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16

Technical forum / Re: How do I make my entity talk correctly?

« on: September 17, 2005, 05:28:04 AM »

Hey Mnemonic,

Thanks, it worked perfectly and thankyou for such a quick response.

-McCloud

17

Technical forum / Re: Begining a game

« on: September 17, 2005, 05:11:12 AM »

McCloud, how did you create it within a project, do you mean that you are using the whole project as a template or have a separate templates?

Hey Lazarus,

What I meant by this is that before, when I first started working with Wintermute, I wanted to create my own library of characters before doing anything, so I would just open up the Sprite Editor and load my frames to create my sprite files with out ever starting a project yet.  But when I actually started building my project in WME and imported my sprite files, none of my sprites worked.  I think it had something to do with when you create them and don't have a project to specifiy them in, the links in the .sprite files are not valid.   I only brought this up because I'm new to WME and I didn't want anyone else to make the same mistake.

I found that it's better to create  your sprites in a WME project, so that the linking of files will be correct.  And by "create" I mean that you are just importing your animation images and then creating a sprite file for WME to use that links all your frames together.  You will have to use some other program to create your actual characters and animtation with.   I can't remember the steps that I took to do this because I'm not at home right now.  There is probably several ways that you can do it.  I don't think my method would be the best, but I'm still learning.  I CAN tell you though, that PNG seems to be the best format to use when working with images, or animation frames in your project.  To me, they have good quality, have a small file size, and if you have a program like photoshop, you can do transparencies and png also has an alpha channel.  I am currently making my menus, for example, that are semi-transparent.  I just like the affect, and it's easy to set up if you have the right program.

It your working with 3D Characters, it's a different story, I'm STILL trying to figure out how I can make my own characters in 3D.  I'm starting to think part of my problem is with my video card, it has shared memory and Milkshake keeps freezing up on me.  The important thing to now on this, is that it has to be in Milkshake format.  Other than that, I don't know, and in order to do the 3d Geometry that is required to use your character in WME, it must be exported as a 3D Studio File (.3ds)  I myself, have had problems doing this because most 3d applications that I've used don't export the camera as part of the 3ds file.  This creates a problem because without the camera it can't be setup in WME.  The 3ds files, by the way, are used to match your 2d rendered backgroud.  By doing this, it sets the 3d characters walking planes, blocked objects and way points in 3d space, so that the 3d character matches your 2d rendered back ground perfectly.  I have tried several programs, I'm not sure about lightwave, but if you know 3d I guess it won't be that much of a problem for you if you have to use something else to export 3ds so that it includes the camera.  But 3D is still new to me and takes me sometime to try and find out what some things are.  From what I understand, people here are using 3D Studio and Blender to do this.

Anyway, although i'm a new guy, I hope that some of this information will be helpful to you.

-McCloud

18

Technical forum / Re: DLL support for WME?

« on: September 17, 2005, 02:31:09 AM »

I'm at work now, but it just says script error, see log.  When I hit the log tab there is nothing there, I found some log files though, but I can't track which one the error is comming from and there's so much information to search through, i couldn't find it. I look again though and see.

-McCloud

19

Game design / Re: 3D Rendered Scenes, which progam is easiest?

« on: September 17, 2005, 02:28:56 AM »

Thanks everyone!  I'm still testing out other programs.  I friend managed to get a copy of Cinema 4D which I hear can export 3ds with cameras, lights and stuff.  But I havn't been able to get it to see the camera.  Still working on it, I thought of maybe just trying 3d Studio but I'm sure it wouldn't be any easier than Blender.  I like Cimema 4Ds interface though.  it's seems it's easy enough to use and it imported the 3d Character Scene from the demo with now problem, it recognized the cameras to, but I still can't seem to get it to export the cams yet.  I've read somewhere in the forum that it could be done, but sometimes has bugs.  But we'll see.

Thanks

20

Technical forum / Re: DLL support for WME?

« on: September 15, 2005, 11:11:13 PM »

Thanks for the input guys.  At least now I want waste any more time on it.  I would think that VB.NET could do it, but unfortunatly I have a beta version of .NET and it always crashes on me.  I've tried a few times to use my VB6 DLL, it seems I can declare the dll, but when I make a call to one of it's functions, there is a script error.  Man, I got really excited for a moment too.  Anyway, again, thanks for your help.

-McCloud

21

Technical forum / DLL support for WME?

« on: September 15, 2005, 01:22:42 AM »

Hi all,

I was reading through the documention for WME last night, and came across dlls and that WME supports it.  It says that other languages could be used to develope dlls but have not been tested with WME.  I use Visual Basic 6 and have created a few dll's for use with DirectMusic sometime ago, it's pretty much a class that wraps up all the complicated calls to DirectX and simplify it into simple calls.  Does any one know if I will be able to call my dll from WME?  I tried once and it said there was a script error but I couldn't find what there error was.  I click the log tab in WME's main screen and it's blank.  Do you have to declare it in a certain script file in order for it to work properly?  I would like to make the dll calls available anywhere in the game.

