Messages

[New questions]

"ags3--sdl2" was a temporary branch where we prepared SDL2 version, and it was long since merged into the "master" branch.

OK cool, didn't know that.

I recommend to set up user's enviroment variables instead of modifying the projects

Yes, I'll do that. For now I just want to see if I can compile at all.

For the reference, here's latest release page: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/releases/tag/v.3.6.0.8
The prebuilt package is called "WinDevDependenciesVS.zip", here's direct link: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/releases/download/v.3.6.0.8/WinDevDependenciesVS.zip

New questions
1. Do the releases always have a Dependencies package released? If yes then maybe the readme should just say "Go to the latest version's forum thread".
2. What about Native? Is it still used at all or has it finally been ousted? (no need to give details, just yes or no)
3. What about the Compiler solution? Can it just be compiled out of the box? Is it simpler to grab the DLL from the latest AGS release? where do we get the .h files when compiling NoNative?

WOW. No one reacted to this but this is MAJOR news! It will unlock A LOT of potential for localisation.

[I am extremely excited to put my hands on pointers in managed structs.]

A bit late to the party, but: generics are hard to implement (at least syntactically in the compiler).
Whereas there's a much more reachable goal post:  an untyped pointer type (for example: Pointer*) that supports casting. This is how genericity was achieved in early languages since ever -- before C++ had templates and so on.  (void* in C, Object in early Javas... Even object in C# if you're a psychopath).

This idea is already partially implemented in AGS when you have a GUIControl* and you cast it to Button*, Label*, etc.


Apart from that I am extremely excited to put my hands on pointers in managed structs.

Despite the end of my post, "just suck it up and build the library yourself" is an acceptable answer. I just want to be sure that it's not just lying around somewhere.

Thanks for the shout out guys! And thanks for suggesting Meetup

[SDL_sound.lib cannot be found.]

I want to build the SDL2 branch of the Engine on Windows 10.

I'm following those instructions : https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/blob/master/Windows/README.md

Here is what I've tried :

1. Open Visual Studio 2019
2. Clone repository : https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags.git
3. VS asks me if I want to convert the project to VS2019. I say yes.
4. Switch to branch ags3--sdl2
4. Open solution 'Engine'
5. Download SDL2 from https://www.libsdl.org/download-2.0.php ( SDL2-2.0.16-win32-x86.zip ) , unzip it to a random folder
6. In project Engine.App, set the path to SDL2's include folder as shown here : https://lazyfoo.net/tutorials/SDL/01_hello_SDL/windows/msvc2019/index.php
7. In project Engine.App, set the path to SDL2's lib folder as shown here : https://lazyfoo.net/tutorials/SDL/01_hello_SDL/windows/msvc2019/index.php
8. Download glext.h from here ( https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenGL/api/GL/glext.h ) and put it in SDL's include folder for convenience. EDIT: I don't know if it's still needed
9. Download SDL_sound from here ( https://hg.icculus.org/icculus/SDL_sound/archive/997e90562b35.tar.gz ). Unzipped it to a random folder. In project Engine.App, set up the path to SDL_Sound's include folder.


Clean the solution , rebuild the solution.

No compilation error, but linking error : SDL_sound.lib cannot be found.
It's not in the prebuilt package : https://www.dropbox.com/s/3vdq7qw01tdtfux/ags-prebuilt-libs-3.5.x.zip?dl=0

How do I get SDL_sound.lib ?
In the past I've built it myself but I cried so many tears of blood trying to download the dependency of the dependency of the dependency for whatever many libs that I'm not doing it again.

Hi everyone,

This topic is awfully specific and I'm totally OK to delete it if I get a few matches.
But I know that there are Point n click enthusiasts out there in Sweden, they're just hard to find. I found some in Stockholm, and I found some in Göteborg. But what about Örebro?
Drop me a private message if you're not too fond on giving away personal info publicly on this thread.

Monsieur OUXX, you have an old SetViewport(x,y) called in repeatedly_execute_always in Smooth Scroll module, that overrides camera position to 0,0 every time.

In my opinion new features are best tried out in a small test game where nothing else can affect the process.

You are absolutely right. In my defense, I didn't think that setting the Viewport impacted the size of the Camera. But then again it's my first time with the new system. Apologies.
Curious : How did you find that other SetViewport? Did you do a full text search?

But the line displays on screen for like one ms and then it dissapears, no audio at all.

Not very helpful but my guess is that the text disappears instantly becaue the audio is not played at all (if the audio is zero-seconds long then the text disappears as soon as it appears, it makes sense). I'm just saying that to help looking in the right direction.

perhaps it may worth trying to do continious upgrade, version by version.

Definitely. Something like 2.3 --> 2.4 --> 2.5 --> 2.6 --> 2.72 --> 3.2 --> 3.5.

Little things have changed like string --> String and the sound system (AudioChannel instead of just numbered sound files) but they're not too hard to fix, it's worth it.

I don't know, please show the script.
To clarify, does the camera zoom work?

