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I feel a bit silly about not being to work this whole scripting thing out but I tried theses to get the button to display the save dialog but they didn't work.

Code: ags

function save_Click(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button) {
SaveGameDialog ()
}

Code: ags

function save_Click(GUIControl *control, MouseButton button) {
SaveGameDialog
}

I guess I'm looking for these bits of script use for my GUI buttons.
Bringing up the save game dialog
Bringing up the quit dialog
Walk
Look
Talk
Pickup
Touch(or I think it's called interact)
Inventory

I'm not trying to be rude (or beat a dead horse) but the perspective, as you have it now, feels sloppy and rushed.  It doesn't appear that you took your time with it.  If you extend the wall lines all the way into the room, they cross uneven and don't match up.  The lines hit the "edge" and then travel left/right unevenly.  The "border" of black appears to cut off the top of the walls.  If you're going for the skewed perspective which is so popular, the even symetry (sp?) of the objects in the room kills the effect.

In the end it's your background to do with as you want ... but you posted in the Critics Lounge ... so I'm critic-ing

It wasn't rushed, I have spent numerous attempts at trying to fix the problem, it's more a lack of design knowledge than anything else because I know what I am looking for but have trouble achieving it.

Anyway I think KhrisMUC rework was the best way I'd ever seen that background and that's what I've been unsuccessfully be trying to achieve. The alternative style was an experiment than anything else but I'm not trying to go for a skewed effect, it's not my style.

I don't mind criticism, it's the whole reason I started the thread but not everyone is going to like every design, I just need to go with what feels right and what is considered acceptable but at least a few people and then I feel it might just work. The problem I had was I wasn't allowing myself to keep a background not everyone posting in this thread was happy about but while I appreciate their opinions I doubt I could ever have everyone like it, it's just something I need to except.

I disagree with all of this. 

Your biggest problem isn't the perspective, (and in fact I think you could be over-engineering the whole thing guys), the biggest problem is the fact that your furniture is way too small for the room.

Well I hadn't finished with furnishing the room the way it was and then all the talk about background perspectives got me concerned. I didn't want to continue with something that looked weird.

Well not everyone's gonna agree on these things. However I've spent ages trying to get this alternative style to work so I still haven't given up on it and I can sort of seeing it taking shape. The original design was clearly flawed(I should have noticed) by the back wall, it looks as flat as the floor while the rest of the room seems to have more depth. So I've just removed the wall entirely and would place the door on the right wall.

Anyway, I think you are needlessly complicating things and I am afraid you are heading in the wrong direction at the moment. What KhrisMUC did fits quite well with what you have so far imho. Darth Mandarb's top down view is also very nice but you would have to redraw your interior.

I just wanted to mostly keep the original background I had but make it look less flat, I thought I'd done that but it still didn't seem to look that good so yes I went off with an entirely different view but I'm not totally sure what is worse about the alternative background itself. However I'd prefer to just make minor adjustments to my old one as it is far easier to work with. I've been downsizing some objects when I should have allowed them to be larger.

I really like the way KhrisMUC did the rework but I'm still trying to work out how to do something similar myself, I generally use GIMP and I'm still struggling at times with it. I can see the previous revision I did to try and emulate it wasn't very successful but I think I'll keep on trying.



Edit by ProgZ:  Please don't double post.

A background I made a few months ago with Terragen. Didn't really know what I was doing but seemed to produce a nice ocean picture with clouds and  the water reflection.
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/2440/oceanyh9.png
I put very little work into this and doubt I'll ever use it for anything so I don't care about getting credit for it.

Maybe it's just because I'm tired but the blue seems a little bit too bright on the eyes.
The graffiti is a nice touch to the slum area, adds a bit more realism into the background.

But there seem to be a few perspective problems in both the styles.  You should look up tutorials on perspective, horizon lines, vanishing points etc.  All of the edges of the object that are coming towards you should be able to be traced back to a single horizon point.  It's a simple technique, but it will make the perspective of your images seem much more accurate.

Just wondering does this sort of stuff generally come easier to people who are good at drawing by hand than not?

I agree with many people in this thread, I prefer the style of the first background, it has a nice perspective. Regarding this

At the moment the only way the shadow on the right of the image could be created is if the light was coming from outside the room and the room had no ceiling.

, I agree with the part about the shadow not working. The main problem I see with is it makes no sense where it is. There's no logical way for that room design to produce the shadow where it's located. Overall it reminds me of a cardboard box that has it's top and a side cut off and there's the inside view.

How about this type of design? Just did a general outline here. Where the perspective is things closer are clearer and look larger in comparison to things further away, as in real life. The background would not be straight lines, instead a slopping scale. The coloured objects are there to show the difference in size and such according to distance. However it is unlike real life because at only one end is it large while it gets rather small at the other regardless of where in the room the player is. Maybe an hourglass figure, where the middle is the widest and the rest changes, maybe this all just looks too weird.
 

Ok, well I've worked a bit on that blueprint and have come up with this somewhat strange looking background, how does it look?

Maybe it's me but I don't think the perspective looks that bad now, yes it could look more realistic but I don't feel it looks too weird for the user, it's not meant to be quite a top down view, more a birds eye view on an angle if that makes any sense, not a conventional style but still I can see it working.

How about if I want to have a sort of more eye level view, I realise a direct approach wouldn't work with the objects but is there any way for it to work? These are the type of objects I'm using for the game and the second perspective you proposed feels a bit too cramped, I'm already downsizing many of the objects original size.

