Messages

That's because I use raw-draw to render the particles, and I recommend you to do the same.

But I understand that my tutorial is a lot of text (actually, it appears worse than it is, the design is just very tiny horizontally). Anyways, good luck.

Take a look at my tutorial on programming a particle-system. It should contain all information needed. You can find it in my signature or here.

[Cinfa:]

Cinfa:
Hmm... I personally stick to my opinion, I'd say it should always jump/scroll just so much, that the "function xyz ( )"-line defining the function is on the topmost-position. Maybe you were thinking about the search-feature, cinfa? For that, I agree, middle is the best spot, but for clicking a function name in the drop-down box, you don't click it when you want the function above that, you look for the exact function - and since the "function xyz ( )"-line HAS to be the first, having that in the first line in the window will actually be the most clear. But I guess that's up to CJ to consider/decide.

Monkey:
1. What? It's not necessary to close paranthesis in the comments. :p For example:

Code: ags

call_test ( 1 );
// this is just a litte something (a test, actually)

In the second line, there, it shouldn't mark my paranthesis yellow, red, etc. The compiler should not evaluate my comments (in my opinion), it shouldn't "touch" these lines. If I forget to close a bracket in the comments shouldn't matter, because it doesn't. It won't change the program, because comments are entirely discarded when compiling.

2. Ah, I see. Well, in future it might be best to somehow update the cache more efficiently, but for now, you're right. Updating it like that makes it work.


Two more small suggestions:

1. How about allowing people to hit CTRL+C when having an image selected in the Sprite Manager and having that shortcut copy it to clipboard. I always forget that AGS doesn't seem to allow this yet when I work with sprites.

2. How about increasing the maximum entries in the script drop-down list? Now, it only extends a little bit and I soon have to use the scroller on the right. It could easily display five times as many entries, that would be a lot easier and faster to work with and that it would cover up a larger part of the actual script shouldn't be a problem, because you don't need the code when you're browsing in that list.

Noticed three small flaws with Beta 15 (but the update-list doesn't mention anything from Beta 15 - Final, so I guess it's okay to report):

1. When I open/close normal round brackets "()" in comments, it still displays them yellow. That's not necessary and distracts.

#2 is not relevant any more, I guess, see discussion below
2. The drop-down list in the script-files doesn't seem to recognize all functions correctly. I have a large script-file with ~10 class member functions and ~20 global functions in it and it only shows around ~8 of them at a time (usually only the ones near the cursor). PLUS (and that's worse) it seems to have gotten confused with the curly brackets "{}": inside one of my functions the list suddenly switches to the global function after the one I'm actually in if I move my cursor to the end of a "}" of a FOR-LOOP. It seems to confuse that with the real end of the FUNCTION. I can provide exact code, but not publicly if necessary, but maybe you find the mistake without the exact code just with the report.

3. When I click a function from the drop-down list, it jumps to the line. That's great, but if it has to scroll down to find the function I searched for, it will scroll only so far as to show me the TITLE (in the lowest line). It'd be a lot more convenient if it would try to scroll so much until the first line of the function is actually in the highest line and thus show more of the function itself (but check against the eof of the script, of course).

I tried to make it all clear, but ask if I didn't achieve that, I'm kinda tired. If you want to keep some or all of my suggestions for later updates, that's fine.

Looking forward to the official announcement of AGS 3.0!

[story-board]

I think what you'd need for a common adventure-game is a story-board, not a design-document. I know I'm being anal here, but there's a huge and important difference between the two, at least there is in my books:

Story-boards include the story and actors in a written form or - instead or additionally - sketches of important places in the game. The images can be connected with arrows etc. Also, it includes all puzzles (again, in written description, in a sketch or both).

Design-documents have nothing to do with the story-aspect of a game. They describe in written, drawn or both forms how exactly the game is gonna run. How the player interacts with the application. How the UI looks like, what happens when the user clicks "new game" in the main-menu.

In a common adventure-game, you don't usually need design-documents, because they'd only describe the obvious, like the verbs you can click and what they do and how you can cycle through right-clicking or not.

'What? You've... got to be joking.'
He smiled. 'I just love it when they say that.'
He waved his hand. They brought in a guy, tied to a chair, a cloth over his face.
His smile vanished. 'When you entered the program, you swore to do everything. Now kill him!'
I hesitated. I shot.

55 words exactly. Yes, I watched The Bourne Ultimatum.

I wonder if that above is actually an entry? :o

Just wanted to elaborate that the AGS script-language is in fact VERY similar to C++. It's somewhat close to all other mentioned languages, but not nearly as much as it is to C++.

