3 questions

[queeni]

Question 1: Is it possible to make it look as if the character is wading through water? I tried to attempth this with making part of the path walk-behind but it isn't working...

Question 2: Is it possible to make it so a portrait box can appear ontop of the fore-ground (much like a game message box) like in the leisure suit larry games when the character looks at a person?

Question 3: Is it possible to simulate the character reading a book (like in Morrowind) when a html document contains the text inside the book and thats displayed on a book graphic when a book is read?

Just wanted to ask them all at once so the board isn't littered up with my questions...

[RickJ]

Question 1: Is it possible to make it look as if the character is wading through water? I tried to attempth this with making part of the path walk-behind but it isn't working...

This a difficult problem.  You may be able to simulate something by making the surface of the water with two semi-transparent objects.  The one in the fore ground would be the walk-behind area and the one in the background would not be a walk behind.  In this case the the walkable are would be a relativly narrow path under the water surface.  This is a rather limited solution and it is questionaable how well it could be made to work.  

Question 2: Is it possible to make it so a portrait box can appear ontop of the fore-ground (much like a game message box) like in the leisure suit larry games when the character looks at a person?

One of the dialogue styles you can select pops up portraits during dialog.  You could also use an object, characters, overlay, or GUI  to do the same kind of thing.  

Question 3: Is it possible to simulate the character reading a book (like in Morrowind) when a html document contains the text inside the book and thats displayed on a book graphic when a book is read?

There is not an HTML browser but you can overlay a gui and a listbox to display the contents of a file.  You could make the GUI  look l;ike a book and make the listbox controls and border transparent.

Hope this helps.  

[Timosity]

Question 1: Is it possible to make it look as if the character is wading through water? I tried to attempth this with making part of the path walk-behind but it isn't working...

You could change the VIEW of the character when they walk through the water.

EG. make a view of the character, cutting off the feet (up to however deep) and make splashing at the base of the sprite.

That way, when they are walking in the water, it will simulate splashing while walking.

That's how it's generally done eg. in LSL3, SQ2, probably also in KQ2VGA

[Jodo Kast]

Sierra did this with lots of things, like just animating the mouth on characters used once in a cutscene.  This way the character can make an entrance as a big slow sprite, then his mouth is animated on top of the character (small sprite).

Do this with water also: Make a person walking through the water like Timosity described, then add another small water spray sprite that follow the character.  If it's off a little bit from the character animation it looks like real spray!

[Joelman]

try making an animation of the character stepping down into tyhe water, and one of him from like the waist up with ripples around him, when walking up to the water, make it change the character to show the climbing into the water, and then change into the waist up with ripples sprite. or maybe similar to what the last guy said, with the splash following you, depending on how deep it is, make a triangular ripple follow you, and dissapear when you stop walking. Because if water is too deep, it doesn't splash as easily, it just ripples, it would take more force than your average adventure game hero could muster to make splashes by walking through a 3 foot pool of water.