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Working on a background as we speak... errr... type.

EDIT:

Alright.  I finally finished the background.  It took me approximately 10 hours to complete.

It's a Pirate Lair, filled with bones, crystal skull, gold, shovel, ship, and of course pirate chests.  As Piratey as a cliche picture can get.

I kinda mixed two different drawing styles in with this background.  Let me know if it looks ok.  The majority of the image are cartoonish, but the hole in the sand is very detailed.  This, not only will be the posting area for the contest, but it's almost a C&C posting too.  Just send me messages telling me what you think of it (can't remember how to make the link to have people easily send me messages on here).

(if you're wondering, this is the style of how my graphics look in my game I'm making... But nothing close to being sand/pirates/water.  My game is sci-fi, but it has many many months to complete that)



It's 640x480.

I also have the WIP gif (528 kb) at the following address:
http://www.bryvis.com/images/ClichePirateWIP.gif

As you'll notice, the entire image was put together by my best internet friend: Google.  If you feel like docking me points for 'copying' multiple images and putting them together into one, feel free.  It's my first time ever doing that.  I learned quite a bit by making this image, it was a great learning experience.  I'll definitely google images for any other background I make, from now on.

Edit: How I would program the walkable and walk-behind areas are posted below.

I don't know Gilbot, I think your art skills on the hole look a lot better than the bird.
Lol Joking  I like it a lot.



Ok so I went for the standard key!  Somebody had to, sheesh.

Alright, please tell me you guys know of the Ninja Turtles... hehe



Would have added more detail, but it's getting late and I should go to bed.

From now on, AGS developers should write "This is a freeware game" in the intro and finishing credits.  It honestly won't change much, since that's what he seems to be selling anyway; others freeware games.  Now that I've seen this, if I complete a game, I'll be writing it in there.  Then maybe someone will get pissed that they bought a free game, and make an attack on this person. haha

Meh.

Well sheesh, you both work at a burger joint, buy her a new patty flipper cause the other one is too flimsy and she burns her hand.

Ok, no I'm just joking.

I agree with vict0r, but not in this situation. haha  That was funny.

Amost as sad as the second Space Odyssey movie ?

Woah, what have I been missing?  I thought there was only one space odyssey movie, and oh god, was it ever a dragged out movie.  Can't imagine the second being any better.

Peace out Arthur.

I thought it was a good movie.  Probably a 7 out of 10, but the idea was amazing.

I'm pretty sure the Jumper HAD to be at the jump site before being able to jump to it, and not just from a photo.  But I can't see him visiting the pyramids just to make it his jump site.  So perhaps you're correct that a photo taken is considered a 'new jump location' -- but to me is stupid, because if you took a photo of your backyard, is my body/brain/power going to know where this is?  So that's why I believe it had to be a place he has visited (or has seen with his own eyes), like the Empire State building, when he visited it as a child.

But it's not like traveling would take very long, you would just have to teleport yourself like 200ft each second to get somewhere VERY fast, until you get to a new jump location.  I think the photos are just memory references.  I don't remember all the places I've been, but once I looked at a photo, I'd remember immediately.  That's why Samuel said "we have all his jump locations".

Now the part of when he was 5 years old being his first 'jump', do you really think he would have believed it?  It was probably just a 20ft jump, him running after a ball and then he jumped to be arms length to it.  At 5 years old, I know I wouldn't believe it, especially if his mother was there to see it.  She would have lied and said he blacked out.

I believe jumpers are all bad because, truthfully, with power like that, who wouldn't abuse it?  Are you telling me you are still going to have a full time job, because stealing is bad?  Hell no, I'm robbing this bank and that bank.  If you could go anywhere at anytime, you would feel invincible and feel as if you were a God.  Tell me if some big guy gave you an evil glare, normally you would look away cause you don't want your ass kicked, but with those powers you'd stare him in the eye.  What if the big guy went over to punch your face in, your not going to just teleport safely home and say "oh forget it".  You're going to teleport behind his ass and push him into the ground, or something along those lines (or teleport him to the edge of town so he has to walk back.  Or in the worst case scenario, kill him or severely hurt him.).

