Topics

Larry Lessig, Stanford law professor and Creative Commons founder posted the following presentation about copyright law and fair use on You-Tube.  Warner Music sent a take down notice and now it seems they are going to have a fight on their hands and will quite proably loose.   Ironically thisi situation is excactly  \what Prof Lessig's presentation was about.

Anyway the video is fascinating and very in formative.         

http://www.lessig.org/blog/2009/04/update_on_warner_music.html

UC Berkely
Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents
Lecture 7: Nukes

Here is an excellent lecture about nuuclear bombs and reactors.  It's presented by Professor Richard A. Muller and is described as " The most interesting and important topics in physics, stressing conceptual understanding rather than math, wit...".  I found it to be very informative and thought I would share it with anoyone here that may be interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wR8LjNmSQ0&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=095393D5B42B2266&index=7

Thought I'd share this with you.  This has to be one of the earliest sci-fi tv shows circa early 1950's (1952 is mentioned in some of the episodes/commercials).  The intro is really cool and perhaps may provide some inspiration for the title screen of a sci-fi game.  This particular episode features Boris Karloff as a mad scientist time traveler.  I also noticed that the commercial makes a big deal about the federal tax being included in the purchase price but AFIK there has never ever been a national/federal salse tax  .  If this sort of thing is your cup of tea please enjoy...

http://www.fancast.com/tv/Tales-of-Tomorrow/97932/1105094071/Past-Tense/videos

I am thinking about creating a cd/game to help market my automation consulting business to perspective clients.   My first thought was to make some sort of simulation toy where one could drag machinery such as conveyors, wheels, pallet stackers, etc from a palette to a factory setting.   When the production line was complete a simulate button could be pressed and whatchamacallits would begin rolling off the production line.

This would supplement traditional materials not replace them.  I am hoping to  differentiate myself from my  competitors, demonstrate my creativity and versatility, and illustrate some of the benefits I canb uniquely provide.  I think there may be a fine line between being too whimsical and too serious?   I am thinking that if I can persuade someone to load this on their hard drive and play with it ocassionally then my conact information would persist for a longer period than if I just distributed brochures and business cards. 

Any comments about this are welcome.   I am especially interested the opinion of fellow tech professionals as to how this may be received.   I am also interested in any ideas of how to make such a factory toy; what devices/equipment to include, how to make it fun and not boring, etc.     

OK, so pour out your brains....

I've just downloaded a number of resource files from the website (Btw, some of the links are broken).   Now I have a collection of zip and mid files but am not sure which ones are newer or older.  I noticed there seems to be a pattern to most of the file names already.  What would you think about establishing a formal naming convention for such files so that the file name would contain a descriptive title, type of resource, and version/release date?   

For example this file:
     res-char-cha.zip

could have it relase date embedded in the name like this:
     res-char-cha-071100.zip

or like this:
     ResAllCharacters-071100-cha.zip

or some other format.

Question:  May I have a link to the last AGS editor to run in Win98.  I would like to upgrade my AGS sandbox on my mom's old computer at her house.  Thanks. 

Suggestion: My above question got me thinking about the AGS download page.  I was thinking  that it would perhaps be a good idea if there were links to previous key versions of the  editor.    We could discuss which versions are key but they would include the last versions before major features such as dos support, interaction editor, script language changes, etc, were added or dropped.  Perhaps also, versions required to upgrade an existing game project would also be on this or another list.

If there is a concern about server bandwidth / space the perhaps these versions could be made available via archive.com.  Actually it would perhaps be worth considering making all previous verions available there and just keeping a list (with links) of key releases on the website.

Anyway thanks for the listen and  please remember to leave linky to last Win98 supported version.  Thanks.

[Adventure Game Studio -]

Enter a URL and GENDERANALYSER tries to guess if the entered website's text was written by a man or a woman.   I tried a couple of AGS related URL's and got the results below.  Thought you guys may have some fun with this. 
http://www.genderanalyzer.com/

Adventure Game Studio - We guess http://adventuregamestudio.co.uk is written by a man (55%), however it's quite gender neutral.

SuperScottishHero Productions - We have strong indicators that http://ssh.me.uk/ is written by a man (98%).

Dualnames Blog About Useful programs - We think http://jspontherun.blogspot.com/ is written by a woman (71%).


