Topics

[Here are guidelines to implement locking of important binary files (e.g. main game file, aka *.agf) in the SVN versioning protocol.]

Hi all,

I just opened a recent AGS project's folder and I noticed that the script files appear as plain text files. It seems that they don't contain any binary gibberish anymore.
Is it true, or is it only by chance?
If so, Does that mean they can finally be edited using an external editor, without breaking the project files???
That would be awesome!



Here are guidelines to implement locking of important binary files (e.g. main game file, aka *.agf) in the SVN versioning protocol.
If you implement this, it means that your collaborators will be able to edit-modify-merge script files (aka *.ash, and *.asc), but not binary files. We'll see later for refinements on "what specific binary files types should be locked" (if you don't want to lock image files a.k.a. *.png or *.bmp, for example).

As soon as I'll have experimented myself, I'll produce a small tutorial, specifically written for AGS project managers.



=============================== PRINCIPLE =================================

You'd still have to enforce that all files have the svn:needs-lock property; not just the existing ones but newly added ones as well.
"svn autoprops" can do that but then you have to make sure that each client has the correct autoprops configuration.
This can done in the config file for every client (miscellany: enable-auto-props = yes, auto-props: *=svn:needs-lock). Check the client setting by a pre-commit hook on the server rejecting non-locked checkins .

============== IMPLEMENTATION WITH A SCRIPT (DIFFICULTY: AVERAGE) ==============

this script must be run on every client's machine, but at least it's out-of-the-box.
See it here: http://www.orcaware.com/svn/wiki/Automatic_lock-modify-unlock

====== IMPLEMENTATION USING THE "TORTOISESVN" INTERFACE (DIFFICULTY: EASY) ======

See the great tutorial here: http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/nightly/TortoiseSVN_en/tsvn-dug-locking.html

=========================================================================

[So I was thinking: Why not do like most painting programs do?]

[I hope this is the right forum]

I just had this thought:
Many alpha-related issues happen not only because of the technical aspect (the implementation, etc.), but also because developers often bump into the most common issue with alpha blending, namely DECIDING "how should my alpha sprite be blended? Should the transparent channel replace the underlying color, or blend into it, or add, etc.?".
If my memory is correct, this has been partially addressed in Calin's blending plugin, but still this alpha-blending paradigm (pardon my French) is not obvious for the beginner.

So I was thinking: Why not do like most painting programs do? If you look closely, in most of them the "brush" tool comes with an option to choose the blending mode: "add colors, replace colors, etc.". There is an explicit button/menu for that.
Maybe we could do the same thing in AGS? Add a simple attribute to each sprite that defines how it's going to blend. And the game developer could choose that at import time with a simple tick-box. something like "Tick this if you want the alpha-channel to replace the colors instead of merge" (<-- bad English, but you get the point).

I know it doesn't sound like a priority, but I have the feeling that the alpha-blending issue is on the verge of being fixed by some of the developers around. They are currently fiddling with the source. They sound really pissed off by the alpha bug. They're going to do it (you can't stop them, they're crazy
So it sounds like the right time to suggest this. Two stones with one bird, y'know.

What do you think?


(this is a complex example with one billion blend-modes, but one would be enough for AGS)

Pyppet is coming to Windows.

"How is that adventure-related?", you'll ask.

Well.

- You can have a look at what is Pyppet here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=z0nV4Pf_0gU
- Pyppet is pretty much the only known project that successfully integrates Blender with an external GUI library (in this case, it's GTK+ 3)
- That means it will be possible to add fully-featured skinned GUIs (buttons, lists, menus) to Blender, which is not the case yet, despite the legend.

That means my secret goal of customizing Blender to make it a next-gen open-source AGS is one step closer, as discussed here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=42356.0

Muhahahaha.

I've just read somewhere that most games that come on a CD "mount" the VC++ redist WITHOUT installing it (it's cleared from memory after runtime).
Is it true? what kind of sorcery is this?

I think it's time to put that button back into the AGS Editor ;-)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328554.900-ai-designs-its-own-video-game.html

[how about we actually DO write down the specifications for all "exchanges" in point-n-click software?]

This is a side discussion. (and when I say "side", I mean "as far as Pluto")
Most will have no idea what it's about, and others will wonder why one would even bother with such things.

But here it is : Since we mentionned it, how about we actually DO write down the specifications for all "exchanges" in point-n-click software? You could call this a "point n click standard" or a "point n click protocol" or whatever you like.

Some have seen that the idea was raised in another thread.
Such specifications would include :
- abstract, universal terms to designate anything that is involved in point-n-click (what's an "inventory", what's a "character", etc.)
- a way to organize all this

Long things short: Something like web standards, but instead for Point n click games.

