Messages

Scavenger, you are aware of SteveMcCrea's 3D module/plugin, right? I would think that much more suitable for basing an adventure interface on, integrating well with AGS script/events. It supports true looking up/down, plus you can build quite sophisticated architecture. Oh, and it allows camera scripting too.

What makes dkh's module unique is in my opinion its focus on FPS style gameplay promising built in AI, handling of projectile interactions plus an easy to use level editor.

I am aware, yes. But 2.5D level editing - and design - is a lot more economical to create games with, and personally I prefer it*. But - even with that in mind, being able to use what I mentioned in an FPS would bring a new level of depth into those kinda games, too. After all, what's better for immersion than having more than one layer of gameplay? With customisable AI, you can have enemies that run away at low health, or try to kamikaze you, or rush up and attack with a melee weapon.
Yes, with this plugin you get to shoot enemies, but then you can make games that are more than that. Being able to use it only for Wolfenstein 3D style shooters seems somewhat limiting. 2.5D first person rendering, projectiles, and enemy AI is only one aspect of a good FPS

Think of the potential it could have for everyone, including the people who want to make shooty FPSes! The more that's hardcoded, the less potential it will have for everyone.

*Aesthetically, I mean, It's like preferring making 320x200 256 colour games to 32bit 3D games in whatever resolution. Y shearing, no problem. There's just something endearing about the way it's rendered.

This has so, so so much potential for AGS. Not just for 2.5D shooters, but adventure games, too. I can imagine towns being navigated by this method, or dungeons (for RPGs), or anything that requires a 360 view. Makes me think of Normality and Realms of the Haunting, too. I applaud you for making this happen in AGS of all things - this is fantastic! Thank you!

Though, a couple of questions.

Are the NPCs/enemies in this plugin handled seperately to AGS characters? If not, could you potentially use standard interactions with them or make them run different AI functions (on collision - initiate the dialogue system, or drop an item somewhere, or even do an animation at a certain waypoint?)

Could you potentially script preset camera events? (example: player enters a large courtyard. The "camera"/Viewport zooms forward away from the player's position and round a corner, where it focuses on two NPCs having a conversation, then turns back to the player's position)

It's still fantastically awesome even if it will never do any of those things, though x3

Once again, thank you.

[CHARACTER]

So, I'm now comfortable with how I draw, and I draw cartoons.  I decided over the summer, I'm going to try and make a short game based on saturday morning cartoon shows. Because they're awesome (and cut corners in terms of animation). But, if I'm going to do this, I need to decide how. I really don't mind which depth I use (so long as it's not 32bit, as I hate alpha channels with a passion. Hate, HATE. Also, I don't like depths above 640x480 for some reason. Maybe it's the comforting blocky pixels, but I don't think this project would work at anything higher.)

Here are some mockups I made of what I think the sprites would look like, using the protagonist as the example.

CHARACTER

In terms of being simple, the lo-res, 8bit one is probably easiest to produce, but lacks that certain something that makes SatAM appealing. The top one might be too blurry, the middle might be too blocky, I don't know.

As for the background (which I think would be really important in deciding what colour depth and resolution to use), I also made a mockup picture of the style I would use.

CONCEPT ART (it was quickly made just to be an example, so don't critique it. There are SO many things wrong with it, I know. The real backgrounds would probably be done on watercolour paper.)

So my question to all of you out there, which one of the three would be best suited to a SatAM style adventure game?

[animate]

Whew. How do people animate this stuff? Just to check I dug out my copy of Torin's Passage, which uses a similar style of clean-edge sprites, and there seems to be a lot of effort to it.

I don't think they do animate it. Most sprites of that style I've seen are hand drawn animations, traced over with pixels (a lot of animators do that, have you ever looked at the concept art for Super Mario Bros. and Megaman? It's all done by hand. They'd be mad not to). It's just an extension of simple shading, I guess It's what I do, anyway. (though my stuff is decidedly less complex :3)

I think it would be extremely hard to animate this sprite, or even your simpler shaded one, because of the number of colours you're using. The complex one has 93 colours, the simple one 47. Before you can even think of animating, I suggest reducing the number of colours in your palette down to 16. Otherwise it's going to look like an unholy mess once it starts moving.

I don't know whether it's been added or not since I last used AGS, but:

- Better palette handling for sprites. Too many times I've lined up the colours in a sprite I want to use certain palette slots and AGS rearranges them, making my palette tweaking pointless.

OR

- Minipalettes, with 16 color palettes for sprites that we can edit, similar to OHRRPGCE, or even the SCUMM engine! It would make tinting a breeze.

I want to make a game based off of Patricia Wrede's "Dealing with Dragons". That would be awesome. It works out just like an adventure game, too. =) From creating the fireproofing spell to melting wizards, I think that game would be the most fun ever making.

Also, I wanna finish Until the Dawn, and Seeing through Blind Eyes. Those games were great to work on. =(

These are very good. They have lots of character =) Here's a couple of points to improve them ^^.

