Looking to create adventure game with 3d elements

[Stringer]

Hi,

The adventure game studio looks great, but I was wondering if anyone knew of anything else out there, that would enable me to create adventure games, but with 3d elements, i.e. Syberia II has 2d backdrops and a 3d character, I'd really like to create something along these lines, is there anything similar to AGS that would help me ?

Thanks

Just to expand on this,

I'm using Maya, but converting to another format is not a problem, 3ds, obj, etc, I ideally want to create the game's character's in 3D, and then bring them into the game ontop of 3D backgrounds, ala resident evil, alone in the dark, etc.  Was also wondering if any clever programmery types have done anything along these lines in the AGS package, via plugins, etc ?

Thanks again

[shbaz]

Blender 3d has a new game engine nearing completion and an older one that isn't opensource (download Publisher). I can send you an example game of exactly what you're talking about.

The new 3d engine is actually already implemented in test builds but the characters fall through surfaces.

Using AGS for 3d would require writing a 3d engine that would work along with it as a plugin, it'd be easier to write a script that displays a background in a 3d engine.

[Stringer]

Hi,

thanks for your reply, yeah, sure I'd be interested in seeing the example your talking about, if it's not too big u can send it to me at Stringer_ST@yahoo.co.uk, thanks

So nobody else has done anything like this with AGS yet ?  Shame..

Thanks for the blender mention, I'll check it out.

[DGMacphee]

A new tool I'm using is Realsoft 3d.

It's free.

[shbaz]

There are a few free game engines out there, I only prefer Blender because it's very powerful overall.. definately look around and try others.

Here's a visual representation for people who may not get what we're talking about.. It's all a trick of perspective. Those characters are actually well in front of the plane with the image of the cell textured onto it.

[shbaz]

I was just thinking, if you're hellbent on using AGS just make 3d sprites.. not nearly as difficult as animating 2d since you have armatures, IMO, except you need to know how to texture and design 3d objects which IS harder, just less time consuming.

[Stringer]

3D side of stuff is not a worry, it's what I do for a living anyway!

The main thing with a 3d character that I required was
(a) Easy setup
(b) Safe Animation - controlled with arrow keys and rotation of the character is very easy
(c) hopefully, like syberia 2, antialiasing against the backdrop - probably the biggest reason
(d) Possibility of shadows, oo, and a question, is it possible to attach a shadow or something similar to a character in AGS, via moving sprite under the character and so on ?
(e)  Perspectives easier to maintain and scale - I can have the character walk into the screen and visibly get smaller as s/he does.

I've only played with AGS a little bit, but from what I've seen so far, it seems nice enough, I have a few more questions if anyone cares to offer more advice, it's much appreciated

1.  800x600 resolution with full colour, just how slow is this, there seems to be a few posts relating to it being really slow, ideally, it's the res I would probably use, is there any examples online I can download and take a look at that would give me an idea?

2.  How are items (such as a key ) taken care of, is it clip mapped against the backdrop or can it be done with an alpha map, to possibly give a softer edge ?

3.  How are animations handled in the backdrop, i.e. a house with a window swinging open in the wind, or a tree gently swaying ?

4.  Is it possible to do anything along the lines of a particle effect, like the snow in syberia 2, I don't know, maybe a tiled alpha mapped graphic that I have a few layers of and scroll @ different speeds down the screen ?

Thanks

[MrColossal]

now, you do know that AGS doesn't have 3d support, it's all 2d sprites right? just making sure.

so the majority of the things you want to do are possible but not how you want to do them.

you can have a character controlled with the arrow keys, you can have antialiased sprites, you can put the shadow right into the animation frames instread of having a character follow the feet of the character. Scaling characters is obviously possible but again, there is no camera and there is no 3d support so it's a walkable area you create that gets smaller on one end and large on the other

800x600 speed all depends on your computer. if you make a test game and test it on different computers you can find out what your game could run on, one of my games is 640x400 32 bit colour and some people had problems with it being too slow... so you may run in to some problems with people here not being able to play it.

all sprites are imported with a transparent colour in the background [unless it's a PNG] like bright pink, the pink is chosen as the transparent colour and the rest is left opaque.

animations can either be animated objects [which i prefer] or a series of 5 swapped background images

particle effects, not really. there is a snow/rain plugin but it's basic [it's beautiful, but basic]

[Stringer]

Thanks for your reply,

Yeah, I know, I was just saying that those things would be great if it was possible and what I'd ideally like to utilise them for!

You mentioned antiliased sprites, is this an option in AGS, or do you just mean I can render out my sprites from, say, within Maya with antialiasing applied ?

oh, just came across this : -

Alpha-blended sprites are supported in 32-bit colour games.

I'm really curious about this speed issue ?  Can I see your example ?  Is this an engine issue, after all it's only a bitmap that is being display ??  And, the main question is, can or have ppl been able to work around the 'speed' issues ?  Are the speed issues still apparent on compiled .exe's ?

animated objects sounds good, now when u say 5 swapped background images, u don't mean the whole background ?  just a small section, yeah ?

ah, yes, just came across that, will have to check it out, thanks again!

oh, another one, cutscenes, I'm gathering there's not much I can do with these, scene setting for my game and so on, if I'm limited to a small number of animation frames ?

[MrColossal]

you really need to read the manual and play with AGS

all these questions will be answered by doing that, however:

AGS imports PNG files now so if you render your 3d images out, convert them to PNG and make the background transparent then import them into AGS it maintains the alpha blending of the AAed edges

i don't have a game made in 800x600 but try my 640x400 game it's called Spellbound and it was made for MAGS

http://www.agsforums.com/games.php?action=detail&id=305

animated backgrounds act as a slide show, you import up to 5 different backgrounds and then you can set them to animate between the 5, useful mostly for changing a scene drastically without using a new room [day to night, normal to after a fire] it swaps the ENTIRE background

an animated object would be, you create an object, import it's animation frames and then set the object to those frames, so instead of creating 5 backgrounds with the tree moving slightly in each, you create an object that is the tree with say 30 frames in it and set it to animate at a certain speed.

cutscenes are all what you make them, animated objects/characters combined with AVIs or MPEGs or FLCs or whatever. playing with AGS will let you know what it is you can do better than me explaining

or even play some AGS games and see

[Stringer]

Thanks again,

no worries, I'll delve a little deeper before asking any more questions!

Just wanted some upfront information first to see if I could do what I have in mind, thanks!