Messages

46

Forum Support and Suggestions / Re: Things that bug me

« on: November 17, 2015, 04:37:10 PM »

Addendum: if you have a long line of code, you likely have a readability problem on your doorstep. Consider taking that long-ass statement and splitting it into a few lines. For example:

Code: [Select]

if ((x > left) &&
    (y > top) &&
    (x < right) &&
    (y < bottom) &&
    (complicated check #1 that goes after the simple coordinate check) &&
    (complicated check #2)) {
...

It'd still be cool to have word-wrapping as a failsafe.

47

Forum Support and Suggestions / Re: Things that bug me

« on: November 17, 2015, 03:55:49 PM »

You use word-wrap for code??

What I mean is, the code area should be word wrapped:

Code: [Select]

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.Instead, it's just one scrollable bar.

48

Forum Support and Suggestions / Things that bug me

« on: November 17, 2015, 02:15:33 PM »

Here's things that bug me on the forums which could be changed:

• When you finish a post, instead of taking you back to the last page of the topic (where your reply to the topic would be), it instead takes you back to an overview of the topics in the current sub-board, or sometimes back to the root of the forums... Which both seem to be equally as annoying, because sometimes I want to re-check my reply for spelling mistakes or read over it a final time, or look back over replies previous to mine.
• The 'Insert Code' feature doesn't word wrap, meaning that if I did a large paragraph in code form (which some pieces of code actually are), it would be one line with a vertical scrollbar, which in my opinion is obnoxiously annoying, because it makes the code difficult to read (ignoring the fact it might be a paragraph) and I more often than not have to copy code like that to an external program (such as Notepad++) which supports Word Wrapping.
• When I try and post an image such as a direct gyazo link in the image section, it just shows the whole thing scaled and doesn't show a smaller version that fits into the post area. Another annoying thing is that large images break the formatting because it makes the whole post have a vertical scrollbar which means that text then reaches the extent of the scrollbar and not the visible area. It'd be a lot cooler if you could click on an image and it'd show it fullscreen.

49

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: No-Shirt Developer(s)

« on: November 17, 2015, 01:59:35 PM »

I'll see what I can do with that.

50

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: No-Shirt Developer(s)

« on: November 17, 2015, 11:50:55 AM »

CCTV footage, hmm? I'm reminded of this introduction scene from LB2. First two screenshots are unaltered, third has a little camera overlay that I whipped up for demonstrative purposes.

KQ6's intro is dynamically picked depending on what the Platform kernel call says it's running on. If it's Windows, it plays the entire introduction cartoon as a single AVI file. If it's DOS, it plays those parts where there's little animation with views on pictures, and the rest as a series of SEQ clips, which are not entirely unlike Autodesk Animator FLIC files. So practically speaking it loads the picture with the decorative letterbox border, draws the "once upon a time" as regular text, all that, and then during the conversation between Alexander and Valanice every time only Alex's mouth moves and/or the lights flicker in the background, it's views. All the sounds and music in the cartoon are regular SCI sounds too. The SEQs on the other hand are for things like Valanice approaching, Alexander shifting, Valanice turning back, dramatic pans around the room, and much of the ship scene.

My inspiration is this; Notice: Monochrome Color + Noise, Scanlines, Timecode, Location Identifier, and Date Identifier. It's still going to be Sierra-Styled, but I want to maintain as much as this "realism" as I can. Can .SEQs be overlaid above other .SEQs, or over a background? Because I feel as if the background stuff needs to be one thing, and then the things above another. What is the best way to approach this?

51

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

« on: November 17, 2015, 11:24:59 AM »

I may have been too subtle. The implied message was that Avast is shit and should be removed, replaced for something better.

Which free antivirus would you suggest?

52

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

« on: November 17, 2015, 11:20:33 AM »

Seriously though? The last ten times at least that I've heard about Avast, it involved overly-aggressive responses to false positives.

Either way, I've got to exercise caution when using SCICompanion, because it is for some reason locking up the program and allowing it to load, but somehow suspending it before it can be shown on the screen... This means I have to disable my Virus Protection (AVAST) Shield whilst working on my SCI1.1 Game.

