Messages

When I tell AGS to use a custom Text Window GUI for speech via:

Code: ags

game.speech_text_gui = gSpeech.ID;

The speech window has 3 pixels of padding on all edges. Is there a way to remove or adjust this padding?

Note: I'm not using any images for the borders. Just a background colour for the GUI and there's clearly 3 pixels of background colour surrounding the block of text. I am using AGS 3.3.0 Beta 12.

Any luck on that text v/s GUI line spacing issue, Calin?

Removing the initialisation code in game_start did the trick. Now to work out why it's happening with any key.

Hello,

If I press a key on the keyboard while my player character is moving, the character stops moving. Is there any way to prevent this?

Thanks CW! I was tearing my hair out trying to find the right option.

Hello,

I am trying to draw this simple graphic onto a GUI:



It's a partially transparent smiley face. The actual graphic is 16x16, but I've resized it for readability.

My game is a 32-bit colour game. I used the default game and made a new GUI called gTest. I imported the sprite and used its alpha channel. I changed Roger's interact function to:

Code: ags

DynamicSprite *mySprite;

function cEgo_Interact()
{
	DrawingSurface *out;

	if(mySprite != null)
		mySprite.Delete();
	mySprite = DynamicSprite.Create(16, 16, true);
	out = mySprite.GetDrawingSurface();
	out.DrawImage(0, 0, 6);
	out.Release();
	gTest.BackgroundGraphic = mySprite.Graphic;
	gTest.Width = 16;
	gTest.Height = 16;
	gTest.X = 50;
	gTest.Y = 50;
	gTest.Visible = true;
}

Here is what I see when I interact with Roger:



Transparent pixels where semi-opaque ones should be and opaque pixels remain where transparent ones are.

I've read some of the articles about AGS and blending and I appreciate that things are a little wonky when it comes to transparency in AGS. I'm not asking AGS to blend the sprite here. I just want it to set the alpha to a non-zero value for semi-transparent areas. Here's what I'd expect to see instead:



I would then be able to happily turn off the border/background and have a semi-transparent GUI.

I have tried playing around with various parameters to the functions. About the only thing that seems to make a difference is toggling transparency on the surface. If I set it to false, I get the classic purple blending going on:



I guess this proves that AGS is seeing my image has non-zero alpha in those areas, but not much else.

Please help me figure this out, guys. What do I need to do to draw this correctly on a DynamicSprite? If you want to try to replicate this, here's what I did:

1. Create a new default game
2. Set the colour depth to 32-bit
3. Add a new GUI called gTest
4. Import this sprite (here's the exact sprite: ) as sprite number 6
5. Replace Roger's interaction with the code above
6. Run the game and interact with Roger

Note: I am running 3.3.0 Beta 12.

Hello,

I'm using AnimateOnlyOnHotspots combined with a single frame view to make my cursor glow when the user mouses over a hotspot, character or object. Is there a nice way to make my cursor glow when the user mouses over an inventory item too?

I have a 9 pixel high font with 1 pixel of spacing. In GUI windows, the spacing looks correct. In Text windows, however, the vertical spacing appears to be ignored. GetTextHeight also returns 18 for two lines of text. I'm thinking there's some bug with sprite fonts and text windows, but it's also possible I've overlooked something. Any ideas?

Thanks Calin! The white/black thing sent me in the right direction. Importantly, I found you must also use the file from page 3 of this thread. The file in the original post has not been updated to support tinting.

I was getting (I think) the equivalent of a class cast exception when trying to adjust the width/height of custom resolutions. It worked okay if I changed the whole resolution, but changing each part caused an error so I added the following at about line 146 of "GeneralSettings.cs":

                    if (e.ChangedItem.Parent != null && e.ChangedItem.Parent.Label == AGS.Types.Settings.PROPERTY_RESOLUTION_CUSTOM)
                    {
                        if (e.ChangedItem.Label == e.ChangedItem.Parent.GridItems[0].Label)
                            HandleGameResolutionChange(new Size((int) e.OldValue, ((Settings)gameSettings.SelectedObject).CustomResolution.Height), ((Settings)gameSettings.SelectedObject).CustomResolution);
                        else
                            HandleGameResolutionChange(new Size(((Settings)gameSettings.SelectedObject).CustomResolution.Width, (int) e.OldValue), ((Settings)gameSettings.SelectedObject).CustomResolution);
                    }
                    else
/* This was the default before I changed things... */
                        HandleGameResolutionChange((Size)e.OldValue, ((Settings)gameSettings.SelectedObject).CustomResolution);

Any way I could commit this to your git thingy?

Not a bad thing, perhaps, but at the moment, to me, it looks quite like a train cabin. You know, add a parcel shelf on either side and you've got it really. I think it's because the room maybe looks too elongated. Perhaps it should be less deep? And as Barbarian said, some furniture or wall decorations would help.

