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User talk:Blu Aardvark/AGS

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LOL this sounds awesome, great idea and would totally work with most peoples nostalgia for all the great old computer games. The back story is lol too. Nice man, must be shitloads of work. > < y ▪talk▪ 04:52, 3 December 2007 (CST)

  • The hardest part will likely be designing the interface and making the room graphics. The rest of it, not so much. Still, it will be a time-consuming project, but the scripting language is easy to learn and use. --Blu Aardvark 14:56, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Contents

Graphics/Sprites

Interesting idea to switching to this style of game. I did have some interest in Lollercaust, and was able to make some fancy-assed attack effects, but I guess we are gonna have to start from scratch with this different set graphics (dont worry I only had a few test things).

So I am willing to help with any art-related/sprite/effect stuff. Basically all I need to know is background dimensions, average sprite pixel dimensions, inventory stuff for what you need before I start. Also some kind of color pallet reference or something (I work in photoshop so Ill need to know the limitations).

You could just give me 1 character to do for now if you are still fleshing things out. Also what are the limitations on sound? --Jawsome OMG LENSFLARE! 20:36, 4 December 2007 (CST)

  • All graphics need to be in 16-bit ("true color") or lower.
  • All graphics other than background graphics should have a unique color for the purpose of setting transparency, and this color should be in all areas that should be transparent, although that goes without saying. I recommend magenta for this purpose, although it can be anything you like.
  • Backgrounds need to be at least 640x400px. However, that's only the bottom limit. I can allow rooms to scroll both horizontally and vertically by using larger graphics. I don't expect I'll want any vertically scrolling rooms, though. So just set the height as 400, and the width can be 640 or however big you want, within reason.
    • Needed at this point:
      1. A city room, for the "nigga stole my bike" introductory sequence
      2. A "series of tubes" room. Something in the style of Mario would be acceptable
      3. A few storefront rooms. If you read my notes, one of the rooms will represent overstock.com, and typing certain commands in the processor will result in a "Wordbomb", which will be a Game Over sequence. This room should have shelves, and crates and boxes all over the place, so that there are no visible walkable areas.
  • The sprite I am using right now is 18x40 front and rear view, and 11x40 left and right view. The current animation sequence for this is 10 frames in length, but that's not absolutely necessary. I might make the character movement in a jerky South Park style, for the lulz. Email me and I can send you a .zip with the default character and the .cha file, which you can directly import into an AGS engine if you want to do a little more than just providing bitmaps.
    • Needed at this point:
      1. Richard C. Mongler. The sprite should have some rudimentary resemblance to him. And a hueg pixelated grin.
      2. Black dude on a bike. Introductory sequence
      3. Man in pink jumpsuit. Introductory sequence.
      4. Nigras. Obligatory
      5. Shopkeepers. I can use the same sprite for all of them, as that's not particularly important. Make 'em look Jewish if possible.
  • Inventory graphic sizes may vary somewhat. The test graphic I have is 38x22, but if you need a few more (or less) pixels, it probably won't hurt.
    • Needed at this point:
      1. iPod. You will start the game with this item.
      2. Boxknife/razor blade - I have no idea what I plan to use this for, besides one certain "an hero" sequence. But I'll probably want one anyway. --Blu Aardvark 22:39, 4 December 2007 (CST)
  • Oh, sorry. I forgot to mention, all images need to be .BMP, .PCX, .PNG, .GIF, or .TGA. --Blu Aardvark 22:51, 4 December 2007 (CST)
  • Oh, sorry again. Forgot all about sound. From the manual, "For background music, AGS can use OGG, MP3, MIDI, WAV, MOD, XM, IT and S3M music files. For sound effects, you can use OGG, MP3, WAV and VOC files.". I'd prefer OGG, but I'm able to convert .MP3 if necessary. .WAV is hueger than xBox, so please don't. --Blu Aardvark 22:51, 4 December 2007 (CST)
  • Another note about rooms: While they do need to be 400 pixels in height, the bottom 26 pixels are covered by the buttons and text parser. So don't worry about putting detail there. --Blu Aardvark 04:34, 5 December 2007 (CST)
    • Gah. To be perfectly honest, I can't decide on room resolution. I think I'll design for 640x400 instead of 320x240 as I originally planned. --Blu Aardvark 06:50, 5 December 2007 (CST)
      • if you need any help with graphics sprites or anything like that i used to do that on the side with homebrew video game design a couple years ago, i also have a shitload of 3d modeling apps, but did mostly 2d design shit, and im good at low res so if you guys need any help let me know. BURK
        • Any help is appreciated. While I can do some basic bitmap manipulation, original graphics really aren't something I'm particularly good at. So yeah, I'd appreciate any form of help with the graphics, particularly backgrounds. 3d isn't necessary.--Blu Aardvark 00:59, 7 December 2007 (CST)

