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I was flipping through the awesome Disney book "The Illusion of Life", and came across this piece of production artwork from Pinocchio. And maybe it's just me, but I immediately thought "Monkey Island". Could it be that the LucasArt background artist looked to Disney for inspiration?





Have you come across other examples of game art being inspired by existing art? I was thinking perhaps we could start a thread where people posted things like this. I also found an architectural drawing in a book about art deco design of a room that was straight out of The Dagger of Amon Ra (the office with the guy impaled on the hedgehog). I'll scan it as soon as I get the book from the library.

Thank you very much CJ!

And you're sure that the CD_NO_COLLISION and CD_COLLISION variables are triggered properly?

I have a small suggestion for the DynamicSprite.CreateFromExistingSprite function, although I don't know if it's even technically possible.

My primary use for the function is to create "effect sprites" (reflections etc.) from character sprites. Most of these effects use transparency settings. However, if you're using alpha channel for the characters, object transparency won't work for the copied sprite. So, I was wondering, would it be possible to add an option to remove the alpha channel when creating the dynamic sprite (thus downgrading it from 32 to 24 bit)?

Edit: And another thing. Regarding this suggestion, I had a crazy idea:

This can actually be very useful, even better, if CreateFromBackground() can accept 4 more optional parameters:
DynamicSprite.CreateFromBackground(int frame, int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2)
Which clips the sprite in a rectangular area.

I can see the uses for that, I'll certainly consider it.

I was thinking whether it'd be possible to apply the transparent pixels from a similarly sized sprite as a mask when cropping the dynamic sprite from the background. I suppose it would actually work by copying the "pink pixels" from the existing sprite onto the dynamic one.
If the CreateFromBackground function would work on other background frames than the visible one, this could be used for all kinds of interesting "see through" effects, where part of the background was replaced by a different version of the same screen. This would even allow for semi-dynamic lighting of scenes (much better than the flashlight plugin).

Edit2: considering these wild ideas, a triangular cutout instead of a square would be an interesting option as well.

I wrote a small keycode display script to help me find the codes for the keys not listed in the manual's ASCII table. When using it, I discovered a problem, which limits the functionality of my interface.

The keycode for PgUp (regular, not numeric) is 380, which is identical to Down arrow.

This means that

1) It's impossible to use PgUp/PgDn (e.g. to scroll a whole inventory or save list page) while also using the arrows (e.g. to scroll just one line up/down).

2) That PgUp and the arrow down key have the same functionality despite their opposite meanings. A player discovering this could find it confusing.

3) It also seems incosistent that there are two keycodes for PgUp and PgUp numeric (380 and 373),  while the keycodes for PgDn and numeric PgDn are identical (381).

I'm aware that this issue may be Windows related and not internal to AGS, but I hope there's some kind of workaround.

No, in the save function it should only run AFTER you've saved. I think that the problem is that filling the list messes with the current selection.
So you should only fill it 1) when opening the save gui and 2) after saving, in case the gui stays on screen.

Well, the first error is to put the FillSaveGameList command in repeatedly execute. Just run it once when the save window is opened (and if you keep it open after a save, run it again on saving).

Sorry, I misread (or rather, I didn't read, I just assumed ) But you're sure it's the 2000 version you got, right?

Are you sure that you've downloaded the XP version of the driver? Did you uninstall the old driver before trying to install the new? Also, if it uses the temp directory to store files while installing, there could be remnants of the previous version. So better delete the contents of your temp dirs.

An alternative could be to run the installer in compatibility mode for Win98.

Too clarify even more:

1) Lucas-style talking views with Pamela lip-sync: Not possible.
2) Sierra-style talking views with Pamela lip-sync: Possible
3) Lucas-style talking views with speech + reading-the-text-lip-sync: Seems to be possible.
4) Lucas-style talking view with speech + reading-the-text-lip-sync AND Pamela lip sync of Sierra portraits IN SAME GAME: Not possible

So if you forget about Pamela, you can most probably do nr. 3 (but I haven't tested)

Why are there so many arbitrary limits in AGS? Is there a technical reason for this 300 room limit?

I assume because they have to be set up as arrays and structs, and those must have a max size to decide how much memory are assigned to them.

So if you use Pamela you cannot use the built-in lip sync system? But what does these two alternatives apply to? Character animations or Sierra-style portraits?

They apply to Sierra style portraits (as Pamela only works with that)... but if you use Pamela with Sierra style portraits and have LucasArt talking views in the same game, you can't use built-in lip sync for the latter.

Oh yes, I hadn't noticed that it was Sierra style only (kind of weird since it's just a variation of normal lip sync). However, it looks like you can still use the other function. I had just misinterpreted this line:

"AGS supports lip syncing voice speech to the talking animation. If you enable this feature, you cannot use the standard lip-sync for non-voice lines."

to mean that you couldn't have voice + lipsync. It just says that you can't have Pamela AND lip-sync-by-letter at the same time. My bad.

I don't think the "reading the letters" kind of lip syncing works when speech is on. However, you might want to look into the Pamela lip sync function.

yes, not to sound too harsh, but round wheels on cars may be a starting point

Perhaps round wheels is a modification you can add later on in the game? If you looked at the tuned car, it has roundish wheels compared to the rectangular ones on the Bison

This game looks like it'll beat the crap out of Need For Speed Underground 2 and Juiced!!!

Glad to hear it worked. I had missed strazer's comment as well, until I went back and checked it now

Ah, that could be the problem. Player coordinates are room coordinates, WalkableArea coordinates are screen coordinates. You have to use GetViewportX and Y and subtract them from the player coords.

Edit: Alternately, if your regions are identical to your walkable areas, you could use Region.GetAtRoomXY(player.x, player.y).

Edit 2: Doh, I see that strazer pointed this out ages ago. So I assume you did already take care of it in your script?

Edit 3: Except he said "add", shouldn't you rather subtract?

Not the code as much as the pictures The only possible cause I can see are the corners where the WalkableAreas are within a pixel of eachother. But you said that it doesn't matter how close to the edge you are?

And this isn't a scrolling room by any chance?

Thanks for the offer, Iqu. I might take you up on that, once the game is finished. But that will probably take a while

And thanks to the rest of you guys for your input. There doesn't seem to be any concensus about it. But on the other hand, there's not really enough support for a higher resolution to make it worth the trouble. What I'll do now is this: I'll continue developing the game in 32 bit, and will make some experiments with antialiased characters. In the end I can always export the sprite folders and reimport them at 16 bit, if I'd rather save the space. Or even offer two different versions of it.

800x600 will have to wait for the sequel

Thinking about this is giving me a headache. It's almost like looking at an Escher drawing Instead of using areas 1 and 5 to switch eachother off, what if you split area 4 into two different areas, where the one closest to 1 turned 1 on and 5 off, and vice versa?

Also, you could make it only check if player.Moving is true to mimize slowdowns.