Messages

As requested in another thread, support for luminance greater than 100% would be ideal.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Edit:]

since you'd rarely need to change saturation at different spots in the room

Yeah I would also find it useful for turning a color scene into a grayscale scene reminiscent of the 1950's.

The lightmap, shadow, and scale map is something I requested once as an AGS feature long before somebody chose to take it on as a plug-in. This all sounds too good to be true and if I was going to suggest anything it would be to combine your shadow, scale/offset, and lighting plug-in once they are all complete.

How exactly did you get those shadows to work as I was playing with the idea in my head and figured that you could warp or rotate the already flat/horizontal/diagonal (floor) shadow vertically for the walls based on a color code map. How exactly have you approached it? It looks amazing but complex.

The thread for my Z-Depth scale idea seems to have been erased due to server change or something. This was a long while ago. Back in 2.7x.

The idea is this:
To accompany a room background with predrawn lighting conditions like so:


You have a lightmap which pays attention to walkable areas and matches the lighting of the background:


And in a similar fashion, you have a scale map (Z-Depth) which scales the character based on shade (luminance):


Do you think this is too much for one plug-in alone or would this, combined with your shadow plug-in, serve as the ultimate dream tool for anybody wanting to make super uber rooms for their game?

Cheers,
Paul.

Edit:

Would anyone else find support for luminance > 100% useful?

I have requested this before actually, CJ. I would find it astronomically useful. Incidentally, my game if full of super bright spotlights that nearly swallow the player and I don't really want to keep creating separate views for this.

But one of the merits of command-line compilers is that you can easily invoke them from external programs.

That sounds interesting. I'm sure that somebody will take to it as there is usually a high call these days for IDE class tools.

It's just not advisable right now, as the ScummC syntax isn't stable yet

That's fair enough. Thanks for explaining it all to me.

And thanks for the offer! I'll contact you via mail/PM on that.

The pleasures mine, G33K.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Edit:]

Well, the idea was that they're so simple you don't need an example on how to use them

Well considering I had no point of reference on what to write and how to write it, it might not be as simple for beginners as you assumed. But thanks for adding an example to the manual.

The term NooB gets thrown around like potato chips on a 16th birthday party. Is this a provocative term? If so, its not very welcoming. I'm sure you meant it lightheartedly, however.

When you run at 320x200 it has to shrink the font

Why? My game doesnt need to be shrunk to 320x200 because the game uses 320x200 resolution anyway. My game is not designed for 640x400. I simply play it at 2x windowed for testing purposes which is how I noticed the bug in the first place.

The manual still references Global Ints and Graphical Variables which threw me off but I'm sure you'll get around to removing it soon.

do you have TTF anti-aliasing enabled

It is disabled and 'Fonts Designed for 630x480' is set to false.

Is this 1 pixel offset causing you a problem?

Not at all. Just hunting bugs for you.

I'm not really sure what you're asking here, can you re-phrase that?

Never mind mate. This question is now invalid.

Thanks for all your help guys.
Paul.

Edit:

I can understand the off-position problem if it's a true type font or a high res bitmap font, but it shouldn't happen if it's a low res. bitmap font.

I AM using a low res SCI bitmap font as a matter of fact.

Paul.

[Edit:]

Wow RUI. Thanks. Incidentally, I could find no reference to your code example in the manual. This is quite confusing. Whats the use for Graphical variables if there are Global Ints and why are graphical variables called Graphical variables? Shouldn't they be Global Variables?

Cheers,
Paul.

Edit:
SUGGESTION:
I don't know how the other types of global variables such as GUI* work, but I think global variable code should be housed more uniformly. I mean the same code format should be used for (ints,GUI*,Character* etc.) Otherwise its too confusing for beginners like me and unnecessarily cluttered for everyone as a whole. This is just my opinion however.

Cheers,
Paul.

Thanks, Gilbot. Your right. Running the game in 640x400 mode means that the label sits lower than it is set in the GUI Editor by 1 pixel at runtime.