- The dark ones are better, yes, but I have a comment about the hulking guys - they have too many colours on their chests. If you use the dark one, and just use two colours (the main red and the darker one you used for outlining the pecs), it might look a lot more consistant with your other sprites.

- The cross-eyedness can be solved simply by moving their eyebrows down, like the sprite on the far right. If they're simply lackeys, you can get away with not showing the whites of their eyes at all =).

- The sprite on the far right... he looks evil. But his shoulders are too hunched up. If you want him to look more natural, just lower his shoulders a bit, make them less square. If you want him to be hunched over, move his head down, and do the hand wringing thing.

- The big guy's groin area looks painfully small. Move it down a little! =)

- The saturated colours are often one of the hardest parts, as different monitors display things slightly brighter or darker than another. Try to steal colours from Lucasarts games to see what kind of colour you need to make (they are a GOLDMINE, I swear.)

I'm trying to make a short game, but my protagonist's walk cycles seem to be bugging me quite a lot. I can do the front, but the side and back views are seemingly impossible.

Here he is:

I have him in three different outfits so I could make his poses look more natural (as it's easier to put clothes on a sprite and have it look right, imo, especially with his reaching up front pose). The fact that he has no eyes is intentional - I've never drawn him without that hat.

So, what do you think? Any comments on the sprite? How can I do the side and back view walking frames? Especially the back view. I can never make that look right. Thankyou ^^

I tried changing his facial expression, and minor details. Also, the hair, since I agree it was a little TOO green, even though his hair is green ; ). I still don't know how to make his posture worse. The side view, however, is the most pain evar. Especially putting a smirk on it. Urgh ><

And by stereotypically american, I guess I mean Americana, or exaggerated pop culture. Hmm.

Just as a challenge, I decided to make a couple of backgrounds based on an American Gas Station / Diner. They're only sketches scanned in from my art book for now, but I hope to colour them in somehow.

Outside....
... and inside.

I know about the signs, and the correcting the wonky perspective, but how would I go about making them more (stereotypically) American? This kind of.. low budget diner is the theme, (in contrast to a chain of gas station fast food outlets owned by a faceless conglomerate. =P)

Also, this guy.


The main character of this hypothetical setting, but I don't know how to improve him. He kinda looks way off to me. He's supposed to be 'laid back' in a kind of overexaggerated way, and maybe a little arrogant, too.

Hmm. Your comments?

Is it powerful enough, though? And widescreen.. eeeh. If you wanted the game to fill the display, you'd have to stretch it. And stretching doesn't look nice on LCDs. I see what you mean, though. Nice touchscreen and big display! If it runs homebrew code as well, yay!

Personally, I'd use the GP2x (It's been mentioned before). It also runs on Linux, with a 200Mhz ARM CPU, and 200Mhz co-processor (along with a 2D accelerator). And Allegro has already begun being ported to it!   With the unfortunate exception of a lack of touchscreen and keyboard, I doubt it's quite ready to be graced with AGS. It's probably easily powerful enough for 320x200/240 8bit and 16bit games, though. Which is most of the library! Or does CJ want AGS to be ported only to desktop computers, which can run ALL of the AGS games? oo;

I've already told you, I'm not making a Berenstain Bear fangame! If you like it so much, you make it. =P Geez, what's the obsession? o.o

And fine, "properly coloured hair, as opposed to having hair the same colour as the fur of the rest of the body, thus making it slightly longer fur, and differenciated(sp?) from the rest of the body." and it wasn't critique. It was marking the difference between my character and those bears. XP

Any comments on the expressions? I know I'm particularly bad at recognising them, so I'd need a lot of help there. o.o

[The brother]

Well, mostly since I've never even heard of the Berenstain Bears before. o.o And partly because I already have a story, I already have characters, and I don't want to make a game about those damnded bears. =P. And don't you have to be a fan to make a fangame? I don't even think he LOOKS all that much like them. His nose is too big, his face too chipmunk like, and he has proper coloured hair. o.o

Okay, Let's critique the Berenstain bears.
The brother
http://www.berenstainbears.com/graphics/brother-bio.jpg
Okay, scary. It looks like his sleeves are eating away at his head. His mouth has an air of total malevolence that makes me think that it's gonna devour me soul. It opens up to beyond his cheekbones, like an alien. o.o The eyes are drawn downward. is this some kind of strange cross eyed breed of bear? I'm sure that bears don't have eyes attatched to their snouts. That's the beef I have with the style. It's unattractive =P.
j/k =P

Do you have a vendetta against me or something? o.o

Ew. Fangame. No way. =P I'm SCARED of those bears. >> They aren't even DRAWN right. o.o

[8]

I do believe this might be a secret code. Of secrecy. Let's start with the facts.

It was sent from Ms. Liz Titor, but is signed by Dr. Brown.

THE PARENT is a recurring theme.