Hehe!  I just couldn't resist the idea of analysing this post and got the following result....
This Post - We have strong indicators that http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=36252.msg475572#msg475572 is written by a man (99%).

It's quite comforting to know that "I'm a man by god!!!". 

When I went to my computer this evening it was all locked up.  Couldn't reset or get any response.  So I cycled power and when it came back up it hung just after the BIOS completed the memory test.   Attempts to enter setup during the post results in a message indicating that it is entering setup mode but it never does. 

AMD64+2Gmemory+IDE HD+SATAII HD+2 IDE CD
AMI BIOS 939 Dual-SATA BIOSP1.80

I would be very grateful for any ideas or suggestions as to what the problem may be or how I might proceed to isolate/identify the problem and replace whatever needs to be replaced.   

Clearing the error messages out at the beginning of the compilation process would provide a better indication that the compilation process is complete.   This is especially true if the "compilation complete" audio alert is disabled and there are multiple similar errors.

I came across this tidbit of news about a game developer's trade show in London next week and wondered if anyone was planning on attending.    I suppose that anyone who lives close enough to go,  probably already know about it.  But just in case here are links to their website. 

London Games Fringe
Festival Schedule

If anyone does attend please take some notes and lets the rest of us know what you saw.   I am particularly interested in the Open Source for Game Developers debate.   Apparently the tickets for the debate are free and there will be drinks afterwards (don't know if the drinks are also free but if they are .. you don't want to miss out ehh! ).   

[Find History]

I am working on a fairly large module at the moment.  Navigating around such a large file has inspired me to think about ways of making this easier and so I'd like to share a couple of things on my wish list.

Find History
How about having another drop list, as is done for function names, that would contain the text of previous Find operations.   The list would be ordered from most recent at the top and least recent at the bottom.  The list could be limited to an arbitrary number of the most recent items searched for if necessary or desired.

A click on an item in this list it would copy that item to the find buffer and perform a Find  Next operation.   Subsequent presses of the F3 key would search for the same text.  On opening the Find Dialog (if no other text is selected) the search text field would also contain the text selected from the list.

Reverse Search
Would like to be able to search in the other direction (i.e. from current position in file towards beginning).  Perhaps it could be implemented with an extra button on the Find Dialog and a ctrl+F3 short cut?

Separate Find and Replace Menu Picks
People almost always know if they want to Find or Replace something before they click on the menu.   As it is now at least 50% of the time they have to click on an extra button to get the dialog that they really want.   

Couldn't there just be another Menu pick called Replace that opens the same dialog only with the replace field activated and conversely couldn't the Find menu pick open it without the replace field activated?   Everything else could be the same as it is now.

F3 - Find Next shortcut closes  Find Dialog
How about closing the "Find" dialog box and then doing the normal "Find Next" action when the F3 button is pressed?   If someone wanted the dialog to stay open they could just click on the Find Next button in the Find Dialog or press enter.   If they wanted it closed but still wanted to do  multiple Find Next operations they would just use the F3 key.   

I have recently noticed if a member function is given the same name as a built-in function the compiler will report an "already defined" type of error.  For example attempting to do the following will generate such an error ...

Code: ags

*** Module Header ****
struct MyStruct {
     import static function Display(String text);
};

*** Module Script  ****
static function MyStruct::Display(String text) {
   Display(text);
}

*** Room Script ***
MyStruct.Display("Hello world!!");

I'm not 100% sure but I think this is only an issue with non-OOed functions.  I don't know if this behavior is intentional or is the result of something leftover from before the OO version of the script language.   I thought I would take the time to report it in case there is a list it should be on or something.   If everything is as it should be then feel free to ignore this post. 

P.S. Yes, of course there are very obvious workarounds so I don't need any help with that  .   And yes there are times when it's desirable to wrap some additional functionality around  standard functions.

The "drop list-goto function"  at the top of the editor is a really great feature.   I was thinking that it would be even be better, especially when working on very large scripts,  that it would be even better if it could also list user defined bookmarks, at the top of the list.

Perhaps there could be a #bookmark  directive to insert the bookmark so if  something like this were inserted in the script ...

Code: ags

#bookmark  Static Variables
int MyVar;
     :
#bookmark  Variables I am working on 
     :
#bookmark  The Function I am working on
     :

(general settings)
The drop down list would look something like this:

Code: ags

Static Variables
Variables I am working on 
The Function I am working on
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
game_start()
on_key_Press()
     :

Anyway it's just something that I thought would be very useful and not too difficult to implement.  There have been other suggestions such as folding, etc that also address this issue.   This is perhaps the easiest to implement and would eliminate or lessen the need for some of the other more difficult/complicated solutions?

