Messages

If there are two games in a folder (for runAGSGame purposes) and the first one uses a translation file, then the second game cannot be started on its own (as it will try to use the first game's file).

So I'll use AGS3's wonderful 'change translation' command instead. Is it possible to hide the winsetup translation option?

Yes. Just use animate (no blocking) and repeatedly_execute_always to check "animating" and restart the animation if it ever stops. If it's absolutely essential that your animation never restarts but always carries on at the right frame, there is a command for getting/setting the frame, I just can't remember its name.

On ebay, there are 19" CRTs for 20 Euros, including shipping.

Edit: you rich people or Europeans with giant screens

(In Britain the only ones I can see on eBay.co.uk start at £60. )

Thanks for the help.

draw hotspot 0 over them or draw using the right mouse button.

Ah! It's obvious when you point it out. Thanks!

isn't ~75% of the screen enough?

You rich people with giant screens! On my little monitor I only see a tiny part of the code.

5. Don't know, when doing what in between?

As Baron says, double clicking. Editing old sprites is now like playing roulette, and not being able to batch copy over existing numbers makes any mass edits much slower.

But on the plus side, the new zoom feature is brilliant.

Back on the original topic of the thread:

1. Is it no longer possible to delete hotspots??

2. Are there still keyboard shortcuts for opening scripts? (Ctrl+1 etc)

3. Is there still a quick way to get scripts to go full screen?

4. Is there still a quick way to save scripts? (Ctrl+W used to be instantaneous, now there is a wait message)

5. Is the selected sprite no longer remembered? (If you routinely edit hundreds of sprites you'll know what I mean - it's now hard to remember which one you edited last)

Sorry if these are obvious to long time users of 3.x - that's why I'm posting in beginners forum

I'm pretty sure IrfanView doesn't change the color depth of the picture unless you ask it to (CHANGE COLOR DEPTH in "Use advanced options"), so if you convert a 16-bit TGA image to PNG it should still be 16-bit, I believe.

Thanks

EDIT:
SUCCESS!!! I don't know if it's down to how AGS3 uses a slightly different palette, but I had another go with depthdither using 'noise' instead of 'pattern' and I'm now getting the best results ever. Straight from Photoshop to AGS in one step, with not a single pixel changed in the slightest. I'm so happy! the other issues in this thread still exist (bulk import etc), but that doesn't matter because this was the big one. Happy day, callooh, callay, All is right with the world!

No more bad-mouthing AGS3 from me. I'm now officially a fan.

If not, IrfanView has a pretty good batch conversion feature.

Unfortunately it doesn't save to 16 bit. And for maximum quality I need to dither to 16 bit (to avoid banding on softer colors), and I've only ever found one program that can do it: an old DOS program that can save 640 x 480 in TGA only, then I stitch them together in Paintshop.

16 bit color is a real black art. AGS 2.72, AGS 3.12 and my original image editor use three completely different palettes. I could just change to 32 bit of course, but that would slow the game down too much. I'd rather go back to 8 bit, the dither quality is ALMOST as good, but occasionaly it's noticeable and I don't think players would accept it.

I feel like such a dinosaur, still talking about palettes in 2010!

If you can get your hands on any version of ThumbsPlus, it does a fine job with in-place batch converts. Even a version from five years ago will do this.

Thanks. Hopefully the trial version will allow it - I don't fancy paying sixty dollars just to a single use

That choice will allow you to multi select-files that you want to import.

Yes, that's useful, but it creates new sprites every time. 2.72 had the option of replacing existing sprites of the same name, which was a extremely useful, e.g. when batch editing frames of a very long animation.

I'm getting used to 3.x, but I really miss some of the productivity features that seem to have been removed since 2.7x. Is there a master list somewhere of what's gone, along with workarounds? I mean features like:

* importing TGA (all my 16 bit graphics are in TGA format, as Paint Shop Pro 5, which loads much faster than other programs, only allows TGAs to be saved as BMP)  EDIT: if there is no workaround, does anyone know of a program which can convert images in multiple folders without removing them from those folders? I have literally hundreds of folders with TGAs.

* being able to import multiple sprites over existing sprites with the same number. (I have a number of animations and rely on editing sprites in groups then importing in bulk - importing one at a time really slows things down, especially as 3.x loads individual sprites more slowly than before)

* etc.

Ah that sounds likely. (I'm ever so impressed that you can read that code - it's all sanskrit to me. Your avatar shows someone on a swing. I feel like I'm the toddler at the swing park looking up enviously).

