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All the walls have exact same shading.  Maybe try a radial gradient gently making the corners of the room darker.  If you have a central hanging light the walls will be darker in the corners anyway, but only slightly.

The thing is, saying something is good is criticism too.  Criticism doesn't just have to be picking flaws, though Pablo mentioned a few of those earlier.

Just go with the flow...  If the mods don't like something my guess (despite the fact I am new) is that it will be moved or removed. 

BASS without a doubt is the greatest adventure game of all time.  I could connect with the whole cyberpunk jaded future vision, because I don't personally buy into the theory that more technology = happier world.  A big plus was that it's set in Australia, my home country, though the fosters beer references were a bit stereotypical it felt more authentic than other games with American / European pop culture references.  The dry humor was balanced just right.  The scope was there for sequels which sadly never occurred.  The backstory had the right balance of tragedy and hope and enough loose ends to make me want more in the end.  How was life out in the gap?  Could we ever visit the gap?  I think the carictatured disparity between the rich elite and the filthy masses was slightly over the top, but it was kind of cute in a way.  Also, having too many questions magically answered at the end was a bit droll, like, they could have kept some mystery surrounding Roberts childhood and death of his mother.  Saying "Oh it was all just the fault of a mad computer, now it's all fixed thanks to these meddling kids" was too much of a happy ending.

But still...  It is the best adventure game of all time, for me.  I think only Monkey Island 2 / 3, DOTT, and Simon the Sorcerer come close, for wildly different reasons.

Those are my picks.

Nice work Wayne, an interesting take making the south park characters more human.

Seriously I reckon you were onto something here.  Send it to the producers and say hey...  Time to do a live action southpark.

(they may totally ignore you of course, but it can't hurt...)

Digital Matte Painting?  Thanks for the heads up maybe I can find some pointers in there.

It  never ceases to amaze me, even though I have been doing graphic design in one way or another for about 15 years or so, mainly as a hobby of course and in recent years as part of my web design business,  I  keep learning new stuff.  It keeps me on my toes so it has to be a good thing .

(sounds like I am getting old hey - 28 feels old these days...)

Anyway thanks for the tips.  When I get home I  will start to look into this a bit more and maybe post a revised tutorial.

I probably will Joe.

When I am doing something new, reading tutorials has helped me tons in the past.  Now, whenever I try something a bit different or work something out for myself (sometimes with help from more in-depth / complex tutorials) I find it helps me to understand what I have just learned better if I write it out in a tutorial format...  So why not share what I discover / learn?

Cheers for the feedback.

A HTML version will be forthcoming, I've just had a lot on my plate lately.  Indeed I hammered out the tutorial as a kind of stress relief, so if it's a bit wonky that is probably why - first draft syndrome.

Maybe I should extend the tutorial to cover the process of converting this into an AGS room, because it has a place for walk behinds, exits, walkable areas etc...  Anyway as long as it is useful to someone, somewhere, then I am happy.

In either case, a really stupid post was a good way to introduce myself on the forums.

Sigh.

I'm in hospital with my wife looking after my premmy baby so I won't be around for a while anyway - maybe time enough for the dust to settle (fingers crossed)

Hmm good thinking...  Though I guess either way works.

The advantage of the hotspot method I have proposed is that you can use it in conjunction with one of the mouseover description modules to give your room exits unique names like "Exit to park" or "North to dark scary woods".

But thanks for the extra suggestion, I'll try it out and see how it works.  Cheers

It's a technique which can be used, though it will cop flak from pixel artists, it is a tool you can use to make some nice backgrounds.

http://www.soundportfolio.com/game-backgrounds.pdf

Yeah I know about the edge variables.  They don't work if I have say, a top exit halfway down the screen, such as a door in a facing wall, if there are items on that wall I want to look at.

The thing is this is more than just the code, there is extra step of adding the 4 cursors and setting up the parameters accordingly.

People are welcome to do whatever they want with my suggestions.  They are put out there with a no obligation to use policy.

You could try Timbaland, apparently he loves SID music to death.

Or is it the Finnish producer Janne Suni he ripped off?

Either way SID sounds are back in style for a while at least, if you can find a producer with an Elektron SidStation you may be in luck.  The SidStation is based on the same sound processor used in the C64 and is much more authentic than any emulation.

If you just want to hear a tune with SID music in it, google Timbaland Ripoff Suni and you'll find it.

Here is what I am currently using.  Perhaps there is an easier way.  But the basic behavior I have achieved lets me define custom exit cursors when hovering over hotspots set up for top, bottom, left and right exits, returning to the previous cursor automatically when the mouse exits the hotspot or the room is changed.

I added this function to the global script:

Code: ags

//Check if the cursor is over a hotspot defined as an exit and change the visual accordingly

function check_cursor()
{
  if (GetLocationType(mouse.x,mouse.y)==eLocationHotspot){
    Hotspot* h = Hotspot.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y);
    if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Top")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitTop);
    }
    else if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Bottom")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitBot);
    }
    else if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Left")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitLeft);
    }
    else if (h.GetTextProperty("Exit") == "Right")
    {
      mouse.SaveCursorUntilItLeaves();
      mouse.Mode = eModeWalkto;
      mouse.UseModeGraphic(eModeExitRight);
    }
    h = null;
  }
}

Which is called from the repeatedly_execute function:

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute() {
  
  // put anything you want to happen every game cycle, even when
  // the game is paused, here
  
  if (IsGamePaused() == 1) return;

  // put anything you want to happen every game cycle, but not
  // when the game is paused, here
  
  // Check if the mouse cursor is over a hotspot defined as an exit
  check_cursor();

}

Add 4 cursors to the list of mouse cursors named ExitTop, ExitBot, ExitLeft and ExitRight, for top, bottom, left and right exits respectively.  Set up the sprites and hotspots for each, leave everything else as default.

