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31

Technical forum / Referencing entities within a scene.

« on: August 22, 2006, 08:33:00 AM »

I am currently defining global vars in base.inc which makes them visible in all scripts in the game. These global vars are then set to specific items that need to be turned on and off through the game. For example if I have an apple that can be placed on a desk, and the apple is an item. I can use apple on desk. In the apple script I set some global var that could be named AppleRef to "this', i.e. AppleRef = this; within the apple script. Therefore since the apple is off by default when I am in desk.script and I use the apple, in on "apple" I can do AppleRef.Active = true; and the apple would appear (this is hypothetical and not the actual situation I'm using in game but the example is basically the same).

Is there a better way of doing this rather than tracking everything through global vars? I have not found anything in the documentation to suggest there is an easier way to do this. I imagine I could use paths such as "scenes\testcene\apple.entity" if there was such a thing but I have found nothing to suggest this. Just want to know if this is on the right track or if there is a better way. Thanks again!

32

Technical forum / Context sensitive menu actions

« on: August 22, 2006, 01:27:59 AM »

I'm looking to create a context sensitive menu button. The graphic would always be the same but if I tried to do an action on a fence a subtitle that says "Climb" would appear. And let's say I highlighted the action over a door it would show the subtitle "Open" or something similar. The graphic would always be something like a hand or whatnot and would light up when hovered over of course. Is this possible? I'm searching through documentation and am trying to figure this out. Thanks!

33

Technical forum / How much memory does Molly take up in video memory?

« on: August 13, 2006, 05:03:22 AM »

After examining Molly's files it appears that her height is just over 256 pixels. So is she being internally scaled then to 128x512 at 32 bits times her number of frames? That seems like it would be a pretty decent amount of memory for her. Also, is there a way to do a video dump easily like you posted for Project Joe Mneumonic? Thanks!

34

Technical forum / displaying debug info in compiled projects

« on: August 12, 2006, 10:14:52 PM »

Can we display the same info in our compiled projects that is shown when you run your game from within WME? I want beta testers to be able to tell me what frame rates they are getting. Thanks!

35

Technical forum / 64 meg video card minimum spec?

« on: August 10, 2006, 09:19:44 PM »

Would a 64 meg card minimum spec be too high for a game such as this? Without at least that much we won't be able to do the kinds of animations we are hoping to do. I would love to have 128 but I know that is too much. However I'm really not sure what is common these days. Thanks for all your help everyone!

36

Technical forum / Performance?

« on: August 10, 2006, 06:39:32 AM »

I would like to know how to optimize performance for animation and such. I'm working on some scenery animation, and while my scene isnt even close to be optimized graphically, the memory being used by the process skyrockets when I enter the scene with the waterfall animation, by a factor of about 5x.

I am trying to use optimized file sizes such as png and jpg for where it is best appropriate with a good balance of quality and compression. However I am beginning to wonder if internally this doesn't matter in the engine. What is the best way to try and optimize performance? I noticed that in debug mode the framerate is not affected by this rather large animation but, again, the memory shoots way up. I'm just wondering if there is a way to get around this aside from the obvious "have crappy animation." Thanks!

37

Technical forum / Smooth scaling going left to right?

« on: August 10, 2006, 01:31:10 AM »

I have a wide screen that appears to go farther away as it pans right. This would require the character to be at a different scale level than when he is on the left side. I know that you can set scale levels with decoration layers....I suppose I could have a ton of decoration layers and go 1 percent at a time but that would be a pain and I dont know if that would affect performance in a negative way. Is there any other way to do this?

38

Technical forum / Walking over a hill?

« on: August 08, 2006, 07:18:57 AM »

I've seen this answered before yet I don't know if it would work exactly for what I am trying to do so I am posting an example pic with this question. We are trying to get the character to walk over the hill and look like they are walking down the other side....the player would then appear in the farther off section as they walked away from the hill but would be very small. I think it's easier to visualize than to explain. Obviously with a decoration layer the scale effect can be achieved. However I am hoping that the player could click around on the hill but if they clicked in the far off areas the player would walk over the hill etc...and vice versa of course. So...can this be done or should we scrap this idea?

39

Technical forum / Free entities scrolling?

« on: August 01, 2006, 09:55:15 AM »

Greetings-
    For some reason one of my "free entities" is scrolling when I do not want it too. I have about four free entities in the free entities layer and they all stay put except for one. I have a main layer that is 1796 pixels wide and a foreground layer that is around 1400 pixels wide. The entity that is incorrectly scrolling is a tree but its not in the foreground layer at all. Yet it moves like it is. I cannot find a reason for this. Any help? Thanks!

40

Technical forum / Windows Vista

« on: July 29, 2006, 08:52:28 AM »

With a new Windows OS coming down the pike next year, do you expect WME to work ok on it both from the creation standpoint and also in running executables? Our game (which we intend to be commercial) will not be finished until 2007 and I am wondering what the plans are for Vista. Thanks!

41

Technical forum / Do truetype fonts negatively impact performance?

« on: July 12, 2006, 08:38:17 AM »

I tried using a truetype font for dialogue, and my performance went from about 900 fps on my pc to around 80 in the debug mode. When I switched back to the standard included bmp fonts it went back up. Is this normal? The last thing I want to kill the performance of the game is fonts, whenever I've barely loaded anything into the scenes yet.

42

Technical forum / widescreen monitors

« on: June 30, 2006, 02:29:50 AM »

Well I did the pre-requisite search and it appears that there is no way to prevent WME from stretching the game image if playing on a wide screen monitor. I'm working on a 1920x1200 monitor and we are hoping to develop our game at 1600x1200 so that people with nicer monitors can take advantage of it. However if I run our game in full screen mode it stretches. Is there a way to run it not windowed yet not stretch the aspect ratio?