Messages

Chris would be at all possible to allow the user to input the BPM of a music track in the editor pane? That way we could make use of this value in the script editor to allow for iMuse functionality with digital sound files.

I also would like to request subfolders. Ideally the ROOT folder should be Audio. In that there should be, Speech, Sound, Music.
I don't see any sense whatsoever in having the speech folder outside of the root audio folder.

I agree with option #1 too btw. A sound-based audio system makes the most sense to me. It covers everything we need including cosmetics and its very clear what it is at first glance.

Cheers,
Sparky.

It is! Someone should change the thread title before everyone gets confused. QUICK!

If there was some magical way of exporting AGS Games as flash, they could be incorporated into the Wii

You can. You can compile C & C++ in flash thanks to Alchemy.
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/19/2321230&from=rss

There's a video floating around of somebody playing Quake 3 Arena in Flash CS4.
Im actually rather embarrassed I overlooked this. Alchemy could be the most flexible way of getting our games onto virtually every platform.

Sparky.

You have to buy a devkit to run the game.

Thats not true. CJ would need to buy a dev kit to compile the engine for the platform but once we have a windows editor that can compile a Wii game then all we have to do is copy it to our memcard. The only problem might be that Nintendo may kick a fuss with everybody having access to a Wii compiler. We can't exactly ask CJ to compile all our games for us.

How do you reinvent an adventure game for a phone with accelerometers and multitouch?

This would make for a great opportunity to add new gameplay mechanics to our adventures.

Cheers,
Sparky.

[DOES]

Now that DOES sound interesting! :o

Sparky.

Yeah it's really up to Chris whether he feels like tackling another platform or finding someone else with the time to do it for him.  Releasing two engines, one C++ and the other Java, is definitely a mammoth task; double CJ's current work load. But if someone with a passion for such an undertaking steps up, I sure would like to welcome them.

Cheers,
Sparky.

LMFAO!!

If you really want to know I am definitely a purist and a perfectionist. I like my characters and their animations to be state of the art. That means animating every wrinkle in the pants and swaying of arms with shadows moving etc. I'm not sure I would use a limited palette to make it easier to animate. I'm much too of a quality over resourceful kind of guy, hence the reduction of colors 'after' my work has been completed in 32bit RGB.

Still, I do recognize the convenience and benefits of a using a 16bit palette but I'm going for the hyper detailed look.
I don't pretend to know why or where that idea started but I have a feeling it's been with me since I played The Secret of Monkey Island in 1993. I've always loved the smooth animation in the cutscenes and I guess over the years I saw room for improvement.
I really want to take classic 2D character sprites to the next level which is why I'm experimenting with so much detail (see the gardner character on the first page for a good example of the kind of detail I'm after). And it does animate.

Quite well actually:



Cheers,
Sparky.

Oh I wasn't referring to the characters sorry Nacho. I thought you were talking about the backgrounds the whole time. As for the characters, your absolutely right and I agree on every point.

Having said that, I do prefer a 'little' extra pixel detail and shade to my character sprites. They feel.....fuller/fleshier.
All my characters actually use 64 colors but under the recommendations of ProgZmax and yourself, they do need to be used in moderation. Admittedly, many of my character's colors are mushed together making the sprites appear blurry and dull.
I'll take your recommendations into consideration. Thanks again.

Cheers,
Sparky.

It IS Indiana Jones my good man. He's one of my favorite movie/game characters so I just had to take a whack at it.

Cheers,
Sparky.

Thanks Ben, that means a lot.

Updated mr fat guy. His name is actually Hugh Mandle. And here he is:



Again thanks for the constructive pointers ProgZmax.

Cheers,
Sparky.

Awe shucks, ProgZmax and loominous. You guys are a BIG help.
I've got a little work to do on the characters. Some of them were a bit rushed.
The reason for the lighting angles in the scene are because of montage. I use techniques akin to matte painting where you'll take a couple of photos, mod them and place them around and then paint over them many times. I guess I simply flipped the photo invalidating the light source.

The rock tiles are particularly disturbing to me now that you mention it loominous, I'll tend to those right away.
Tree's definitely need to be less trimmed hedges and more wild willows or something. I was kind of going for a magical haven kind of look but I think I'll throw the ol' hand of time on this one. It will be a stronger image if this place feels long uninhabited or cared for.

I'll keep working on these rooms and characters and post results soon.
Thanks again guys!

Sparky.

yet another Indie game it seems..).

Nope. A completely original commercial title called Adlanto. We have a team of 8 spanned across the globe working hard on it right now. I've got a couple of friends in Canberra who are also interested in helping. Tom Vandepole has also been a BIG help to this project so look out for his name in the credits. Although we are working on this in our free time, due to the scale of the team, we're not looking at the usual 4-5 year development cycle. If we're lucky, we'll have a demo out early to mid next year.

Cheers and thanks for your interest gentlemen.
Sparky.

How did you do the night/day background? Pixel by pixel or using layers in photoshop?

Layers in Photoshop and then pixel touchups. The first scene (day) took me 11 hours straight. The night time version took me half an hour because I had already laid out the bulk of the work.

Cheers,
Sparky.


Edit:  Please don't double post.  -ProgZ

Well I got down to the pixel level. However I prefer not to limit my palette because I believe pixel art evolves with time. Just as our computers have gone from 2 bit to 16 bit right up to 256 bit, now our palettes aren't hindered by any visible technical limitations and we are free to create art in the form it might have originally been imagined.
Another example might be MIDI. Most AGS'ers these days seem to have dropped MIDI altogether and gone for digital music not for the sake of upgrading but for the quality of the presentation. The same does apply to art.

Of course, I love good pixel art and the limited palette is more of a style to me than a mark of a genius.
Actually this piece has already been reduced to 256 colors but you won't notice that thanks to modern palette down-sampling.
Glad you like my art.

Cheers,
Sparky.

A game is indeed on the way folks. Stay tuned.

Hey come on my work isn't THAT perfect. Any constructive feedback? You know you want rip these baby's apart!

Cheers,
Sparky.

[Complete:]

Heres some of my work from the past. Critique as you will:

Complete:




Characters:

            

Portraits:



Work in Progress: This room wraps around to meet again. Basic outlines for now.



Sparky.

[Edit:]

I think you could make the following improvements.

• Water (Reflections, glistening, ripples)
  
• Lighting (Defined mountain curves, Darker valleys and troffs)
  
• Diversity (More plant life, areas of no or little plant growth, more items of interest)
  
• Depth (Extreme Distant hills, blue atmospheric hue, sun reflection on wind poles)
  
• Detail (Sharper image, more contrast)
  
  Heres my interpretation of the above improvements:
  
  
  
  And thats not doing much at all. I'm sure you can take this much further!
  Keep up the fab work mate!
  
  Cheers,
  Sparky.
  
  Edit: Are you using Photoshop?

Your right actually. The percussion suddenly seems to get louder when I walk onto the green region. Perhaps theres something in the code that is causing this behavior. It appears to carry the symptoms of a scripting bug rather than a low-level bug with the midi handler. Thats only my opinion however but I urge you double check your coding there.

Cheers,
Sparky.

[SUGGESTION:]

SUGGESTION: When importing sprites in bulk, the sprites are always treated under default import settings (top-left pixel / plain RGB)
Please oh please allow AGS to ask the user what settings to bulk import under including the standard auto alpha channel detection behavior.

Cheers,
Sparky.

Hey dude the hands are much better! Well done! 8)
Sparky.