Topics

16

SCI Syntax Help / Printing from Text Resources

« on: January 15, 2019, 12:24:05 PM »

Hi All, I have another newbie question.  The forums here, the tutorials, and the SCI Documentation links have all been great, and I've been learning a lot, but it seems like I keep turning around and getting caught up on the simplest of things   

If I want to Print from a text resource, I believe that I just need to Print (a b) where a is the text resource number and b is the entry.  However, when I try this in my script like so:

      (if (Said 'look>')
         (if (Said '/bed') (Print "5 2"))
         (if (Said '/dresser') (Print "5 4"))
         (if (Said '/floor') (Print (5 7)))
         (if (Said '/rug') (Print (5 9)))

"bed" and "dresser" correctly display the numbers (I was just making sure the rest of the syntax was alright), but if I try to compile while floor and rug aren't commented out, I receive an "Expected an expression" error.  As the attached shows, I do have a text resource for 005, and it's got 15 entries so far to cover any of the attempted calls.  I tried putting 005 in lieu of 5, though I don't think it should matter, but no luck.

Do I need to call or reference text resources somewhere before I can use them in the script?  Or am I just doing something all sorts of wrong?  Thanks!

17

SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / SCI EGA - View Drawing, Tools, and Technique Questions

« on: December 26, 2018, 12:06:58 AM »

Hi all, I had a couple of questions as I'm just starting to dip my toes into this world.  I am hoping to build up a parser-based EGA game similar to the ones I loved way back when (and still), and I've been looking into/playing around with SCI Companion V3.  I've got half of the game "written" and plotted, so wanted to start looking at the options to implement it, and so far things are pretty clear pic and scriptwise.

One thing I've been having a lot of difficulty with, though, is creating the Views/Backgrounds.  Probably doesn't help that I'm no visual artist, but I've been making some progress playing with the vector-based tools and checking out what Sierra's awesome artists could pull off with the form.  I don't draw really goodly on paper to create trace images, unfortunately, although I'm starting to wonder if it would be quicker to learn to do that over creating backgrounds the way I currently am.

So I had a couple of questions regarding functionality which I think could hugely improve my productivity here, but I'm not sure if they're possible.  If they are, though, I'd love to know.

1)  Probably the biggest question I have it whether there is a way to edit an existing line/point.  For example, if I want to go back and tweak/fix/move the coordinates to a line with a numeric entry in the command list (rather than deleting a line's command and redrawing it), I think that would be hugely more efficient for me.  To just change the numbers and have the new vector visually show in the main screen would be awesome for figuring things out and experimenting until things look right.

2)  Alternately (or additionally), is there any way to reorder the commands so I can keep them grouped in a logical sense?  I know you can jump around commands by selecting the image sections in question, just wasn't sure if there was a way to order them in the command list.

I know they're things that can be worked around, I've just been working on a couple of screens over the last three days, and I keep finding that these two possibilities would make things way easier, at least within my flow.  It may be that I just haven't established a proper technique or I'm just not sure yet what I'm doing, but the View tools seem a lot more limited than they need to be even within the vector "restriction."

There may also be a different, more complete tool for creating Views.  Is there something I'm missing?  Or is a trace image really the only answer outside of flailing around blindly?

Thanks!