I'll try to make it a little more concrete: Do you ever ask yourselves silly questions like the ones below?
- "in a point n click, should we expect the main character to have one inventory? Several? Possibly one inventory per character? etc." (think "Maniac Mansion")
- "should a character wearing a custom skin still be the same character (with custom, temporary graphical properties) or should we use the trick of switching characters?" (think "Nelly Cootalot wearing a mustache". Is it still Nelly?)
- "is an object in an inventory virtually the same thing as the object on the floor before it's picked up, but just drawn differently when displayed in the inventory?" (think "Kyrandia's droppable objects")
- In an inventory, should countable objects (such as coins) be managed natively?
- etc.


If these questions should ever be asked, it's now! Because we are at an important time of AGS' history. These specs could be the underlying work to the implementation of AGS 4.x or 5.x (see the proposed roadmap in thread "the future of AGS")These specs could answer questions like: what should be hard-coded? What should be dynamic? What would be the limits?
More importantly, they would then help maintaining migration tools through versions of AGS (even if a feature wasn't implemented in version X, version Y can still import the game files because the feature was already described in them -- yet let empty).
Another thing is that it would enable interoperability (things could be exported as XML).



There are no limits.
I hope I'm being clear in my explanations.


PS: Another concrete example that pops to mind would be the AGS awards: Imagine if there was a "standard" for point n click characters' graphical resources. Then it would make the programmer's life easier, he'd only have to focus on handling the characters, their moves, and what they're saying, without having to worry about loops, sprites, views, etc. If someone decided to code a feature to allow clients to upload their own skins onto the server, the organizer of the awards wouldn't have to do all the job of debugging all the skins one by one, validate them, etc. Then again that's just a random example.

[1) Well a lot o'pirate tattoos are pretty ropey...2) ...but the guild tattoo doesn't go overboard...3) ...'tis no eyesore, nothing over the top...4) ...it's not dynamite...5) ..but it represents the black heart of every illiterate buccanneer!]

Hi all,

As usual in this thread, SPOILERS ALERT!
Don't read if you never played Nelly Cootalot.

For Nelly Cootalot translation, I need to be absolutely sure I understand the hints given for the tattoo.

Here are the choices :




and here are the hints:

1) Well a lot o'pirate tattoos are pretty ropey...
2) ...but the guild tattoo doesn't go overboard...
3) ...'tis no eyesore, nothing over the top...
4) ...it's not dynamite...
5) ..but it represents the black heart of every illiterate buccanneer!


Here is how I understand the hints :
1) Does not have a rope on it (excludes A)
2) Does not show something that was sunk (excludes G)
3) Does not show an eyepatch (excludes H) AND does not show a liquid going over the top of its container (excludes I)
4) No dynamite (excludes B)
5) Illiterate = Excludes anything that has text (D and F)

Remains C and E. What is the hint supposed to exclude E? (5 actually DOES mention a heart!)

Yeah, I know, you don't really care, but since this is the adventure-related forum, it's my way to tell all newcomers to try this brillianbt point-n-click. For me it's a classic!

http://www.absurdus.net/kraken/

I've read somewhere (can't find it) that Westwood was using a special system to make their backgrounds colors look better.
Anybody knows anything about that? Was it some sort of prehistoric shader to make the colors look more vivid? The colors in Hand of Fate truly ARE beautiful and bright.

A whole new generation of coders is trying to clone Minecraft (which is bad) and revitalize all computing problems related to landscape generation, landscape extrusion, landscape rendering, etc. (which is VERY good)

For example : http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1108612
Another example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQihRZZxVNk
And another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibWeP-Wl7M8

Here: http://www.geeks3d.com/20111101/smaa-enhanced-subpixel-morphological-antialiasing/

It's subpixel, so it could be particularly useful for Point n Click (I wont expand on what I mean)

Hey, I saw it, it wasn't so bad after all :-)
They shuffled some scenes from various albums (to introduce more characters in less time), but the story remains consistent.
The graphic style is a good compromise between the canon style and photorealistic CGI.
They turned Sakharine into a villain, but eh, could be worse.
Also the plot twists written from scratch (I won't spoil here) aren't too goofy nor cheesy.

I'm a Tintin fan, and I must say I was expecting the worst coming from Hollywood (see how they burnt the Smurfs license to the ground). But Spielberg and the crew did a good job here. You could even say he finally found here the space to do what he wanted to do in Indy 4 and shouldn't have (epic-yet-funny chases, anti-hero climaxes, etc.)

