Topics

Hi there, this questions goes out to anyone who uses/has used a graphics tablet:

I'm looking into getting a (probably) Wacom tablet for drawing backgrounds and goofing around with some of these awesome paint programs like Corel Painter. I'm by no means a professional artist; in fact I think the tablet could help me learn some techniques and media.

Anyway, the Wacom Graphire 4, in 6x8" size (I think that's A5) runs about the same price as the smaller Intuos 3, in the 4"x5" (A6) size. The intuos has tilt sensitivity, and more resolution, and more buttons - but a smaller active area.

So my questions are:

1 - How important is the tilt information? Do you use it regularly, or is it just a 'nice' feature with no real application?

2 - Is 4"x5" too small? If you own a similar-sized tablet, do you wish you had a larger one; or conversely if you have a 6x8", do you feel you could have gotten along with a smaller area?


Thanks!
P.S. I did search the archives for tablet advice but found nothing specifically on tilt, I know it comes up often but thanks for answering anyway!

Here's the situation:

I have a hotspot for a door. The "Interact" event makes the player go inside the building. That's fine.

I want it to work so that clicking the "Walk" cursor on the door also makes the player go inside, without having to switch cursors. This just makes the interface nicer in my opinion. So, in the "Any Click" interaction I have:

Code: ags

if (game.used_mode == 0) //walk
{
  hotspot[5].RunInteraction(eModeInteract); //same as open
}

But, "Any Click" doesn't trigger for walk clicks according to the manual. What am I to do? Any help would be appreciated!

[Edit by strazer:]

This is a pretty minor point, but ...

Is there any particular reason that view names can't have any characters other than capital letters and numbers? I would like to name a view "Davy_Walk" for instance, because "DAVYWALK" is harder to read.

Like I said, this is really minor, but if it's easy to change then it would be great.

Thanks!

Edit by strazer:

AGS v2.71 RC1:
* Underscores can now be used in GUI and view names, and invalid names pasted into the box are now rejected.

Hello everybody!

I'd like to announce that I have completed a program called the AGS Sound Manager. It is a small program designed to simplify the use of sound effects file in AGS. It manages large number of files and makes it easier to play the sounds from the AGS script language.

Basically it takes care of copying your original sound effects files to the game directory and renaming them SOUND1.WAV, SOUND2.MP3, etc. There is also a script module to make the PlaySound() calls more friendly.

Also, I've integrated an OGG encoder to compress WAV files automatically, to reduce the game size. It can be turned on and off, and you can choose the encoding quality.





The full description and help file is available here:
http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/SMHelp.html

The AGS Sound Manager is freeware, you can download the installer program here:
http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/AGSSM_Setup.exe
(The installer includes the VB6 source code).


I hope this will come in handy to some of you. I welcome any comments, bug reports or suggestions - please post them here. I hope this was the most appropriate board.

Also, I wouldn't mind having the program listed in the AGS website, in the Resources or Downloads section. Can this be done?


Thank you!

Janik

Edit: Made an installer program that includes the MSFLXGRID.OCX file that was missing from the original source. Please download and run the setup file instead of the ZIP files.

Hi,

I've been playing with the AGS Editor plugin thing (in VB6), and I've been able to add a new pane to the editor (very cool!) but I can't find any docs beyond   http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/accomplug.htm

From the auto-complete entries in VB I see functions to edit Characters, and Dialog, but it looks like that's all. I was interested in accessing the sprites and views, things like that, but I can't see how. Is it even possible?

Thanks!

Hi,

I'd like to see a shortcut key to open the room script editor quickly, from the Areas and Objects part of the editor. I know Ctrl+E is the shortcut from the Settings (though you have to click the picture, if the tree still has focus the shortcut doesn't work), but since most of your time is spent in areas/objects, it makes sense to have a keyboard shortcut (and maybe a menu item) for opening the room script.

Additionally it might be nice to access the Interaction editor and the Message editor from either pane. Adding a "Room" menu with those submenus and associated shortcuts would do the job nicely.

Thanks CJ for such a great program!

Hi,

I know AGS theoretically supports plugins for enhancing the editor (I haven't seen any though).

What I'm wondering is if there is some sort of sound manager for AGS? Since you have to name your files SOUND#.mp3 etc., it seems to me that it will get awful difficult to keep track of them when you have a bunch. Any help for that?

