Topics

I've been working on Spoons III. I came up with a small piece of dialog that made a distinction between Journal and Diary. Last few days, I've been wondering if there really is a difference. A brief web search hasn't clarified the issue for me, and seems at odds with my initial impression that a Diary might contain something like: "my brother is an idiot," while a Journal would be more apt to contain things like how nice the air smells after a rain. Anyone care to put me on the right track?

Not going to get specific with code, but I've used a room in a music video setting. The actual game also uses the same rooom. Reuse requires code to move things in and out of the room, and it seems error prone. Looks like my safest/simplest solution is going to be to make a duplicate of the room, rather than try to reuse the room. This rankles my limited programming skills and the belief in writing once and reusing often. Opinions?

This is going to be a RoN game. Started working on it fairly recently:

Most of the Demo won't find it's way into the game, but it helped get me started. The Demo also explains the Unauthorized Edition subtitle.

Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/1hkl15okwfchvro/spoonDemo.zip

In Demo Screenshots:



Status at the moment:

Story--  100%
Graphics--  100% (RoN game, so much of the graphics are already done)
Scripting -- 95%
Music-- 98%

Basically, I'm just starting up. Captivated by a concept originally developed by Irishrichy, who, it seems, is no longer active on the boards.

The Demo was a great deal of fun to make. I hope you enjoy it! Be warned: I have not broken myself of the habit I seem to have for making movies instead of games. This Demo is no exception.

3/27/2016 Update: Decided any respectable Rock Group needed a Music Video, so I made them one:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/tkkz06eu6wdwxdj/spoonMV1.zip

4/3/2016 Update: Additional Screen shot:



Also, made contact with Irishrichy, so this Unauthorized Edition isn't quite as Unauthorized as it was. He sent me a small piece of artwork that will, most likely, show up in the game. And if Dave Gilbert happens by, please note the surfboard. Just don't feel obligated for product placement fees, unless you really, really want to...

4/10/2016 Update: Beta Available:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/md1653fndo309e3/spoonBeta1.zip

Still tweaking things, but this is substantially the game. Not sure how breakable it is, but it's highly likely to be breakable. Take it for a spin if you care to. PM feedback, and win a spot in the beta-tester credits, as well as in my heart.

Edit:

Jan 27, 2017 -- Newer beta released for testing:

https://www.mediafire.com/?p9cdy8huqjk111w

Known issues:
1.  Problem with two of the midi pieces. They sound horrid, in parts. Trying to track this down. Not sure what's causing it. They sound fine in Windows Media Player. They sound fine in the AGS Editor player. But they go wonky in the game.
2.  For testing, you might find a saved game useful before you talk to anyone at Scid's on the Beach,
3.  Seem to have developed some quicksand on Josh's Beach (one with the Changing Cabana). Get stuck in a loop between the ocean and the shore. You can get out of the loop by clicking on the cabana, or Josh. Here, again, I'm not sure what's causing this.
4.  Have had intermittent problems getting the bikini. This is a game killer, when/if it happens. Not seeing why this happens? Very inconsistent bug.
3.  For testing, you may want to play in a window. Game is mostly cut scenes, and you can't reach the menu bar all that often.

A game using RoN assets and intended as an entry in the Feb 2016 MAGS competition. Can you help The Bum find Roger?



Download link: https://www.mediafire.com/?9i998904qtl0if5

This game turned out more movie than actual game, but posting it anyway. Short game, set in the RoN universe. I used Ghost's BASS template.

Not a scripting issue, but does involve using the AGS Editor. I've recently "completed" my first game, a MAGS entry. When you start up a new game, the screen asks for two names: the first name can be changed, later, but the second name can't be changed. I had to work with my game a while before stumbling onto a good title for it. As a result, I wound up changing the file name that could be changed. I also thought I'd changed the executable file name, but a beta tester, using Avast, had a problem with the executable file name not being the old name. She renamed the exe file to the earlier name, and Avast had no further problem with the file.