Yes I see what you're talking about, looks nice. I was thinking about using texture for the carpet but I was concentrating on the other aspects first. Should post a screenshot when I change it, really the room is almost complete, just needs a few more items and a window, plus a change of the door.

The second background is preferable, it has a cleaner design but it might be a bit better if it was a little bigger, still keeping a black outer layer but not as much. The outer layer seems in contrast almost as large as the background itself and that might detract from the background itself.

Ok here's my latest update, it's not that great but hopefully it's an improvement. I'm mainly looking for what people think of the change to the background walls? The carpet change is probably not that great but it's something I'll concentrate more on later.
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/3788/watermarkedlloungeroom1xd1.png

Maybe something like this:

Yeah something like that looks a bit better, I was thinking about something like that but thought it would look too much like there should be a roof.

The black thing is a sideways stereo, yeah things need re-arranging, I was just trying to get the feel for the room design itself at this point. Thanks.

I don't understand what is meant with a problem with the walls at the bottom.

I'll try a few carpet changes but a few shades darker than the walls seems like it'd be just a bit too close, I want a little contrast. I'll try to tone it down.

I'll post another screenshot later.

I started a new topic because my old title wasn't relevant to this.
I made some changes to my background after being told it looked too 2D in comparison to the objects within it. I added corners but I'm wondering what else I can do. I'm going to change the door a bit and the room isn't finished.

http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/8687/watermarkedloungeroom2zd3.png

Lots of tutorials and such out there for it are made for the pre 2.7 version so aren't that helpful. I looked through the manual but just got very confused trying to find what I was looking for. Basically the script to run the command for what each button does when it's clicked. Tried a few things but errors came up so I'm a bit lost here.

Stay on topic, please.  If people want to use watermarks then let them do so as long as it isn't so huge it inhibits your ability to give advice.

As far as the room goes it's way, way too sparse.  You've got a huge amount of floor area and aren't doing anything with it.  My advice is to make the room considerably smaller or fill it up with furnishings such as rugs, tables, couches and the like.  It could probably also use doors to different rooms unless this is supposed to be one area, in which case you could divide the huge room up into several smaller rooms that the player can see all at once. 

As for the wall/floor coloring, if you want to save yourself a lot of trouble start with 1-2 shades for floors and walls rather than using a texture at all; for example, you could make the floor wood paneled like so:



The other problem is that the room doesn't really obey any perspective rules, not even its own.  The objects create a 3d feeling while the actual room is flat, so you need to decide whether you want a flat overhead room or a room with perspective.

This is the background for the Loungeroom in my game, it isn't finished

That's why it looks too big.

I agree that choosing a simpler scheme is better so I'll go with one room colour and blue carpet I used for my first room(that scheme looked much better)and things like tiles for the bathroom and such.

As for the 3D/2D feel, I didn't realise it looked so out of place, how can I give the rooms  more of perspective?

Well IMHO whatever you put on the walls use that as carpet and what you using as carpet use it as walls.

I'm not surprised to get a response like that, yes the walls are a bit colourful but I didn't want them to be dull and even if I use that as the carpet there's no way I want to use that beige colour for the walls, what would be better colour then for the walls if I was to start using that texture as carpet?

This is the background for the Loungeroom in my game, it isn't finished but I dislike the colour of the carpet and want some opinions as to what one would be more suitable to the walls. I really want to keep the walls because I like them. Just try to ignore the watermark, it's a standard for when I post images of my game on forums.

I'm totally against ripped graphics but mainly for the reason that those people put hard world into those images and didn't give permission for just anyway to use them.

However another solution that I doubt you'll like the sound o.f but it's the way I've went with my first game, is using free or open source graphics. These people put hard work into those images but they decided to share them and it can be really helpful for people, especially like myself who want to use these type of graphics while working on teaching themselves to make their own, so hopefully in my case my next game(If I even finish my current one) is made up of all my own. Then there's all the other aspects of a game that don't come(generally) from other people, like storyline, AGS coding, designing the layout of the game and if you're new at using AGS well learning the whole process of how to make a game with it

I do agree that if you use graphics from many different sources whether ripped or not then it's very hard to make a consistent looking game. I'm using most of my material from one large resource so I'm getting over that hurdle a bit.

I'm just wondering what you all think of people like me who use other people's graphics(with their permission of course) for their games? Does it make a difference if it's just for their first game, does it make a difference if they're also trying to learn how to create their own workable graphics for future games or even to perhaps include in their first game?

So you mean after shrinking the screen to see the whole 320x240, then quitting the game and being back at the 800x600 desktop, you have to stretch the screen?
If your monitor isn't capable of storing separate settings for each res, I'd really recommend getting a new one.

In the meantime, why don't you play the game in windowed mode using the 2x filter?

Hey I'd love to get a new one but I'll settle for a second hand one that's bigger than mine. Thing is I'm on such a tight budget that upgrading my system just isn't a reality at the moment. However as I said before hopefully next year(when money becomes gets less tight) I'll be getting a bigger monitor, more RAM and a better graphics card.

I tried your suggestion and it works fine, thanks! I'm actually going to set this as the default for the game because I think it makes the graphics look better since they're more designed for a higher res anyway(I originally was going with a higher res but realised that many of the graphics I was using were too small and made rooms look too big and scaling those graphics up just made them not look as good.).