Check it out, it's awesome!!!!

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Let me give a little background first.  We have four cats (all rescued from shelters) and David, our neighbor, has three cats (rescued from nature, feral) .  One of his cats is a long haired, all black male, named Catsquatch.  We call him Squatch for short.    Squatch being formerly feral is very skittish with people but he does come over on our porch once or twice a week to have a helping of tuna.   Usually he will run away when I take the dish out to him, so I usually just put the dish on the porch and then after I go in the house he comes back to eat. 

Squatch came over a little early last night for dinner, perhaps a little after 8:00 pm (we are not certain).  He waited outside patiently (we bribed him with food once to come in but very quickly wanted to leave; as I said he is very skittish) until we got around to feeding our cats their dinner.  When I took out the dish for Squatch he didn't run away at all; in fact he came to me before I put the plate down.   He let me pet him with out complaint.   I can sometimes pet him while he is eating but he starts growling even though he has a mouth full of tuna.  It sounds funny when he does that.   

He normally eats his dinner and then goes home.  But last night was different.  He was very friendly with me and was soliciting my affection.  My wife and I went out to pet him a number of times and he never ran away like he normally does.   He stayed and stayed until my wife finally went out and brought him in the house.  She held him in her arms well over an hour, until midnight when he jumped down and went to the door to leave.  Again this was highly unusual for him to do this as he was so very skittish of people.   it seemed to us that something was bothering Squatch but we couldn't figure it out.   My wife even look him over for wounds, crap in his eyes, etc but found nothing.

We found out a couple of hours ago that our neighbor David passed away last night around 8:00pm at the hospital.  Looking back at last night it seems like Squatch knew what had happened.  The family was at the hospital so he couldn't have picked up anything from their behavior etc.  Also when the family called us a few hours ago with the news, they said they hadn't seen squatch since yesterday afternoon.

I usually don't believe in ghosts and crap like that but I spend a lot of time with our cats and I am pretty good at knowing when they are trying to tell me something.    I am pretty sure Squatch knew something bad had happened and was looking for some friendly reassurance. 

Please take a moment to say a prayer for our good friend and neighbor David.  He was a very kind and gentle person who will be greatly missed.   

Thanks for listening to this....
Rick

I want to declare a number of pointer variables.   So normally  I would write somthing like this. 

Code: ags

	Button 	*First;
	Button	*Prev;
	Button	*Next;
	Button	*Last;

This works just fine.  But being the lazy sort I am,  I sometimes will put it all on one line like this. 

Code: ags

	Button 	*First,  *Prev,  *Next,  *Last; 

But the compiler throws the following error when it's written that way. 

Code: ags

Failed to save room room0.crm; details below
BluBox.ash(255): Error (line 255): '*' is already defined

--------------------- BluBox.ash -----------------------------------
255:	Button 	*First,  *Prev,  *Next,  *Last; 

One other thing I noticed is that when it's written as shown below it apparently works just fine.   There are no compiler errors and I am able to use the Prev, Next, and Last variables as I would any other pointer variable.    It's as if the first"*" is applied to subsequent variables defined on the same line. 

Code: ags

	Button 	*First,  Prev,  Next,  Last;

This doesn't seem to be correct to me.

Thought some of you may be interested in this.  Here is a link to a brief description.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080811180231923

[1. Goto System->Adept and entered "VMware" into filter, checked off vmware-player, and hit install. 2. Goto Easy VMX website and create a Virtual Machine for the version of windows for which you have an install disk. Download and extract the resulting zip file.http://www.easyvmx.com/tutorial.shtml3. Goto System->VMwarePlayer to start the player. Open the vmx file, insert the widows install disk into the CD drive, and install windows.You have to click the mouse inside the VM window in order for it to acdept your key press. To do anything outside of the VM window press control-alt.]

Has anyone tried using VMware Player to run AGS 3.o on Linux or Mac?   

This evening I installed VMware Player on Kubuntu Fiesty with mixed results.  My computer only has 512MB ram and  600 mhz cpu.  So yes I am in serious need of an upgrade so please stop laughing.   I was able to get everything installed and windows seemed to work ok.  Being CPU/RAM challenged it took a long time to get this far. 

