Messages

I re-read the AI review which I should have done before referencing it this thread.  

He says: "...it miscalculates in asking us to invest our emotions in a character that is, after all, a machine."  I don't think my paraphrase of
"...impossible ... to empathize with an android" is that far off the mark.

For Ebert, the central premise of the film was flawed and so it didn't matter how well it was executed because he would have rather watched a film that focused on the human characters.

Perhaps, it's not Ebert that has failed to immerse himself in the film, as he asks some pretty good questions based on the film -- But perhaps, it was the film that failed to engage.

I agree with this.  Great films have the ability to manipulate our sympathies in ways we would not expect.  (Interestingly the 2 examples most prominent in my mind are both Kubrick films).  If AI had been a better film, Ebert might have been engaged to make an emotional investment with its machine protagonist.  

My point though is that there is some resistance on Ebert's part to fully commit to the film in the first place.  A sci-fi or fantasy film has to work harder to make him invest it the characters because there is a stigma of "silly" to it.

The "too silly to carry emotional weight" notion is silly in my mind.

It reminds me of Ebert's review of A.I. I can't recall exactly what he'd said but I believe the gist of it was that it was impossible for him to empathize with an android.  

I think its a limitation on Ebert's part to allow himself to be immersed in a movie.  Its one thing to say that the film was unsuccessful in creating an emotional resonanance for him, but its another to say that a film that uses science fiction or fantasy elements is too silly to carry any emotional weight.

I ususually find Ebert pretty insightful when reviewing the types of films that DG mentioned from the early 70s (The Last Picture Show, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces).  When it comes to Sci-Fi he's usually looking for an escapist popcorn flick and its the movie's visuals over its themes that he appreciates.

Yes I did post some backgrounds of Portmeirion several months ago when first developing my style.

The game will be episodic in nature having various No. 2's with their own interogation methods so I'm looking for as many ideas as possible.  The interactive hallucination is certainly a good device to use within a single episode but I'm also looking for variety.

Anybody is welcome to contribute ideas.  One doesn't need to be familiar with the source material.

For some time I've had a problem with designing a signifcant element of my game.  My policy has always been "learn as I go" so I figured the answer would reveal itself eventually.  However I'm starting to wonder if there even is an appropriate solution and don't savour the notion of rejecting this element of the game.

Here's the situation:  My player character is a prisoner in an internment camp.  Half the game focuses on his attempts to escape.  The other half focuses on his resistance to interogation.  The escape portion is typical adventure game fare and I have a pretty good grasp of how to proceed.  The interogation aspect has me somewhat boggled.  

It's supposed to be a battle of wills but I'm uncertain how to get this across through conversations.  How do I make it challenging for the player to keep a secret?

The only idea I have now is to use an integer value that holds the players level of anixiety, bewilderment, etc and have that number increase and decrease depending on the topics he uses during interogations.  If it reaches a certain level than the player character "cracks".  

I don't love that solution and would like to solicit ideas from the community.

What do you think about some critics saying LOTR now ranks among classic epics, like Lawrence of Arabia and Ben Hur?

Also, what do you think of Jackson's next project: A remake of King Kong?

LotR is not a personal favourite the way LoA is but I do believe that the people who love these films now are going to continue loving them for years to come.  So yes I think the LotR trilogy will earn the status of classic.

Barcik:

Sooner or later, a more spectacular high-scale epic will come out, making new audiences laugh at the old dated attempt of 2001-2003.

Perhaps a future generation of filmgoers will be unimpressed by it the same way as many current filmgoers are un-impressed by epics of the past. However, I think the people who are seeing them now will always consider them classics and that many people who see them for the first time 20 years from now will understand why.

I like the idea of a King Kong remake.  The original is a much loved film but it has certainly dated.  Personally I find it unwatchable due to the acting style of the time.  Jackson I think is the right director for such a remake because (if the way he adapted LotR is any indication) he will treat the original with the proper amount of reverence while still making the story his own.

Thing about Quints is that ice sculptures would raise the production costs just a bit ...

Yeah I was thinking about that afterwards.

My solution would be too cast a mold of the face of the actress playing the wife and to fill the mold with water and freeze it.  When I used to make movies as a kid, my brother and I took molds of each other's faces for creating heads to be used in decapitation sequences.  We used paper mache for the negative and plaster of paris for the positive a different material would have to be selected for the negative if it is to be filled with water as paper mache would just turn to mush.  Possibly a sealant could be used to waterproof the negative or alternatively a clear resin could be used for the positive that looked like ice when it set.  Resin however is quite expensive, so I think you'd be better off finding something that could withstand water.

Of course you would be able to take a mold of a child's face at all. I would suspect that if you could get the wife's done and onscreen then the audience would take it for granted that off-screen sculptures of the children also existed.

