no real 3D possibilities exist anymore (AGS3D, which I started, then gave to Steve McCrea to continue is long abandoned, he did some marvelous work there, though, and the Character3D thingie doesn't work in 3.0 either as far as I understand) I might just try to get something going, actually I already have some stuff. This time I know a little more about the math, too...

[Little update:]

Hehe, thanks, Mirek CZ!

I thought I'd give you another update on how progress is going. With all the game-in-production-activity going on at the moment, if you don't have any news for 30 days, you're pretty much on the third or fourth page... (Not that I don't welcome all the productivity though).

Little update:

I haven't been able to do very much in the last months, but I did introduce a new unit, the marine (or trooper) so far and I can also show you the new color-scheme for the selection-marks and -rectangle:

I'm currently thinking about rewriting parts of the GUI system (mainly the part that has to do with the six buttons on the lower-right corner of the screen, the part that allows you to build new units and structures if you have a worker or a facility selected and cast "spells" - I put that in quotation-marks because there won't be magic-spells in the game, as in, real magic, that's just a technical term for special abilities/weapons, for example a unit could send an emp-shockwave every now and then etc).

I'm also thinking about a way on how to handle the creation of units. At the moment, if you queue up 3 workers to be built in a factory, it will build the first and spawn it directly in front of the building, then if the second one is ready it will try to spawn it and if that space is occupied, it won't spawn it and leave a message. I'll have to implement a simple system that tries to find a spot that is yet unoccupied and the closest to the factory. So it will create new units around the building and if it's surrounded entirely it will start spawning units a little further away, etc. It's not that hard, but a little annoying to implement if you don't fix your unit positions to tiles (like some games did) but rather have them move around freely anywhere (like for example StarCraft does, most notably in the editor, StarEdit, when you place a unit you can't really place it anywhere you want, not only on tile (5,8) and then it jumps left a tile for example to (4,8)).

* No anti-aliasing

No AA? Do you mean AA around the edges? Because AA can be used heavily inside a sprite, it's a very common technique. I doubt you want to limit that one.

...which would work great unless the user starts the program with CAPS already on or unless the user decides to switch the CAPS-state in a game-situation where no key-presses are detected (in a Wait()-period for instance) - then the flag would be !true...