Messages

I see. I truly hadn't noticed how far forward I had placed the bulb. I made my life tricky from the start with room though because I placed the vanishing point a bit too high and didn't think about how this was going to effect the scene. Thank you again. I've not got round to changing the light on the back wall just yet but I have more or less just ousted the shadows and I think it looks better. Your feedback is much appreciated I think I will try a fresh room next so I can start with a lighting layer and some lighting guidelines from the off, and a less challenging perspective maybe

Here I have tried making the rear wall circle of light closer in size to the ceilings circle of light.  I have also started playing with the angle at which the light lies across the appliances in the kitchen.
[imgzoom]http://i60.tinypic.com/nw0y1c.png[/imgzoom]
http://i60.tinypic.com/nw0y1c.png


EDIT:

Ah ha! This seems to making it look a lot more palatable, I'm mixing dithering in (see on kitchen cupboards.)
[imgzoom]http://i58.tinypic.com/2wpl2fp.png[/imgzoom]
http://i58.tinypic.com/2wpl2fp.png

Wow that has made my life a whole load easier. Creating a transparent black layer is genius and your directions where so helpful +100 internet dollars!
Any way I have just kept the original shading for now and added the layer on top and followed your advice to create something like...
[imgzoom]http://i58.tinypic.com/sc8etu.png[/imgzoom]
http://i59.tinypic.com/4gl0f5.png

Only thing I was struggling with was how big to make the circles. For example in this picture now, the circle which I drew flat onto the ceiling to give the light there is substantially bigger than the circle I draw flat against the rear wall. Does this matter? I feel like the edges of the circle of light on the rear should be nearer the edges of the circle of light on the ceiling. Either way, much thanks you have given me a really helpful new approach to lighting!

Hello again everyone,

I feel I am getting more confident now and I am starting to build up a few rooms which I am happy with. But, this last one is really getting me frustrated. I think mostly because it is the first real close-up, internal room I have done.

Any way here it is:

http://tinypic.com/r/ind4z6/8

I just can't seem to get the lighting to look natural from that light bulb. Circles of lighter shades look stupid. I tried some dithering which looked stupid. I tried just lightening the whole ceiling... which looked stupid. I can't find any tutorials or examples which help in this specific scenario and I am starting think I am missing something fundamental here.Any way I'd love some feedback on this one too.

I've been trying to do the same as yourself these last few weeks and found that it has really helped to start at a much lower resolution and work up. I am working with 320 x 200 at the mo and still spending hours playing with patches of lighting. So my first suggestion might be to scale down a bit so you can be more focused. Then I'd probably focus on the fort and really try to give it some realistic texture. I've just been googling things to get ideas, e.g. "Pixel Art Concrete" in Images returned this and then I'd try to apply some of this to the picture.

I might be wrong here but I can't seem to trace a vanishing point which all your lines should converge to to give realistic perspective. I have been setting a layer up with a vanishing point and then using this to help:
First created a 640 x 400 layer (twice as big as I need) and marked out a 320 x 200 grid as my canvas.

http://tinypic.com/r/29caz9w/8
Then I am using the extra space to place a vanishing point  and some perspective lines on a separate layer.

http://tinypic.com/r/10iatxk/8
Then letting these guide my structure.

http://tinypic.com/r/33tteev/8
Then I can just drop the other layers out when I need!

http://tinypic.com/r/289m04l/8

Any way, I like the cartoony quality and, particularly how cooky the sign looks; it is very endearing. Keep up the good work!

Just a quickie to show the finished room.

Next time I will start with 2 point perspective from the off, so that should help. Could use a little feedback on the light as well and the concrete floor texture, really struggled with both of those.

Anyway. Thanks again for all your help.

[imgzoom]http://i57.tinypic.com/rm0myp.png[/imgzoom]
http://tinypic.com/r/rm0myp/8

Oh know! Now my doors need to be shorter. I might just be able to get away with it if I lower the handles. 
Here's a my fixer-upper:

http://tinypic.com/r/5d6l8i/8

Thanks for that.

Thanks, I see what you mean. I think this looks more like it. Having fun with shading and highlighting now.  Any one know any particularly good tutorials for this? It gets well complex quick!
And thanks for your kind words. Spurred on I am!


http://tinypic.com/r/1ou23a/8

Ah fantastic. I had no idea how thoughtful and skilled these drawing processes would be!
OK, so lesson learned I need to plan my perspective first. I have done this then in Graphics Gale to help:

First created a 640 x 400 layer (twice as big as I need) and marked out a 320 x 200 grid as my canvas.

http://tinypic.com/r/29caz9w/8
Then I am using the extra space to place a vanishing point  and some perspective lines on a separate layer.

http://tinypic.com/r/10iatxk/8
Then letting these guide my structure.

http://tinypic.com/r/33tteev/8
Then I can just drop the other layers out when I need!

http://tinypic.com/r/289m04l/8

I haven't created any characters yet (or anything for that matter!) but am I right in thinking that I can scale my character or give them another view for when I want to do something with a distant vanishing point?

