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Bizarre Earthquake is greenlit ! Thanks for support I'm happy just like Pharrell Williams

I keep asking to report the bugs in the issue tracker .
(This for now: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=projects)
I really cannot keep track of the bugs reported in the 20-pages long forum thread.

You're right, sorry. We should make things easier for you. I submitted them to tracker.

Oh, but this is an interesting and rather serious problem, so it's good to have it reported!

Really ? When you explained about sprite position I thought that was a known issue from older versions. OK then, i will report anything interesting I've experienced

In case they are unnoticed on my previous messages, i want to re post that i found few things :

* You can't take screenshots by pressing PrtScr (print screen) button on a full screen game. Anything you shot and paste it to your paint program will be black. You can take it by external capture programs though, like Fraps.
* AGS doesn't compile a template. I encountered this with compressed sprites option. I've no idea if it compiles it with uncompressed sprites.

 In the first video, the character sprites have 119 pixels width and 337 pixels height, 147 KB size each. In the second video, the character sprites have 286 pixels width and 372 pixels height, 415 KB size each. Thanks for helping. I think i figure it out now and i know what i shouldn't do next time.

@Snarky, at the beginning i thought realistic darkness was a good idea to make a realistic atmosphere but i agree with you, it affects gameplay in a bad way. I will work on those dark scenes to make sure player feels comfortable with it. Thanks for the advice.

Next time, i won't share a feedback unless i'm absolutely sure it's about the engine (3.4.0.6)

Ok. In the first video, the character has no shadow.

[embed=560,315]http://youtu.be/kTNHV-zXO9Y[/embed]

In the second video, the same character has shadow. It's a soft shadow so alpha transparency level is not the same everywhere. Some areas are darker,near to black and some areas are brighter.

[embed=560,315]http://youtu.be/50EtZ0OkHW4[/embed]

You see the difference ? In the second video, the character looks terrible. Vibrating, jittering, whatever you call it is much more noticable.

I can not see any shadow jittering on video, probably I do not know what to pay attention to.

I can't see any jittering on the shadows either. The only problem I can see with the walk (nice models and animation, BTW!) is the "moonwalking" effect: the steps are faster than the character movement speed, so the feet look like they're sliding backwards over the ground.

I guess i can't describe it. I should make a video which explains exactly what i try to tell. About moonwalking, current x-speed is 1 and raising it to 2 makes the character too fast. It may be good opportunity to ask for fine-tune character speed settings such as 1.3, 1.7 etc.

Thanks Snarky. I'm glad you like them.

selmiak is right. Avast deep screen does it all the time to NEW builded settings.exe and game.exe if there are none already. I didn't turn it off though, because it takes 3-5 seconds to complete.

I'm using direct3d in the settings. About giving more detail, i'm having difficulties when rendering playable characters in the game, while walking up and down directions (character scaling). Each has soft shadows under her/him, and they look like they are jittering. You can look at the character here : http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=42489.0  Also, you can look at the video on Greenlight page. See what's happening while they are walking.

By details, I was primarily interested in knowing how exactly do you make these shadows. Are they separate object/character? Are they predrawn on character sprites, or drawn dynamically as character walks?

Ah sorry. Shadows are part of each sprite. They are not seperate. They are predrawn as the rest of the character.

I'm using direct3d in the settings. About giving more detail, i'm having difficulties when rendering playable characters in the game, while walking up and down directions (character scaling). Each has soft shadows under her/him, and they look like they are jittering. You can look at the character here : http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=42489.0  Also, you can look at the video on Greenlight page. See what's happening while they are walking.

I honestly supposed it is because of graphic card performance but i think i am wrong. I know there is no solution to this right now but i just wanted to know what causes this.

Note : "Adjust speed with scaling" option in the character pane isn't selected. If i select this option, jittering effect gets bigger.

I hear you say "why are you trying 3d images with 2d engine ?"

I'm having difficulties when rendering sprites with semi-transparent alpha (like a character has shadow under him). Character movement and scaling is slower than non-transparent sprites (characters with no shadow). They are all PNG format so i wonder what causes this. The game engine ? The graphic card or CPU performance ? May be Direct X 9.0 ?

My system is : AMD FX 8120 3.1 GHZ, Geforce 640 GT, 24 GB Ram, Windows 7 64 bit, DirectX 11. AGS 3.4.0.6 Builder Patch and game resolution 960*540.

Any ideas please ?

Bumping for important anouncement.

Bizarre Earthquake is on Steam Greenlight. Please support :

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=572234923

I'm having difficulties when rendering sprites with semi-transparent alpha (like a character has shadow under him). Character movement and scaling is slower than non-transparent sprites (characters with no shadow). They are all PNG format so i wonder what causes this. The game engine ? The graphic card or CPU performance ? May be Direct X 9.0 ?

My system is : AMD FX 8120 3.1 GHZ, Geforce 640 GT, 24 GB Ram, Windows 7 64 bit, DirectX 11. AGS 3.4.0.6 Builder Patch and game resolution 960*540.

I've always liked the games contain "Tomb". I will sure like this too Good luck mate.

I almost don't dare to say that here, but maybe AGS isn't the right engine for your project after all? *duckandrun*

I just released a game with 1280x720 resolution and several people had problems getting the game to run on their PC...

