Messages

I set the game.screenshot_height and game.screenshot_width to what I wanted, and it looks good.

By the way, that screenshot looks awesome...nice style

Geeze, this is absolutely amazing!

Once this is done, will the AGS community be able to use this? I really really am interested

A DS port would be great also...lots of adventure games are being developped on the DS I believe.

Ahh thats true...Im guessing when you use the "compress the sprite files option", it does a good job not destroying too much "quality"? Any tests done the compression of 32bit alpha sprites?

I just finished making a pass to change almost all my png files to bmp (with a 255 255 0 as the color for transparency). Ill test out this setup on a few computers and compare it to the png versions for frame rate...Ill try to post the results soon.

Yup, it works. I added       

Code: ags

txtSaveName.Text = lstSaveGames.Items[lstSaveGames.SelectedIndex]; 

so it updates the active selected item in the list at the top of my GUI.

If anyone reads this and would like the full script, let me know and Ill post it:)

Thanks RickJ

Hey RickJ,

Thanks pal! It works but I had to comment out " if game is paused dont process mouse clicks" since my save GUI pauses the game when shown.

I get this error however while trying it out (kicks me out of the game and brings me to the script, highlighting this line:
"lstSaveGames.TopItem = lstSaveGames.SelectedIndex;"

The error:

Code: ags

ListBoxSetTopItem: tried to set top beyond top or bottom of list

Hi!

Ive tried searching the forums without any luck to this specific problem. Ive found some that "kind of" points to some aspects, but not quite.

Its pretty simple I guess, basically all I want to do is when my savegame or loadgame GUI is open, when I flick down or up on the mouse, it will scroll up or down the lists, but selecting each one at the same time (not just scrolling the list up and down as a whole, but scrolling the selection/highlight for each save game or load game). Ive got the scrolling working with arrow buttons, but it only scrolls the whole list up or down, not each individual item.

This is what I tried, and well...doesnt work!

Code: ags

else if (button == eMouseWheelNorth) 
{ 
	if (gSave.Visible)
	{
    		stSaveGames.ScrollUp();
	}
}
else if (button == eMouseWheelSouth) 
{
    	if (gSave.Visible)
    	{
      		lstSaveGames.ScrollDown();
    	}
}

Ive tested this with my own 32 bit 1024x768 game...and I get the same results as Joseph. It seems I can only get my savegames works in 16 bit (I have to downgrade).

Ok these are good suggestions. Ill be going with version B's layout, however Im thinking of removing some extra crap that could be too distracting. Ill try to post an updated version next week.

Ill fiddle with the contrast levels aswell, I agree it can be a little too high!

I would LOVE to add the time, date, points earned, etc...in the savegames! Ill investigate the forums/manual to achieve this, good idea GarageGothic...Im assuming you're doing that with your game?

Hi,

Ive been working on the GUI for save and load games. I cant decide which version is better.

Version A has a smaller area for screenshots, but wastes more space with the badge logo (maybe I can put the credits scrolling on the badge or something). It has more vertical space for the savenames.

Version B has bigger space for the screenshot, but I find perhaps it can seem a bit cluttered...and there is less space for the savenames on the bottom...however I like the locker-ish panels on the sides.

Perhaps some of you could help me decide which is "better", even if it comes down to personal opinion? Youve all helped me a lot so far to get the main feel of this game's GUI's down.


Version A


versionB

Ha! Well I dont think so...it was more like "this looks good, lets try it out!"...and 56fps is good, so I was like, "Great, this works"...never tought of testing it out on a slower machine until recently. Doh!
I will see if I can chop it down to like 30 frames max (15 would be even better)...and Ill post what frame-rate I get on  the laptop.

Ive got another question:

What is "faster", displaying 30 png files with alpha in an animation, or 30 bmp files with a chosen color that acts as an alpha? On my harddrive, the bmp files are way heavier than the png's...so I started by default saving all my sprites as png's...but now Im thinking perhaps bmp's are displayed quicker than png's with alpha?

Ive tested by making the same animation with bmp vs png...and it "seems" that the bmp with a color chosen as the alpha had a better frame rate...however, each bmp is almost double the size in memory than the png's.

its 1024 x 768, and the gui animation takes half the screen, 60 frames...and repeatably animates since its a view with a loop set to infinity... its a flag that waves in the wind integrated into the GUI...

