Messages

[could]

I mean, for example, Game Maker supports all kind of Object-related and global variables.

If I had object "car" and wanted to define a new variable for it, I would just write

car.door_open=1;

into car creation event
and engine would initialize a new variable for me. Local one.

But writing

global.cardooropen=1;

Would make a global one. Super easy.

AGS could use rooms as objects, like

Room1.dooropen = 1;

...Or is there simplicity like this hidden somewhere in the depths of AGS already?

It sounds extremely noob... 

AGS has made large improvements, and I haven't been able to track all of them.
So, my event coding still goes like that:

* Create and define new GlobalInt
* Write it's use down somewhere, so I could hack through the mess when I have too many Globalints
* Use it, constantly checking what the hell was it used for

Does AGS has any simpler ways to make fast user-defined variables for local (room) and global use?

Also, I still have no idea, what the "properties" are.

With expanding of AGS, manual has also grown to confusing size...

[EDIT:]

Almost...

while (oDoor.Animating==true))
{

Can I if-check somehow, which frame is currently played here and THEN tint region?

}

Something like GetCurrentFrame(object)?

EDIT: Ah, found from manual!

oObject.Graphic

CJ has thought to everything...
And thanks, strazer, for moving my thoughts to right path!

Here again, I'm trying something way over my head... 

Problem itself is simple, yet I'm unsure if it belongs to beginner's tech. Move it if needed.

Right. Let's say I have a sliding door. Now, while it plays slowly opening animation, I want to tint regions elsewhere on background to imitate volumetric light coming from door. Simple!

But...
The regions should go along with animation! The animation itsself should block game activity during it's play also.
An image to describe the situation:



The door is shown here. Problem is that I can't think of a way to synchronize regions to get correct RGB values as door animation frames progress further. Of course, I could just play door animation and tint regions AFTER that, but what if character stands at some of regions at the time? it would look weird. Also, since animation is quite short, I don't want player to wander around during it - it should be blocking.

How to do it?
But how to do it simply?

[why]

So this is what happens if you don't have anything reasonable to do.
And why should CJ fix that?
Or even... what does it have to do with CJ?

The tail! Make its tail alot bigger.
First shot at google:
http://www.soque.org/Photo_Album/Best%20Squirrel%20Shot.JPG

I love the detail!
I hate the color!

* I suggest even more these little pixel-art thingies everywhere. They look good!
* Colors are way too bright. Especially, since character's sneakers blend into sidewalk. Try making it a bit darker gray.
* Superyellow wall seems too bright aswell, stealing focus from characters and sticking too much into eye.
* The balconies (?) look weirdly placed, I can't imagine what's behind the door if apartments are so close to the entrance. Think about it. Also, why are they so low? Currently, it's too easy for character to climb onto balcony from street...

Overall, whole bg shows some improvement from you, viktor, but can be made much better with some very simple moves.

No constructive crits? Well then...

It sucks.

The strips are by different makers, who use different techniques and have differently bent humor sense, so whole thing is just a big mess. Especially the animated comics. I hated those. "look here"-"what?"-"bang!"-jokes are simply lame!

I like the global idea of using XCom world though, especially because I'm a big X-Com -er- not a fan, but something close. XCom games rocked, didn't they?

Okay, I drew your thug over and since I made copies in progress, I'll explain what I did think during editing. Refer to numbers.



1.Your orignal - "Whoa, That's quite cool guy we have here. Nicely done, only 3 colors and so much character! Let's see if we can improve it...

2.Changed mouth - "This warcry-look on his face looks llike he's 18, insanely happy and killing ninjas with minigun. We should change it to more serious to fit with his overall look... Yes the hair should be tighter too... Some wrinkles near nose will make his face more Arnold Schwarzeneggerly(sp?  )... Also, make him older and fit more with fat neck..."

3.More wrinkles, no beard. - "Ooh, the wrinkles are good! Let's make some more...! What's this beard? Only rapmetal artists and college rockers wear ape-like beards. Naah, it won't fit here, since we made him older. Middle-age, elegant thugs don't look like highschool skaterboarder punks! The nose should be massive and bigger too. The shades look too weird, maybe few pixels would improve them... And the hair change, it makes them even more messy, and it's BAD, because...."

2.Final - "...this guy is wearing an elegant suit. There's no way that this guy hasn't been introduced to comb, so we REALLY have to do something with hair. More hair, shaded hair and not-so-box-head-in-1! Huh, it lost some comic effect now, but it's compensated by realism. Also, let's totally fix the shades, the holders go behind ears and nose section isn't so long... What now? Sylvester Stallone grinâ,,¢, of course! "

Okay, I most likely went overboard and my edit's way too different from your original, but atleast I had fun.

Rock on!

[used]

Heh, you have 3 shade-color body parts on this (quite interesting and stylish) sprite, so I just wonder why you didn't use them?

I didn't add more colors, just used yours.

Also, I desaturated (and added some green) to pants color.

[LOVE]

While first one looks boring and n00b to me, I just LOVE what you did on second.

This super high contrast, isometric perspective and whole 3D-ness of picture is simply superb.
Especially "live" is the water where it meets bridge at the bottom side of image.

Try to polish and master your style, it's worth it.
I'd suggest smaller brush sizes to make more clear outline/edge areas, so it wouldn't look like finger painting. Also, use more little details, these flowers at 2nd pic look very unique and awesome.

More!

[every]

Amazing. A trolling kid starts a web war on moderators... (or Andail personally - as it seems more to me?)  and it results 5-page long thread with all kinds of replies and attitudes.

I avoided the thread aswell, just spectating it, because it sounded hilarious to me and I was quite tempted to post some ironic jokes, like "Yes! Let's ban all moderators! let's set age UPPER limit to 16!" or some lame text like that... heh.