Tests

A few test sprites I made form the time being (also learning a new art program for pixel art in the process). Left is the actual size, right is viewed a little bigger so you can see without squinting here:

Image:Ipodsmall.gifImage:Grinwalksmall.gifImage:Razorsmall.gif

The ipod is 25 x 26 pixel, Richard is to your specification of 18 x 40, and the boxcutter is somewhere around 30 x 30. These were all done with a 256 color pallet so I hope it is well within compatibility. I tried a background but it turned out shit and was taking too long so Im thinking of just scanning some pencil art, rezize down in photoshop and add dithers and such. --Jawsome OMG LENSFLARE! 00:11, 7 December 2007 (CST)

  • Awesome. Just awesome. I'll need 3 more Richard animations - one walking north, one east, and one west. But this fucking ROCKS. I love you. --Blu Aardvark 00:28, 7 December 2007 (CST)

Richard in full views:

(wiki display upped to 80px)

^_^ --Jawsome OMG LENSFLARE! 01:37, 8 December 2007 (CST)

  • Importing now. Thanks MUCHLY. --Blu Aardvark 02:10, 8 December 2007 (CST)

Resolution tiem

I am having a bit of a hard time figuring out room size to character ratio and the resolution we are working with (I assume the beta is at it 640X400), but for some reason when drawing the stuff it seems too small or I can't visualize the scale of whatever before I make any new sprites.

So I have drawn up a few quick mspaint rooms. You can possibly test with being able to walk to one to another. I just need to see what a background would look like for a sense of scale we are working with. (the next sprite Ill work on is a "generic" looking person that can be changed to many different people with a pallet swap):

Test rooms

Generic room

Greater scale of depth

a 320X240 room in case I was wrong about the 640X400 rez

same outside at 320X240

If you want me to send updates via email instead of this page let me know. Also, I still haven't tried playing around with the actual AGS program, and I suck at coding and stuff overall. I know moar about drawing stuff than programming stuff. Just a heads up so we are on the same page. --Jawsome OMG LENSFLARE! 21:50, 10 December 2007 (CST)

  • 640x480 should work fine. Sprites will scale up, so the 18x40 really becomes 32x80. Anyway, I'll import the 1st testroom and upload another semi-release. I've been a bit busy the last day or two, and thus didn't really get much done with the game, but I'll work on it more tomorrow. Anyway, sure, if email works best for you, drop me a line at jeffrey.latham@gmail.com. I can send updates that way. And archives and whatever else. --Blu Aardvark 22:00, 10 December 2007 (CST)
  • Also, 4srs, the 600x400 resolution is not absolute. I can change the game resolution with just a few clicks of the mouse, and as I haven't truly put the rooms together yet, now's the best time to swap things if need be. If the smaller backgrounds are easier to put together, they work just fine. --Blu Aardvark 22:47, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Plot Discussion

Naturally, being a Good Upstanding Citizen, you give chase, but through some unforseen event and a gaping plot hole dividing by zero, you fall into a tube portal that was sticking out of the ground. It's not long before you notice that there is, in fact, an entire series of tubes within the portal, and your adventure begins. Anononononononononononononon 02:59, 14 September 2008 (CDT)

  • I like the division by zero reference. I'll make sure that it gets into the plot at that location to explain the portal/tube/whatever it is that I do to force the player to enter into the Series of Tubes. --Blu Aardvark 13:56, 14 September 2008 (CDT)
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