Messages

I, for one, would like to salute the new additions to the scripting language, which is slowly starting to lose all its little marks of awkwardness.

Give us back Fred Five he's got work to do! ;-)

[custom dialogs module]

I would proceed like this but I can't guarantee it's the best way (and it's only a rough explanation anyways)
1) I would search a custom dialogs module that allows to display custom, icon-based dialog options.
2) I would check how to add dialog options into this (does it work based on actual dialog trees from the Dialogs section of the AGS Editor?, or are they added through scripting?)
3) If the dialog options are added through script, then you can just iterate through the belongings of the player (I think it's the "inventory" array. Or the "items" array, something like that) and just add them one by one.

To be honest that's more of an Advanced technical Questions topic.


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

EDIT: some people have already asked your question :
Here http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=5634.msg68209#msg68209
and here http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=39193.msg515766#msg515766

[QUESTIONS:]

I'm necroposting but I think this could be interesting for everyone to read:

QUESTIONS:

1) In your port, did you manage Right-click, and if so, how does AGS interact with the "fake" right-click from iOS? (the player actually holds one finger on the screen and taps the other finger while still holding). Do you simply intercept the regular right-click event in AGS o does it work differently?

2) How do you manage the virtual keyboard in the script? For example, let's say that the user is about to save his/her game by typing the name into a TextBox. What event makes the virtual keyboard appear on top of the game?

I just can't get a grip on the general philosophy of the interaction between AGS and the host OS.

the central issue is : CHOOSE A CHARACTER SIZE. Everything else is secondary. and then stick to it.

That includes CHOOSING THE SIZE OF THE FACE. Otherwise, later on, you'll have a lot of issues if you badly chose how many pixels should be used for the eyes, the nose, etc. There is only a handful of resolutions that actually work well.

this blog post by Ron Gilbert about how he dealt with the same issue for his Thimbleweed Park engine?: https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/savegame

It's actually weird to read that mix of seriousness and absolute candor from Ron Gilbert. A very experienced programmer, but who also loves to re-invent the wheel.

1. There is nothing in the graphic filter area.

It's entirely blank? You don't see a text like "no filter" or "nearest neighbour" or "none"?
In that case it means that it's the setup program that is failing. It can't even read or set some values from its config file. Just like Crimson Wizard, I'm definitely suspecting some read/write issue.

1. from what folder do you run winsetup.exe?
2. Did you try running it as administrator (right-click--> "run as administrator") ?

Silly question:
1) I make a game, with some dialogs.
2) I export all the text to a translation file and make someone translate it
3) I re-import the translated file into the game
4) the game moves on and there is new dialog which requires to export the dialogs again for translation.

How will this new dialog get included in the next iteration of the translation? Does AGS re-export a TRA file with all the prevously-translated sentences still included? (the empty lines are only below the non-translated sentences?)

This : http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=51885.msg636511878#msg636511878

I've written a tiny xml parser but it's genuinely shit (it cannot handle large files, and it won't help you with querying nayway).
Apart from that, if you really want to use authentic, robust SQL, then you have no choice: you need to find a way to interface AGS with a database engine (MySQL, etc.). Obviously, I suggest a local engine, installed on the computer, but noawadays I believe you can even connect to remote databases with not too much extra hassle apart from authenticaton stuff (of what a time to live in).

AGS cannot communicate with external programs natively. You could make a plugin but I don't know how good you're at programming, and it's a lot of work.

I would suggest one of these solutions :

- There is the Lua Plugin, which allows you to use Lua, and therefore the billion libraries it offers. I'm 110% sure you can do SQL with that. It's the simplest opinion imo. The only trouble will be for you to iterate on the queries results using AGS script language. It's surely possible, but annoying. Calin Leafshade, the creator of that plugin, can surely help you with manipulating the data structures.

- There is that plugin that allows you to do C# in AGS. Same principle as Lua plugin, but with C#. You'll need to google how to query SQL with C#.

- There is a plugin that interfaces with Windows' DLLs or command line (I can't remember which, and I can never find this plugin each time I look for it) but in both cases there are ways to do SQL using the command line or low-level DLLs. Just google it.

