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It looks quite good but you need to get rid of the double pixels. Some double pixels are okay but not all around him. The head of Pencilman is way too much different compaired with his alter ego and the noses are different too.

Here's a paintover I done:



What I did was that I got rid all the double pixles and used the alter ego's head on the Pencilman body but I changed the head shape so it matches with your descreption of him. Most superheroes and their alter-egos are quite similiar to each other so that you can recognize the who the super hero/alter ego atcually are. If you for example look at Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles and then look at Bob Parr you can see that those two are the same person even if they wears the supersuit and eyemask. The same goes with Superman/Clark Kent and Batman/Bruce Wayne.

I didn't knew that ChangeCharacterVeiw changed the standard veiw permently. Anyway, thanks for the help! It is working now.

Yeah, front walkcycles are harder to do then sideways.

It doesn't work! If I use ReleaseCharacterVeiw the veiw will go back to the sitting veiw when it should be the standard standing veiw (and walking). The idle work does play up but it's wrong since he sits down and suddenly rise up to blink and after that return to the sitting position.

I've tried with an alternative in the first cutscene:

ReleaseCharacterView(EGO);
ReleaseCharacterView(CRI);
Wait(1);
SetCharacterIdle(CRI,57,10);
SetCharacterView(CRI,7);
SetCharacterSpeechView(EGO,4);
SetCharacterSpeechView(CRI,35);
SetCharacterView(EGO,3);

The reason for that I changing the character veiws is that the ReleaseCharacterVeiws changes back to the sitting veiws (even if the original veiws actually are the standing/walking veiws) and therefore had to use SetCharacterVeiw to set them to the proper veiws. The program shows no warning messages but the characters idle veiw doesn't play up. This drives on my nerves! Please help me out of this problem!

Also, I'm using AGS 2.62 (again, for those don't know, the reason for that is the template I'm using isn't updated to 2.7).

I've got some problem with setting a idle veiw. At the start of my game there'll be a cutscene in which there are the main character and another character. The idle veiw I have for the non-main character is set that he blinks when he stands but since he sits all the time in the cutscene I have turned it of with SetIdleVeiw(-1,10) and then in the next room I've set on the idle veiw (which is 57) but nothing hapens (even if the character is suppoused to blink since he doesn't move or talk for quite awhile). When I quit the game I get this warning:



What have I done wrong? What should I do to correct this error?

Here's the script for it (Note: If you don't want to know the beginning of my game don't look):

Spoiler

StartCutscene(1);
Wait(40);
SetCharacterIdle(CRI,-1,10);
ChangeCharacterView(EGO,53);
SetCharacterSpeechView(EGO,53);
ChangeCharacterView(CRI,48);
SetCharacterSpeechView(CRI,54);
Wait(10);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"My name is Torleif Shufflefoot.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"That monkey over there is my pet, Crispy.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"I might don't look like it but I'm a pirate.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"It wasn't too long ago when I became a pirate.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"In fact, it was only a couple of weeks ago.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"So far, the pirate biz haven't worked out very well.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"The last time, we joined a pirate crew and it ended with we got marooned on a deserted island.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Sigh! If I only were paying attention to the cooking instead of daydreaming the kitchen wouldn't have caught on fire.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"We escaped from the island by making a raft out of old timber and shipwrecks.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"We have been on here on the sea for three days.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"The food have almost run out and there's only a couple of chunks of water left.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"It seems that we're done for if not a boat will turn up or that we will find land.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Which is the worst? Failing in piracy or starve to death on the ocean?"); 
Wait(10);
AnimateCharacter(CRI,2,0,0);
Wait(80);
DisplaySpeech(CRI,"Ooh-ooh-ooh!");
DisplaySpeech(CRI,"Ee-aah-ooh!");
SetCharacterView(EGO,55);
AnimateCharacter(EGO,1,0,0);
SetCharacterSpeechView(EGO,5);
Wait(10);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Hey Crispy! What is it, boy?");
Wait(40);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Land Ho!");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Way to go, Crispy!");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Now, let's head to that island...");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"...for the adventure!");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"For swashbuckeling...");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"...and for the prime honor of pirates!");
Wait(20);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"And to go to the bathroom!");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Let's go!");
GUIOn(0);
GUIOn(1);
SetCharacterSpeechView(EGO,4);
ReleaseCharacterView(EGO);
ReleaseCharacterView(CRI);
Wait(10);
NewRoomEx(1,100,190);
NewRoomNPC(CRI,1,60,190);
SetCharacterSpeechView(CRI,35);
SetCharacterView(CRI,7);
EndCutscene();