[it doesn't need to be perfect... But it shouldn't be shocking either.]

Hi,

Anything shocking with that perspective?

Don't get all worked up, it doesn't need to be perfect... But it shouldn't be shocking either.
As you can see it's a one-point perspective with "handmade fisheye effect" (there is a curvature on the far left and right)

I feel stupid asking but I feel like I'm issing something.
If you want someone to fix the misspellings in your game (that means: in the original language), then, provided you can't send the complete game files, then you can send only the translation file.

But then, what?

Can you re-import it the other way, after corrections? It's not a translation per say -- the strings were fixed directly, you didn't write an translation BELOW the original string.

[Character's concept:]

Hi all,

Yet another piece of "art" to comment on.

Character's concept: He is this sort of 18th or 19th-century countryside butler. The kind of guy you'd find in Wuthering Heights. That means:
- he's totally devoted to his Master,
- he's not a bad man but he can be rough,
- he serves both purposes of serving tea AND getting covered in mud when taking care of the horses/hounds.

Character's art: I want to keep his outfit semi-elegant but with grayish colours, to stick to the clothes fashion mentionned above. The kind of clothes that are meant to show that his Master has money, while not making mud too visible when he eventually gets some on hinself. The riding boots and the vest are mandatory.

Also note that the character doesn't need be too charismatic because he only has a secondary part in the plot.

Current state:
- I'm not happy at all with the hands... I just can't draw fingers at such a low resolution.  :'(
- I kind-of screwed up with the general attitude, because I forgot that later in the game I'll have to have him hold a shotgun. Maybe I'll just have him carry it on his back. It's not that important.
- The leg might seem awkward at first but I got used to it, I think you can sense the movement and temporary distortion of the leg caused by the heavy boot. Tell me what you think.
- Finally you'll see that there is some sort of inconsistent half black outline that totally goes against the pixel-art tutorial posted recently by abstauber. I don't know if it's OK, in my head it was more like a deliberately exagerated shade on the left of the character. Also tell me what you think.

PS: It's NOT meant to be animated.

EDIT: My inspiration for this character would be closely related to THIS STYLE




        Original                Lad's                Darkdan's                ProgZmax's

Use Darkdan's one if you plan on doing a paintover


x2

Anyone playing this game? (at least the demo).
Really immersive. I just killed my wife with the pillow *by mistake*. Meh :-S
Does anyone know how to remove a barricade? I've built one by mistake that's blocking the exit of the very first room (*Stupid*)

'Currently proofreading the dialogs from the game of this forum's favorite dyslexic.
I could read this: "He keeps his eyes closed because he doesn't want to lose the stairing contest".

STAIRING CONTEST EVERYONE!



PS: This is just a little taunt. If it ignites a haters contest I'll be pretty upset (that means I will insult people and shake my little fists).

[Two]

I'd like to make a game based on the following gameplay elements :

1. Two opponents

2. The goal of each is either to be the first one to solve a mystery, or to reveal the secret identity of the other (with any possible variations inbetween: arrest the other one, kill him, etc.)

3. NOT real time (players play "turn by turn" -- either hot seat or online)

4. Despite (2.), each player must feel like the other one is plotting WHILE they're playing
(like, your actions during the current turn will have an impact on the opponent's next turn, and vice versa -- a bit like the "fake real-time turn-by-turn" of the old wargame M.A.X.). Also see (9.) about that simulated feeling of "real-time". The game must really be a competition, a race.

5. I don't want the whole game to be entirely some sort of "board game", consisting only of stats, a map, abstract logos, and action buttons. There should be some traditional point&click phases. Preferably when the player goes to a specific location on the map (think "gabriel Knight" or "Police Quest"). Yet, it costs some action points to go somewhere and question witnesses.
(for example I'd like my game to possibly incorporate some gameplay elements of the board game "Scotland Yard", but I don't want the whole game to take place on an abstract map of the city -- I want some point&click in it!)

6. the point&click phases should consist in searching for "clues" in a location on the map. Depending on some pre-defined elements (e.g. "how quick you are", or "did you go search in the right place", etc.) , it will give you some "points" (e.g. "action points", or whatever you want to call them) to give you bonuses during next round (e.g. "you can visit one more location this round", etc.).

7. The point&click phases will be based on pre-defined backgrounds (let's say: "the place where the crime took place") but, unlike the backgrounds, the clues should be randomly generated, so that the storyline (or at least the sequence of actions to win) changes every time. For example, provided the clues rely on witnesses questionning, then the dialogs should be dynamically generated.

