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Well, my main suggestion would be to make engine more generic by introducing interfaces of... don't know how to call them... subsystems?

Yes, yes, yes. I'm convinced that a successfull "freshening up" of AGS will only succeed if enhancements happen progressively. And the best way to achieve that is to make it possible to "switch" implementations of subsystems one by one, and only if really needed.

I don't know where he is but I sure hope he's alright.

I cloned Sprite DLight a few days ago because it's not free.

I demand to have this.

[HAL]

I clicked on the link to the personal info under user "HAL" and I got this very official serious error message from Microsoft Forefront:

Network Access Message: The page cannot be displayed Explanation: There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.

Try the following:
Refresh page: Search for the page again by clicking the Refresh button. The timeout may have occurred due to Internet congestion.
Check spelling: Check that you typed the Web page address correctly. The address may have been mistyped.
Access from a link: If there is a link to the page you are looking for, try accessing the page from that link.

If you are still not able to view the requested page, try contacting your administrator or Helpdesk.

Technical Information (for support personnel)
Error Code: 500 Internal Server Error. The data is invalid. (13).
IP Address: 217.174.240.177
Date: 18/02/2015 10:29:14 [GMT]
Server: SRV-UL-TMG.alsy.fr
Source: web filter

More precisely, I was reading a conversation thread, and saw that message from user "HAL", with his picture on the left of the message , and clicked on his name just below his picture. (just like you could click on "monsieur ouxx" on the left of this message)
<-----------------

[but]

ou have nothing but ambient light (because the light from the sun is diffused across the entire sky). Haven't you noticed that you don't even cast a visible shadow when it's really cloudy?

We agree, I just didn't phrase it right : I didn't mean that the directional light was stronger than ambient light. Indeed, there's nothing but ambient light. My point was that the house and ground should be much darker than the sky, as seen on Andail's drawing. Note: There may be parts of the ground where the ground is very bright and colorful, but then they will be very likely to be caused by holes in the clouds.

However the part of my advice that wasn't 100% relevant was the art about the vertical parts being much darker than the horizontal parts. That's where the "only ambient light" situation would step in, and make all surfaces evenly lighted. Yet, one must not underestimate that vertical surfaces are always darker, even when there is mostly ambient light.

Two threads around here have dealt with bottom-up pixel-art shading in the past. By "bottom-up", I mean a pipeline starting from a sprite, and generating a pseudo-3D shading after computing some normal mapping. I can't find the forum threads right now, but there're somewhere around, each of them dealing with a specific tool.

Now, there is this top-down approach: it starts from the 3D mesh in a real-time 3D game, and applies a pixel shader that makes it look like pixel-art.

http://initialsgames.com/main/?p=1360

That's interesting.

@Selmiak's edit is really good BUT the mountains in the background should keep a much lower contrast

@case 2: you have a tendency to draw everything (I mean, the whole scene) with your chalks. That works really nicely for 99% fo the scene, but I would recommend not to do it for busy elements such as grass (I'm talking about the grass in the bottom-right-hand corner). Instead, you might want to use the mouse. Try to draw the grass or any busy texture at a pixel level, with little antialiasing. In a nutshell: grass leaves are very thin, your chalk makes them look chunky. Chalks have a tendency to make everything look smooth.

@case 3 : you have a tendency to underestimate the contrast required to a scene. I'm actually very impressed by all those drawings, because you didn't do it in any of them, usually you do it all the time. The only exception is case 3 : the couldy sky should be very luminous (yes, I know, that sounds paradoxical but it's true) while the foreground should be globally quite dark (because the clouds dramatically reduce the ambient light), especially on the outline, where it contrasts with the sky. Also, vertical surfaces should be much darker than horizontal surfaces. EDIT: I just saw that Andail did this.

I still can't believe how cool are the entries and how many of them there are. Keep voting!

[(until Sunday night, midnight in your time zone)]

VOTING TIME! (until Sunday night, midnight in your time zone) (Please let me know if I forgot someone!)

High-quality entries. And plenty of them!

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Please do click on each image to see it with a proper size and resolution.
2. You must vote 3 times. Once for each criterium.

The criteria are reminded here :

  - Concept (a scene that stimulates the imagination, or something interesting, or clever -- something that makes people say: "Oh, I see!")
  - Playability (could it be used in a real game?)
  - Artistic execution (you know, there's always this one contestant who makes everyone jealous of his skills )

1. Kasander
2. GreenBeams (a.k.a. Yakatakatula )
3. Andail
4. Cassiebg
5. Dropped Monocle games (unfinished)
6. monsieur ouxx
7. jwalt
8. adventuress: has completeky disappeared :'( If anyone has news, that'd be cool.
9. Grundislav
10 Misj'
11 ThreeOhFour
12 I<3Pindorama!
I<3Pindorama!'s STORY/CONCEPT:

Spoiler

Sorry for the disgusting state of the toilet paper roll, but that's how he was found by the rescue team.
In order to not cause gag reflex, the full content is reproduced below...


[/center]

You can read THE CHAPTER I right here:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=51609.0

[close]

TIME IS OFF! (actually since yesterday night)

I'll now gather all submissions

Real nice. Neat progress since last time and last iteration.

I might join if I have some time this weekend.

(*cough* the kind of things I've always dreamt to do but never got a chance to learn *cough*)

You joking right? You did an amazing BG in 1 day!

I'm talking about 3D skills.
by the way there is a weird noise on your pictures. did you add a "noise" filter or did you render in a limited number of colors? (65000 colors?)

damned, just fake your timezone

Hey ACTUALLY I'm in the Paris Timezone, so my entry was actually not at 0:03 but 11:03!!! I feel just like Phileas Fogg who won his bet thanks to the one-hour jetlag, in an outstanding final plot twist.

(Oh, and I don't care if it was 11:03, for me it was 11:01. That was my local clock. Stop ruining my drama! )

i PM'ed my entry to selmiak at exactly midnight... just to realize i had miscounted the words. I sent in the corrected version at 0:01. Can i have the mercy of the jury?

ONE

WEEK

LEFT



Pressure Pressure.

@cassiebsg, I agree with Yakatakatulla, it's anything but crap. You have the skills, now you need to find the right tool (and get used to it). I don't think you need an external tool in Blender to do bump-mapping. If this competition is the right opportunity for you to teach yourself Blender, then go for it! Because afterwards you'll be able to do amazing things (*cough* the kind of things I've always dreamt to do but never got a chance to learn *cough*)

I love Amy's drawing too. The fact that the scene is using up only a small fraction of the screen in the center, with huge buttons around, is very Populous-like, it gives it a lot of personality.

I have to say, though, that I don't think it can be accepted as an entry, because it was made beforehand. What do you say, people?

Niiiiiice! With a proper balance of colors and luminosity levels at the end, this can definitely end up being super dramatic and theatrical! Maybe Hollywood will buy the rights for that movie?

[@Mandle:]

@Mandle: Thanks, but I'm too lazy to re-upload. However there still might be changes int he next few days.
@yakatakatulla : Yes, it is. Shhh, don't tell anyone The credits for this awesome 3D gyrocopter go to Christian Camillieri for the first drawing and "Erik" for the 3D model and rendering. I just copy and pasted bits of it in a crashed position.