Overall I think the movie had amazing potential that they didn't take advantage of.  I'm hoping for there to be a sequel, and hoping they don't show much of the 'love interest' as they did in this one.

EDIT:  Actually I was thinking about this at work, I forgot about the scene where Samuel was asking for the names of the safety deposit box owners saying the person that robbed the safe had been in it before.  And also explains why he teleported to the bathroom instead of the safe at first, cause he had a better memory of the bathroom.

You need to work on that left arm, have it draw back just before the right arm goes into the forward location.  If you stare at the left arm, it just looks like it's always there.  Very confusing.

Sorry if I didn't make any sense there, Chris.

So having an extra character is what I should do for an offset view animation, Strange Visitor?  Thanks.

Ok my game has been on hold for a month now because I am sure I am going at something the wrong way and don't want to keep moving until I know how to do this properly.

I have my ego standing at the top of some steps, and he climbs down them.  Look at picture below.



The two smaller rectangles are the (approximate) border of the idle view of the ego looking left.  And the big rectangle is the border of the animation of him climbing down the stairs (which isn't shown here).

I am more than likely over looking the forums incorrectly and just can't find the help I'm looking for.

This is the code I'm using:

Code: ags

 cEgo.Walk(234, 125, eBlock);   //him walking to top of steps before animation
 cEgo.x=cEgo.x-18;  //this is what I really don't like.. it changes his xy BEFORE it sets the Large animation view
 cEgo.y=cEgo.y+26;
 cEgo.LockView(7);  //locking the view to the animation
 cEgo.Animate(2, 5, eOnce, eBlock);
 cEgo.x=cEgo.x-15;  //position the ego off to the left so unlock view can have him standing where he should be
 cEgo.UnlockView();

Oh and at the end he is facing Right (loop 2 on ego view, also the loop used in the climbing animation?).  Which in the description of Lockview it shows nothing about having to set the view loop again when unlocking.

I was wondering if I should just have the character visible = false, animate an 'object' of the him climbing down the stairs, make the visibility of that false, enter the new location of my character and make him visible.  Is that how the professional AGSers do it?

Depends on the art you're doing.
I have a 6x11 wacom (the wide ratio goes well with my wide screen lcd tv as my monitor) and the wacom is Freakin amazing for higher resolution images--640x480 minimum, and definitely better with a higher color count--16/32 bit.
BUT when it comes to 300x200 resolution OR any kind of small pixeling jobs, I prefer the mouse hands down.  It's more accurate at quickly dropping pixels around, the wacom can be sloppy with the pen.  But that's just me maybe.

Good good..
Your game is 300x200 right? Then shouldn't matter what resolution you are currently looking at it with right now, but anyway looks good.    Can't wait to see the game.

Now that you are saying it looks like lips instead of teeth, I can see it too.
I was trying to remake the teeth but nothing I am doing right now looks alright.
My main concern was to fix his centered tooth so two teeth are in the middle of his nose.  But I just can't get the whole thing to look right at the moment.

EDIT: Added photo



x2

Okay I spent a few minutes working on this, I tried to define his eyebrows with a little more anger.  Raised his cheeks.  I decided to give his teeth a little less width.


Side by side: (new / old)
x2 VS x2

I can see a little more anger in this, but I know I can do better.  But now that I look at the new vs old, I can see confusion in the old rather then anger.  And now I keep staring at the dark dot on his nose, didn't notice that until now.

I would love to see some glare lines on the window to help separate the rooms.  It doesn't have to be extreme.  I was tying to find a quick image I could show you, but for some reason can't at the moment.
The only downfall to glare is if there are characters or objects 'behind' the glass, you'll have to assign a walk-behind region to it -- therefor you can't go into too much shading detail on the glare (like layering), but I wouldn't anyway with your style of graphics.
Also for future reference, anytime you are drawing outlines - always make the outlines in the distance small, or dark colors (like the dark green on your green walls, instead of black lines) and the outlines closer to the "camera" thicker/bolder or black to help give depth (3D baby, yeah lol).