8. The most important requirement (and the one that would, in my opinion, make this game very original): The places are populated with NPCs that move around. ...BUT... one of those NPCs is actually your opponent! and you don't know it! During your turn he can obviously not control his avatar (since YOU are playing, and it's not real time), but you can potentially question the NPC to spot your opponent in disguise. That's when you slow him down/arrest him/kill him/etc. It will have an impact on his next turn.

9. (optional) Your opponent might even start his next turn by a (dynamcally generated) cutscene re-enacting what happened and how he got screwed -- that way he'd have the feeling it really happened during his turn and it would make the game experience more immersive.

Oh, and it might not ring any bell for most, but the background would actually be a little something called "Arsène Lupin vs. Sherlock Holmes".  8)



======================

Anybody has suggestions? It's still very blurry for me, but I want to avoid the game being boring or repetitive, and I really want it to make the player paranoid: "Am I talking to some stupid NPC, or am I talking to my opponent?" -- "Darn! the compromising letters I was looking for were supposed to be in that safe but my opponent stole them first and left a humiliating note for me!".

[RealPlayer]

Here is my workflow. It's just provided as a quick guide for beginners. It's not meant to be the perfect solution -- I'm a total newbie with videos, so if I can do it, you can do it!


The tools I use (the only non-freeware one is Realplayer):

1. RealPlayer (to download the video from Youtube)
   Alternative: selmiak suggested jDownloader

2. The free tool Pazera's "FLV To AVI" to convert the video into AVI (most Youtube videos have he FLV format). http://download.cnet.com/Pazera-Free-FLV-to-AVI-Converter/3000-2194_4-10786669.html <-- watch out, the offline installer is a bit tricky to find. That link forces you to install some shitty downloader tool. Use google to find the ZIP offline installer.
   Alternative: selmiak suggested jDownloader (directly select the .mp4 format)

3. ffmpeg is a standalone set of codecs and libraries for both compression and rendering. It will come handy later. You should install it prior to other editing tools. Then it will have its very own entry in any editing tool you'll install (namely: VirtualDub and Wax - see below).
How to use it: Whenever you'll render (compress) a video, instead of selecting a proper codec in the editing tool's codecs list, choose ffmpeg. It's not a codec per se. If you select that one, then you must enter its settings to choose what codec you want to choose, with what settings. For example it provides lossless compression formats, so that you can work without worrying about the infamous "JPEG effect".
   Alternative for conversions: selmiak suggested SUPER

4. VirtualDub is meant to work on ONE VIDEO at a time. Use it to resize, colorize, etc. ... and most important to compress in a clean manner (provided you know what compression format/codec you want to use -- that's the hard part for beginners).
   Tip: The "resize" filter can be used for both resizing and cropping.
   Alternative for conversions: selmiak suggested SUPER
   Alternative to VirtualDub: selmiak suggested avidemux

5. Wax 2.0e (by "DebugMode" -- the name is confusing but it's not in debug mode ). It's a video editing tool (cross-fade videos, etc.). It's actually a free equivalent to Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, and it's very powerful.
Tip: Use the "quick3D" plugin (already shipped with Wax) to move, crop and zoom your video(s).
   Alternative for editing: selmiak suggested the professional tool lightworks that has just been open-sourced.
   Alternative for editing: Now, I know that Blender does videos! That's ideal if you want to : 1. Do some difference-key/rotoscoping. 2. Superimpose 3D objects.

6. If you need to create some masks/stencils (for example, to hide bits of the video behind some pixel-art bitmap), you can do it either in VirtualDub ("logo" filter) or Wax (can't remember the name of the plugin) or lightworks or Blender.

7. Once you're all done and satisfied with your video, make a final, clean rendering using VirtualDub and ffmpeg

8. To convert your AVI to the OGG/Theora format used in AGS: If you're lazy (like me), use any frontend to ffmpeg2theora.
    Possible frontends:
    - GFrontEnd 2007.2 final
    - theora converter

9. Oh, when you have your OGG file ready, insert it into AGS using the AGS theora plugin - http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=34910.0  AGS also has native OGG functions. I'm not sure how the plugin is better provided you don't resize or rotate the video.

[dialog options]

Hi all,
During Mittens I had this discussion with other forumers: Does a module enable non-blocking Sierra-style dialogs?
In other words :
- It displays the character's portrait with the line next to it
- The animations in the background (and more generally, the game loop) don't stop

The native non-blocking dialog options of AGS seem to be restricted to Lucasarts-style dialogs (no portrait).

I've been trying several "custom dialogs" modules but unless I'm mistaken they only allow you to customize your dialog options/dialog tree, but not the actual dialog (that is, when the characters speak, with their portrait visible).