The other two folks who took a look at my game had no problems with their antivirus software complaining about the game.

I'd appreciate a little insight into what that unchangeable name is actually doing, or where it is going. Do we need to pay more attention to that second file name?

I using 3.3.0 and the Bass Template for a MAGS game. Everything was behaving logically, until, all of a sudden, all the functions are being sent to the Global script instead of the room script. I have a suspicion that I may have caused this by, accidentally, trying to get one character to respond to a click on another character. I corrected my error, but the problem is still there. I tried a character in another room, and it also wants to send the function to global. The functions work as global functions, but I don't know why, all of a sudden, it started acting this way. Suggestions?

My Silent Running droids are likely to get booted out of the first biannual Star Wars Sprite Jam for lack of context. In trying to justify my entry, I found this interesting site:

http://cyberneticzoo.com/not-quite-robots/1971-silent-running-drones-doug-trumbull-don-trumbull-paul-kraus-james-dow-american/

The site has a lot of information about how they made Silent Running, including some early concept art regarding how they envisioned the droids. Quite frankly, the originals scare the hell out of me. With current 3D capabilities, they could have easily brought the original concept to the screen, but the movie wouldn't have worked as well, for me, as what they did create back then, in very workman like fashion. Progress, evidently, can be a bitch.

I did this in Anim8or, and it involves some faking, since Anim8or's lights seem limited (to me). I turned off the cast shadows, because they looked really bad. Is this too off putting? It seems reasonable, to me, but I have low standards. Mainly curious about the lights, but fire away on the rest if you want to.



FYI, I'm running two low intensity area lights, and four spot lights.

In general, how unsettling is this mixture of elements?



Adeel, to the right on screen, is just an object at this time, and I'm just displaying from an interaction. I'm trying to decide whether to proceed, and if so what resolution to shoot for. I didn't like the look of my characters at 320x, but this looks better to me. That might not be the public opinion.

Snarky lamented that interiors were under represented in the Blitz, and since I'd been working on a kid's bedroom recently, I guess we can try for a bedroom suitable for a child. It can be from any time frame: past, present, future. It can be gender specific, or gender neutral, as you desire. It can be the bedroom you'd have loved to have had as a kid. Or it can be the bedroom you actually had, which was, in my case, the laundry room, since I shared it with a washing machine and a deep freeze. You can pity me for coming up with lame Blitzes, but sleeping in the laundry room had its perks; the freezer almost always had popsicles.

For the sake of this, let's define child as pre-teen to late teen. Nurserys can wait for another Blitz.

     Criteria:

          Is it believable as a child's bedroom?

          Would it make a good background image for use in a game?

          Does it show artistic merit?

Need inspiration? Seem to recall Resonance and Epiphany both had examples of a child's bedroom. Not that I'm a fan of Wadjet Eye, just saying...

I've been working on this, since I'm stalled out on the Motel Diner thingy (issue with the female's skirts misbehaving). For this one, I wanted to move the little girl from one area into the carriage/bed. I'm not happy with what I've got here - too much glide, too little walk. Thought I'd open it up for comments. Is the solution here, merely adding more of the walk cycle frames to the animation, or am I doing something else fundamentally wrong?



Thanks.

I recall a warning that beginning a Blitz with a long reading assignment was not a good idea. Nonetheless, here it is. This is a bit from the book Chicago Medium Rare by Robert J. Casey (1890-1962). It tells about his growing up in the Chicago area in the 1900s:

----------

They were plowing up the last celery patch in Lake
View to make room for Weiblinger's saloon when Bad-News Tillie
moved into Ashland Avenue near Cornelia Street. Her advent
was considerably more spectacular than the unloading of Gentry
Brothers' Circus half a block down the street, and was reviewed
with unmasked interest by all the kids of the neighborhood and
most of the adults.