You're absolutely right, cat. Fow now, AGS isn't right engine for HD resolutions. That's why i decreased the res. to 960*540. I'm sure AGS will get better and more stable in the future.

You could add passwords at the end of the game that you need for the next chapter.

That is one of solutions, yes. Probably the easiest way.

Why not just write a file with the info needed for the next chapter, that then gets read at run time? file not there = no way to play = auto-quit chapter (or just show a screen that one needs to complete the previous chapter before starting on the next).

Actually err, i couldn't think of it and it's very bright idea. Thanks Cassiebg

Besides, do people who finish your game get to have your house or anything? Otherwise, if people want to cheat, what do you care?

It's a good question, Snarky. I guess when a player acceess the game parts he shouldn't, he may feel the game is amateur work. So it's basically fear of amateurism. Should i care that ? If the game is commercial, i guess yes, i should care.

And to think I used to wonder if people wouldn't shy away from a 3MB download...

It's been said before, but I really think the solution is to use a lower resolution and probably assign less frames to animations. I get the idea that these days you want super-smooth walkcycles with 60+ frames, but that's hardly ever needed. There's a point where the eye doesn't even notice the extra frames anymore.

I decreased the resolution to half and all files' sizes automatically decreased to quarter. Also i noticed the performance boost. No FPS drops at big sprites anymore. HD graphics can cause performance issues even on a high end machines.

Yes, this is easy enough to do.

Besides, do people who finish your game get to have your house or anything? Otherwise, if people want to cheat, what do you care?

Yeah...pretty much this...

If someone wants to cheat with the files it's not that different from just consulting a walkthrough online or any other number of ways to cheat a game like downloading a saved game or whatever...

People either play games to experience the fun of them or to cheat them...It's the former that will have the best time...

Still, i would prefer players to start from beginning of the story whatever they want to cheat or not. As i mentioned above, it's not a problem anymore because i managed to decrease sprites' size to 645 MB total. So, there will be no chapters, but walkthrough online

Just a suggestion, not sure it it would work since I know nothing about your project.
Could it work if you split the game into chapters? And automatically launch the next chapter? Could maybe write the state of the game on a file with variables and what not. Of course this would be impossible if you have a huge open world where the character can wonder everywhere.

It's discussed here long time ago, as i remember. The main problem with AGS games with chapters is, player can easily search game folder and find chapters and start the game from e.g. 3rd chapter. I don't know Ã,,±f there is a way to hide game EXE files (not just file status hidden) but i think an average PC user can find them easily.

Just a suggestion, not sure it it would work since I know nothing about your project.
Could it work if you split the game into chapters? And automatically launch the next chapter? Could maybe write the state of the game on a file with variables and what not. Of course this would be impossible if you have a huge open world where the character can wonder everywhere.

Yes, that is another solution.

I will look into sprite file problem, but with AGS having hidden traps most of times you cannot tell how long it will take.

Crimson, the weird thing is, the sprite file was about 6 GB before compression and there was no problem with that. I think 2 GB limit issue is related to compressed files.

Man, i really wanted to make it work because it was looking great at HD res. Anyway, it was not destined to be.

Never give up the dream

Seeing AGS progress to this level compared to 10 years ago, i think we should never give up dreaming.

Off topic: Man, who would have believed just a few years ago that someone would post: "My problem is that my game is 2GB with 10,000 sprites". I ain't even mad, I'm amazed.

Could it work if you split the game into chapters? And automatically launch the next chapter?

"Insert 2GB floppy disk #2"

After pre rendered 3d graphics comes into indie devs' life, we use animations with high number of sprites. This brings you to reach sprite limit or huge sizes too early. We now discuss if we can remove the sprite limit completely

sometimes its less painful to remake a game from new and be wiser... a patch may take like forever..

i'm wondering how come you need 7689 sprites... is it a really hi res huge game?

I agree with you, mate. I think i should start over with lower res. to decrease sprites' size. I actually need 29999 sprites. I have two playable characters and they have lots of animations, so do NPCs. Man, i really wanted to make it work because it was looking great at HD res. Anyway, it was not destined to be.

So, what is the solution ? I can't use dynamic sprites or same sprites for different characters. I have about 20.000 sprites to import

There is no solution but the ones I mentioned, and - fixing AGS.

Ok, then. So, what should my next step be ? Decreasing the game resolution to e.g. 960*540 and all sprites to half and start over or wait for a patch to fix it ?

Yes, there's a 2Gb limit.
Not sure if you can "bypass" that with the choosing the option "Split resource files into X MB-Sized chunks"... Guess can't hurt to try it? (backup you game just in case it messes up).

It's already splitted to 100 MB chunks but the sprites still included into the  .001 file and the room files rest.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=52379.0

So, what is the solution ? I can't use dynamic sprites or same sprites for different characters. I have about 20.000 sprites to import

Hi, i'm using AGS 3.4.0.6 Builder patch. The game resolution is 1920*1080, 32-bit. I have 7689 sprites for now. My problem is, when i try to import new sprites and save the game, after saving, new imported sprites seem black. The size of acsprset.spr is 1,99 GB (compressed). I tried followings to fix it but haven't got any result ;

* Replaced the sprites from the source and save the game again,
* Deleted sprindex.dat and builded EXE,
* Switched between legacy compiler and new compiler and rebuilded all files.

What is going on ? Have i jammed in an invisible 2 GB barrier maybe ? Any ideas ?