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346

Technical forum / Can you set actor scale ranges that only are active over a region?

« on: September 21, 2007, 12:52:29 AM »

Hi there....

I have been playing a lot with rooms recently and have a question about actor scaling. You are able to easily set 2 scale values to be interpolated though using those big green lines in the editor.

I have designed a room witch is a deep hall, with two stair wells on either side. The actor walks to the end of the room to load the next rooms. The play can also walk UP either of the stair case to get to the upper floor. The problem is that due to the perspective in my drawing the scale for the end of the room is not right for the top of the stairs.



I can see that it is easy enough to set regions to have there own default scale... ... is there a way to set a interpolated value between two values that only effects the region?

This is what i was hoping to do....

• Set the room scale with the normal 2 green bars.
• Then as soon as the actor walks over a region i set up for the stairs it switches to the regions scale settings
• I set the bottom of the new region scale to equal the scale of the actor when it enters the region
• I set the top of the stairs to the needed scale... witch is different form the global scene scale values.

The other idea was if you can set a multiplier on the region... so any scale value from the two green lines is added onto or subtracted from... so a world scene scale of 100% = 95% on the region only... ythis would also allow me to have the separate scales.

The other way was to use the actor.scale script function but as far as i can see it only works on a single cord... X for example... I would need both the x,x cords to do teh smooth scale over the region?

347

Technical forum / Re: Question concerning - CMK2901's guide to Theora video conversion

« on: September 20, 2007, 05:46:55 AM »

Heh hey your right... I found that link btw.. cheers

CMK2901's thread - Ogg Theora - Or, how to convert them and have them play correctly.

348

Technical forum / Re: Tutorial - Transcoding a Audio or Video fille into OGG format (Theora / Vorb

« on: September 20, 2007, 05:45:25 AM »

For another transcoding tutorial that is aimed for people with a little more understanding of these things...

Please see CMK2901's Thread:- Ogg Theora - Or, how to convert them and have them play correctly.

349

Technical forum / Tutorial - Transcoding a Audio or Video fille into OGG format (Theora / Vorbis)

« on: September 20, 2007, 12:11:05 AM »

Jyujinkai's Continuing Tutorials for Nubs and the Programming Impaired
(sorry but i can only properly support windows)

How to Transcode a OGG files from an existing video and audio files on your Harddrive

Summery
RTFM - "The video codec [therora] is hardcoded in WME, you don't need to install any external codecs with your game."
RTFM - "File format for storing the sounds - OGG files – Ogg Vorbis files are compressed sound files, similar to the popular MP3’s. Unlike MP3, the Ogg Vorbis is an open format and it provides better sound quality."

So in order to properly use video in WME it is by far better to use OGG files than any other format due to the native WME support. Also it is far better to use OGG for sound as like an mp3 they are a bazzillion times smaller than wav files yet still retain a high level of audio quality, as well as also being a native WME format.

So this tutorial we will learn how to transcode any video or audio file on your harddrive into a ogg video or audio file ready for use!!

Software you will need

VLC Player - http://www.videolan.org/
Codec Pak - http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

Transcoding Video

1) Load the VLC Player and go to "File/Wizard"


2) Select "transcode/save to file"


3) Select "Select Stream" and hit "Browse"


4) Hit "browse" again and Select your input file


5) Select "Transcode Video and Transcode Audio
 - Set the video to THEORA
 - Set the Audio to VORBIS
(if resulting file it to large re-encode using lower bit rates)


6) Select OGG (it should be the only thing you can select


7) Select your output file name and folder


8 ) When you hit finish the transcode will start. NOTE - You will NOT see any video. If the video file you are transcoding is big, this MAY take a while. The VLC "progress" bar is small so it may look like it is not moving at all when it first starts. Try stretching the player to the length of your screen to get a better update on progress.

Transcoding Audio

This is exactly the same process as the way to make the video. The only difference is that you do NOT tick Transcode Video when the option comes up in step 5.



Some Notes

• Remember you can transcode audio directly from a video file and not include the video
• When selecting your video / audio file (step 3) you can add a time index in and out point, allowing you split your video and audio

See ya
Have fun!!!

350

Technical forum / Re: Please where do i Start??

« on: September 19, 2007, 11:13:02 PM »

I am so sorry for being so dense... Can we dumb it down a little?

How exactly would you play it in a script? How do you add a script that is not attached to a entity?

