Messages

16

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] SCI - Adding Functionality

« on: May 19, 2003, 09:25:15 AM »

I am curious if the SCI scripting language is extensible to any agree. What I means is that I know a certain amount of processing is done by the interpreter but a great deal of the actual mechanics is held in the scripts and the kernel functions. But how do you extend that if you want to?

As a concrete example of what I mean, I was thinking of doing a game but part of the game would require being able to somehow "record" what the player did in a given room. The reason for that is because, later, those recorded actions would be utilized to determine some elements of how the game plays. For example, let us say that the player moves Ego around for awhile, picks up something, opens a door, then leaves. Okay: so I would want to record those moves/actions, perhaps to later automatically play them back (such as with a plot device where Ego watches "himself" on a camera that had been filming him).

While I have given a specific example here, the question is more generally one of how to extend the language or how to get the language to do more things. (The only immediate gaming example I can think of is in the realm of Interactive Fiction, where there is a main compiler with a library of functions but people can contribute their own "function libraries" that can be called as well.)

17

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:[Bug Report] SCI Studio

« on: May 15, 2003, 03:30:52 PM »

Even though off topic for this thread, for those curious, "Home of the Underdogs" now has a section on running games under Windows XP, with some suggestions. (It mainly only applies to older games.) You can see it at:

http://www.the-underdogs.org/guidewin.php

Unfortunately, XP is not making all the inroads into the home market that Microsoft wants, or at least as fast as they want. But it is gaining. (Avoid XP Home Edition, of course, because of the nasty security flaws. XP Professional is the way to go if you want to upgrade from Windows 2000 or Windows Millenium.)

18

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:[Bug Report] SCI Studio

« on: May 14, 2003, 05:34:46 PM »

Bah, use Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP. It pretty much requires it. Windows98 is five years old anyway

I hear you. I mainly use Windows 2000 as it is. I more brought this up just in case it was not known about or had not been commented on.

On the other hand, keep in mind that Windows 98 still has a large user base, at least in the home market, easily rivaling that of Windows Millenium. I wrote an open source program called IF Builder that had a large problem on Windows 98 that I overlooked because I developed on Windows 2000. It was more of an issue than I thought because many of my users were using Windows 98. So regardless of whether I liked that particular OS or not, I had to cater to it. Can you see my Quality Assurance background coming to the fore here? That being said, I am not sure what proportion of SCI Studio users are on what operating system. And, of course, sometimes you just have to develop for the operating system that is more stable - and stability is not exactly a hallmark of Windows 98!

Anyway, Windows 2000 it is. Thanks for the response.

19

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Bug Report] SCI Studio

« on: May 14, 2003, 02:16:56 PM »

Unfortunately this is somewhat hard to isolate in all cases. I am using SCI Studio 3.0.1.29 (dated 16 March 2003). I notice this problem only appears to happen on Windows 98 SE. It does not happen on my Windows 2000 platform.

What happens is this:

If you spend time going through the Views, sometimes just looking, other times cycling through the loops and cels, you will once in awhile get the message:

"The parameter is incorrect."

Eventually you will get:

"Access violation at address 004B7475 in module 'SCISTUDIO.EXE' Read at address FFFFFFFF."

I can get this to happen fairly consistently and by fairly consistently I mean anytime I use SCI Studio on Windows 98. I also noticed the frequency of this happens more if you open a large, detailed game. For example, I opened Space Quest 3 and Leisure Suit Larry 3 and this would happen fairly regularly, but not in any discernible pattern. (Also you usually cannot shut down the application normally after this. When you start getting the "parameter incorrect" message but before the "access violation" message, you will often be unable to close the application - it will just spawn more "Parameter is incorrect" message boxes.

Just bringing it up as a matter of possible interest in case anyone else is finding this issue. Again, this never appears to happen on my Windows 2000 machine but happens consistently on my Windows 98 Second Edition machine.

20

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:[Question] Building New Game

« on: May 12, 2003, 05:25:42 AM »

When you edit the scripts in the script editor they are ASCII text files, source *.sc files. The game uses binary script files (script.*). In order for the .sc file to be added to the game, you need to compile it into script.*.

Yep. As I think on it, that makes perfect sense. In fact, I did know there was a Script Compiler so, in hindsight, this should have been blindingly obvious to me.

Just use the template

That, indeed, seems to be the better solution. I spent some of the night playing around and I realize just how interlinked (interlaced) everything is. I come from development backgrounds where sometimes templates are more harm than good; in the case of SCI Studio the template is quite obviously very, very helpful and best for a starting point.

Thanks for the info.

21

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:SCI32 Sound

« on: May 11, 2003, 04:21:36 PM »

when i try to save/restore....

I tried it on my machine and I do not have that problem. (The machine I tried it on was a Windows 98 Second Edition machine.) I was able to save and restore without problem.

