Messages

There are some guidelines and templates that should help you cover all the bases when making a module. 

The Guidelines are stickied in the Technical FAQ forum and the templates are linked in the DemoQuest thread in the Games in Production forum.

• Module Header Template
  
• Module Script Template

Don't you think that when two people from different religions plan marriage that they ought to agree under which religious tradition they will raise their children before they get married?

It all seems reasonable on paper, but being in that situation sucks.  Just look at the very quote that you wrote:  "...when two people plan marriage..." This particular bit of dogma really makes if feel like "A couple billion people vs. one."  I realize that they have the right to impose that condition since their religion is officiating, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it.

I'm a non-Catholic.  My wife is Catholic.  If my mother should wish to take her grandchild to her own church one Sunday, is my wife obligated to protest?  Is she obligated to explain to our child what's "wrong" about our doctrines beforehand?

Is that what you agreed to when you signed the document?   I have a feeling that it is silent on that point, isn't it and that it's something that you and your wife have never talked about before right?  Now your mother wants to take your daughter to her church so that she can show your daughter off to her friends, otherwise she would just take your daughter to a Catholic church.   The only other reason for not taking your daughter to a Catholic would be to undermine her Catholic teachings which is a violation of what you agreed to when you married your wife.  If this is the case shame on your mother for even attempting this at this.

As I understand it your obligation was to see to it that she got the catholic training.  I was raised catholic in a mixed household the same as your daughter.  I just had to take some classes a couple of hours on Saturday morning for a couple of years.  So I know the drill.  Probably what your wife is objecting to is the fact that Catholics are taught that attending a non-catholic church is a venial sin and she doesn't want your daughter to commit a sin, not even a little one.     

If your daughter did commit such a sin, the Catholic church would sentence her to say a half dozen "Hail Marys".  You're bringing this up in the context of the insanity mainfested, far too often, by practicioners of Islam, where your daughter would be facing a death sentence.   You can't be serious about making such a comparison can you?   

Boy, I hope something can be worked out.  I would really like to see this happen. 
[edit]
Btw johnadv, thanks for comming here and engaging us in this discussion.   I hope CJ will consider cooperating with you in some way that would allow SCUMMVM to support games made with AGS.  I would think that if the effort succeeded that many of our portability issues would simply vanish.   Anyway, it's something I would certainly support. 

I wonder has anybody ever considered defining an intermediate XMLish game language?  Game development systems, such as AGS, could export to this language and runtime engines such as yours could either run intermediate language directly or have a compiler that converts the intermediate language to a native form? 

Gale may be helpful in this.  The process is not what you would typically "batch".  but you could import each of you bitmaps into separate frames of the same Gale file.  Convert the color depth of the file and all the frames are so converted.  Then just export the frames to individual PNG files. 

If it were me I would probably have one Gale file for each room that contained all the masks for that room.  I would probably also import an image of the room itself as a hidden layer of at least on of the frames.

[edit]
The other thing I would do is try importing the hi-color images you have into AGS as a mask to see what happens.  It may work?

Well the Tech Faq, GiP, and Completed Game forums have very specific purposes and it is important that things posted there be well organized and in consistent formats so that people can find what they are looking for.   People don't go there to socialize or to ask advice,  so it's appropriate that these forums be more strictly moderated than say GenGen, Beginners Tech, and Adventure Chat  forums. 

Darth is dong a bang up job but in the specific case cited let me ask this:  What would have been wrong with sending the author a PM thanking him for trying to liven up the forum and that you would let it run for a few days before moving it,  maybe even encourage  him to edit out the explanation so that people would fall for it?

IMHO, this is an illustration of what I mean when I wonder if the forums are over moderated.  In this case it's not that the moderator shouldn't have taken action, the question is rather what action would have been the most beneficial to the forum and it's members.  In this case someone was inspired to share a funny thought with the other members. Funny or not, he put in a fair bit of effort only to be instantly shot down.   Why not give the guy a heads up, let the joke run for a while, and then move it to a more appropriate venue or  whatever...

When I was a member of Toastmasters we learned how to critique one another's speeches in a way that would help the speaker to improve.   The most common method consists of the following three steps:

1.  Point out the positives, everything the speaker did right
2.  Point out the negatives, about 3 or 4 things the speaker did wrong
4. Point out how to improve, 3 or 4 things the speaker could do to improve next time.

Perhaps we could adapt something like this for our moderation policy, especially for newer members, you know the ones whose number of posts show up under their avatar. maybe it would go something like this.