How can you interact with an entity with out a script?


It is the scripting that I am confused about... I mean i can do all the scripting from the tutorials but i have NO idea what you guys all mean when you say.. "Run the video from a script"

351

Technical forum / Re: Please where do i Start??

« on: September 19, 2007, 11:28:26 AM »

The best way to learn WME is to follow the "scene creation" part of the help documents as that will teach you the basics of how the engine works, and the basics of putting a game together. Once you understand those basics, then you can start to learn more complex things as they relate to the specific things you want to do for your game.

Before learning how to play videos, I think it's more important to learn how to actually make a game.

I totally agree.. I am a big belive in examples.  This is what i am doing.. I used to be very into AGS. I think once i get my head around things you guys may even want to play my games heh.. dosn't matter i have fun making them. I just need to get a handle on how the scripting works in this app. I have made a simple hello world room. It is just a room with a few boxes and very simple animated stick finger for a charter to walk around and interact. I'n my list of stuff to learn I am up to putting a video in a selected space (eg a space inside a area of the main window) and then i wantto try and make a full screen video bit...  then gradualy move down the other tings i will want to do as i peace together how to make a working game.

To be understood please understand the tutorials in the manual are very clear. I can make backgrounds, make waypoints, make objects for walking in front and behind, set up clickable hot zones... my scripting is crap.. but i know where to load the scripts.. layering etc.. basically i can now do the tutorial with out even reading the manual. (in fact i have) The tutorials are great but they basically just tell me how to substitute gfx for other gfx... I do not really understand what to do to make somthing new. somthing from scratch

I mean I have a scene.. i add a entity.. I can not select the video.. ogg or avi.  This code "Game.PlayTheora("insert filename path here");" that was posted.. where dose that go?

So to make a video I need to create an entity inside the "scenes/room1" with the Add Sprite entity?
or
Do I add entity directly in the Project manager window, by making a folder called entities and right click add...

And even if i do it either way I can not select avi / ogg files i can only select bitmap or sprite files.

352

Technical forum / Re: Please where do i Start??

« on: September 19, 2007, 08:11:01 AM »

Well if there are no other tutorials, when i get it figured out I will make some

Lets start with the FMV thing.

If you search the manual for VIDEO only three topic get listed concerning video


One of these is a section of the manual telling you how Theora is a built in codec and if you use it you need not bundle potentially expensive 3rd party codecs. + It also walks about a script change to init the theroa part of the engine.

the 2nd is a listing of commands for the entity script (I think)

the 3rd is a listing of the game object script. (I thought an entity was a game object?)
So from looking at this it seams to me that a to insert a video you need to make an entity and attach the video to that some how.

If i try to make a entity i can only load this default pacman template and have no idea to go from there.


I have looked though the search on the fourm but all i find is code snipits like

var video1 = Scene.CreateEntity();
video1.X = 420;
video1.Y = 400;
video1.PlayTheora("video\moon.ogg");

How do you use this code?

353

Technical forum / Question concerning - CMK2901's guide to Theora video conversion

« on: September 19, 2007, 07:48:11 AM »

In CMK2901's guide to Theora video conversion thread on the wikki is says.....

"4) Check the “Stream output” checkbox and click “Settings...”"

Where is this check box... i load VLC, load the avi i want to convert, and can not find these options anywhere... can somone please take a screenshot of these options for me?

Also on a side note it says ion the manual the audio needs to be uncompressed.. is this true if you encode an gg file with ogg audio and theora video?

354

Technical forum / Please where do i Start??

« on: September 19, 2007, 04:22:02 AM »

Hi I kow this question must get asked a billion times but i can not seam to find any tutorials on how to get into this program.

I have done the tutorials that shift with the manual but they do not really explain how to get a project off the ground as they are all about editing existing projects. Also they are just about the set up of a room. The tutorials do not go into inventory, creating actors from scratch 2D or 3D and a host of other major function essential to creating even a basic 2 room test game. Also i found no tutorials on including FMV in your game. I understand you guys use the thoora codec.... and ogg for full sound (not midi). I found no tutorials going into detail about this either. Can you use other video formates? Eg XviD (another free open source mpeg4 compressed format)

Dose anyone have any tutorials on how to start a new project from scratch? Or is that not a good idea.

Also there seams to be no tutorials on how to use 3D Charicters? Are there any tutorials you guys know about this.

Any help or suggestions welcome.