EDIT: I guess you could always use a sprite for glare and set the opacity level?  But I'm very new with AGS and am not too familiar with that.  Don't know if it's possible with 256 color, etc.

I'm thinking if you replace the white on the toes of the shoes (perhaps with a light brown / red-ish brown) it will help bring out the white in the skin.  Loving the hair and the completely covered eye and eyebrow.  The pointy chin kinda helps out the slouch look, also with the hands back.  Overall, I like it.

I'm really not liking the gaps between the teeth.  Progz, teeth looked much angrier and less goofy (the initial glance almost reminds me of Herman Toothrot on Monkey Island).  Progz, jaw was also clenching to show anger. 
But I don't know what kind of character your looking for.  A goofy Evil Boss, or an angry serious Evil Boss.

Only thing I can think of since I'm new to 3.0 is the ability to sort sprites by number.
I am constantly adding sprites in different orders (depending on the order i make them) and changing the number so I don't get confused as to what group they belong to. eg: sprites for my ego are numbered 2000-2200 - also in a separate folder anyway).  Call me weird, but I like to be organized.

Thanks guys.

I never actually thought of having a shelf with items already on it before <just overlapping with objects>.  Probably due to the 320x240 or whatever the object grid is, while the image is 640x480.  Makes lining things up quite tedious.

For this application I think I'm going to use the objects instead of the programming route.  But I will more than likely use the other approach as well later on.

Thank you again.

Hey Baron, if I used your method, how would I let the @overhotspot@ know it's on a 'book' or 'radio' etc? (i have it display in text on screen below mouse)

See I have on this shelf only a handful of items.  But when the mouse is over the shelf, I don't want it to just say "shelf", that makes the game boring. 
And to make objects for each interaction would also slow the game down (from what I've read on other threads), and the limit was 25 i think?  I know right now with this particular shelf and room, I won't be passing over that limit.
But, this shelf is (without giving away any parts of my game) lets just say, it's falling over backwards.  If I had all the items on the shelf as their own objects, I'd have to erase them, then replace the shelf with the image of the items on it, when the time comes for the animation for the shelf to fall over.

I'm not only asking for just this room of the game, If there is a way to do this, I'll be doing it throughout the game over and over.

Code: ags

if (mouse.Y <= oBookshelf.Y + 20)  Display ("The Radio can't be turned on.");  //the top shelf
if ((mouse.Y >= oBookshelf.Y +21) && (mouse.Y <= oBookshelf.Y +40)) { Display("That book is too boring to take."); //the next shelf down...

I haven't tried this yet, no point unless I find out if I can change @overhotspot@ to display anything other then the "shelf" text. -- So if I did this, I'd be inserting the @overhotspot@ value in there (imagining i can make a rectangle)?

Code: ags

if (mouse.Y>=oBookshelf.Y+10 && mouse.Y<=oBookshelf.Y+20 && mouse.X>=oBookshelf.X+5 && mouse.X<=oBookshelf.X+15 {
 display("coolest book in the world.. oh yeah!");
 //then insert whatever the code is to change the @overhotspot@ value?
}

I imagine I'd still have "shelf" and not "book".  Because the objects are probably ran after the script, more than likely replacing the "book" to "shelf".  But I have no clue, I'm new to this and haven't fully explored the order of operations.

Ok if this has already been asked, I apologize.  Nothing more frustrating then answering the same old questions over and over.

I'll start with an example, lets say I have a bookshelf, and this bookshelf is a sprite/object (because it isn't static).  Is it possible to have areas of that sprite that are lets say, a radio, a book, etc.  I want each area to interact differently as though they were an area hotspot on a BG.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to have a bookshelf as one object, and then place new objects of the radio, or book, etc over top (because these objects are only interactions, they will not be picked up).