People don't seem to be missing things, or are missing things.
-That farmer is not missing reading..
-That flight attendant is not missing playing below the bridge at this exact
moment..
-Those janitors aren't missing sleeping right now..
-The musicians have missed playing since a few days ago..


Repetition and numbers are also an important point in this email.
- Listened to the tape 8 times.
- A child must hear the word 72 times.
- Working on it for 2 years.
- The Ninety Six Bottles of Beer paragraph.
All of these relate to 8 in some way - 8, 8x9,8/4,8x12

Other notes that could be useful:

"I thank THE PARENT daily for her insight."
THE PARENT is female. THE PARENT is depicted as some kind of deity?

Noun Program
What is this Noun Program? Let's see, it is boring, the writer invented it.

Take one down, pass it around...
It is either a sequence of numbers, or a sum.
"Ninety six bottles of beer, three a's, three b's, one c, two d's, thirty six
e's, three f's, two g's, seven h's, eleven i's, one j, one k, six l's, one m,
twenty n's, twelve o's, one p, one q, six are's, twenty eight s's, nineteen t's,
seven v's, seven w's, six x's, and five y's on the wall.."

All that equals 288, which is 72x4. See the correlation between all the numbers thus far?

All these eights... they're reoccurring.

The Names
We know a few names are involved with this:
- Dr. Brown (the author of the letter)
- Ms. Liz Titor (the sender of the letter)
- Ms. Laura Meyers (Creator of the repetition tape - she does exist, and is of the UCLA. She works with children with Down's Syndrome, says nothing about 72.)
- Lawrence (Likes dancing.)
- Timothy Hendricks (The person who was supposed to recieve this email.)

Also of note:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-lint-maint/2005/11/msg00004.html
Contains what looks like a phone number. Weird, huh?

And:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-lint-maint/2005/11/msg00003.html
At the bottom is the REAL gibberish. Not like we're seeing here.

Hmm. 72.

Oh! Now I see ^^. I haven't done adventure game sprites in so long. o.o Hmm. If it's okay, I'll take the animation, and tone down his body and face movements. o.o It just seems too extreme now. Thankyou for correcting it for me ^^

I'm glad there's no shading or proportion issues, that's for sure.

And who ARE the Berenstain bears? o.o First I've heard of them ever. =o. So, I did some research on it, and they do look KINDA like him. Except they have really narrow, scary snouts o.o. Nightmare inducing bears! ;_; I didn't mean for Ryruu to look like them (due to me being totally ignorant of their existance until now o.o), but I can't see any way to change him without totally making him not look like the way I imagine him.

I'm stuck.

I like the new voice! It sounds more natural. The second voice sounds rather... put on. Like the character doesn't really have that voice =P I dislike it. o.o

[Expressions]

Expressions

These are for use in the bottom right hand of the screen, indicating the mood Ryruu is currently in. As I progress through the project, I will make it so that Ryruu's idle animations reflect his mood, and that the expressions box will also have idle animations. The left column is impartial blinking, while the others show different levels of emotion. The top one being subtle, the middle not so, and the bottom intense. They are: Fear, Anger, Embaressment.

Needless to say, this will dictate how he does certain actions. =P And certain actions will dictate his mood.

Walkwalkwalk

Now, Ryruu's not the most graceful of walkers, so I tried to add a kind of clumsy plod or amble to his walk. o.o Did it work? And how do I do side and back views now?


Some notes: I also totally redesigned his costume. I think it looks more original now ^^. Now, what on earth is the style I'm working to? o.o It's all cartoony =o Much easy this is, due to the lack of real shading.

Any comments, help, or suggestions are welcome =P. Endorsed, even.

Edit: Meh. My big TV doesn't support 60hz. =P

I'll try it later on my upstairs one o.o Which is an American TV, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay, I seem to have a huge problem with my computer.  I want to set the S-Video out to go to my TV, since viewing movies and games on a 21" TV is much easier for two people to see and interact with than my 15" LCD screen which is most useful for sprite art.

I have a RADEON 9550, with S-Video out. Unfortunately, the TV I have only has SCART sockets, so I rigged up an S-Video-Component Video-Scart setup, set my computer to use a secondary monitor, flipped the channel over to EXT-1 (Which is the scart port.). Nothing. EXT-2. Still nothing. EXT-3. Again, nothing.

What was I doing wrong? The switchbox certainly worked, as it played my PS2 and DVD Player perfectly. The SCART input on my TV worked, as I had Freeview working on it a little while ago.

So, I unplugged my monitor, and left only the S-Video cable in. Again, with the TV on and connected. Restarted the computer and... nothing. Then I got throughougly confused.

Is there some archaic and cryptic way of getting the video to come out of the S-Video port instead of the VGA port? Or are the S-Video and DV-Out just little fancy things to fill space?

Will I have to make a VGA-Component video adaptor to force it to comply? (Not recommended. I can solder and wire stuff, but I suck at making prototypes. And I have too many bad memories of the electronics factory.... *shudder*)

Any help is welcomed! ^^