[Best Programming]

Let's see. How about Revelation for Best Programming and Best Non-Adventure Game Created with AGS?

Justification: there are only two platformer-based games with AGS (the really old James Bond thingie and 1213 - Art of Theft used the same engine as 1213) and none of these were written in less than 3 weeks for a MAGS, none of these gave you multiple weapons and none of these allowed players to create and share their own levels with walls, enemies, power-ups, etc. Programming such a game with AGS is a challenge. If you don't believe me, just try doing it yourself. :p Especially hard is the moving across ledges, waypoints for enemies, shooting, special fx (smoke when bullets hit wall) and of course, parsing the own level file-format correctly.

Use Color 0.

Oh, then I misunderstood ClipImage all along. I'll change my post in order to not confuse people.

[false]

Another minor glitch:

In the lower-right corner, where the help for parameters are displayed, when I activate a GUI button's ClipImage-property, it says: "If true, the button image will not be allowed to overflow outside the size of the button". This is both misleading and wrong. First of all, it should be: "If false [...]" and second, you can also shrink a button-image with the function.

The above turned out as a misunderstanding...

The pixel-pushing seems fine so far (the line-work, the shading, the palette), what really grades your sprite down is the balance. In all four versions, she's leaning backwards - like she's about to fall on her back.

I assume that in the first case, A* gives up before the path is discovered. If this is true, would it be possible to include a game var that'll force A* to carry on?

That would certainly create a noticeable lag though - with complicated paths like this, the game might seem frozen for several seconds, confusing the user.

But this is similar to adding "noloopcheck" for functions: when running heavy loops, the game might appear frozen for quite some time (which is why AGS used to "crash" in those situations). Since we have "noloopcheck" now, it'd probably be consistent to add the path finding-option as well.

[minor glitch]

Just noticed the following minor glitch:

The manual states that the values for the transparency-parameter from DrawSprite ( ) should range from 0-100 while it seems that they range from 0-99 in fact. When calling DrawSprite ( ) with a transparency of 99, the sprite is drawn without any transparency, with 100 it's not drawn at all (or completely transparent).

This should be easy to fix.

FPS: Counter-Strike (version 1.5, that's the best one), Unreal Tournament (UT99 & UT2k3), Quake 3

RTS: StarCraft

OTHER: Free Rider 2, Bubble Buster (all versions of this game - you know, where you can shoot a colored bubble into a field of bubbles above and have to match at least three colors next to each other for the bubbles to pop)

The ability to detect ad/spyware isn't available in the Classic version of AntiVir. This much is a fact.

I know, but you can't reduce points from a program for not doing sth. when it never said it would do it. Just like you can't rate AGS with 1/5 because it has no native 3d support.

The rest of that wiki quote may or may not be based on one person's opinion of the product. We can take or leave it.

Of course, this review is written by a single guy who has his own opinion, and we can take or leave that opinion, but that also stands in contrast with the sense of a review. When a review yields such unreasonable results, it's highly likely that the writer is either a very, very bad journalist or it's corrupted. In both cases, it isn't exactly advertisement for the publishing magazine - and the review should maybe not be posted further. The rating is misleading, I'd hate to see people turn away from using a good and working program because of one bad review and rather install something like McAffe (which incidentally deserves 1/5 or less).

All in all, I think we all agree that the rating is unreasonable to one degree or the other (?), so, no point in discussing further - especially since this doesn't have much to do with the topic itself anymore.

According to a evaluation of anti-virus programs in the Scandinavian software magazine "PC Denutch", Avira AntiVir was assigned a rating of 1/5 stars due to the program's tendency to report false positives. The article referred to the software as "worse than having an actual virus."

The Classic version (ie.free) doesn't contain the ability to recognise ad/spy-ware.

So it's basically useless. Handy.

That is ridiculous and absolutely wrong. The article must have been biased as literal hell, maybe paid for by competitors or something.

I haven't read it, I suppose it's not available online, but from my experience, AntiVir is the best you can get for free. Giving it 1/5 is unfair just like that, but trying to reason this rating with it's very, very rare false alarms is even more laughable. I'd rather have one or more false alarms than one too little. Stating that having AntiVir on your system is worse than having a virus is equally... well... dumb. To say the least. That from a somewhat professional magazin is a scandal if you ask me.

I use it, because of the protection it offers (duh). I feel good about it so far - I can safely say I trust it, because it has kept my computer (together with the Windows Firewall) away from any bad software for six years and counting. And I look at naughty stuff. A lot.

Only gripe: the only pop-up I get is by an ad by Antivir - they even advertise on that same pop-up with "buy the full version and you'll never see this pop-up again".

How about this?

Code: ags

-XX
X--
-X-
--X
XX-