AGS as a 2.5D - Adventure engine

[Dennis Ploeger]

So....

I know, that this has been talked over and over again. But I'd like to start a new discussion about it.

As there are many so called 2.5-Adventures (that's 3D characters on a 2d backdrop) out there now, I think we...err..Chris should really think about implementing this. This could enlarge AGS functionality even more and make it more "modern".

Before you flame me (though I know you will ;-) ): I don't like pure 3d-Adventures (like The Westerner, although Broken Sword 3 just looked fine) myself, but I think, that 2.5D-Adventures are coming more and more and I can't find something bad on them - besides the resource and hardware consumption.

So. My opinion: Chris, if it's possible and good to embed, do it!

And now: start the flamewar ;-)

Bye,

[SSH]

If AGS were a project with unlimited programming resources for the engine and editor, yes, great, 2.5D, 3D, 9D, whatever...

However, there is one CJ and he is a mighty and jealous CJ. Have not-eth another adventure game engine developer before him, for great and powerful is his wrath. Ooops.. got carried away. There is only one CJ and limited is his time for wraughting  the great EXE of AGS... so I'd much rather he implemented all the other things on the To-do first before getting on to 2.5D in about the year 2035.

[MrColossal]

http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?topic=14125.0

have you read this?

[Mr Flibble]

I haven't. And I refuse to. I just want to point out that AGS is geared for people who want to create games similar to the classics of the 80's and 90's (as far as I'm aware).

Making it more easily accessible to the ravel
"£D gamez rool111 2d sux1"
Would be counter productive. And a damn shame.

[MrColossal]

Not a valid arguement at all Mr Flibble since AGS is constantly evolving and can do things that adventure games from the 80's and 90's could never do.

And adding 3d support would bring in l33t speaking jerks? Take a look around the forums every once and a while. We get jerks just like every other forum gets jerks.

Also, not a tech question so I'm moving it to AGS Gen

[YOke]

This could be done with a plugin, couldn't it?
It's really just a matter of replacing characters with externaly rendered characters.
So in my opinion a better use of time for CJ would be to polish the existing engine, fixing bugs and adding small 2d features. One of the other geeks here is propably able to cough up an external 3d model renderer.
Anyone?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

MrFibble and YOke - browse through the thread MrColossal pointed out, which makes for really interesting reading. MrFibble, you'd see different points of view being betaed, and might even like to take part in it - after seeing the ground that has been covered. YOke, the thread quite describes the technical pros and cons of the thing. And anyway, I do believe that a plugin has already been suggested before, in the Tech forum... wonder what happened to it. I do know it gathered a fair bit of attention...

[YOke]

I've read that thread before, and hence my argument. To summarize the thread for all those who are too lazy to read it:

People against say:
"I'm not going to use it. Don't force me to use it. 3D sucks, 2D rocks!"

The other people say:
"Would be cool if CJ had the time, or if someone would make a plugin."

IMO it would be nice if someone got some results with a plugin before we start crying for it to be implemented into the engine itself.

[MrColossal]

That is not the summarization of the thread at all Yoke... I'm sure you read it but you didn't understand it at all

[Evil]

People need to stop being lazy and just use images like the rest of us. And even so, if we did have a plugin, with all these new programs, we would have to update file type compatability all the time. Its just stupid in general.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

This may sound off-topic, but it ain't - concerning ease of use, and the trouble it'd take, and whatnot - how many people use Pamela in order to lip-synch with AGS?

Actually, how many people lip-synch at all? While lip-synch is a great feature, one that SHOULD be in, if most people don't bother to use it, most won't bother to use Pamela, which in itself requires ANOTHER program, it seems (I fiddled with it awhile ago).

If AGS is a 2D engine, will people really go out of their way to create 3D characters and make necessary changes? Ok, some will, I know. But I wonder if there wasn't a thread about someone asking for voice lip-synching, and people saying they'd use it...

Me? After a conversation with someone who could have been a 3D artist for my project, I found that the opinion of most people outside the adventure community, people who don't have a favourite genre and wouldn't mind playing either an adventure or an FPS as long as it's good, is - nowadays, it's foolish not to use 3D characters, becuase of the angles, and lighting, and whatever.

That said, I'd LOVE to prove that guy wrong - AGS can dynamically change views and loops, and region tinting can provide good lighting effects. Also, while people use 4 views, there's actually 8 walking views, allowing the character to almost fully rotate. Me, I'm satisfied.

[scotch]

Not to get into another 3d in AGS argument because this has been covered extensively, but I'll go over what I said before because people don't seem to read... a plugin providing realtime 3d characters to AGS would be severely limited, almost worthless (only nice thing it'd provide is smooth, tweened animation, albeit on low poly characters), because the rest of AGS does not work in 3d, the walkables, the limited lighting effects and other things.  Adding 3d support (in a GF/MI4 style) to AGS is much harder than most people seem to imagine.  A lot of other things have to break compatability with the 2d setup, the walkables, the lighting, you have to set up 3d camera angles to get the right perspective (read the other thread for other examples of differences between how 2d and 2.5d adventures are set up)
So it is better off as a seperate engine in my opinion, the editor would have to be much different too.