Anyway, thanks for the video link and excellent advice it is much appreciated.

Hi,

I've been slaving away in Graphics Gale to create a room.  This is the first time I've tried drawing pixel by pixel (in fact the first time I've tried drawing in any serious way at all) and I posted my first sprite a couple of days ago. Now I've got the hang of the software I've started building a room around that, trying to be as meticulous as possible. I have had issues with coloring but think I am just about managing to create a somewhat realistic sense of space but could use some help here also. However, I think I have messed up the perspective and I'm truly stumped.

As you can see below, this started out as a completely 2D venture with the fire place. However, to turn this into a usable room I had to stretch the wall out to give some floor space for a char to walk in.  Consequently I think I've created a sort of fish-eye effect with the image stretching away at the edges. So far that hasn't been a massive issue as I have kept everything pretty much flat. Sadly I am trying to finish off the picture with flooring (floor boards with a potential rug covering some of it) but alas I cannot get them to look natural. I think it is because I have bodged the perspective by mixing it up. I left in the outlines that I have been trying but as you can see they don't look right at all.


http://tinypic.com/r/2nq7712/8

Any help would be greatly appreciated for this and, also, feedback on how to improve the room as a whole.

Many thanks,
Dan.

I inserted it into the post using the img tag I thought as much anyway :S.
Here is the link then... sorry.
http://postimg.org/image/9l4d6fn23/

EDIT:

I tried adding some bricks!

http://postimg.org/image/vl6f56lrt/

Hi all,

I just finished a couple of evenings playing with GraphicsGale and think I finally got the gist of the software. Consequently, here is my first ever piece of pixel work... a wood burner!
I started of trying to do a couple of 320 x 200 rooms/scenes for a game but just couldn't get anywhere so decided to start small and, seeing as there was one in front of me, I drew a wood burner.I find coloring really hard and when I tried some bigger pics I couldn't work out how to manually anti-alias without it still looking odd. Anyway, feedback would be greatly appreciated I would like to quickly build up to a whole room and then finally start a game!


Many thanks and warmest regards,
Dan.

Hello again,
Really enjoying getting to grips with AGS and just finished the tutorial. Yippee!

Only bug I came across was in the dialogue part (part 8 I think.) The tutorial walks you through making a pair of dialogues which link to each other. That is to say, one of the option ins the first dialog is followed by the goto-dialog dWhatever command which takes you to a second dialog.
The tutorial then advises how to go back to the original dialog once done in the second dialog via the goto-previous command.
However, the previous dialog, as per the tutorial has some preamble in the @S Dialog // start up entry point part of the script (something benign like "hello".)
So in following the tutorial I end with a conversation tree that, when returning to the first dialog keeps repeating the greeting of a conversation, even though we have already said hello.

Here is the script for the first dialog with the startup entry point which causes the problem whenever I try to return to this part of the dialog:

Code: ags

// Dialog script file
@S // Dialog startup entry point
EGO: Greetings!
MERCHANT: Good day to you.
return
@1
Merchant: It is a sad state of affairs. I'd rather not talk about it right now.
return
@2
Merchant: That all depends on what you can do for me, doesn't it?
goto-dialog dWares
@3
Merchant: Goodbye.
stop

Anyway, the tutorial said to post any suggestions on improvement so there's one. Can we change so the above solution to this problem is explained in the tutorial. No one likes being set up to fail right?

Dan.

Perfect.
Regions seem much more appropriate and work.
Thank you kindly.
Dan.

I am a little stuck on this and can't find any other info on the forums relating to it. I want to display a message when the player walks off the screen. So under actions in edges I have set room_Leave right and top to display a message using the display code.

Code: adg

function room_LeaveTop()
{
Display("I can't leave now. There's too much to be done.");
}

function room_LeaveRight()
{
Display("I can't leave now. There's too much to be done.");
}

function room_LeaveLeft()
{
Display("I can't leave now. There's too much to be done.");
}

However, the character walks over the edge, triggering the message, but it causes a glitch whereby the walk animation carries on, trying to complete and reach where the player has clicked and re-displaying the message over and over with each tiny movement of the character. I have to keep clicking the message off over and over again to allow the animation to finish if I want to carry on playing.

Any ideas on how to display messages using the leave command without this happening? Many thanks
Dan.