Tillie didn't bring any moving van filled with the customary
oddments of furniture generally revealed on such occasions. She
was more practical. She appeared on the scene seated by the side
of the driver of a steam roller behind which, on four stonemason's
trucks, was hitched a long, narrow, two-story house.
Tillie's possessions, whatever they were, remained where they had always
been inside the house. And nobody got a look at them until long
years afterward.

A moving crew got the house onto its waiting foundations before
the day was out. In this work they were greatly encouraged
by Tillie, who cursed at them with a spectacular vocabulary in
English, Polish and German. When they had finished she chased
away the observing children and retired through her somewhat in-
accessible front door via a stepladder. The spectators then moved
on to the circus which, after Tillie's show, seemed to be lacking
in savor.

Next day it became obvious that Tillie had come to stay. By the
time the mannerly little children had gathered around she had a
nondescript washing hung on a line in what was to be her back
yard, and bricklayers were filling up holes in the underpinning of
her house. Moreover, as determined by test, the ladder had been
attached to the house with wooden cleats. Public interest waned
rapidly.

The house, when it was permanently emplaced, looked like
what it was a large square box, badly in need of the coat of paint
it was never going to get. But Tillie had some eye for improvement.
Maybe she found it inconvenient to get in and out of the
place on a ladder. Anyway, at the end of the week a brewery truck
arrived at her address carrying a spiral staircase of rusted iron.
Afterward came workmen who argued for a long time with
Tillie about what they were going to do with the staircase. It was
too long to serve the front door, the foreman mentioned in two
languages. It couldn't be cut off with a hacksaw because it was
the wrong curve. It was going to look pretty ghastly no matter
what was done with it. And he suggested that maybe she might
throw the thing away and get somebody to make her some stairs
and a porch out of wood.

Tillie solved the problem with the directness that the neighborhood
was presently to recognize as her most charming characteristic.
"Run it up to the second floor and make a door out of the upstairs
front window on the east," she directed in German. "Then
you can nail up the front door downstairs. I won't be needing it."
The foreman translated this order to his workmen and thereby
let the neighborhood know what to expect.

"She's certainly going to have a fine-looking place," he men-
tioned to give the message a personal touch. And he was right
about that.

The result was something that people came from miles around
to see. The little children would linger for hours just to observe
Tillie making her exits and entrances. Unfortunately they were
never around when she emerged at night swinging a lantern in
front of her 200 pounds of bulk. John Spetti and Mike Mullen,
conductors on the Ashland Avenue car line, who were frequent
witnesses to this odd procedure, christened her place "The Ashland
Avenue Lighthouse." And the name stuck.

----------

So, how about picking something from those paragraphs and coming up with a suitable background: the circus come to town; the arrival of the house, the arrival of the staircase; a night scene of Tillie descending the stairs?

I intend to rip Snarky's criteria:

Concept: The coolest, most creative idea; the one that offers the best response to the rules and spirit of the Blitz topic.

Artistic Execution: The most technically and artistically accomplished image; the most successful expression of a personal artistic style.

Playability: The screen that would work best as an adventure game background (with possible interactions, walkable areas, exits, etc); a screen that would be fun to play.

So go forth, gentle souls, and Help me visualize Casey's words.

Edit: Deadline extended until June 15, 2014.

Well, a casket, at least. Screen capture from a default game to look at a setting. I need to find a texture that makes me happy for the road/road apron, but feel free to tear up the rest of it. Time frame is late 1950s.


The intent is the guys in the hearse have mechanical problems with the hearse. The trucker suggests a course of action that sends them on to the next destination, which involves my Diner in this forum, see below or above -- somewheres. Haven't created the characters, just yet, but I do have some heads in my closet.

There have been two local events, recently, that have prompted a lot of before/during/after shots on TV newscasts: we had a major flood, and the dome of the state capital building was restored. The subject of this ball is Transitional States.