  // script for room: First time player enters screen
StartCutscene(1);
SetCharacterIdle(CRI,57,10);
Wait(5);
DisplaySpeechBackground(SKULL,"5 mintutes of paddling later...");
Wait(80);
FaceCharacter(EGO,CRI);
FaceCharacter(CRI,EGO);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"We finally made it to land.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"I just wonder where we are.");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&1 You have landed on Touche Island, sir.");
FaceCharacter(EGO,TOUR);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Hi there, I'm Torleif Shufflefoot, newly gratuaded pirate!");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&2 Really? You remind me more of a flooring inspector.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Are you trying to pull a Monkey Island cliche on me?");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&3 To be honest, no. You don't look so much like a pirate to me.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"You have no idea how many have told me that.");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&4 Anyway, what brings you here?");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"I just floated here after escaping from a island.");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&5 You have been marooned, right?");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Does it show?");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&6 Kind of.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Do you know anything good to do to make the pirate career better?");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&7 Depends.");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&8 But if you're seeking for REAL challenges you should search for the legendary lost treasure of LeDrake.");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&9 Pirates have searched for it for generations but none have managed to found it.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Wow! If I find it, I'll become famous!");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Uh... do you know where I should start looking for clues?");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&10 The best place to get gossips and information is in the village Pueblo Pequeno.");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&11 Just walk to the east and you'll eventually get there.");
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&12 It's impossible to miss it.");
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Thanks a lot!");
FaceCharacter(EGO,CRI);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Ok, Crispy, let's go!");
DisplaySpeech(CRI,"Ee-ee-ee-ah.");
FaceCharacter(EGO,TOUR);
DisplaySpeech(TOUR,"&13 Good luck.");
FollowCharacterEx(CRI,EGO,2,5);
MoveCharacter(EGO,399, 209);
Wait(200);
NewRoom(16);
EndCutscene();

[close]

There should be no speech(voice acting) or text in a known language. I hope I understand your question (you know my english...).

I thought it was okay to use voices in english as long as there were no text speech.

Well, I got a couple of other questions:

1: Is it okay to write any known language backwards or mixed up like in Shiffer (for those who don't know it's sort of a message-code were you replace the letters in the alphabet to create a language)?

2: If the language is totally made up then is it okay to include a file with the game a kind of wordlist that translates from the madeup language to english?

Is it okay to have dialogs as long as there no text (voice speech) and that the options are either in text symbols (in unknown languages) or pictures (I know it doesn't work in dialogs but it can be possible with a GUI instead)?

The rules seems interesting. It reminds me of the Humongous games for kids, which don't have any text apart from the title but all the speech were made of voices and the dialog options was made of pictures (similiar in Sam and Max and The Dig).

I'm not sure if I will be in but I'm thinking about trying to make a picture based dialog (not the talking itself but the dialog options, like Sam and Max and The Dig) as an experiment for a future project, if it's okay.

It looks great, dg! Very great! I think I could use that in the game.

calacver: If you meant like Erwin Br. suggested about "real" monkey walk then I'm sorry to say that I'm not aiming for that since Crispy is a smart pet and not a wild monkey so that's why he walks on two legs. If you meant like swinging in trees like Tarzan or monkeys in trees, I'm sorry to say that won't appear in the game (but maybe in a possibly sequel).

A couple of days ago I was for fun and for test my skills recreate stuff from Day of the Tentacle and one of the stuff I stumpled on that when I tried to use a background animation on the front of the mansion where you can see the river flowing next to the mansion's entrance. The full animation of river had seven frames and you can only have five backgrounds per room (the original plus four more). Sure, you can make it as an object animation but what if you want to make a such animation that requires that many frames? I think that they should at least have eight or ten as a maximum of backgrounds per room so that it's possible to this way (you know that objects CAN slow the game down, especially when there are a lot of them which all of us obviously want to avoid).

Do guys agree with me about this? If not, then why?

