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31

Technical forum / Stopping a script

« on: May 29, 2006, 06:05:13 PM »

Simple question:

How do I come out of a script? I have a condition in a script and if it's true I just want to stop the script, and not run it anymore, until the next time it's called into action. Should be easy enough I think, but I can't find the answers. 

Thanks.

32

Technical forum / Buffer overruns and absolute paths

« on: May 29, 2006, 12:04:42 AM »

Howdy again,

I'm now using 1.6.1 and virtually everytime I run a syntax check on a script a window pops up for "Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library" telling me there is a "buffer overrun detected" in ProjectMan.exe, and so it has to shut down.

This never happened in any previous versions of WME.

Also, I checked the ProjectMan.log file a couple of times and it keep saying it's referencing the absolute path to scripts and so the game will not work on other computers, and it proceeds to show me the absolute path to the scripts on my computer. What's all this about? And how do I stop it referencing the absolute path?

Thanks.

33

Technical forum / More dialogue things

« on: May 28, 2006, 04:19:02 PM »

I'm using icons at the bottom of the screen for my dialogues instead of listing what the actor can say - is there any way to have a "caption" on these icons so the player knows exactly what the actor will be talking about?

Also, I have my actor subtitles positioned nicely in the centre at the bottom of the screen - when the old guy entity replies, his response is above his head, but I want it in the same place as my actor's subtitles - how can I achieve this?

Thanks.

34

Technical forum / Old Guy entity

« on: May 28, 2006, 03:01:47 PM »

Hi,

I'm just starting to add some dialogues so decided to use the Old Guy from the demo game to test things.

I added this code to my scene_init.script:

Code: [Select]

// load the old guy person
global OldGuy = Scene.LoadEntity("entities\oldguy\oldguy.entity");
OldGuy.SkipTo(900, 550);

Problem is, it doesn't put the Old Guy onto the "main" layer - I have a "trees" layer after the main layer, and it seems, going by the scrolling speeds, that the Old Guy appears on the tree layer - why is this? How do I get him to go on the main layer?

Thanks.

35

Technical forum / Actor walking speed

« on: April 21, 2006, 02:15:37 PM »

Hi all,

I'm using 2D sprite actors created in 3D, and I'm wondering if there is a way to have the engine move the sprite more quickly, instead of just increasing the MOVE BY values on the sprite frames?

The problem I've noticed is this: I have 12 frames for the LEFT walk cycle, and say I move each frame 15 pixels, well that creates a terrible effect in the engine because each frame is jumping 15 pixels, which means the actor does not appear to be moving smoothly at all - does that make sense?

However, the engine moves the entire actor sprite by itself, so for example if I don't put a MOVE BY value on the sprite frames, the actor will move smoothly because the entire sprite is actually moving - BUT, the engine is not moving the sprite fast enough to create a good walk animation.

So, I figure if we could increase the speed that the engine moves the actual sprite the actor will walk smoothly. This, combined with the move by values for fine tuning etc. will allow me to get the perfect animation.

I guess it would be similar to the VELOCITY attribute for 3D actors...?

So, any way to easily to do that?

Thanks.

36

Technical forum / Animated sprite not animated after computer restart

« on: February 16, 2006, 12:20:51 PM »

Hi,

I've encountered something which seems like a bug...

First, a little background - I have an animated sprite as one of my inventory items - basically I have an item (a non-animated sprite), and when I right click on it in the inventory, it swaps with another item (an animated sprite version of the same item) - then when I right click again, it swaps back.

For this swapping, on the non-animated version script I'm using:

  Game.DropItem("itemA");
  Game.TakeItem("ItemB");

...and then I reverse the code on the animated sprite script to swap back.

That all works fine, and the animated sprite looks great in the inventory. But, when I come to save the game with the animated sprite in the inventory, there is a problem. If I save, quit the game, then restart the game, it's fine, the sprite it still animated, no problem. BUT, if I quit the game, then turn off my computer, then turn it back on, and start up the game, the sprite it no longer animated - it just displays a single frame from the animation.

This only occurs with the inventory animated sprite, not with any others in the scene, and it occurs in both ProjectMan and the compiled game.

So, any ideas? A bug? Something I'm doing wrong with the sprite?

Thanks.

37

Technical forum / Get all items

« on: February 14, 2006, 12:44:30 PM »

Morning everyone,

Is there a quick way for me to add ALL the inventory items I have to the inventory with one piece of simple code?

Something like Game.TakeAllItems; or Game.TakeItem(all);   

I'd like to check them all out to see how they look, plus make sure scrolling works etc., but I don't want to have to add every item manually as that would take ages, and I'd have to go back and add each new one time and time again.

Thanks.

38

Technical forum / Item cursor only on certain objects

« on: February 14, 2006, 01:25:17 AM »

Hi all,

I want to have a glowing item cursor for each item, which only gets displayed when any particular item is over an object with which it can be used. So, say I have a key and a door and a window, putting the key over the door gives us the glowing key, but putting the key over the window just gives us the normal key - so then you know to use the key on the door.