Then again, I do not have it in a directory structure like yours. Mine is in c:\Freddy. Did you try it without it being in a path where long file names are being used?

22

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:[Question] Building New Game

« on: May 11, 2003, 03:45:51 PM »

I should add that if you create a blank game and try to Add the main.sc from the template game into your blank game, you also get the same error I described above.

23

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] Building New Game

« on: May 11, 2003, 03:42:09 PM »

In order to learn SCI Studio and the SCI language as much as possible, I started out with a blank game and started adding in scripts manually to best understand how they work. So I called up the Script Editor (from within SCI Studio) and made a Main.sc file.

When I go to Add that script into the general game, I get the following error:

"The file you are trying to add, C:\SCIStudio\Games\_Exericse\Main.sc, is not a valid SCI resource, or does not contain a valid header."

My question is: why is this happening?

(Note: I realize I can just go through the template and use those files. But a development system should also let you create those files from scratch. So I am curious what I am doing wrong that is preventing me from doing this.)

24

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:SCI32 Sound

« on: May 11, 2003, 03:20:08 PM »

i cant find the download Mary J.  

I looked and found it here:

http://www.freddypharkas.com/links.html

Just go down to the part that says:

"The Full Game!" and then has a link to a download. Note, however, this is not one that has the voice.

25

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:Dum question But im a noob at this!

« on: May 09, 2003, 02:20:54 PM »

Ok can you give me the code just to play a sound or music. i really really cant find it. and im a really big noob (also can views from sci studio work with agi studio?)

As far as views from SCI Studio working with AGI Studio, I have no idea about all the details. A simple search showed me that there is an AGI to SCI picture converter available here: http://www.classicgaming.com/agisci/sciutil.shtml

Not sure how well that works. There is also an AGI 256 color modification that you can use, which might be more your way to go rather than trying to convert from one to the other.

As far as code to play with sound and music, look in the help file with SCI Studio. You will see the Sound class (derived from Obj). You can also create a game based on the standard template and look in the scripts - like Main.sc and Sound.sc. These show you details that might be helpful.

As a general idea, just for future reference, it is best to check out the elements that come with a system because, nine times out of ten, it will contain the answer you need or at least point you in the right direction. SCI Studio is one of the best I have seen in terms of trying to provide enough information for people new to the system. I am still learning the system myself.

26

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:Dum question But im a noob at this!

« on: May 09, 2003, 06:31:31 AM »

I may be way off base here, but could you not just use the Said function to check if a certain word was typed in? Check Chapter 23 of the Tutorial ("Using the Death Handler"). I am not sure if that will answer your question, but perhaps it is a start?

27

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Observation] Said function

« on: May 08, 2003, 07:26:08 AM »

I notice that this function does not seem to work as indicated in the tutorial, at least in one instance. In chapter 16, I am going through the examples. I use:

(if(Said('look/at/me'))
   Print("You look sort of pixellated.")
)

This just prints the text "You are in an empty room", which is the text that is actually part of the default:

(if(Said('look'))
   Print ("You are in an empty room")
)

However, I notice if I do the following:

(if(Said('look,examine / me'))
   Print("You look sort of pixellated.")
)

it works just fine. Also, even my modified version does not work if you put it after the default 'look' condition. It only works if you put it before the default 'look' condition. If you my if-condition after the default block, it just prints the "You are in an empty room." (Note also that my original condition of 'look/at/me' does not work, regardless of whether you put it before or after the default 'look' condition. Interestingly, even if you comment out the default 'look' condition, the 'look/at/me' condition still does not work. In that case, it just says: "You've left me responseless.")

28

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:[Question] Tutorial: Scripts and Rooms

« on: May 08, 2003, 07:03:54 AM »

Hmm. Responding to my own topic (and perhaps answering my own question), I see the line:

(script 1)

in rm001.sc. I am guessing that this indicates the script number that will be created as part of the resource package.

29

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / [Question] Tutorial: Scripts and Rooms

« on: May 08, 2003, 07:00:33 AM »

Regarding the tutorial (part one), in chapter 15 it says that the scriptNumber keyword is used in the rm001 script "so it will use the picture with the same number as the script." Then the text says the part that confuses me:

"This being script.001, it will use pic.001."

I get why we have pic.001 because that is the resource number we saved the rm001 pic image at. But what determines that rm001.sc is actually script.001? We never save it that way in the resource, from what I can tell. (Yes, I know, I am probably missing something frightfully obvious here.)

30

Mega Tokyo SCI Archive / Re:[Question] Priority Indicator on SCI Studio

« on: May 07, 2003, 04:41:46 PM »

You don't need to write a novel for each reply man

What can I say? I like to express myself.  

(Besides, the last novel I read was 1,137 pages long! I think I fell far short of a novel-length reply. But, hey, one can dream.)