About the Sonic pic that seemed to be the last trigger:

Critics Lounge is the part of forums I spend time on the most.
There's waaaay worse art posted sometimes. This Sonic wasn't so bad at all, on artistical side.
I'm not sure, but I think (or sense?) that Andail locked the thread because of same reason ---

No effort!

There's many artists posting their works, some unfortunately have no talent at all - and they still waste much time on trying to draw, and some others are just at the very start of the long way to mastering pixel art. They all try, usually quite hard, despite their n00b-ness.

There's some weird "extra info" that can be caught with critic's eye.
I can easily say if the image is good or bad, but I also can see how much hours and attempts did it take. It's not visible in any pixel but.... sixth sense? Not me, but many critics at CL somehow feel or sense it and usually judge by it. The starter will be helped, the master will be admired and the trolls will be flamed.

But this one was somewhat... I don't know... pointless mouse waste? Like maybe Fluke draws a bit better than random friend at school and just wanted to get attention and brag in forums, making a 5-minute pixel mess? Or something like that.

Also, the moderating request and some other pointless threads...

So, I'm quite sure that FlukeBlake wasn't harrassed in any way by moderators. In matter fact, all this attention and debating from (veteran) members and moderators was undeserved also.

If we'd dance around every troll in such high scale, the forums would become a kindergarten! Boycott would be more fair reaction, IMO.

Then again, saying "i'm offended by ...", "discrimination", "racism" or "gay" in any of gen-gen threads' titles or content make it megapopular anyway

No I don't think so, her arms are good, her legs are too short though.
Changing the eyes and shoes would make it look even better.

I second that. Also, try to make pants' color less bright blue. Right now it distracts too much from rest of the sprite.

[in]

First bg? Really?
Hard to believe, It's too good for a first one.
Crystal ball shows another strong artist in community...

Of course, things to do further are plenty, so here goes:

* Red outlines on white walls? No-no.

* Black outlines? It will take time and practice, but start trying to use outlines only for sketchy primary shapes but textures/fills for completed things. It goes like that: you draw a vase with outlines, but then paint it so outlines won't be there anymore.

* Glass shading. There's hundreds of different ways for doing it. Realism isn't too important as long as the result creates some cool effect, for example, one my semi-realistic ways are on following picture:

It's unfinished bg for my upcoming game, but windows are there

Of course, windows inside the house have to be shaded differently, and should be transclusent, so outside could be seen. It's quite easy to do also. Few white pixelly lines are not shading...

* Practical side: A drawing for practising purpose may be random, but such bg would be difficult to use in a game: The character sprites aren't usually that tall, especially in low-res. There's exceptions, of course (Broken Sword?), I just haven't seen any of your sprites yet. But you have to keep an eye on this thing when you seriously start to make something.

* 3D. The doorknobs, glass panels on door/window and the wall light are all very flat. To "3D-ize" them, you should either use some shading or shadows. Or both and draw sides to these things, so image would look less flat.

* Use colors! White and blue are boring. Don't be afraid to experiment and try some crazy coloring. Even boring room like this could have at least 10 different moods and "faces" when colored differently.

* Program. MSPaint isn't worth your time, if you're going for serious "backgrounding". It's good for a newbie to try hand without confusing with endless options and possibilities, but not really suitable to make high-quality stuff. Better use time wisely and pick something with stronger base. There's loads of sticky topics and endless query threads about paint programs around AGSForums. Try them and find the one you like the most.

* Shading. I won't be writing another page-long article here, just know that shading will be the master mystery and key in making a good looking background. This is what will make your  life difficult and your efforts worth it. Read tutorials, inspect photos, try stuff.

.................

Heh, okay. I wanted to give some pointers for going further, but once again, ended up writing Background Artist's Bible.

Good luck with your studies, you have seemingly enough talent to advance into a strong artist.

Whoah, ProgZmax, in the game, your version looks soo solid, and just what I wanted to be!

This a bit wacky and important-looking walk is quite the same as real Henri walks
Wonder how he reacts if he sees such similarity...   
I'd better wear a helmet....

I worked a bit on sneakers (so they won't flash brighter) and made his hair move a bit, but kept your version, since it's so great.

Thanks.

Ooh, Mittens.
I'd would love to attend too...

But!

* I'm nobody. Until I got finally something playable released at l(e)ast!
* There's no reasonable (or affordable) way to get from Tallinn to Greece... unless I take a ship to Finland and ask Petteri to organize further transportation
* It would be still super expensive, especially for economy like we have here...  :'( Enough money to buy a mediocre well-kept car!

Well, it does.
I may be an amateur animator, but walkcycles are my weak point.

I got Henri walking, but there's still something missing 

Any help, guys?



2x:

Hey, it's good!  :o
Pity that it isn't integrated directly into AGS itself.
With an avalability to be available under any AGS form and window.
This way it wouldn't steal focus.

Organized?

Hell, my head is so full of ideas that designing/recording them materially would take another hundred years - which I don't have to waste unless I want another abandoned project and delay my first entry to the AGS games collection some more.

* looks at the background that took 3 days and got finally done 3 minutes ago... "about 10 more bg's to go..." *sigh*

when making such program, It should be super easy to use and it shouldn't eat any time. Otherwise, the game making would be somewhat doubled, both with effort and time consumption.

But insta-dirty-notepad-thingy in AGS would be a good idea. To mark quickly down all the stuff we need to remember, like script parts, mouse co-ordinates, just-flashed-into-head ideas, used/unused dialog options when making a dialog script and so on.
Also, I would find it super useful to keep track on all GlobalInts and similar stuff.

Whoo, that's some good news, I never gathered enough willpower to finish the original one.
Point'n'click makes this available for me...