Ill test the same thing but with less frames of animation in the loop (60 is nuts, but when I tested it on my computer it was running at 56 fps)...on the laptop: crawling at 10 fps!

I have the same problem...

Yes, on that laptop is was in D3D9...I was just surprised of the difference in frame rate on 2 relatively "new" computers...that laptop has 3 gigs of ram and has a good processor...the graphics card is integrated though, but still...Ill try to get the full spces tomorrow and compare.

Ok so what you are saying is that in D3D it relies heavily on the card, so I might have to include the type of card in the minimum requirements.

Thanks for that info!

Holy crap Monkey....good news

Let me know when/if that comes out!

Hi,

Im not the most computer-savvy guy, so be easy on me

On my computer, my most heavy area in my game (full screen gui animations 60 frames, etc) runs at about 54 fps. Ive tested this on another system and that same part runs at like 10 fps. They are both pretty modern computers, with the exception that the second one is a laptop with a crappier graphics card.

What will affect the frame rate more, the graphics card, the processor, or ram? Its more so I can gauge the minimum specs, etc...

Thanks in advance guys

Wow Monkey,

Didn't know you could do that...I'll surely use that trick in the meantime!

Hi,

Im not entirely sure if this is the right place to post this, but I think it would be great to have a feature in the scripting part of AGS to right-click on a line and "add comment" or "remove comment"...so you can highlight a whole block of script, and add a comment...kind of like in UltraEdit...and also to have a feature of adding bookmarks so you can press a key and scroll though your bookmarks...

Does anyone think this would be useful?

You guessed right...So I did this and each click (depending on what mode cursor Im in) displays the right message:

Code: ags

function iWatch_OtherClick()
{
  if (mouse.Mode==eModeSelectInv)
  {
    Display("Select Inventory Mode");
  }  
  else if(mouse.Mode==eModeExamine)
  {
     Display("Examine Inventory Mode"); 
  }
  else if (mouse.Mode==eModeManipInv)
  {
    Display("Manipulate Inventory Item Mode");    
  }
  else if (mouse.Mode==eModeUseItemOn)
  {
    Display("Use Item On Mode");    
  }  
  else if (mouse.Mode==eModeDiscard)
  {
    Display("Discard Inventory Item Mode");    
  }   
}

Now all I have to do is check the manual how to simulate eModeUseInv and eModeInteract (I dont want to use those cause I disabled those modes so I wont scroll through them with my rightmouse click).

Thanks Khris...

hey Monkey!

I removed the useModeGraphic and it still works! Better that way...I want it to be "correct"!

...btw, you're a great help to me, I want you to know I really appreciate your explanations pal



Ive got another one fer yah:

Now Ive got all my custom cursors set up properly...in my iconbar for the inventory, when I click on the icons, I get the right icon graphic for that cursor mode. I have trouble however getting items to work with those cursors. For example, Ive got a watch called iWatch. When I had the default cursors, I used the look mode, no prob...when you click on the watch, it displays this text:

Code: ags

function iWatch_Look()
{ 
   DisplayAt(284, 140, 600, "Its your watch .");  
}

However, now I use a custom mode only for inventory items..."eModeExamine":

Code: ags

function btnInvExamine_OnClick(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button)
{
  if (button == eMouseRight) 
  {
    return;
  }
  else
  {   
    mouse.Mode = eModeExamine;
    mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExamine);
  }
}

When I go into Events for iWatch, I have "interact, Look, Other, Question, Use"...how can I "add" a new event into this item, so I would have "Examine"...?

Ive looked in the manual for adding events in the inventory items properties without luck.

Hey Monkey!

Thanks for the tip on handling inventory clicks being set to true...mine was set to false.

Here is what I did and everything works fine! (Its not complete, but I now understand the basics so I can continue on my way):

Code: ags

  else if (button == eMouseLeftInv)
  { 
    if ((mouse.Mode==eModeInteract) && (mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModePointer))) 
    { 
        player.ActiveInventory = inventory[ game.inv_activated ];
    }
    else 
    { 
         inventory[ game.inv_activated ].RunInteraction( mouse.Mode );
    }
  }

Im going to try out the "option 1" solution right now, Ill keep you posted.