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I agree.

The fireflies are now working, very cool.  I slowed the speed down a little.  Tell me what you all think, if I should change anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaYjGR-JUOU

Alright, the situation is clear now. Since your game is 16-bit, then you won't be able to have translucent effects (at least not easily).

Speaking of cutting out firefly frames, perhaps your artist can make these cuts for you? .

I wanted to try it myself first.  I have a 2023 version of Paint Shop Pro. I need to google a little to figure out how to get the coordinates.  If I can't figure it out I'll definitely ask the artist.  She will do it for me for sure.

The fireflies are new assets being created.  The background is from the original game.
The fireflies are shedding light on pieces of the background.  See screenshot above.
The color depth is 16 bit. 
I'm going to go with the fireflies on the background.  Seeing how they look on the background with the light shedding outwards, has a nice look to me.
I just need to figure out how to cut them correctly.

Ah ok, this helps.  Let me see what I can come up with.  Crimsom Wizard to my rescue again.

I originally asked the graphic artist if they could create the fireflies on a transparent background, which I would prefer, and this is how they replied.


I would need to ask if the background has layers.

Based on her explanation, does anyone have any ideas on how to create the fireflies?  Graphics are not in my wheel house so I don't know how to reply and this is why we opted to do the cutting out.

If I opted to do the cutting how do I get them cut on coordinates?  Is this a graphics program with a grid or something like that?

- cut the pieces defined by even coordinates (multiplies of two).

One used to use only even coordinates for objects in highres games to avoid precisely the "one pixel off" problem, but newer versions don't use lowres coordinates internally any longer.

Hmm, if this game was upgraded from a very old version of AGS (which it is, I think?), then this setting is kept after upgrade.

You may double check this in General Settings -> Backwards Compatibility -> Use low-resolution coordinates in script.
If it's turned True, that means that you are using old-style coordinate logic, where in high-res games the actual object position is halved. For example, in 640x400 games the object positions are in 320x200 resolution, so you can only have them on even coordinates.

All of the above is true.  Very old game using low-resolution coordinates in script.

What Kris said, "It sounds like if the fireflies are turned on or off during the game, you can see the rectangular area shift slightly because the object isn't aligned with the background exactly." is also true.  For testing purposes, I am turning the objects off and on for the very reason to see if they are on the background correctly.

That being the case, is sounds like the objects have to be cut out a certain way?

This is the background in the game:


This is what I am cutting the firefly objects out of to put on the above background:
 

These are two examples of cutouts I am trying to place onto the background:

Hi, I am back on the fireflies now.  The fireflies were painted onto a background and then I am cutting out the area to make it as an object.  When I lay the object onto the game background, it never aligns correctly.  It is either a byte to high or low or a byte to far left or right.  I did get one out of five to work. I am very confused about this.  Do I have to cut them out a certain way or place them on the background a certain way?

Here is an example of one of the objects, top left outlined in red, that I cannot get to align to the background. If I toggle the object off and on it will shift on the screen.

They are currently objects with part of the background included.

If they are going to be moving, that will have to be done a different way. Not that that should be difficult, unless the firefly lights interact with the scenery (e.g. throwing shadows).

They won't be moving, just a slow fade in and out, using multiple objects.

I probably won't be able to get to this until after the holidays and I'm sure I'll will need more help at that time.
I would like to see a small snippet of the fireflies in action if you have it, EriOo.

Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for. I'll play around with this.

Hi, I am adding some fireflies to a night scene.  They are currently objects with part of the background included.  I would like to fade them out and fade them in, staggering them so they are not all on at the same time.  Right now I am just making them visible or non visible and it's not really the effect I am looking for.  Any suggestions?

Everything came out perfect.  Thanks all.

I got this all working good. Thanks for all the info. One question. How do I make a blank line.  Like between paragraphs?

The text is not displaying in the gui. The code below is in the OnActivate funtion.

Here's the code

Code: ags

function gGui24_OnActivate(GUIControl *control)
{
 String s = "I'll try to explain this as best I can.  Mr. Alexander and";
 s = s.Append ("I have been very close for many years.  To understand");
 s = s.Append ("our relationship I would have to give you our history.");
 s = s.Append ("Your Grand-père, Mr. Étienne and your Great Uncle,");
 s = s.Append ("Mr. Alexander were close brothers, but terrible rivals");
 s = s.Append ("since childhood.  Unfortunately, your great grand-mère");
 s = s.Append ("died giving birth to Mr. Alexander.  Now Mr. Étienne");
 s = s.Append ("being the older of the two boys, was afforded the best");

SomeLabel.Text = s; // this will assign full concatenated text to a label
}

Does this mean each separate line will need the Append?

I did start looking at that.  Do I have to type it all in or can I copy from a word doc?

I would like to create a box (gui?) that will display a big chunk of text. Currently I have an image with text on it then use it as a backgroundimage in the gui. Then I swap the images to read all the images.  I don't want to put the text back on images again (for changes/corrections). It's too hard to align each to match, just not my talent. I am trying to figure out a way to drop the text into a gui without being on an image.  This will make it much easier for corrections or changes.

Background Image:

Yes, I have 2 external monitors hooked up to my laptop. If I close my laptop, the game will load onto one monitor and I can move the game back and forth on the two monitors with no problem. This tells me it's not any coding specific to my game but somehow laptop related.

It's definitely the laptop causing the problem. It's still the main display but when I close the laptop, still running, the game loads up on my old monitor, I can move the game back and forth between the old monitor and newer widescreen monitor, toggle Alt Enter keys and there is no issue on either one.