Adventure Creator release thread

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby kexter » Fri, 16Mar11 12:36

Thanks Tlaero! I've run a few casual tests and I haven't run into any issues.
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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Mon, 16May30 01:18

I've just uploaded what is probably the last version of "AdventureCreator." Now 7.7

http://www.mediafire.com/download/six8ftr3a0iww0q/AdventureCreator.zip

This version has a bug fix for the "GameView has too few items to scroll" bug Wolf reported as well as a bit of perf work on starting GameView. More importantly, though, it now has an "Export to AC2" option, which is the bridge to the new program. Yes, this is a "The King is dead, long live the King" sort of situation. All of my future development will be on AdventureCreator's replacement--AC2.

I'll upload that tool soon.

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Mon, 16May30 01:53

Okay, it's the dawning of a new day. I'm officially switching over to AC2 from here on out. Here's the link to v1.0 of the new program.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/itjgnqlo4170jw4/AC2.zip

As I've said previously, AC2 and AdventureCreator are not compatible with each other. If you want to switch, the last version of AdventureCreator (7.7) has an export to the new format.

This version of AC2 has general feature parity with that program plus enhancements. It now outputs everything into a pair of files (pages.js and text.en.js) instead of thousands of htm files. It's faster at opening GameView (4 seconds for an RfJ sized game compared to 12) and considerably faster doing Localization (5 seconds for RfJ compared to just short of forever). The gameView also shows localization text in a different color now.

I've simplified the UI a bit, removing things we didn't need anymore (like sounds) and optimized it for my game workflow. Now you can add an image from ImageView with Ctrl-I and it automatically goes to the next one. So, if you're doing a bunch of pages with consecutive pages, you never have to leave the main window. I also have a gui for changing the font size and allow you to set the number of lines in the TopText control.

There's no longer a need for a template, and the output leaves you able to do pretty much whatever you want with your game. If you want to use it the way I do, everything is there for you. If you want to change everything ala BEW, it should allow you to. Without a template, I no longer need to restrain your UI creativity like I did before.

_functions.js has been broken into _engine.js and _helpers.js. I still suggest you don't change these, though you can if you want to. _engine is pretty core. _helpers is stuff I use but you may not need to.

All text is in text.en.js, and localized text goes in localized versions (text.fr.js, text.it.js, etc).

This is where I'm doing all my future games (and converting some older ones too), but, where I wrote AdventureCreator to encourage the community to make games, I wrote AC2 for myself. It's a little harder to use--working in a single js file instead of individual htms is definitely more challenging than before--but I'll be here to help you when you get stuck. If you want to stick with AdventureCreator 7.7, though, that's fine too. I'll still answer questions on it. I just probably won't do much development there.

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby Mortze » Mon, 16May30 14:57

What is the Image Editor?
And the Save Script?

Ctrl + H to hide the picture is a nice feature.
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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby kexter » Mon, 16May30 15:16

Thanks Tlaero! We'll be sticking with AC 7.7 for now but that doesn't mean we won't be evaluating AC2 as well.

Mortze wrote:What is the Image Editor?
You can set your favorite image editor/viewer and then you can ask AC/AC2 to open the current image for quick editing.
Mortze wrote:And the Save Script?
That's mainly there for BEW, we use a custom script to build and verify certain aspects of the game.
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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Mon, 16May30 15:56

Ctrl-H because "OMG, someone is walking into the room and I don't want them to see the image on the screen" has been there for a while. The new one is Ctrl-I to take the current image in ImageViewer, which also advances ImageViewer to the next image. Given the way you and I write our games this is an enormous benefit to me. Also Ctrl-N to pop back to the Page Name box. Little things, but they've sped up my page creation time immensely.

Also, since all the text is in one file, I now open the file in Word and spell check it in place. It used to annoy me that I'd dump the text, open the dump in Word and then have to go to each page to manually fix the mistakes.

Also, now that hit targets are percentages of the image I don't need to care about image size AC2 loads, so I can have the image scale to the window size.

The next feature I'm going to add is that I'm going to have animations happen in the main window, so you can see the animation behavior without needing to browse to it.

If you go to Tools->Options you can tell it that photoshop is your image editor. That gives you an easy way to open the current image in photoshop (for instance).
The save script is something you can configure which runs every time you save a page. I added it for Kexter, but don't use it myself. (I didn't actually test it in AC2, but the code is fairly simple. I'm pretty sure it works, but if you guys try it and it doesn't, I'll fix it.)

Kexter, your "new Function()" trick saved my bacon on the mouse animations. I went to try them out on Saturday and realized I had no way to stop them. Without that, I would have done something ugly and stupid. I'm pleased with the actual way I did it.

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby Mortze » Mon, 16May30 17:13

tlaero wrote:Also, since all the text is in one file, I now open the file in Word and spell check it in place. It used to annoy me that I'd dump the text, open the dump in Word and then have to go to each page to manually fix the mistakes.

You mean that we get to check spelling in Word, but when that is done how do you put the corrected version in AC again? Or is the Pages file the one that I'll open in Word and simply save it in Word after spell checking? That'd be tremendously helpfull!

tlaero wrote:The next feature I'm going to add is that I'm going to have animations happen in the main window, so you can see the animation behavior without needing to browse to it.