The values that would need to be passed to the dll would be a filename(string) to the audio source to be used, hWnd(Long) for the window handle and some other intergers and longs for the tracks and positions.

I havn't worked much with dlls, but I thought it would be cool if I could get them to work with WME.  And if I can do it with VB6, which I'm most familer with, that would be awsome.  Just need a little direction.

Thanks
-McCloud

22

Technical forum / Re: Begining a game

« on: September 14, 2005, 05:14:47 AM »

Hi Lazarus,
Nice to meet you.  I'm new also.

Do I have to replace all that stuff or create my own teplate and if so how?

You and I are in the same boat.  I have wondered this myself, but havn't gotten around to find out how it's done yet.  At first, when I was working with actors, I tried to create my own actor set, and put it in the directory where the molly actor was, but I just got a ton of errors and none of my animations would work when I imported it using Add Actor.

I had to go and create it, within the project I was working on for it to work right.  But I think it is a good question, it's seems like there should be an easier way rather than having to create your actors and stuff from scratch each time.

-McCloud

23

Technical forum / How do I make my entity talk correctly?

« on: September 14, 2005, 04:32:10 AM »

Hi All,

This is my first test game and I've gotten around most problems, but there is a few I just can't figure out. 

Here is my setup:
I've got one actor, and one, I guess you call, entity, which has a talking and sitting sprite.  I added the entity to my project by right clicking, add entity.  I deleted all the pacman pictures and imported my own files, I set up the sprites and configured the script to go to the correct sprites for default(which is sit.sprite) and talk(which is talk.sprite)  Once I've done this I went to SceneEdit and clicked Add Entity.  I set the sprite to sit.sprite from my progject files and added the script doctor.script that I modified earlier.  I named the object "Doctor"

Now, here is my problem. 
When I open the Doctor.Script I can make him talk using this.talk("Hi, blah blah.);  You see the dialog appear on screen, but it's still playing the sit.sprite.  I've tried to force the animation, can't remember what command it was, and it worked, but it seems like it pauses the game for 2 seconds and then the game resumes.  I also tried using the Async to force the animation also, but it had the same affect.

My Second Problem
Ok, I think I'm missing something here, maybe I have to add something in some other script file, but here is my second problem.  When my character goes to look at book, in the book script I add the default script and change the code for when actor looks at book to this.

Code: [Select]

actor.Talk("Hmm.... What an interesting looking book..");
Doctor.Talk("Hey you, get away from there!");
When I change it to this, I can't interact with the book at all, I can't look or talk or pickup, but all the other interactions work for other items.  When I created the Doctor I made sure that all the names matched, and I can't use "this" command in the book script.  So how do I fix this?

Thanks in advanced for helping me.  I know it's probably something simple that I'm overlooking.
-McCloud

24

Technical forum / Re: Using BVH, Poser, and Milkshap

« on: September 13, 2005, 11:50:52 PM »

Oh, in that case I'm not sure about the png-export, I think Poser 4 is able to do, but I'm not sure about Poser 3.

Yep, I have Poser 3 and it doesn't support it.  I tried doing the bvh thing, but after reviewing what you said I did it backwards, I tried to scale the bvh to 100 and my system kept locking up.  So, I try it on the model next time I get a chance, and maybe that will work.

I do thankyou for all your help.

-Jeremy

25

Technical forum / Re: Using BVH, Poser, and Milkshap

« on: September 13, 2005, 04:21:57 AM »

I tested it a bit, and my experience so far is that the skeletons created via the bhv-import are WAY bigger than the meshes exported from Poser - so I tried this:

-import the mesh
-scale it up to factor 100 (I think it was 100)
-then import the bhv

Thanks!  I'll give it another shot.  Thankyou so much for your help!

A purple outline in WME or in the picture already? Did you try to render to png-format in Poser? With that there should be no outline and the background should already be transparent.

!!!!  mmm...  I think I may have been doing this the hard way.  I don't remember seeing a png option in poser, but I had never used png before until I read something about in the forum.  I think I was saving them as bmp and then using photoshop to convert it to png.  But hey, it there is a png exporter in my version of poser, that would be great.  Thanks!  I think I'm using poser 3 or 4

If you are able to do your own textures I strongly suggest to do so, because it gives your models a whole new look, and if you play a bit with the morphs, too, they will be only very hardly be considered as Poser-models.