What I propose is to fill in my shape with a before/during/after image, looking at transitional states in your subject matter. You can resize/rotate as required. You can also change the order to emphasize the state you feel most important, or open to your best creative interpretation.  If the order is not obvious, please share the order when you post your entry.



So, put in your Vivaldi CD and show us three of those Four Seasons. Or, give us a glimpse of your latest pixel-ing effort, from sketch, to midpoint, to final. Or, give us a picture of your bathroom, before, during, and after you cleaned it all up bright and shiny. Or, show us your inner child, the mature adult you've become, and the old fogy that will be looking back at you from the mirror before you realize it.

Open through May 5, 2014.

Voting through May 10, 2014.

I was trying to animate a mop and bucket. What I have the mop doing struck me as, almost, a walkcycle. So, anyway...



This might be a case of working on something too long, but this struck me as funny.

This particular "project" seems to be holding my interest, an unusual thing; I tend to move in ten different directions at once. May be why I'm not getting all that much done. So, anyway:



The intent here is a motel restaurant from the last half of the 1950s and in a rural US area. I want to have two conversations going on here: A guy at a table talking to a gal on a stool, and a couple talking in one of the booths.  I've done some modeling, and now have some specific questions.

I intially didn't think I'd need labels on the Ketchup bottles, but the more I look at it, the more I think I need them. Opinion?

The tables and booths front windows. I can probably do the windows by the booths, but I'm curious about how to handle the windows by the table? Currently, I think I'd just put in a partial wall, and let it go at that, just enough to suggest that there is something there, without blocking the views.

Any opinions about the likelyhood of a Jukebox here, keeping in mind the time frame (late 50s) and location (rural Nebraska)? I'm thinking more along the lines of the small control units at the booth tables, rather than a big Wurlitzer in the corner.

As always, feel free to rip up my constructions. You folks always give good feedback.

Edit: Added the jukebox. Does a few things.

[imgzoom]http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/wurlitzer1_zps89bc1daf.gif[/imgzoom]

Edit2: Continue to add things. Also played with the lights, a little.

I worked this up and am relatively happy with it. I do note an issue with the door on the sink. I also did some copy/paste operations that created some unexpected animations. Here it is:



Any general guidance about modeling stuff: I never know how deep to go with my models?

I can't seem to get bones to work "right" in the hands. They are hard to weight paint. I thought I'd give "morphs" a try.



Rather than critical response about my model, what I'd like to know is what other gestures might be useful. I figure the middle finger and the Vulcan greeting might be appropriate. Any other suggestions?

At this point in time, I not sure how reusable this is going to be, but I did learn some things.

I took a notion to model Snoopy, of Charlie Brown fame. I'm not unsatisfied with my model (Anim8or), but the spot on his back is an issue, and I'd appreciate some suggestions on UV mapping, if you don't mind.

[imgzoom]http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/o756/jwalt10705/snoop1_zps731090ad.png[/imgzoom]

The black, here, is coloring individual faces in the model. That won't work for a round spot on his back. I've played a little with UV mapping, enough to know there are several types of maps that UVMapper (Classic) can generate (Planar, box, etc.). It also looks to me like the type to use is the one that makes painting the texture map easiest. Any insights into which type might work best on this model? I'd also made an attempt at Charlie Brown's shirt, where cylindrical seems an excellent choice, but then encountered problems when the mesh gets subdivided. Is it, generally, best to try do the texture maps at the level of subdivision you intend for the "final" product?

Thanks, as always for your insights.

Got sidetracked, again. I know there are many ways to handle this in 2D. Wanted to try turning on a 3D light saber. Here's what I've got:



I'm using two bones, in a triangle arrangement, to pull out the mesh: one to extend it, and one to keep it straight. It mostly works, but the first three frames have proven impossible to keep straight. Nor have I been able to hide the blade section in the handle, so the blue is always visible. I could kill the first three frames in the animation, but wondering if there might be a better solution. Thanks, as always, for your valuable feedback.