When I converted the next game I paid extra special attention to any sprite warnings. The exact same sprites were listed as "not found" when converting games. Yet this time I looked straightaway, and the "not found" sprites were there. Later I loaded the original crashed game, and this time it found the missing sprites as if nothing was ever wrong. I think the tech gods are just playing with my feelings.

On the bright side, I know that I only post here to moan and complain, but 3.1.2 looks pretty good so far. The deal maker for me was the ability to change translations on the fly - this was turning out to be a much bigger problem than I expected in 2.72. And a big thank you to Electroshokker for the Linux runtime - that was the main reason for my not upgrading before. Now I just need to persuade all users to download the games one more time. Hopefully the new graphics filters and different approach to blocking won't cause unexpected challenges.

I'm on day 2 of converting my games from 2.72 to 3.12, and the editor tends to crash when trying to access some sprites. Maybe 1 out of every 500 sprites is affected. The sprites work fine in 2.72, and I can't change or remove them in 3.1.2 because whenever I open the sprite manager to see them the whole thing falls over. Any suggestions?

Code: ags

---------------------------
Application Error
---------------------------
An unexpected error occurred. See below for details.

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: Error creating window handle.

   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.CreateHandle(CreateParams cp)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateHandle()

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.CreateHandle()

   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.get_Handle()

   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripManager.ModalMenuFilter.PreFilterMessage(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.ProcessFilters(MSG& msg, Boolean& modified)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.PreTranslateMessage(MSG& msg)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.IMsoComponent.FPreTranslateMessage(MSG& msg)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ComponentManager.System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.IMsoComponentManager.FPushMessageLoop(Int32 dwComponentID, Int32 reason, Int32 pvLoopData)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoopInner(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoop(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(Form mainForm)

   at AGS.Editor.Program.RunApplication(String[] args)
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

Edit: I think I found the code in my game where characters try to change direction - 2.72 ignores it if those loops don't exist, but 3.12 doesn't. I should be able to change the code, which will require a simple change for each character rather than editing every loop.

So a related question: in the 2.72 editor you can quickly move between characters using the keyboard up and down arrows, but so far I've only been able to select characters in 2.1.2 by double clicking. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for the quick response!

If your character is only going to face one direction, put the sprites in that loop.

Do you mean I should duplicate all the frames in loop 0, making identical copies in loops 1,2 and 3?

Or do you mean I should find all the times the character might conceivably change direction and add some code to check the size of each loop and stop them if necessary?

I've finally been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world of 3.x, and speech view behaves oddly:

A certain character only has one speech loop. In 2.72 this would be used every time. But in 3.1.2, extra blank loops are created and these are used, causing the character to turn into a tiny coffee cup when he speaks. I've tried deleting the new loops and saving the game (Ctrl+S), but when I compile and run the game (F7) the unwanted empty loops are created again. What am I doing wrong?

most people who have a problem starting a game will just delete it and give up, rather than reporting the issue.

Good point. Thanks for the reply.

This morning I got an email from someone, saying my game wouldn't play. The first frame of the game would show, but not change. Music would play fine throughout, but the mouse (in the game) would freeze after about a second. She was using a Dell Inspiron laptop with Vista. My game is 640 x 480, 16 bit, 2.72, graphics on default settings (no DirectX).

It sounds like straightforward case of a driver problem. But she tried changing color depth and running in a window but still no joy. Every time I've seen a driver problem before, windowing or changing color depth fixed it. But not this time.

I realize that driver problems are inevitable sometimes - I've read about a few cases in the forum -  but I'm wondering how often this happens? One time out of a hundred? More? And if there's anything I can do about it?

I got another reply from my friend: He's not a techie (which is why I was excited that he got this working). He uses a G1 phone and 'Phonemypc' And it just worked!

From the sounds of it auto-scrolling screens are a problem, as the screen has to be refreshed too much, and small hotspots are hard to access easily. So I'm thinking of adding an optional "mobile mode" to my games that address these things. E.g. allow navigation in jumps, and magnetic hotspots or none at all. My games are based on books, and the look and feel is of a book, so I'm very keen to have them played on mobile devices if possible.

you do know that the iplayer and youtube do HD video over the net now, right?

Not if you live at the very end of a long rural telephone line they don't But I imagine that real time compression is not as efficient. Still, the wonders of modern technology, eh? What will the kids think of next. Thanks for the info though.

Thanks. I still have trouble getting my head round the concept. I can see how transmitting keystrokes is easy enough, but graphics? A scrolling screen for example, would be basically a full screen video, right? Over the Net? Presumably with very lossy real time compression?

EDIT: I never realized that RD could work over any distance, with a standard net connection. Or that RD works for all applications, including games. Surely the bandwidth requirements are prohibitive?