Shows you how much I know about poser, I didn't even know you could upload your own textures!  Thanks again!

26

Technical forum / Re: Using BVH, Poser, and Milkshap

« on: September 12, 2005, 07:49:24 AM »

Well, animating in Poser and Milkshape is more or less the same, only that Poser-models are already set up right :-)
Did you assign all the vertices to the right bones before animating?

I havn't played much withit, but I'm still having trouble importing the  BVH files and getting them to work.  I tried different scale values, but once i import the bvh, my character disappears, if I load the BVH file first and then import my charact the skeleton for my BVH only changes color, but still no character.  I probalby just have to play with it more I guess.

On the bright side though, I managed to do the 2d characters that look really good, using poser and photoshop.  At first it didn't look that realistic because I had a purple out line around my character and had no shadow.  So I tried placing shadows for my character to give it some depth.  It seems that in order to do this in Sprite Edit I would have to load them as subframes one at a ime and create a whole set of different frame for the shadow unless I just use a blured circle for all of them.  It seemed doing it this way would take too much time, and I wanted shadows that would match my characters movements, but it's ok, cause I found an easier method that gives me a good shadow and knocks out those outlines.  So, to me I made a big accomplishment already.  Just I have trouble matching my rendered scenes to my character to match the perspective.

On the downside, much of my characters look the same cause they are poser models.  It doesn't really look that original, you can tell it's poser, but hey, it's a start!

27

General Discussion / Re: Wintermute Tutorials

« on: September 12, 2005, 07:23:55 AM »

Maybe it made sense if you specify what tutorials would you (and others) be interested in. Then something could be done more in the direction others need.

Hmm.  I'm still pretty new to WME, so it's hard for me to say, I just wanted the resources available when I get to something I can't find.  One thing I was wondering though, is support for DirectMusic.  I'd like to make the music interactive for example, maybe in one section of the game it just starts with some pads and a drum beat, then when the character enters into another room, the pads and drum beat stay the same, but then maybe some guitar kicks in, synced to the beat, as if your getting closer to the enemy.  Then a thick heavy bass line comes in, like your getting really close and then when you back track, it goes in reverse.  Does that make since.  I think MI3 uses the same technique, when your at the swamp and enter into the voodoo ladies place, the music all comes together and adds instruments.

A Scanner Darkly is already out as I understand it what is probably being released is a reprint of it.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I meant the movie and not the book.  It will be AWSOME!  Here is a link.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/
It's done in the style of "Waking Life" which was directed by the same guy, I think it's an excellent look for this type book.

28

General Discussion / Wintermute Tutorials

« on: September 11, 2005, 04:39:03 AM »

Does anyone know of any websites or books for Wintermute?  I found that it's really hard to search online for.  When I search for Wintermute a bunch of matches come up for some book, it actually sounds pretty good.  Wintermute I think was some kind of computer intellegence software of somekind in the book.  As anyone read it by chance and is it any good.  I like Philip K Dick books, can't wait until A Scanner Darkly comes out.  It will be awsome!  And then, when I try and search for WME all I get is Windows Media Encoder.  I am aware of the tutorials in the manual which are good and the Wiki, which still seems new, anyone know of any other places?

Thanks.
-McCloud

29

Game design / Re: 3D Rendered Scenes, which progam is easiest?

« on: September 11, 2005, 02:47:57 AM »

Thanks for all your help guys, I'm starting to get frustrated with it, I'm just spoiled.  I wanted something that could just transfer the images from my mind into the computer.  I can't seem to get that method to work.  So I'm going to slow down a bit, TRY and take my time and just learn.  I will check out a few other 3d programs, but from what I understand, it seems that Blender is the best choice for it's price, features and so forth.  And from what I understand, Blender just takes some time getting use to and will be come easier as you learn it.  I'm just so excited about Wintermute, it's like the coolest thing I've ever seen!  I tried to do my first little mini game, which is just some guy walking around.  It came out pretty cool, I did have alot of problems creating my own character though, for some reason my character is transperant, I'm sure it's something wrong I did with photoshop, I got a ton of errors, but I'm working them out and starting to better understand WME and I am very happy with it.

-McCloud

30

Technical forum / Re: Using BVH, Poser, and Milkshap

« on: September 11, 2005, 02:25:29 AM »

Thanks, havn't had a chance to try it yet,  I got a little frustrated it trying to find my Easy-to-Use-3D-that-can-perfectly-export-3ds-files-and-supports-ray-tracing-program and started doing some 2d stuff.  Besides, I have to wait for one of my friends to download some of these trails anyway.  I did notice that when I created my own skeleton, or whatever it was, when I go to animate it, the skeleton doesn't move right, it only stretches that part of the image, it's not anything at all like animating in poser.  Is this normal?