Alias: A walk cycle is only two steps - one with each foot - so, in my opinion,  it's best to leave out things like blinking because nobody (or monkey  ) blinks every two steps... At least not that I've witnessed

That's exactly what I meant. Besides, it looks very silly to do a thing like that. Also, in the game the characters will have different kinds of expressions both on their mouths and in the eyes so you see when they're happy, sad, angry, chocked etc, so the eyes won't look be "stiff" like suits or dolls.

Well, I haven't played Simon the Sorcerer so I didn't knew that (I haven't played any Sierra games at all, just Lucas Arts ones). Well, I suppouse it counts then.

Well, the interface seem a bit okay for me but what if you want to try different kind of stuff, like trying to open a chest but it doesn't work and you want to push and/or pull it instead? When you got four commands (hand, feet, mouth and eye) the amount of actions are very limited unlike the Verb Boxes Interface were you can use different kinds of actions on things. The more possiblities there are, the more things you can do. I mean it's different giving a goon a ming vase than use it to smash it on his head (Give and Use for the Verb Boxes and either on them on the inventory use command). In other words, I don't personalitly think that the interface system is "marvelous". But it's your game, not mine.

Of course it's better with "lick lollipop" than "talk to lollipop" or "eat sandswich" than "talk to sandwhich".

I meant the One Ring from the Lord of the Rings, you know "The One Ring to rule them all". I'm not talking about "any" One Ring but Sauron's Ring.

khrismuc, ok, thanks for showing me the tutorial.

dg: Well, my game is in humorous cartoon style so I'm not aiming for 100 % realism but maybe you could try to edit so that he does bend his limbs (but I don't want longer arms because I don't want to totally redesign everything I've done for Crispy so far, plus that I like Cripsy's look as he is).

Alias: Yeah, I agree with dg about the blinking. Which person or animal does blink all the time while he/she/it walks around anyway?

Apart from that and the head's wrong timed bobbing, it looks good.

Then in what frames should the bobs be then if not 2:nd, 4:th and 6:th frames?

Ok, now I have finished a new version and this time I managed to make it as an animation (thanks to dg for the help!):



* I have lowered the head on the 2:d, 4:th and 6:th frame make the head bob when he moves (thought it looked slightly stiff when his head was still).
* Changed the tail so it wags back and forth (it looks good to me but I don't know about you guys).
* Changed the feet in second and fifth frame.

I'm not sure about the feet but maybe it's just me. Tell me what you think.

I'm trying to make some doors like in Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle by using a hotspot area for the open door and a object for the closed one. The problem is that if you use the Any click commando it will affect the other commands, like if you try to use close the door Hotspot then it doesn't only close the door but it will transport to other room as well. That's not suppoused to happen. I'll show an example of that:

Code: ags

  // script for hotspot1: Any click on hotspot
NewRoomEx(4,74, 115);  

if (UsedMode(CLOSE)){ 
   if (GetPlayerCharacter() == BERN){
     MoveCharacterToObject(BERN,1);
     }
   if (GetPlayerCharacter() == LAVE){
     MoveCharacterToObject(LAVE,1);
     }
   if (GetPlayerCharacter() == HOAG){
     MoveCharacterToObject(HOAG,1);
     }
PlaySound(30);
ObjectOn(1);  
DisableHotspot(1);
}
if (UsedMode(OPEN)) Display("It's already open.");  

Does somebody know what's wrong and how to deal with it?

I wonder, what kind of interface will you be using for this one since there are no visible interface apart from the mouse cursor. It doesn't seem to be the SCUMM Verb Box Interface you used for Frank the Farmhand, so what interface are you going to use?

Erwin: Ok, I will make a darker shading. Maybe the darker color that I have now isn't dark enough to see any difference or maybe your screen is a bit too dark. By the way, I haven't seen so much Futurama so I don't know about the monkey from there but Crispy is 100 % from my mind.

dg: Thanks! I'm going to change that.

dg: Thanks for animating it for me. I have Adobe ImageReady and it can only have animation files in psp files and you can't upload those on AGS Upload. Well, I'll see what I can do about the frames. And about the tail, I'm still not sure but I don't know exactly what's wrong with it or how to fix that.

Erwin: Sorry but I totally disagree with you because, that counts as Crispy walking on all four. If you missed what I said before, I will repeat:

I know that monkeys regularly don't walk on their hindlegs but since CM is a cartoony game and that Crispy is smart and is a pet I don't want him to walk on all four like real monkeys do.