1.  Say something positive - acknowledge their enthusiasm, their effort in making the post, etc, etc
2.  Explain the rules, what action is being taken, and why
3.  Tell them how they can improve the quality of their posts and encourage them to continue contributing to the forum

And perhaps there should be some informal guidelines as to what actions are appropriate in what circumstances.  As CJ has said earlier locking a thread is sometimes counter productive.  Perhaps it could be something simple like this:

1.  Is any action really needed at this time?  Is the offending thread likely to die a natural death?
2.  If action is needed, what action will achieve the purpose and least discourage future contributions by this and other members?
3.  What can I do to mitigate the negative consequences of taking action?

I'll finish by relating some of my experiences playing Rugby.  For those who are not familiar with the sport, Rugby is supposed to be played in a continuous manner.   I once had a hard time explaining the concept to some guy in a pub once, so out of frustration I said "Well, it's kind of like tackle bacsketball."  which, for reasons beyond me, seemed to clarify the concept for him.   

Well it's not that easy to keep the play continuous because there so many ways things can get screwed up.   To keep everything moving the referee is supposed to ignore minor infractions and allow play to continue provided that the team committing the infraction does not gain an unfair advantage.    It's such a joy to play in a match officiated by such a referee.   There is nothing more miserable to be playing in a match where the referee enforces every little infraction, everytime it occurs, with the maximum allowed penalty; it's just pure hell.       

Finally, it would be nice if the sprite numbers to start over in each folder and sub-folder.

Um, and how exactly would you refer to a sprite in script if they didn't have unique numbers?

Elessar is going down the path towards sprites having enum values. 

Just when you thought you tolerated it all ... now this!!!

http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=12589&pst=900199&archival=&posts=5

If you find the beheadings appalling please sign the petition.

"Force" is a strong word, but I do find their policy regarding marriage between Catholics and Non-Catholics to be somewhat objectionable.  If the wedding is officiated by a Catholic Priest, the Catholic party has to sign a document stating that he or she will see to it that the children are raised in the Catholic Church.  Sorry, but I don't believe in baptising a seed.

Don't you think that when two people from different religions plan marriage that they ought to agree under which religious tradition they will raise their children before they get married?   It seems to me that the Catholic Church's position is quite practical and reasonable;  decide before you get married.  Once you make a decision have a priest, minister, rabi, mullah, shaman, pubah, or whatever from the religion you choose perform the ceremony.  Seems perfectly sane to me! 

Also where is the .AGS file or how do I build it?   Has it been obsoleted in this version?

There is no longer a .AGS file; the EXE is built directly. It was basically an intermediate compilation file in 2.72.

The reason I ask is that games that make use of RunAGSGame() to call mini games can reduce the size the their distribution by ditributing .ags files for the mini-games rather than the exe files.  I suppose that I could buy the argument that it's not enough of a problem enough of the time to be concerned about it, especially in modern times where a few hundred KB is hardly worth mentioning.   

The one bright spot is that the MiniGame module won't have to check for it any more and the documentation won't have to explain what it is.   More bytes, less confusion; it's a fair trade-off I suppose. 

I would like to add to what Ashen has said about calling global functions, especially in your case where you intend to have multiple installments via RunAGSGame().     I think the normal  "AGS way" of doing things is to create event handler functions, via AGS's event tab, for each object, hotspot, etc and then call one or more functions from there to do the work.  If the function is something that can be used multiple times then it's made global.  I then to leave only the highest level of game logic in eevent handlers functions and push the heavy lifting down into functions.  In your case you could use modules to define your global functions so that they could be used in subsequent games/chapters.

I wonder why they would sign up for the forums and not post at all.

Well maybe they feel a bit intimidated but since we have proclaimed ourselves the friendliest lot on the internet it's hard to imagine why they would feel this way. 

I don't really see how they were unfriendly to you, SSH.

I'm sorry but their reason for not wanting to talk to him about this are just pure rubbish.  The AGS license terms make no claim or restrictions on what is produced by the AGS editor.  To assert that they can't even talk about the technical issues involved in implementing SSH's idea unless AGS is GPL'd  is pure rubbish and a poor excuse for lunacy.   They treated Andrew like he was a 15 year old who wouldn't know any better;  he is offended because he did know better as anyone with the slightest bit of technical knowledge would.

Sorry, SSH, but I have to agree with you this time, even if you do wear US flag as pajamas to bed at night.   

[edit]
spelling

In the View editor I created a new folder, in that folder I created a new view.  In the view pane I checked the "show preview" box and got the following error message.  The AGS editor continues running however.