As for people using it or not, I'm sure some would, I would (I am attempting my own 3d adventure engine which could be used for 2.5d style games), Yufster is working on a 3d adventure already (perhaps she could be persuaded to release her engine to the public when it is ready?), and others have expressed an interest in a 3d AGS.  The barriers to entry into 3d games are higher, you can't simply use MS paint and some of the scripting is a bit more difficult, so there would be less games made in 3d.  But I think, overall, higher quality ones.

A 3d AGS would be a major rewrite, not that CJ hasn't done that before, like from AC to AGS, I guess it could happen.  It is not at all a small upgrade for a new version though.  Best to look at other engines for this, imo.

[Dennis Ploeger]

Hi!

What I like about 3D Characters in a 2D-Environment: Freedom of view.

You can simply change the view: i.e. show a top-down view of the scene or from some other point without drawing endless animations for any view.

The other thing: Simplicity.

When you want the character to wear other clothes: Just change the texture. No redrawing...

The third thing: I'm just to damn lazy to draw animations ;-)

I agree, that 3D is like a big jump for AGS. How about the following scenario:

Calculate the view of the 3D character and transform this image into 2d. Then you can simply use the 2d-environment (with walkable areas and so on).

I don't really know, if that would work.

Bye,

[Privateer Puddin']

Changing texture for clothes? now that is lazy! significant parts of the model should be redone upon clothing being changed ._.

[MrColossal]

I haven't. And I refuse to. I just want to point out that AGS is geared for people who want to create games similar to the classics of the 80's and 90's (as far as I'm aware).

Making it more easily accessible to the ravel
"£D gamez rool111 2d sux1"
Would be counter productive. And a damn shame.

Also I just want to point out... When Chris was thinking about making WinRoomedit a lot of people were afraid it would open the engine and forums up to a whole new group of people that would act like retards and be all l33t and such... Sure there are some people that act like retards every now and then but the majority of new members [since WinRoomedit] are awesome people who made amazing games and/or contributions to this community.

So if you weren't here before AGS switched over to WinRoomedit then just think how but down you'd feel if a bunch of people said they didn't want you here because you could potentially be a jerk maybe.

And since those fears were unfounded, so are these fears.

[Evil]

And since those fears were unfounded, so are these fears.

Not necessarily. I dont recall a bunch of people signing up just to ask "Will AGS ever be on windows?". I admit I was a newbie at the time, but still, the number was not close the the number now. And with over 2000 members these posts are ever reacouring.

Sorry about hastling the 3D aspect again.

[Kinoko]

I agree with scotch on this one. This isn't about whether you like 3D or 2D or what the pros and cons of each are and what kind of users it would bring to the community.

The fact is that AGS is what it is now, and although it is always evolving, it's always evolving along a similar plane. If people want to create 3D characters and use images of them in their games, that's one thing, but I think actually incorporating anything 3D into the engine isn't worth it. Like scotch said, it's better off as a seperate engine on it's own because it's SO different in the way it would need to work and be implemented. People can try at plugins but I doubt they'd be worth the effort because without the rest of the engine working in 3D, there wouldn't be much they could do.

This really shouldn't be a discussion about the pros and cons of 3D at all. 3D games need their own engine.

[Layabout]

I believe it would actually be better to implement to the existing AGS engine.

Now not knowing much about programming, i will explain why i think this.

AGS has a strong scripting thingo.

AGS handles 2d backgrounds.

There would need to be a simple 3d editor (or importer) for the walkable areas and walls and walkbehinds. They could be assigned materials which are linked to scripts much as the colours for the 2d walk areas and such are.

and stuff.

It could work, but it's probably a lot of effort.

[YOke]

I respect the fact that that shadows will be almost impossible (without drawing your own z-buffer image at least) and that it might perform somewhat sluggish(?). But...

Setting individual camera angles and lighting in each room would allow for some funky perspectives. I feel that the position of the camera can be an imortant tool for pulling the player into the story. Of course you can always render the character in all those poses and change views for every room, but the posibility for 3D characters would make this a whole lot easier.
In addition to this it would also be useful with a logarithmic(sp?) scaling function. If you can make do without the shadows (beyond a black blur near the characters feet) I can't see the big difficulties of integrating this with the current AGS. Programming it will be worse, of course.

I'm not saying that it SHOULD be put in, just that it COULD be.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Well, I guess we're stuck until CJ pops in and explains why it can't be done, or why it can but it won't, or why it will be someday. But I don't think he will, hasn't he had to participate in too many threads like this?