Other than that, I've been loving the style of these backdrops so far. It's very fitting for a horror style game.

You should do some live-action of yourself, greyscale it and turn up the contrast. That'd look good for the main character. Sorry, just looking at your avatar and getting whacky ideas.

I'm no expert on these things, but...

In the picture, it looks like it's night time (hence the lantern and the tree/window light. The moon isn't pictured, but it's rough location at the moment appears to be the forest floor. What I'm saying is, I think you should invert the gradient of the sky background, so as the lightest shades are up the top. That lantern sure is bright, but I don't think it's bright enough to be causing that much of a glow. And also, yeah, darken the sky a bit.

Here's a dodgy paint-over just to show you:


EDIT: Oh, and it looks fantastic as it is, by the way. I'm a sucker for good ol' forest backgrounds.

[Inside Your Office]

Awesome work, Zor. I've really enjoyed what I've played of the adventure so far, and I worked out how to pick up the money on my own! Anyway, here's a list of a few bugs/problems, mostly parser related that I've compiled so far: (Plus some of it is just my opinion, so feel free to ignore.)

Spoiler

Inside Your Office

• "Move"ing the picture doesn't work, not that it should, but the parser doesn't recognise the word move (which is a pretty common word).
• The game still sees a spike on the desk in your office (at the start) even after it has been taken.
• "Where would you put it?" should be the response over "you can't reach it from there" when trying to pick up the money (it's more logical).
• *Perhaps* "take"ing the money once you have the sack should automatically put the money in the sack for you.

Zor Street (!?!)

• I think it might be Americans that use "sidewalk" to refer to pavement (not sure), but anyway, you should synonym that.
• Some commands like "take paper" in this screen have no response.
• Some adjectives need including, as in "take the closed sign" versus "take the sign". "Closed" just isn't recognised at the moment.
• "Look pavement" works but "look on pavement" produces NO response. What the hell IS that yellow thing on the pavement anyway? (Reads previous posts: oh, a letter! WTF?)
• "Rock" is Greek to the parser, but there appears to be a rock on the road.
• While I'm at it, Greek should have a capital 'G' in the game.
• The walk behind on the "Zor" street sign needs a little resizing (larger) on its left.

[/font][/size]

[close]

Long ago, these were known as tag lines. Sure a few of them on "Bumper Quotes" have been creatively selected to suit a bumper sticker, but you can find many more similar one-liners at http://www.taglinesgalore.com/.

If your scanner is SCSI, you may need to fiddle around with your SCSI card's BIOS. The same thing was happening on one of my housemates' computer and neither she nor her boyfriend could fix it. It turns out, as well as installing drivers, the scanning device had to be 'set' in the SCSI BIOS as being present.

Quest for Glory 1 through to 5, in that order. 

Okay, I thought I'd take some time to show you what people like Zootyfruit, LostTraveler and veryweirdguy have been trying to tell you. So I took an hour out of my time to try creating a sample stick-figure animation.

I've never done any kind of walking animations before, and this was kind of a little bit of timeout from working on my main character sprite for the AGS game I'm working on. So here it is:



Now here's a few tips:
o Firstly, note the animation as the character 'walks' to the beach. I've also done a few simple animations of the background, but if you're going to do this well, you'll want to spend more time making the backdrop more dynamic.
o There's a very helpful tutorial at http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml on how to create walk cycles for your characters. For the animation above, I only used the four key frames pointed out, since by the very nature of stick-figures, there's not much distinguishing between both parts of the cycle.
o You need to concentrate less on getting your credits across and more on getting the message you want to convey across. Stick-figure animation, or indeed any kind of story telling, relies on getting the message across to your target audience. You'll notice that in my animation above, after every speaking frame, there is a long pause to allow the viewer to fully comprehend what is going on in the animation. A good trick is to imagine that you're seeing your own animation for the first time. How much time would you need to read the messages you're trying to convey?
o You might also benefit from using a drawing progam that supports the use of image layers. Image layers are a wonderful tools that allow you to separate say, a chracter from its backdrop, and move them about independantly of one another.
o Finally, try spending a little more time making the objects in your animations just a little bit realistic. I spent just under an hour drawing all of the objects in the animation you see above and animating them, but it's easy to see what they are. It wasn't so easy to see in your most recent animation what that green thing was lying on the ground.

Anyway, overall, the animation was quite good, and I look forward "Zombies Revenge to Mankind Part 3" having some better animation. And perhaps some AGS games in the future?

This sprite just grows and grows! Okay, here's my take, I tried to show the "sliding thing" falling off:


Is that what you meant?

And at a decent size:

I like the girl in the second sketch. I'm thinking I might even redo her as a sprite and use her for my game as an NPC, if you have no objections?

I prefer the alternate background.

Awesome game! Graphics were great, story line was great also. And there was a good sense of direction for most of the game. I loved it.