But the idea in itself is kind of like that one where Arnold has to beat up Sinbad for a toy ...

That occurred to me but I haven't seen "Jingle All the Way" so I didn't know how far the similarities would reach.

I'm really looking forward to Crossroads!

Yeah with a combination of Blues and Ninjas, Crossroads can't miss!

Well I think the Jim Carrey comedy works best when the character is a slightly selfish man who ultimately is a pretty decent guy.  Haven't seen Bruce Almighty yet but I suspect that it would fit that mold.

Off the top of my head, I suggest a story about a guy who has lost his fun side and become a bit of a workaholic.  Christmas morning he is as likely to be surprised by what "he" gave his children as they are because his wife takes care of these things.  But she's growing pretty tired of this and he's treading on thin ice with her.  This Christmas he has to pull it together and put some effort into getting gifts for the family.  But he's procrastinated and so now its Christmas Eve, there's about 4 shopping hours left and he doesn't even know what anybody wants.  He tries to enlist the help of others (such as in-laws and his own mother) for suggestions but they have been given strict instructions that he is to handle it on his own.  He tries to bribe Department store Santas into finding out what kids want these days.  He tries talking with other last minute husbands but they're as clueless as he.  Ultimately he fails his mission before the stores close down.  Now he's left up high and dry and only a Christmas miracle can help him.  It had looked like it was going to be a green Christmas but then it starts snowing.  He creates a winter wonderland complete with ice sculptures of his family.  This relatively commercialized man resorts to the most no commercial gift available, the handmade kind, and in doing so learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Too clichéd? Too sappy?

I like yours too, Trap.  With comedy there's no such thing as too tasteless.  But I guess I didn't go that route.

All right so the alpha channel is a part of the image file and doesn't have to be separately created.  At any rate I'm sure I'll understand it once I'm playing with the new AGS.  

Thanks, DM.

Well don't fully understand how it works but I think I do see its potential uses.  

Would it require importing a sprite than importing a 2nd grey scale sprite of the same image where the intensity of the grey defined how opague the original sprite is displayed?

Everybody seems very excited about this new feature but I feel totally left out as I have no idea what an Alpha Channel is.  

Can someone please explain?

Use a MoveCharacter command to specify the coordinates.

I'm sure this would fit very low on the list of priorities as it wouldn't add any new functionality to AGS.  I'd like it to be easier to organize characters, views, sprites, etc.

As it is views are numbered in the order that they are created and that order cannot be altered (AFAIK).  My player characters walk animations are view 2, but the talking animation and running animations are views 28 and 37.  It would be great if I could round them all up and put them into a single folder or at least renumber them so that they are consecutive views.

Something that would be even nicer would be if the view had additional default functions for its loops.  By that I mean that loops 8-12 be the talk animation loops for each direction, and 13-17 be the idle animations for each direction the same way as 0-7 are the walk animations.  Having a checkbox for each would allow you to use the loops for something other than the default if desired.  

I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement or even how well received it would be by other users but I put it out there.

Hmm, what is the proper term for "somebody from the North American continent"?

A North American.  Minus the North and you're talking about a US citizen.

I'm from Florida, in the U.S.A., in North America and I call myself an American. I don't use the continent in that description or the state of Florida. Is this the same in other countries about the globe?

I primarily consider myself Canadian.  I've lived in too many different regions of Canada to say that I am an Albertan, or a New Brunswicker, or British Columbian.  If I went to another continent I may or may not describe myself as a North American.  It would depend on how aware of Canada the person I were talking to was.  I certainly don't call myself a North American while in North America.

... you have to promise me that you'll learn to spell...

Be nice.  It's not as if your post is free of errors.

I would also guess that folk from Tierra Del Fuego to Mexico wouldn't (probably) like it if you called them Americans.  Nor the Canadians ... they tend to be a touchy lot

I love ya Canada!!)

I love you too US but you're right about us not wanting to be called Americans.

I think its a little silly to be offended by the use of the words Slave and Master in a context that has nothing to do with human slavery.  But its even sillier to resist.  There's no reason not to change the name of a computer component when a large group of people find it offensive.

After the whole CJ!=Christ debacle, I've decided that its easier for me to stop doing potentially offensive things than it is others to stop being offended.

Often I find child performers disturbing but this little girl is adorable because she seems to be having such a good time.

My g/f and I have been together since January so this our first Christmas together.   She says that in previous years all she's ever asked for Christmas was a "Boy in a Box".  

So the question is:  Am I man enough to wear a box to the airport when I go to pick her up Christmas day?

There is an opportunity to fight in the very first scene of FoA.  

I don't know how it was scripted but there were two power bars, one indicating the players health and another indicating the strength of his punch.  I recently made an attempt at scripting a fight sequence in AGS and emulated this as best I could.  It might be a good jumping off point for you.  

http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=9745