I wasn't able to get the network working nor was I able to access the rest of my hard disk through what they called the "shared folder".  This precluded me from actually trying to run AGS.   Since the install process is so slow on my current computer and since it is likely that the virtual machine performance will also be unacceptable on my machine I decide to quit fiddling with it.

I thought that some of the Linux users who may have newer machines than may be interested so I thought to share my experience.  Here is the procedure I used to get going.  If anyone tries this please let us know how well (or if) it works for you.


1. Goto System->Adept and entered "VMware" into filter, checked off vmware-player, and hit install.   

2. Goto Easy VMX website and create a Virtual Machine for the version of windows for which you have an install disk.   Download and extract the resulting zip file.
http://www.easyvmx.com/tutorial.shtml

3. Goto System->VMwarePlayer to start the player.  Open the vmx file, insert the widows install disk into the CD drive, and install windows.

You have to click the mouse inside the VM window in order for it to acdept your key press.  To do anything outside of the VM window press control-alt.

[Abstract]

Abstract
This module contains the script required to implement a continuously looping room such as the one in DemoQuest, which will eventually be upgraded to use this module.

Description
This module requires that a portion of the background image, beginning from the left edge and continuing for max_viewport_width pixels be mirrored on the right hand side of the image.   The following public methods and properties are provided buy this module

LoopRoom.Init(int max_viewport_width)
This function initializes the looping mechanism by performing a number of calculations based on the actual viewport and background image widths.  The parameter, max_viewport_width, specifies how much of the background image is repeated on the left and right ends of the image.

LoopRoom.LeaveLeft()
This function is called when the player character attempts to exit the left end of the screen.  The viewport is switched to the equivalent position on the right hand side of the screen.  Any NPCs are also transferred to their equivalent positions on the other side of the screen.

LoopRoom.LeaveRight();
This function is called when the player character attempts to exit the left end of the screen.  The viewport is switched to the equivalent position on the right hand side of the screen.  Any NPCs are also transferred to their equivalent positions on the other side of the screen.

The following public  provided buy this module

LoopRoom.X0      - Left edge of background image
LoopRoom.X1      - TransitionRight viewport new position
LoopRoom.X2      - Begining of non-mirrored portion of background image
LoopRoom.X3      - End of non-mirrored, TransitionLeft viewport new position
LoopRoom.X4      - Right edge of TransitionLeft viewport
LoopRoom.X5      - Right edge of background image
LoopRoom.Wv     - Viewport width
LoopRoom.Wa     - width of mirrored portion of background image
LoopRoom.Wb     - width of non-mirrored portion of background image
LoopRoom.W       - width of background image

Example Usage
// *** Room Script ***

LoopRoom    Loop;

// Player enters room first time
function room_FirstLoad() {
   Loop.Init(426);
}

// Player walks off left edge of screen
function  room_LeaveLeft() {
   Loop.LeaveLeft();
}

// Player walks off right edge of screen
function  room_LeaveRight() {
   Loop.LeaveRight();
}

I have searched for "loop room", "looping room" "looping" etc and have not found a pre-existing form of this module.  I am aware of SlideRoom and Panaorama modules but this one does something slightly different.  If there is a pre-existing version of this or if you have some comments or inputs please reply to this thread.

This is just a handy little GUI useful for testing modules and code snippets. The test GUI consists of an event log, test title and status message, 9 digital meters and their captions, 9 test buttons, and 6 led status indicators.  The Select button allows the user to select different test configurations. 

Each test configuration is implemented in a room script.   When the room loads all of the test controls are disabled (i.e. hidden) by the global script.  Each of the desired controls is enabled or initialized with a single lineof code in the room_Load() event handler.   Test button events are forwarded to the test room's script where they are handled via the on_call() handler.  The Leds and Meters are updated in the room_RepEx() event handler.  Again just a single line of code for each is all it takes.  Items are time tagged and recorded in the event log with a single line of code similar to a display statement. 

The black area above the control panel is the test room's  background image.  This area can be used to work with room objects and areas.  Just create a background image 800x600 where the important elements are in the top half of the screen and import it into the desired test room. 

This can be used to test modules, try out ideas, learn scripting, or to make tutorial packages.  Anyway, give it a try a let me know what you think. 


BluBox-T0100-B02.zip