Messages

I can't replicate this, the region tint seems to work fine for me with D3D. Remember that if you have used SetAmbientTint or Character.Tint then they will override the region tint.

Here is a screenshot of the compiled game with different graphic drivers...



As you see the characters do not get colored in Direct 3D but in DirectDraw...
Can someone else reproduce this?

I can't reproduce this either, if you can get somebody with this problem to post a screenshot of what they're seeing, then we can investigate from there.

As far as I can remember I got this error report from a Linux user who played the game on Wine.
Could this be the reason?

Not selected hotspots use different shades of grey, so upscaling and reimporting it should work flawlessly.

This might work, but becomes really annoying with scrolling rooms and partial screengrabs that have to be glued together in a pixel perfect way...

I wanted to suggest an "Export mask to file" option for the toolkit if this is not too difficult to add.
The reason for this is that it makes the conversion of the game into a higher resolution easier.

Example: I would like to upgrade some of my games from 320x240 and 640x480 to higher resolutions.
With this option it would be pretty easy since just new backgrounds need to be imported.
The existing hotspot, walkbehind, walkable area and region masks just need to be exported then scaled up to the desired resolution,
later they get reimported into AGS with the "Import mask from file" tool.

It wouldn't be a big deal to convert a 320x240 game into a 800x600 game
given that the backgrounds were drawn in higher resolution first then scaled down to smaller sizes
which is actually a common practice when you draw a detailed background...

With faster getting computers, higher game resolutions and therefore conversions
from old games into new resolutions may become a common practice. 

I wanted to point out some differences that I noticed when I analyzed the graphics in my 32 bit color games in DirectDraw and later Direct3D

- The function MergeObject seems to work only in DirectDraw in Direct3D the object disappears when it gets merged.

- The region based UseColorTint does not affect the characters in Direct3D. It just seems to affect the brightness of the characters. (I just read that this also affects the TintScreen functions.)

- I got message from some players that the transparency functions like Object.SetTransparency create some flashlike effects or that Objects get displayed in a different brightness when they are partially transparent in Direct3D, but I could not reproduce this on my systems...

The easiest way to get the problem fixed it to delete the option "Save Game Folder" in the general settings tab to avoid that people generate a game that automatically tries to build save games in a folder that is part of the Microsoft Windows structure.

Because:
1: People from other countries with foreign Windows version may not be able to save their game, like Vukul.

2: AGS always had an independent flair. It doesn't make sense to adept the Microsoft Windows structure in any way, which is -everybody knows this- not a good structure and I don't know a single user that cares about the "My Documents" folder.

3: AGS messes this folder up with savegames: When I checked my "My Documents" folder I found savegames in there with their folders from games that I already had changed or uninstalled several months before.

I recieved a bug report from a Russian user who was not able to save his game.

My game was configured in that way that it saves the games in the folder "My Documents/Games Name" under Windows XP as it can be setup at the general settings tab.

In the Russian Windows version this folder is called: "Мои документы"

After I changed my game so that it saves the file directly in the games directory the user could save the games without any problem...

I thought I post this, because my only explanation to this was that maybe AGS 3.1 does not recognize the right system folder in some foreign Windows versions and is unable to build the savegames there...

Or am I wrong?

Thank you for now.

I found a work around for my problem and substituted letters in a TTF font with Polish characters. These signs get now imported by AGS.

Example: I changed ² to ł and so on...

In oder to make it display right in AGS I had to change the Polish translation file that now contains a lot of strange numbers in it...

However this is not what I really wanted to do and we are now starting the Russian translation... This means that a Cyrillic alphabeth is needed in AGS...

I was wondering about the SCI Fonts. Is it possible to import Cyrillic Signs into an SCI font and make them displayed and understood by AGS as Cyrillic? I tried the AGS font editor but it doesn't seem to work in this way...

 

I just got the message:

"Too many text parser words" and cannot compile my game anymore.

Is it possible to alter the limit of text parser words?

We are finished with the Polish translation of one of my games.

When we test it all Polish characters like:

ę ń ł ż  get displayed as questionmarks.

What could be the reason for this.
The .trs file is in unicode.
Is this a problem with the ttf fonts or a problem related to AGS.

If it is a AGS problem can it be solved (There are many languages out there...)?

OK, the dialogue should work now.
Let me know if it doesn't, please.

Ah... OK...
I knew that I missed one...

"Supplied word Schl..."

Refers to "Schlüssel" and is a error that came with the conversion to AGS 3.1 from 3.0
For some reason all dialog words that contained a mutated vowel crashed the game after the conversion...

However you don't need the dialogue to conclude the game.
The prison will be used only in the third part of the game serie and is a pure gadget location in the first part...

I will correct and upload this bug in about three days...

Here are my proposals:

Graphics:
- I think subpixel rendering for scaled sprite movements with Direct3D support at 32-colordepth would be great because the characters look and move stutteringly when they are scaled. In higher resolutions this becomes more and more obvious, because the artwork tends to be more detailed and fine.


- I think it is time to make it possible to import vector sprites at least as EPS (With solid fillings). This would reduce the size of large backgrounds and sprites and add to the speed and fluidness of very big animated objects. Especially games that use just a few colors would profit from this possibility. Apart of that those sprites would work independently from the games resolution.

- When a game starts in Window mode, could it be possible to make the maximize icon active in order to make it run in full screen mode?

