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91

General Discussion / Re: WME 1.2 Build 043

« on: April 27, 2004, 11:30:11 AM »

btw Daniel, did you notice you can now add hover and pressed images for the response icons?

No, as a matter of fact, I usually become aware of new features by reading the version history (or the "what's new") but it wasn't mentioned over there. I ran to the new documentation, however, as soon as I read your post and there it was! Haven't tested it yet but it seems great. Small touches like these are what's making a professional engine even more professional. Great!

I'll add the right name in the next release, so that both of them work (for backward compatibility).

Keeping backward compatibility with an undocumented bug seems kind of excessive to me. I mean, since the currently working method is not documented, no one will be using it. In fact, as you said yourself, I seem to be the only one working with this kind of responses window manipulation. All that everyone should know is that the documented method doesn't work because of a known bug that will be fixed in the next release. That's it. Why clutter your code with that? But, of course, it's only my opinion. It's your code and your decision after all.

92

General Discussion / Re: WME 1.2 Build 043

« on: April 27, 2004, 01:28:24 AM »

I'm glad to report that everything I asked for regarding the responses window and the iconic responses, everything is now fully functional in my test using the new build 043. The iconic responses bar now slides up from the bottom of the screen, the cursor changes to the interactive cursor whenever it is on top of any of the iconic responses and also I have a label at the top of the screen now displaying the caption of the iconic responses entered using the Game.AddResponse() method. Everything works flawlessly! Great work!

One small thing, I think there is an error in the name of the method you exposed for getting the reference to the responses window. The new method Game.GetResponsesWindow() does not work. The method Game.GetResponseWindow() (without the plural "s" in Response), however, does work. If you're gonna fix this, I think the final name should be as you stated in the documentation (with the "s"), and not as it is currently exposed.

93

General Discussion / Re: WME 1.2 Build 042

« on: April 25, 2004, 11:40:14 PM »

Thanks a lot! Good work . I'll try it as soon as I manage to find the time. Can't wait!

94

Technical forum / Re: Save-Game Thumbnail

« on: April 23, 2004, 03:29:09 PM »

I think the only way is to save the game first to some private slot.

I used this technique when I was testing AGS, a couple of months ago, and it worked flawlessly, but the game saving in AGS is instantaneous with no delay, so it is not noticed during the game. Here it is not possible with the time it takes to save the game so this is no good. Any other ideas, maybe?

95

Technical forum / Save-Game Thumbnail

« on: April 23, 2004, 02:28:38 PM »

Hi,

I want to implement a CMI-like save-game mechanism in which a thumbnail of the about-to-be-saved game is displayed on the save window. I have a few ideas regarding how to implement this but none of them seem good enough. Any suggestions anyone?

96

Technical forum / Re: Game settings window

« on: April 22, 2004, 08:48:38 PM »

I guess I should be glad you don't have any more serious problems, right?

Hey! Stop making fun of us! That window is pretty annoying and I am unanimous in this! uh... right Igorrr... ?

Anyway, I've got other more "serious problems" as well if you so much want so watch it!

97

Technical forum / Re: Game settings window

« on: April 22, 2004, 05:02:39 PM »

Well, in that case this thread should be moved to the "Wishlist, suggestions" forum, I think.

It's just that I never had to tweak anything till now (and I still don't) and I pressed the "Run game" button a *LOT* of times, believe me, and each and every time I had to press that extra button to make the "Game settings" window go away.

I mean, how are the settings in this window different from, say, the "Startup scene" in the "Debugging settings" section in the left pane of ProjectMan? That's a tweak as well, but I don't see it popping up each and every time I run the game asking me what startup scene I would like the game to use this time. I'm aware of the differences but it's just an example.

All I say is that the tweaking of the settings in the "Game settings" window is a phase during development that the developer has to go into at a certain time, but it's certainly not something that he'll be doing all the time. If so, he'll find himself just dismissing this window each and every time he runs the game (just like me).

On the other hand, if no one said anything till now, I guess I'm at a minority with this. What do you think?

98

Technical forum / Game settings window

« on: April 22, 2004, 03:23:40 PM »

The "Game settings" window is displayed each and every time I run the game from ProjectMan. Is that normal?

99

General Discussion / Re: Interesting read

« on: April 20, 2004, 11:56:52 PM »

Just finished reading... Speechless indeed...

This piece was the most interesting read I had in a while. Thanks for the link!

100

Technical forum / Re: FadeOut and FadeIn

« on: April 20, 2004, 10:29:27 PM »

I was considering the Windows-like *Ex naming convention, but then I thought "what if there are more than two variations?", so I declined.

You're right, I don't care very much for this option myself. All the "Ex" functions in WIN32 seem like a bunch of patches to me.