[this]

Sorry for necroposting but I've rediscovered this and was pleasantly surprised by how active the developers have been, and how some of the filter's variations are available ready-to-use as shaders or as a standalone C code, etc. (see the UPDATES at the end of the page). They offer several levels of correction, depending on how much each variation fits with the style of a game.

If the license thing is not an issue, as it seems to be suggested above, then I'm still pushing in favor of adding the xBR algorithm. It could even allow to drop the other algorithms altogether (except nearest neighbour), which means less maintenance.

doubling or tripling up the resolution of everything. It's not as a huge task as it sounds with a filter like Mame2x

While this is a nice idea, wouldn't that also mean that I'd need to redraw all of the walkable areas/walk behinds/hotspots, as well as rescale the object/character sprites and rescript most of the resolution-dependent GUIs? 

I'm not sure, actually. Run a test on a simple one-room game to see what happens. There were discussion about conversion of walkable areas/etc. in the past but I can't remember if it was ever implemented. That saidn I think it would be really worth it.

I doubled screenshots resolution by simply setting the 2x nearest neighbour scaler in the options.

Yes, but nearest neighbour is just nearest neighbour. There would be no gain in doing that. What I'm talking about is this (any of these algorithms would greatly benefit your game style)
http://www.fortressofdoors.com/content/images/2015/09/upscalers.png

Come to think of it, maybe you shouldn't change anything in your game and just force-enable the smoothed 2x or 3x filter in the game settings (I'm not talking about enabling the antialias setting, I'm talking about the better upscaling filters -- I just can't remember which are available in AGS).

Anyways, I'm not going to pollute your thread any longer. Good luck with completion!

Hey abstauber, without wanting to be annoying, could you check the follwoing things :
- how well do your buttons look in low-res? (especially curved ones)?
- Do fully round buttons look good? (is it possible to make an actual circle-shaped button?)
- I think you made a tiny mistake when setting the center of the emboss effect: it should have the same center as the rounded corner's center but with a lesser radius (not be shifted). this little flaw is visible on the screenshot you provided.

Just change the label text from @OVERHOTSPOT@ to [variable] in Room_RepExec, based on Hotspot.GetAtScreenXY().

Yes. That sounds obvious but I didn't think about it.

What about the Floating Hotspot module?

will check it out, thanks

Hi, I'm looking for a module that allows the description of a hotspot to follow around the cursor...
We tried this http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=26306.msg332567#msg332567
...But according to our scripter, the description pops out of the screen when the cursor moves too close to the edge. Is that right? Is there a better one?

Your graphics are actually gorgeous, and they're perfectly fit for (real, not shy 800x600) hi-res. Maybe you should consider doubling or tripling up the resolution of everything. It's not as a huge task as it sounds : If you apply a filter like Mame2x, then it will still look perfectly crisp, and you could bulk-do it: I think Imagemagick does it, so you can even do it as a batch. then the game files would be rather large, but I think your game is worth it.

PlayMP3File function should be able to play exterior files from relative (sub)folder.
You would have to enable this function by turning off "Enforce new audio scripting" (not exact name) option in the general settings.

From what I understand by reading the manual, it forcibly plays on the Music channel. is that true?

But that's not the effect he wants, though. He wants the rim lighting on the character, because that's, you know, right.

Oh yes sorry, I didn't understand it properly. I thought he wanted a halo, I didn't understand "rim lighting" (language barrier).
That said, if it comes to GetPixel level, maybe he'd be better off with some sort of shader that would draw white pixels by travelling around the outline. I'm sure that with the proper formula the function would never wander too far off the outline, inside the sprite, hence greatly reducing the processing time.

EDIT: hey my original idea might still work :
1) Create a white version of the sprite using the appropriate tint variation
2) Create a pink version of the sprite using the appropriate tint variation
3) draw the pink sprite on the white sprite, slightly shifted to the left or the right -- hence keeping only the wanted bit of white sprite.
4) use the remaiing white sprite where needed (i.e. onto the original sprite).
Benefit : never go down to pixel level.

That process is basically the one described by Quintaros. However it will work only if tint (and... I can never remember the name... luminance?) are flexible enough, which would require some testing to be sure.

[I am extremely interested by Sweden.]

I am extremely interested by Sweden.
However I can't seem to find the dates. Am I understanding properly that the final dates will be decided after knowing who's interested?