Edit the schema to add a new text property called Exit.  Set it's default value to No (or indeed anything that is not "Left, Right, Top or Bottom").

Now, whenever you want to use a custom exit cursor, draw a hotspot over your exit, give it whatever name you want.  You can then edit the "Exit" property to be either "Left", "Right", "Top", "Bottom" to use the respective cursor.

Even if this (or similar) behavior doesn't make the next version, I hope it's useful to someone.

( I did look and didn't find a built in "exit cursor" function - but if there is one it will be the second time today I pull my foot out of my mouth)

Hmm you're right.  I had assumed this was poorly coded (the practice I always use in C++ calls for {} regardless of whether I am using one line or not, for readability), and on top of that unfamiliarity with the engine meant I didn't know how to test for whatever error I assumed must be occurring.  Let's just say I was trying to be helpful and messed up.

Code: ags

[code][code][code]AGS Editor .NET (Build 3.1.2.81)
v3.1.2, February 2009

In GlobalScript.asc:

   

    if (mouse.Mode>0) mouse.Mode=mouse.Mode-1;
    else
    { [/code]

Should be:

   [/code]    if (mouse.Mode>0)
    {
      mouse.Mode=mouse.Mode-1;
    }
    else
    {  [/code]

If you want the conditional to work properly.

I'm still fairly new to AGS so I am not quite sure what will happen as a result of the broken conditional.  It looks to me like this is supposed to happen:

If you scroll up when the mouse mode is Walk, and the player does have an active inventory item, then set the mouse mode to the inventory item... Otherwise, if the player doesn't have an active inventory item, set the mouse mode to "talk".

This behavior is being ignored in the present version of the code I have thanks to that semicolon.  Was there a different reason for this?

Anyway it doesn't seem to be important but I thought I would point it out.

Free will:

A person is free to start an organisation called the police.
A person is free to join or leave the police
Hence a "police force" is itself a product of free will (assuming one does not believe in causality).

Also:

A person is free to rebel against the police.
A person is free to do their own thing.  Even start a war if the people around them have similar wishes and are in a position to exert their freedom more strongly than anyone who would freely choose a different path.

So I guess there is free will at an individual level, but how far that free will extends depends on whose will has more influence whether due to societal position, personal willpower, etc.

The fact of the matter is that I am free to oppose war, but others are free to make war.  We both have expressed our freedoms, only one freedom seems more powerful than another.

So I guess that's my spin on it.  We're all free, but a fat lot of good it does some of us.

I'm new here but I wasn't born yesterday, so I hope I am taken both seriously and with a grain of salt (after all this is only my perspective after all, which is one of many different perspectives I could choose to own).

Everything is related.  The strength of the relationship diminishes with distance.  In the case of different paradigms, distance may be a combination of the displacement in time between the practices, or the displacement in terms of technologies used, perspectives employed, and basic understandings.  In simple terms, bouncing kittens down stairs is in most respects more distant to calculating an exponential function than calculating a logarithm.

It makes sense that painting is more closely related to photography than say, passing wind noisily at a party and attempting to ascribe the behavior to the hosts wife.  Let's look at the similarities between painting and photography:
1. They both involve light reflections within a spectrum visible to the human eye.
2. They both take into account things like focus, depth of field, perspective, composition of elements, contrast, etc etc
3. Appreciating both a photograph and a painting more than likely stimulates similar regions of the brain.
4. Painting is a more primitive technology.  It is the "olde worlde" of photography.  The oldendays people didn't have cameras, so they had to paint to represent the world around them as they saw it.  The fact people painted their perspectives may come down to some basic human urge to share how we see things and to be understood.  Photography fulfills the same desires early cave painters had, but with newer technology.

In much the same way as I would imagine theater and cinematography share a relationship.

Ultimately, everything is related to a greater or lesser extent.  If you look hard enough you can find ways in which any two things share similarities and differences.  So the question you have posed in itself is quite general and open to any kind of interpretation.

If you wanted to get an A, I think you need to ask yourself, not "what is the true, correct approach" but "what does teacher expect".

Hi my name is Alex, which you can probably see already.  I never give myself cool and interesting nicknames because I am too lazy to think of something interesting or funny (broke rule 1 of posting already, but there ya go!)

Anyways, I like adventure games, I can't quite recall my _first_ adventure, there was a game called 3DC but I am not sure if that counts.  Probably BASS is the most memorable one, though DOTT figures prominently in my memory banks.

I've seen AGS over the years and often wanted to make a start but never had the time or reason.  Now as a writer for Pixel Hunt magazine (pixelhunt.com.au for a shameless plug), where my section deals mainly with "old games", I decided to write an old game very loosely related to pixel hunt, in that the main character is a guy who works for "the boss".  Other than that, the game is already taking some wild twists and turns.  I won't give too much away at this early stage, I'm just going to settle in and find a niche for myself here.  *starts carving into rock*