Graphics, Characters, Text & Rooms

Deleting characters (and other items)

Can I delete stuff in the editor somehow, besides sprites and animation frames? For example, can I delete characters?

No. If this were possible, then beginners could potentially screw up their game big-time. To avoid frustration and accidents, Chris has disabled the deleting of most things. But what if you don't need that extra inventory item for now? Or what if you don't want that extra GUI you created? Although you can now delete GUIs in AGS, there is an alternative. Just set the GUI so that it never appears (Set it to "Popup Modal"), or simply never refer to the inventory item. If you can't delete it, ignore it.

To delete a GUI, just click the "Delete this GUI" button. WARNING: You must be very careful in doing this, as items in AGS are referenced by number; if you delete a GUI that is not the last in the list, the GUI IDs will be renumbered. As a result, it is possible that your game's script will refer to the wrong GUIs or even a non-existing GUI, causing crashes that end up being difficult to track. Fortunately, you have a name for each of the GUIs. If you only refer to them with their script names (i.e., you didn't type in the exact GUI IDs in your scripts), simply recompile all the rooms (Game -> Rebuild all room files) and then save the game.

You can also delete GUI objects in the editor. Just select the object and hit the DEL key. WARNING: You must be even more careful in doing this, for the same reason mentioned above. Unfortunately, currently you cannot set a name for GUI objects, so you have to fix your script manually if you really want to delete a button or a label.

Room objects can also be deleted by right-clicking now. Use the same caution as above for this feature. For fonts, characters, views, inventory items, etc., just re-use them as advised above or just leave them alone. They don't contribute much to file size anyway. Note that the deletion of items is only meant to used by experienced users, and remember to BACKUP your game before doing any such hazardous acts!

We understand the desire - the need - to "clean up" after yourself, so to speak. But keep in mind that sometimes it is better to simply leave unused items alone (or until you can reuse those slots). There is no significant increase in memory usage or filesize anyway.

As for characters, why delete them when you can just re-use them? If you have one too many character slots, just don't use that last character slot.

Using 3D characters and backgrounds

Is it possible to use 3D characters/backgrounds in AGS?

AGS doesn't support 3D files itself, but you can, however, render all images as BMP files and import them into AGS that way. AGS is an Adventure Game Studio, made to fit the styles of the older Sierra/LEC games like King's Quest I-VII, Quest for Glory I-IV, and Monkey Island I-III; therefore, 3D files aren't supported and probably never will be. For realtime 3D support, try 3D Game Studio. It'll cost you a couple hundred dollars though!

Dithering and other mishaps in imported images

When I import my sprite/background image into AGS, it gets all screwed up! More specifically, it shows dithering (dots of colours instead of smooth gradients) where there were none before, and the colours are somehow...less detailed or plentiful. Help me!

Okay, okay, I'll help you. The most common circumstance in this case is that the image being imported was saved in high-colour (24-bit). There are usually two ways to reduce an image to 15-bit (what AGS uses): convert all colours that aren't in the predefined 16-bit palette into dithering gradients made up of colours that are, or convert them to the closest colour in the 15-bit palette. AGS uses the first method of conversion, thereby giving you the messy dithering effect, where you can clearly see the dots of colours going from one to the other. What you should instead do is convert your image down to 15-bit (or 32K/32,768 colours in Paint Shop Pro) and use the "preserve colours" or "nearest colour match" option available. This will convert your image to one that uses the predefined 15-bit palette and you will hardly notice the difference.

Starting from Version 2.6, AGS now supports 24- and 32-bit true-colour graphics natively. If you really want to keep the excellency of your killer graphics, you may try this new feature by changing the colour depth to 32-bit in the Palette tab of the Editor. Be warned that using true-colour graphics can increase filesize drastically and is more resource-hungry, so your game may run slowly on lower-end computers.

Error: "Cannot display message with extended character in SCI font."

Whenever I enter a conversation with a character in my game, AGS quits and gives me the error: "Cannot display message with extended character in SCI font." What does this mean??

Well, this means exactly what it says. You can't use an "extended character" in the SCI font. This means that the SCI font can only support 128 characters, whereas normal fonts support 256 and sometimes more. Therefore, foreign characters (letters with tildes, graves, accents, etc.) cannot be displayed unless they replace unused characters in the SCI font, like the dollar sign or a colon or other punctiation mark. If you look at the Fonts section in AGS, it will show you each and every character that can be displayed in that font. Even if you import a TTF font, it will still only support the first 128 characters (unless you use a translation, with which you can display up to 256 characters in the TTF set).

The solution? Simply replace that character (the letter, not the game persona) with another, similar letter, or simply remove it altogether.

Another problem could be that you are using the special ASCII quotes and/or apostrophes (i.e., “ ” ‘ ’ instead of " and '). Go through the string on the specified line and make absolutely sure that there are no special quotes or apostrophes.

Finally, check to make sure you are not displaying any blank strings. Might not be the problem, but it's worth checking. Also, the British Sterling Pound symbol is not supported, because it is not in the normal ASCII range. It might be on your keyboard (if you're in the U.K.), but it's not between ASCII 1 and 127.

Fixing oversized images

My images are too large/oversized! What do I do to fix them?

Are you using hi-res (640x400) mode for running your game? If you don't know, click on File, then Setup game... and check which checkbox is checked (wink). If it is in hi-res, then make sure that when you imported your sprites, that you had the "Import in 640x400 mode" checkbox selected. If you didn't and don't want to start over again, read the question below.