Well, the Game object *is* supposed to be this "system", actually. I believe the "Game.FadeOut" name works pretty well in the object oriented context

If the Game object really is the appropriate place for the new Fade* methods, then under the circumstances, I agree with you that Game.SystemFadeOut() is the best option.

No no, I appreciate your comments!

Thanks, I'm glad to be of help .

101

Technical forum / Re: FadeOut and FadeIn

« on: April 20, 2004, 08:57:26 PM »

My two cents...

Maybe you could use words that describe the purpose of the methods instead of their functionality. For instance, if the whole purpose of the new fade methods is for using in system exclusive mode (and I don't even know if that's the case, btw), then maybe you can add words like "System" or "Exclusive" to the method names. Something like Game.SystemFadeOut().

Another option might be the Microsoft WIN32 way. Something like Game.FadeOutEx() for the new methods. The "Ex" functions in WIN32 are usually very similar to the ones without the "Ex" but they have more parameters, so the ones without the "Ex" are used for most common things while in cases when you need more specialized functionality, you call the "Ex" functions, fully aware that you'll be required to specify more parameters. Btw, AGS uses this scheme for playing sounds. It has PlaySound(sound_number) and PlaySoundEx(sound_number, channel).

Another option, a more object oriented one this time, could be to use a new object. If, for instance, the Game object, along with all it's attributes and internal parameters, encapsulates the things that are being saved to the saved games (it's just an example, I'm not saying that's really the case), then maybe a new object could be conceived, that encapsulates all other game attributes and parameters that are not saved to the saved games. In that case, you don't have to come up with another name for the fade methods because they will belong to different objects now. You'll have a System.FadeOut() method, for example, as opposed to the Game.FadeOut() method that exists today. I agree that two fade methods seem pretty scant for creating a new engine object but maybe there are other methods here and there that this new object could be their long lost home. And for the long run, surely more and more things will come up that will fit right into this kind of object.

Then again, you can forget all about my academic rants and just use Game.FadeOutUnfreezable()

102

Technical forum / Re: FadeOut and FadeIn

« on: April 19, 2004, 11:21:28 PM »

Anyway, I'll add some Game.FadeOut2 and Game.FadeIn2 methods which will be unfreezable.

Is it necessary to have both FadeOut & FadeIn and also FadeOut2 & FadeIn2?

I haven't noticed that in my testing application...

Maybe I'm noticing this a bit more cause I'm using the default duration of 500msec. With this setting, the FadeIn at the top of the window's script is barely noticeable and the window just seems to appear almost immediately. The FadeIn after the Game.UnloadObject(WinMainMenu), however, is clearly noticeable with the same default duration of 500msec.

Anyway, this is a minor issue so don't feel obligated to check it right now, if you have a lot more burning issues to deal with. You can leave it for some other time when you find yourself bored with nothing else to do (which if you're anything like me, this means never )

103

Technical forum / Re: FadeOut and FadeIn

« on: April 19, 2004, 09:35:11 PM »

Well, now it's a lot better. The consecutive fade out problem is gone and both fade out and fade in work a lot better.

There are two issues remaining though:

1. What are the implications of the main menu window as well as all other windows (save, load, options, etc.) not working in system exclusive mode but only in exclusive mode? Does the fact that the game is not really paused when these windows are operated have any meaning at all? If so, do I have to give up the fading between the various windows?

2. The fading-in that is caused by the FadeIn call at the top of the window's script seems a lot more "sudden" than all the other fades, although it has exactly the same parameter as all the others. What could be the reason? Maybe a delay during window loading or something?

104

Technical forum / Re: FadeOut and FadeIn

« on: April 19, 2004, 04:27:09 PM »

Thanks,

Well, The FadeIn works fine now, the reason it wasn't working before is because I seem to be an idiot...

Anyway, the FadeOut still works only once (with the same code you posted). From the second time and on, the behavior is as follows: it goes black immediately, it then delays for the requested 1000msec with totally black screen, and only then the FadeIn of the window kicks in. Weird...

About the Fade methods not working in system exclusive mode, is there a real reason to this or is it just something that needs to be fixed?

105

Technical forum / FadeOut and FadeIn

« on: April 19, 2004, 01:01:29 PM »

Hi everybody,

I want to use the FadeOut and FadeIn methods but I'm not sure where to place these calls. I want to fade out the current scene the moment the user clicks the "Options" button, then open the "Main Menu" window (that covers the entire screen) in system exclusive mode, and only then fade in with the "Main Menu" window already in place.
I tried to place the FadeOut and FadeIn calls in the most logical places but I get weird results. The FadeOut works fine but the FadeIn doesn't work at all. The "Main Menu" window just appears without fading in. In addition, the FadeOut (that worked the first time) stops working as I go back and forth between the window and the scene, they just disappear and appear without fading out and in, and even the FadeOut that worked the first time stops working.

Does anybody know what am I doing wrong?