It was still the same one that I had uploaded, except with the compatibility setting changed to False. If you feel like you have enough time to help an idiot, then you can re-download it, change the setting, and then follow the instructions in my previous post to reach the test room.
Yes, the zooming works. Only not the X/Y changes. I'm not accusing AGS, but maybe there's an indirect restriction caused by something (the viewport, the game's resolution...) that's not clear.

[how do you recon this setting got set to "true"?]

I think this setting was never necessary for 320x200 games. It makes difference in 640x400 though.

Idk what your plans are, but I believe today you should not be using this. This is a remnant of the times when there were no scaling filters, and ags games could be run 640x400 while keeping 320x200 logic.

3 bonus questions :
1) If that's not the recommended value, then how do you recon this setting got set to "true"? A mis-click on my part? That's how it was by default? After I selected "no" when the Editor asked me if I wated to upscale my GUIs? Etc.
2) Is there a way to see the value of the setting from the code?
3) After changing the setting to "false", things seem to make much more sense to me. One thing still eludes me though : If I "zoom in" the camera (I make it 160x100 in the 320x200 room) then I still can't move the camera using my buttons (up,down,left,right). The viewport can move in the screen, but the camera cannot move in the viewport. How's that?



FYI: I remember that setting. Its history is related to how at some points Microsoft was encouraging developers to move away from Screen coordinates. Visual Basic 6 had some grid coordinates that were disconnected from the window size, for example. It was like early "subpixel logic", even though it wasn't as extreme yet as things you see in OpenGL (0.0f --> 1.0f for everything). I imagine Chris Jones followed the trend even though he gave up on it later, when it turned out to be more confusing than helping.

I apologize for being so bad at reading

The test project can be downloaded here.

The test room is room 130.
You can access it by doing this :
- Start the game
- Ignore error messages (click to dismiss "Display" messages)
- You're presented with a panel. Focus on the right-hand side. Scroll down (you can use the mouse wheel) and double-click on entry named "UPSCALE (no upscale)"

When you enter the room a GUI appears on the left. Top buttons are to increase and decrease viewport size and move it around
Bottom buttons = same but for the camera.

Pay special attention to the fact that the camera cannot go above160x100 (why???) and to the fact that mouse coordinates go up to 320x200, not 640x400, even when the room is zoomed out and you can see that the screen is effectively rendered in 640x400.

["Room size: 160,100".]

Thanks.

There's definitely a problem though (I think?) :

Code: ags

function room_AfterFadeIn()
{
  Display("Room size: %d, %d", Room.Width,  Room.Height);
}

...Displays "Room size: 160,100".

We agree that the Viewport and the Camera cannot impact on the room's size, correct? The only thing that defines the room size is the size of the background image at the time it was imported?

Yes I have a mixup regarding the mouse coordinates (screen coords instead of room coord).
But so you confirm that the image should have been upscaled.

I'm whipping up a prototype game with buttons to change the viewport and the camera in real time, to see what's up, because its so new to me I'm struggling.

[Version:]

Version: AGS 3.5.1.5 patched with latest build

Scenario:
- I had a 320x200 game.
- I changed the resolution to 640x400
- AGS asked me : "Do you want to automatically rescale the GUIs?" - I said no.
- I created a new room
- I set a 320x200 background
   So now I have a 640x400 game with a 320x200 background

- I run the game.
Now, this:
I see the 320x200 image fill only the top-left quarter of the screen. Why not, I'm not really shocked here I didn't expect AGS to upscale it for me.

Then I add this :

Code: ags

function room_RepExec()
{
  if (mouse.IsButtonDown(eMouseLeft)) {
    Display(String.Format("%d, %d", mouse.x,  mouse.y));
  }
}

This way every time I click I see the mouse position in room coordinates.

To my great surprise when I click in the bottom right of the screen the coordinates are 320,200.

Can someone explain this contradiction?
- The actual background of this 320x200 room is rendered as a 320x200 image in the top-left quarter of the 640x400 game (in other words: no upscale)
BUT
- the room coordinates are upscaled so that room coordinates (320,200) match screen coordinates (640,400) (in other words: upscaled)


Is that expected behaviour?

OK it must be Paint.Net that acted too smart for its own good with the "auto" setting.
The weird thing is that it was the second image I saved (exactly like that : grey-scale image just with a different resolution) and the first one worked perfectly

But any ways, it's not an AGS problem, sorry for using your grey cells for that.
Thanks!

Version : Using the Editor from this build (somewhere around 3.1.5.x EDIT: 3.5.1.x).

This doesn't really need to be fixed, just thought I'd let you know.

Scenario :
- 32-bit game, 640x400
- Open the Sprites "manager" from the AGS Editor
- Right-click : "Import new Sprite(s) from file"
- Select this PNG file
- First weird thing : The colors in the preview popup are broken
- Click "Import" anyway. Error popup :" Unknown pixel format".

The image doesn't have transparency, it's a very basic PNG file created using Paint.net 4.2.15

Note: No problem importing when I force Pant.Net to save it with 32-bit colors. The image that caused issues was saved with settings "auto-detect format". I don't know if it created it with a weird palette behind the scenes, I'm just curious why AGS (and its perfectly standard middleware, like LibPNG) fails to read that specific format.

It works!
Perfect.
Back to debugging my own scripts  ! Thanks again, you two.