53

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: No-Shirt Developer(s)

« on: November 17, 2015, 11:14:51 AM »

Unless you limit yourself to playing in ScummVM, you can't use AVI files. At all. If you use the interpreter from King's Quest 6, you can use SEQ files, though.

First thing to approach for the game itself: familiarize yo'self with the scripting language, the engine, and all that stuff. Implement some basic mini puzzles like finding a key and using it on a locked door.

As the video thing demonstrates, ideas are great but oftentimes you'll have to throw one particular thing or another out the window because you or the engine can't handle something that grand.

My idea for the opening of my game is CCTV-Style Footage. Nothing advanced, but I feel it adds "realism" to the scenes that follow. You COULD do something like that purely with views or the like, but I feel it'd be a waste of resources to do something as simple as that... But also using so many resources could be intensive on the engine, based on the fact that lots of views which are screen sized are being loaded back to back. How do .SEQ Files work in King's Quest 6?

54

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

« on: November 17, 2015, 10:49:05 AM »

So once again Avast messes up regular use of a perfectly safe and legitimate application. Nothing new here, carry on.

Edit: interestingly, VirusTotal's copy of Avast doesn't agree.

Either way THAT does highlight slight problems, like the fact that ClamAV thinks that SCICompanion.exe is "Win.Adware.Browsefox-14038", and the fact that AVAST still thinks that SCICompanion.exe is suspicious enough to stop it from loading by doing a SmartScreen Scan on it (and now not allow it to load at all).

55

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: No-Shirt Developer(s)

« on: November 17, 2015, 10:44:34 AM »

So... I have an rough idea of what I want my game to be now. So, other than creating something based upon the template... How should I approach making a game in SCI1.1? As somebody who hasn't made a SCI Game before, is there anything I should try and approach first? Also, one thing I'm wondering, and the main reason I'm thinking about switching to a Leisuire Suit Larry Point-&-Click / Parser style is... Can I play video files in SCI? I have kind of a great idea for an opening to the game, and I feel it'd be hard to do such a thing without a video file as an intro. If so, are there limitations to playing video? If I was to make .AVI Video in 320x200 Size, what would be the best frame rate and bitrate for SCI Companion (If I can)?

56

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

« on: November 17, 2015, 10:39:08 AM »

So once again Avast messes up regular use of a perfectly safe and legitimate application. Nothing new here, carry on.

Edit: interestingly, VirusTotal's copy of Avast doesn't agree.

When I first downloaded it, it gave me warnings and locked up the program whilst I'd did an AVAST SmartScreen? Scan of the exe. Now, it won't even load unless I disable it's shields, it just does the spinny mouse cursor thing and says it's running if I do otherwise.

57

SCI Development Tools / Re: SCI Companion V3 - alpha build notes/bugs/feature requests

« on: November 17, 2015, 09:08:37 AM »

What about in the processes tab?

Wasn't there. Apparently AVAST is giving SCICompanion a false positive result. I sent a message to Phil telling him how he can sent a report to the AVAST Labs, about the false positive result.

58

SCI Development Tools / Re: Sierra Viewer (SV.EXE)

« on: November 16, 2015, 09:55:03 PM »

Is there some reason SCI Companion doesn't satisfy your needs?

It does. But not for LSCI, yet.

But Companion's code is available.

Yes, it is. But finding the right area of code in something like that seems a lot of work.

59

SCI Development Tools / Re: Sierra Viewer (SV.EXE)

« on: November 16, 2015, 09:38:28 PM »

Is there some reason SCI Companion doesn't satisfy your needs?

It does. But not for LSCI, yet.

60

SCI Development Tools / Re: Sierra Viewer (SV.EXE)

« on: November 16, 2015, 09:24:32 PM »

After some more digging, I now know that SV.EXE was created using Visual C++ 6.0, thanks to a Deep Scan with PEID. The bad news here is that because Microsoft C++ compilers produce optimized assembly code, it is hard to get back to original C++ source code. My new plan was to decompile SV.EXE and learn how it works (then create a new Sierra Viewer based upon it's code with improvements, graphically and in terms of features), but yet, that seems unlikely. Detective CTxCB might be back on the case of tracking down the creator of Sierra Viewer.