Awesome, to correct speeds on the go.

tlaero wrote:If you go to Tools->Options you can tell it that photoshop is your image editor. That gives you an easy way to open the current image in photoshop (for instance).

Same question. Once I'm in Photoshop with that feature, and correct the image, I still have to save it directly to the Image directory right?

tlaero wrote:Ctrl-H because "OMG, someone is walking into the room and I don't want them to see the image on the screen" has been there for a while.

Exactly :D

Can I copy/paste the variables I used for Pandora and use them in whatever game I make with AC2? I read that the varPlus isn't ok now, and I have to use something like AddVar.
I create and edit the variables in the Game file right? At the bottom of the file like I used to do before, just pilling them up, as I make the "check" functions?

_helpers seem to have already made functions. I'll have to study that file a bit to understand how each one works. So, if I see one I think is usefull, I copy/paste it into Game file?
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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Mon, 16May30 19:34

Right, I open text.en.js in word, spell check it there, and save it. You have to be careful not to save it in word format or to change any of the syntax, but it's pretty safe to let word fix individual words here and there.

By the way, whenever you save a page, a backup of your pages.js and text.en.js is copied into the "ac" folder. So, if something goes horribly wrong, you have the backup. But the previous backup is overwritten each time. So if something is wrong, don't save twice. (-:

When you launch photoshop, it edits the file in the images directory. You'd likely save it there, yes.

Variables are done the same way as before, and check functions are also the same as before. Some of the functions have changed names (varPlus1 is now AddToVar) but _helpers.js has translations for some of them in case you like the old way. I can add more translations if you want. You don't need to copy and paste from _helpers.js into your game.js. It's included by default in the templates. People like you and I will use _helpers.js. People like Kexter probably won't. But it's easy for him to remove it now.

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby Mortze » Mon, 16May30 21:18

tlaero wrote:Variables are done the same way as before, and check functions are also the same as before. Some of the functions have changed names (varPlus1 is now AddToVar) but _helpers.js has translations for some of them in case you like the old way. I can add more translations if you want. You don't need to copy and paste from _helpers.js into your game.js. It's included by default in the templates. People like you and I will use _helpers.js. People like Kexter probably won't. But it's easy for him to remove it now.


What is a "string"?

When we talk about translations does that mean that I can choose to do varPlus instead of AddVar, or must I mandatorily use the new variables protocole or the code won't work?
Just asking. I can adapt to whatever new nomencalture you set for variables. I'll basically copy/paste the formulas I will use the most to a notepad file and copy/paste them to the AC page whenever I need them.
Like:

AddToVar(Elsa, 1);
SubFromVar(Jessika, 2);

Still no negative values here right? No Jessika variable at -2?

I'll surely need some help for CheckEvent functions but that's not for a little while though.
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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Mon, 16May30 23:38

Close. Don't forget the quotes.

AddToVar("Elsa", 1);
SubFromVar("Jessika", 2);

Yeah, I don't let variables go negative. The better way to do that is to have two, a "happy" and an "angry" and make the score be happy - angry.

Strings are text. "Elsa" is a string.

If you find that you really want to use the old functions names (varPlus1, etc) I can make them work for you. But it's marginally better to use the new ones instead.

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby Mortze » Mon, 16May30 23:58

tlaero wrote:If you find that you really want to use the old functions names (varPlus1, etc) I can make them work for you. But it's marginally better to use the new ones instead.

There is no need, thank you. If you say to me that this function produces that effect I'll just copy paste it to my notes and apply it when needed.
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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby Wolfschadowe » Tue, 16May31 07:01

I have to say, I'm a little sad to see the original AC go into the discontinued bin. :(

On the other hand, congrats on the new tool!

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Wed, 16Jun01 04:20

I've released AC2 1.1.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/itjgnqlo4170jw4/AC2.zip

Main addition is animation in the main window. Either set "Animate Images" in Tools->Options or choose "Start Animation" in the Actions menu. It'll animate if you have more than 1 frame and a non-zero timeout. The three checkboxes work too.

Also fixed a terrible bug in Loc that caused it to corrupt the loc file if it didn't have all the pages that the primary language had.
Also fixed a minor bug in Loc that caused it to not show "LocNeeded" on pages with no loc if you opened the Loc file directly.

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Sun, 16Jun05 22:41

I've released AC2 1.2.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/itjgnqlo4170jw4/AC2.zip

Minor refinements in this one.
If you hold the Ctrl key when clicking page names in GameView you load the new page but keep focus in the GameView. I use this when cycling through a bunch of pages looking at the images in them.
GameView can also now show the name of the image. Because this can slow down opening a large game, you can disable it in Tools->Options.

By the way, in all versions of AC2, if you close AC2 with the ImageViewer open, it'll reopen when you open a game. If that game has a large number of pictures, this can slow down opening the game by half a second or so. If this is a problem, close ImageViewer before closing AC2.

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Re: Adventure Creator release thread

Postby tlaero » Thu, 16Jun09 06:50

I've uploaded version 1.3.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/itjgnqlo4170jw4/AC2.zip

This fixes a bug where if you hit enter in the Loc TopText box, it would corrupt your text.<loc>.js file. This problem hit John a few times, and I finally figured out what was happening. Terrible, terrible, bug that almost cost him a translation when he did DwE:RG (thankfully, the automatic backup that I do saved that one).

Thank you, John, for being so patient with me while I figured this out.

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