Running in 320x200 mode eliminates the offset problem. I've tracked the font rendering problem to the font itself. It seems that the new version has changed my font's scale/position.
Example:


Cheers,
Paul.

[Edit:]

The label's coordinates in the game/editor are still not representative of each other.

Yeah basically this means that the coordinates in the game are different to the coordinates in the editor. The same bug as before only less extreme.

The font's outline was set to 'Automatic' however if I change it to 'None', the bug still occurs.

Cheers,
Paul.

Edit: Great work with the Global Variables Pane, Chris! It has however been a while since I touched code and I'm stumped as to how to use them in my scripts. Could you update the help file for the next release with an example? It would help novice programmers like myself.

would it be like:

Code: ags

if (GetGlobalVariable(ego_has_item1)==1) {
   --code here--
}

SetGlobalVariable(ego_has_item1, 0);

Also the ability to reorder the global variables would be handy for organizational sake. I tend to have them in order of triggered but some might like to order them by Z-A or type.

Thanks mate. Cheers.
Paul.

[Note:]

Actually theres still a bug with the rendering of the text, Chris. As shown in my example, the font is being distorted from its usual 1 pixel spaced style. Also, the label's coordinates in the game/editor are still not representative of each other.


Note: Pink background = Editor
          Black Background = Running Game

Cheers mate,
Paul.

Brilliant work Chris! You and AGS are true a legend.
Paul.

[Edit:]

I'm interested in creating a small to mid scale prototype for use with SCUMMC.
I have game design documents written up and I am an artist by trade.

Cheers,
Paul.

Edit:

What's meant by "windows toolset"?

Forgive me if I sound stupid but I meant tools that don't run in dos like costview.exe or scc.exe.
Are you planning anything like a unified program like AGS, with all these mini tools combined?

Cheers,
Paul.

I suppose it depends on who's going to give way. Would SCUMMC be easy to align to major changes in the AGS codebase? This doesnt happen too often and for every incrmental change a number of workarounds could be used until a revision.

Cheers,
Paul.

Wow that would be fantastic! I'd like to hear CJ's opinion on this. Would a windows toolset be far off the production line, G33K?

Many cheers,
Paul.

Thats a good point there SSH! I wonder how far you could take this idea. A whole game perhaps?

Paul.

Welcome azulencendido!
We too share your excitement for AGS and this wonderfull community!

Cheers,
Paul.

I also would like this feature.
Good suggestion, Nightquest2. Forgot about that.

Paul.

Well if you want an example take a look at OpenQuest. It's on the SCUMM C downloads page too. That was originally an open source AGS game that has since been rewritten in SCUMM C and can be played on ScummVM. Also take a look into the .scc and .sch files of the converted game's source. The language is not that dissimilar from AGS'.

Cheers,
Paul.

I on the other hand LOVE the new interface and aside from it looking and behaving astronomically more professional, I feel it reflects a more modern game development environment.

TOP work Chris!
Cheers,
Paul.

I guess. It's an interesting test we are doing anyway. Not so much a full blown game but rather a simple experiment that can be run on ScummVM on a PSP.

Cheers guys and thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Paul.

From a technical standpoint, has anyone tried converting their AGS game to SCUMM C and what challenges lie ahead for somebody willing to try?

I'm hoping to test the two systems together with a friend to see how much work is invloved. Has anyone done this?

http://alban.dotsec.net/Projects/ScummC

Cheers,
Paul.

[BUG:]

BUG: It seems that timers might be broken.
I can't get the following code, taken from the manual, to work:

Code: ags

SetTimer(1, 300);
  if (IsTimerExpired(1) == 1) {
    Display("Timer expired");
  }

The only way around it I could find was to do this:

Code: ags

int fbtimer = 1; 

 if (fbtimer == 200) {
    Display("Timer expired");
    fbtimer = 0;
    }
  else if (fbtimer == 0) {}
  else {
      fbtimer ++;
    }

I'm working on getting a test game to you for those unresolved bugs, Chris. Internet finally gets relocated 7pm tonight so no more webcafes.

Cheers,
Paul.