Music and Sounds:
- Could a function PlayMusicEx (int channel, int music, int volume, int x, int y) be introduced, so that music can be dealt like an ambient sound? Especially if music is part of the game (A Band in the game, A Radio) this can be handy. You might say, that this could be also done with ambient sounds, but if the same music has to be heard later as full background music or that it has to be effected by the MusicVolumeAdjust, PlayMusicEx would be better... Also two ambient musics would be possible. Say you pass with your character next to a tavern and hear the music from inside while you pass at a certain x and y. When you enter the tavern you hear the music as full background music... Individual music fadings at certain positions would be possible...

- The SayBackground function doesn't seem to get affected by the voice script, so that background Speech can't be heard...

Text Parser:
- Is it possible to export the content of the text parser word list into a single txt or xls file with all the word group and type info, so that it can be better distributed to translators and proofreaders? (I had to make thirty screenshots last time and the translators have to type them off and understand them somehow)

- The limit of text parser words should be much higher than 1500 because if translations get added this limit is easily reached by all kind of foreign words.

Organization:
- Folders for room organization or a sort rooms by name option would be useful. There exist so many games now with more than 100 rooms. For me it is very confusing to find the room that I'm looking for.

- Can Music and Sound files get script names somehow?

System:
- I am getting more and more mails from Linux and Mac users. I think it would be time to think a lot about an update of the mac-port or an implementation of a mac version compiler...

Thanks to Paolo we can bring you the Spaghetti Edition of A Second Face.

It includes new walking animations for the player character, an Italian translation and several small edits.

I am releasing this now, but I have almost drunken a bottle of wine...
So if you discover a bug, please tell me because I can't figure out very much right now...

Big thanks to Paolo for his 10.000 lines Italian work!

Since all three downloads were broken it might be possible, that a frustrated guy, kept clicking on the download button because he insisted in playing these games...

At least it is a funny thought for me, that a guy continously clicks on a download button while he angrily shouts: "I want to play this!"

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute(){ 

         if (cFrustratedGuy.frustration < 1000) {
                  cFrustratedGuy.ClickDownloadButton("The Book of Spells");
                  cFrustratedGuy.ClickDownloadButton("The Glorious Realm of Thendor");
                  cFrustratedGuy.ClickDownloadButton("The Long Trip");
                  cFrustratedGuy.Say("I want to play this!");
                  cFrustratedGuy.frustration = cFrustratedGuy.frustration + 1;}

    else if (cFrustratedGuy.frustration == 1000) {
                  cFrustratedGuy.Die();}
}

[Rest in Peace Christian Lenz: 11.08.1972 - 05.02.2009]

Rest in Peace Christian Lenz: 11.08.1972 - 05.02.2009

Christian Lenz supported the game A Second Face in his last days.
The last time I saw him, I showed him Exrael's Fanart picture, and he seemed to like it.
We shared some wine and bread, when I talked to him about the sequel, and the future of the game.

For unknown reasons Christian on Thursday 05.02.2009 decided to bring his own life to an end.
He was 37 years old and leaves his 10 years old son Maximilian in this world.

Hi Snarky, thank you for your comment!

To answer your question: You are the second person who mentions the verb coin issue. I now decided to make the region bigger, that causes the verb coin to disappear. I think especially people with a fast mouse might have this problem, that they sometimes surpass the verbcoin accidentally.

Hi Paolo,

The first bug was already corrected for the newest version about two weeks ago.
Maybe you are playing with version 1.1 or older.

The second bug can't be corrected, it is indeed a path find problem of the AGS engine, since the walkable area is always there, but pretty complex and tiny I presume.

Thank you for the third note... I am so stupid sometimes...

EDIT:
Game has been updated to v1.3

Dear Exrael,

Let me tell you, that I appreciated your picture very much. I instantly showed it to all voice actors and helpers, and they liked it as well.

I included the drawing on the website of "A Second Face" and in a thread at my forum. (I hope that I was allowed to do that, if not, please let me know...)

http://faces.sitesled.com/ (click on fan art)
http://www.razyboard.com/system/morethread-a-second-face-le_woltaire-1730935-5541188-0.html

If I recieve more drawings from you all, I will add them to this directory so we have a small gallery with your imaginations about the game. I am always happy to get any feedback especially if it is a creative and personal one like in this case.

I am currently writing the story for the next two parts and every picture, poem, video or music file that I get will influence my personal reflections and maybe also the storyline of the sequels...

Thank you all for comments and fan art.

You goddamn tree-hugging hippy scum! Here I am trying to make the whole thing more elitist and you undermine me with all your touchy-feely crap! You people deserve everything you get!

When we're overun by "w00ts" and "dudes!" you'll appreciate my iron fist of totalitarian rule! You will! Obama won't look so sweet then, will he? No!

...

Oh, screw the whole thing. I'm calling Dial-a-Hooker.

Since you're Irish you should appreciate the words of James Joyce who writes in one of my favourite books, Finnegans Wake: "Thingcrooklyexineverypasturesixdixlikencehimaroundhersthemaggerbykinkinkankanwithdownmindlookingated"

And this represents my true opinion about all this...

Yeah, that's right, ProgZmax.

Also what Goldmund said about Werner Herzog: "Awards are for dogs and horses." fits very well.

By the way, it's Grundislav's birthday today, not sure if someone noticed this...