Thanks!

Hi,

I'd like to be able to add multiple sprites to an animation view at a time. I've tried selecting several (shift-clicking) and then double-clicking that, but it only adds the last frame. If double-clicking would add all selected sprites, in sequence, that would be great. Or, a button to "add selected sprites" would work too.

I have lots of animations with lots of frames, and I'm using "quick import multiple sprites" (which is great); but when it comes time to make an animation from, say, 8 views with 20 frames each, it takes a long time to double-click New Frame, then choose the sprite and double-click, and do that 160 times. I read the friendly manual but couldn't see a better way.

So if that's at all easy to implement, it would be great and would save a whole lot of clicking!

Thanks!

Janik

Hi, I'm having trouble getting Alpha channels to work with AGS and photoshop.

I made a crude character in photoshop 7, added an Alpha channel and painted it to make the player opaque, and add a semitransparent gray shadow. Here is the file:

http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Test%20Alpha.psd

Problem 1: Photoshop won't let me save the Alpha Channel (the checkbox is uncheckable) when I "Save As" a .TGA or .PNG.

So I go to ImageReady and use Export Original to save as a TGA. That seems to work. When I import that into AGS, it asks "Use the alpha channel?". I say yes-Ã,  but the shadow is just a black, opaque area. I have transparency only with the BG color in the topleft corner, same as if I had no alpha. 

Any hints? Is this an AGS problem or am I doing something wrong in photoshop? I couldn't search the forums because of some database problem, sorry.

Thanks!

Janik

Hi,

I just tried scanning a quickly drawn background image into photoshop to colour it, and the results were, well, not too good. I tried to follow the tutorial atÃ,  -Ã,  http://www.sylpher.com/kafka/tutorials/curves.htmÃ,  Ã, -Ã,  but my lines ended up kind of choppy.

Do you have any hints on how to draw a background that will look good once scanned and digitized? I want to avoid having to re-trace the lines in photoshop. I'm going for a cartoony look, 640x480x16 bit color.

What kind of pencil do you use for the initial sketch? What kind of pen for the inking? How thin should the lines be? And so forth.

Thanks!

Hi,

I can't find any guidelines for what types of WAV files can be played by AGS. 8/16 bits? 11 kHz and more? I have a couple of files which don't play..

Tahnks!

Hello,

Is it possible to define a function with variable number of arguments? I want to do:

RandomSpeak(string Speech1, string Speech2, ...)
{
int ran = Random(NumberOfArguments)
//etc... display a random message from the list.
}

Thanks!

Edit: [ANSWERED] in the subject

[speech]

Hello,

I know this has been asked before, I wanted to post in:
http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?topic=15349.0
but the thread was locked.

I tried the thought bubble example in:
http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?topic=14739.0
And it works if you use DisplayThought, great. However I would like bubbles for speech, and so there are two problems:

- Lips don't move during DisplayThought.
- The dialogs don't use DisplayThought, they use DisplaySpeech (apparently).

So, is there a way to specify/customize a GUI for speech?

Hi,

This is just a minor request for an improvement to the view preview window: a box indicating the frame number as it is displayed. Would be useful for locating that bad/missing image in the walk cycle.

Thanks!

Janik

Hello,

I'm working on what will be the main character of what might be my future game, and I'd much appreciate your comments on this, the first frame of the front walk cycle.

The character is a boy, around 7 or 8 yeats old (so imagine a properly-scaled background behind himÃ,  ). The game's look will be cartoony and backdrops will most likely be pretty simple (to make things easy on me, the non-artist ). Resolution will be 640x480 with 16 bit color.

This is the plain filled version:

Ã,  Ã, 


And this is with some attempt at shading:

Ã,  Ã, 

Since I'm not too good at shading and it significantly increases drawing time, I'm thinking of not shading. Plus it might look out of place in a cartoony background. Comments?

Any constructive criticism is welcome!

Hi,

I'm fairly new to AGS (did the whole tutorial and searched the manual though), but I do know how to program.

My question is, has anyone implemented a "click once to walk, double-click to run" feature in an AGS game, and can I see the script used? The Longest Journey and Syberia have this feature, and I really like it. I think every adventure game should have it!

Thanks,

Janik