Error: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
Version: AGS 3.0.0.16

System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> AGS.Types.InvalidDataException: Invalid script name; name must only include letters, numbers and underscores
   at AGS.Types.Utilities.ValidateScriptName(String name, Int32 truncateToLength)
   at AGS.Types.View.set_Name(String value)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at System.RuntimeMethodHandle._InvokeMethodFast(Object target, Object[] arguments, SignatureStruct& sig, MethodAttributes methodAttributes, RuntimeTypeHandle typeOwner)
   at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethodFast(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, MethodAttributes methodAttributes, RuntimeTypeHandle typeOwner)
   at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks)
   at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture)
   at System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.SetValue(Object obj, Object value, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] index, CultureInfo culture)
   at System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.SetValue(Object obj, Object value, Object[] index)
   at AGS.Editor.ProjectTree.projectTree_AfterLabelEdit(Object sender, NodeLabelEditEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.OnAfterLabelEdit(NodeLabelEditEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.TvnEndLabelEdit(NMTVDISPINFO nmtvdi)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WmNotify(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Btw, does anyone think else think that single clicking on the navigation tree would be more convenient than double clicking?  I know it's a bit late and that perhaps it's already been discussed, I appologize in advance if this is the case.

[edit-1]

Unable to register for Vista Game Explorer: Unable to replace resource: BeginUpdateResource failed

I also get this error when doing a "Build All" under Win2000.

Also where is the .AGS file or how do I build it?   Has it been obsoleted in this version?

[edit-2]
Now another error -  previously I did a "Build Exe" that crashed because of not enough disk space.  There was an error listing but I did not post it here because it was my fault I ran out of disk space and everything seemed to be alright.  And so I did the stuf in Edit-1 above.

Next I tried to test doing a "Run" command from the menu.  I said that AniTest.exe was already in use.   So I exited the editor and tried running the game AniTest.exe from file explorer.  Afain the same message.  I started the AGS editor again  but was unable to load the game getting this error:

! An error occured whilst trying to load your game.  The error was: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

If you cannot resolve the error , please post ....

{list of function calls relating to bitmaps, sprites, and sprite manager}
{can't cut and paste from message box                                              }

I think the disk space crashed somehow wiped out the only object's sprite.

If you're not already familiar with it you may find the free version of Graphics Gale useful for this purpose.  If you were to export frames of your animation clip to separate files then you could import them into Gale where each frame would appear on a film strip.  You can select individual frames for edit or you can do operations, such as cropping or adjusting color depth, etc on all frames at once.  You can save the results as a single file for future edits or export frames to individual files for use as AGS sprites.

Sorry to hijack this thread but perhaps my question will brink some more ideas to light for tolworthy.  I have a somewhat similar situation and have not done much experimenting in this area.  Perhaps some who has been through this before may be able  to suggest some things try and/or some things to avoid.   Here is my situation ....

I have been given a really cool 3D fly by type animation sequence, with neat camera work and everything.   I would like tp use this in the introduction.  Obviously could just make an AVI  movie with whatever text and sound I wanted overlayed with the animation  but I was wondering how seemless is the switch between game-video-game?   Will there screen transitions or disturbances, timedelays, or other practical considerations?   

I was thinking of experimenting with the method tolworthy is considering, only I don't have nearly as many frames to contend with.   Letting AGS do the animations gives much better control of the animation and more flexible options for adding text and sound.  It also provide the ability to use looping  to create extended animations without requiring more text. 

Anyway I wouldn't mind hearing from anyone who has used either the PlayFlc() or PlayVideo() functions and what their practical experience has been.

Also, tolworthy, from what you describe, I would be tempted to create animated sprites for the characters and the flame/fire and other objects. and then script the sequence.  I would think that it wouldn't be any harder to create animations for individual characters and objects than for the entire video.

Maybe it's a script for the begining of a porno movie.   

I personally feel that, if anything, the sprite jams and animation challenges should go, anything that doesn't contribute towards making a game. MAGs, OROWs, code challenges, stuff like this goes towards the ultimate purpose of the forum. Yes, sprite jams are fun and all but it's a distraction. If you still want to make sprites but don't think you want to make a game... Really, that's what Pixelation is for. You'll get a ton more advice and exposure for your art on pixelation than anyone here can give you.

I have always thought that all entries in the Competitions and Activities forum should have some type of Creative Commons license that would allow them to be used in future AGS games in their current or modified forms.  They could be collected and published on AGS resource pages or websites for use by would be game designers. 

I'm starting to get suspicious about all this.  First Nightfable starts a thread asking why people like to see women suffer and then a couple of days later Meowster starts this one!  What  are you girls up to?   

Oh and SSH, about making bear britches from the American Flag, yeah some people/groups would whine loudly about it but the woman would probably end up on the Oprah show.  .... Oooooh!  :o Wait!  That's a fate far worse than 40 lashes? 

"She is fascinated by different countries and cultures. She loves finding out about different ways of life,"

Nothing like living life to it's fullest, eh!  Bring on them lashes baby!

tolworthy,

You would be well off considering using the RunAGSGame feature to implement your 2000 room game from what you've said so far.   You can transition seamlesly back and forth.  I have written a MinGame module that allows you to Call and Return from a game the same as you would a function.  If you are interested about the module just PM me.