Is that already easily possible easily somehow? I don't think I can find anything that relates to using items only on specific other items.

Thanks.

39

Software and games / VP3 video codec

« on: January 29, 2006, 03:48:49 PM »

Hi,

I tried all the ways suggested by Metamorphium to create Theora video files - most of the time the files wouldn't even encode, and when they did the files were useless anyway. 

Then I saw VP3 mentioned, so I downloaded that and so far it seems to work quite well.

Question - the vp3 site tells developers to direct customers to one of their webpages to download the codec - this is impractical for a commercial CD based title, so I'm just wondering if anyone knows whether or not I can include the vp3 installer on the CD's or not and install it when the game installs? Anyone know whether that is allowed or not?

Second, does anyone know the best settings in vp3 to get the best results, in terms of picture quality, smoothness and file-size?

Thanks.

40

Technical forum / save name as scene name with date/time?

« on: January 17, 2006, 07:04:08 PM »

Is it possible to automatically set the save name to the current scene name?

I don't want to have the savename window - I just want the player to click the "empty" save slot and then it saves the game with the scene name.

Also, would it be possible to add the current date and time in the form "dd/mm/yy, 23:07" after the scene name to differentiate saves done in the same scene?

Any pointers? Thanks.

41

Technical forum / Font colours and letter spacing

« on: January 15, 2006, 10:50:16 PM »

Hello,

I'm using bitmap font builder to make some fonts into TGA files - then I import the TGA into WME and create the .font file - everything fine so far...

The first problem is that some fonts don't display with even spacing between letters - longer letters like M and W are closer to the next letter than A for example, which resuilts in big spaces in the middle of words.

The second problem is that if I save a TGA with an alpha channel in Font Builder the only colours that come through in WME are black and white. If I use any other colour in font builder, WME just displays it as gray.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

42

Technical forum / Thumbnail saves

« on: December 12, 2005, 08:51:26 AM »

Morning everyone,

I want to have thumbnail saves/loads pretty much just like they are in Project Joe, where you click the thumbnail to load the game, and the save description goes underneath, but I'm having trouble understanding how to implement that exactly.

Also, how could I load the game just by clicking on the thumbnail instead of having the "Are you sure you want to load the game?" window come up?

Thanks in advance. 

43

Technical forum / Center Caption Window

« on: December 09, 2005, 08:47:22 AM »

Hello,

I've managed to move the caption window to the top of the screen to an X and Y position, which is fine, but the text is not centred, so a long caption runs from the centre to the right.

I guess I need to center the actual caption window but I cannot find a way to do this. Surely it is a very easy thing...

HELP!!!

Thanks.

44

Technical forum / Inventory "area" rectangle

« on: December 09, 2005, 04:24:34 AM »

Hi again,

I can't seem to get any items to appear in my inventory - the code for adding them to the inventory is fine as I've checked it over - same code as I've always done.

I think it's the inventory "area" rectangle that's the problem.

Code: [Select]


INVENTORY_BOX
{
  ITEM_WIDTH = 42
  ITEM_HEIGHT = 42
  SPACING = 10
  SCROLL_BY = 1
  HIDE_SELECTED = TRUE

  AREA { 0, 558, 800, 42 }
  EXCLUSIVE = FALSE
;  ALWAYS_VISIBLE = FALSE

  WINDOW
  {
    X = 0
    Y = 558
    WIDTH = 800
    HEIGHT = 42
    IMAGE = "interface\inventory_background_place_holder.jpg"
    SCRIPT = "interface\inventory.script"
 
  }
}


The actual inventory windows displays fine in the desired location, but how does that "area" work exactly? The documentation says the points are "x, y, width, height", so as far as I can see the area rectangle should be fitting perfectly over the inventory window, and the items should be showing up nicely, but there's just nothing there.

Each of my inventory "items" are square images 42 x 42, which is the height of the inventory window and the area rectangle, so what's the problem? Anyone know? 

Thanks again.   

EDIT - So the X and Y of the "area" are the X and Y corresponding to the inventory window top left corner, not the scene corner?

I made it work now, but I don't know - it just worked after I altered some numbers - I still don't understand how that "area" ties excactly to the window and whether there are any rules are not. It seemed to work when I entered massively large numbers and then I worked backwards from there testing and testing until the numbers were nice and small again.   

Works anyway, which is good. 

45

Technical forum / Fading in/out the inventory window

« on: December 09, 2005, 02:31:28 AM »

Hi,

Just wondering how I can fade the inventory window in and out. I have it at the bottom of the screen, and when the player moves the mouse down there I want the window to fade in (I'm assuming all the items will fade in aswell if the actual window is set to fade). Then when they leave that area, the window fades out.

Where can I put the necessary code?

Thanks.