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It is not related to my AGS repository, which is heavily mucked about with to make mobile games. It is derived from the main AGS port at:

https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags

Is there a way that the porting engineer (Edward) could push his changes back there to a separate branch? I assume we want to use his changes if we can, to make the port native Mac compatible from now onward. I'm not an expert on Git. Is this a good idea? Would he need permissions to do this?

Oh, I see.
He should not push his changes directly in our main branch, because we need to check the code difference first to make sure that merging won't break our own version of the code.
Sharing code between repositories on GitHub is done using "pull requests". This is when a person has his own repository and he creates a request to merge one of his branches into one of the other people's branches (not necessarily matching ones).
If Edward used git to maintain changes history all the way, then it should not be a problem for him to create his personal GitHub repository, put the changes there, then make a pull request from his to ours.
I don't know how much has changed, maybe we will need to keep the code in a separate branch at first. We are preparing a 3.3.0 release now, and it will be not good to mess the code up. On other hand, if the changes are mostly in Mac-specific code (not the engine core), then things will be simplier.


In the worst case, if he did not maintain changes history but just has the code as-is, the steps may be:
1. Clone our ags repository to create his personal one.
2. Create a new branch (like "mac-port", etc), forking from the point at which he started his work back then.
3. Copy his new code over and make a one big commit.
Then, continue with pull request as usual.

Hi, HumbleBundle ported the AGS engine to Mac so that we could have Gemini Rue on the Humble Bundle With Android (it's up now! So exciting!)

This means we now have a working port to Mac, and it's still Open Source, of course!

Where do you guys want it put?

Haha, great to hear! I was suspecting something about this since I've seen your news mail. I am sure alot of people will be happy .

Regarding this new port, we would need to see the code to compare changes and learn what needs to be done to make a merge. Is the code still originate from ags repository you have? In this case you could probably submit it as a separate branch to your personal repository on github.

@Crimson.  This may help you.  Don't thank me, thank AGA :-)
http://www.agagames.com/ags/

Well, thanks for pointing out .

I am looking for an old version of AGS Editor again. Perhaps someone happen to still have the very early version(s) of AGS 3.0, like 3.0 RC, 3.0.1, 3.0.2?

EDIT: monkey_05_06 provided me with 3.0.0.1000.

Still looking for 3.0.1.1018 and probably 3.0.2 (not sure one exists...). Alternatively, I will be grateful if someone could point me out any game made with 3.0.2 AGS (exactly that version).

The only information I found on this was one guy's suggestion to use shaders. I have no idea how difficult/effective that would be.

This is probably the most forward thinking - and the fastest solution. A shader based solution would be GPU accelerated and very fast. It would however be more initial work.

Well, I am concerned about palette cycling, which means that all the screen should have colors replaced. Does this mean applying same shader to every sprite, or some filter over final image?
Maybe someone can make a test program that shows how this can be done? I'd suggest we be sure that will work before starting this change.

Question - would not the best start to be to just move all the Allegro 4 calls into an abstracted class/lib so that they are centralized for porting to 5 at a later date?

Well, certainly.
When I tried to do this, the biggest problem I met was color type: A4 uses integer (which meaning depends on  color depth mode), but A5 uses a struct of four floats. This color type is referenced everywhere in the code, so you can't "hide" this easily.
But the internals of the engine is not the only thing; we should take plugin API into account too. Changing to different library means breaking plugin API, which means we should plan to write a new one. One thing pulls another here.

I too know the answer :-)
Although in the puzzle I knew it wasn't the rain (hint alert)

Spoiler

, but certain item he carried (not related to weather).

[close]

Spellbound?

Bloodrayne? And the connection would be vampires then

Ok, that was easy.

There's a link with previous one (heh)

Hmm, maybe Vampire: The Masquerade? Judgeing on setting and ugly 3d models .

Is it the resolution? looks like a shrunken head version of kinski

Hmm, I think he is just standing in an awkward pose.

Looks like Klaus Kinski to the left of the seated guy, so:

Aguirre?

Yes!
Your turn.

Mirror Mirror?

Hehe, no

Couldn't figure out any movie with links to previous one this time, so I'll just post this:

Great, I now have that song repeating in my head from the game.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/255822

Hey, I suddenly remembered, there was a game I beta tested, called "Blue Moon". It was made by miguel.
I recall I tested out few chapters, but never finished though. I am wondering what happened to it.

"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

Links:
1. Word "league".
2. Captain Nemo

Looks like Rocky, heh.

[UPDATE:]

I did not have any news for a long time now, we probably should ask Janet about this.
Last time I heard of them, the developer's idea was to upgrade Allegro 4 code to make it compatible with newer OSX.

Also, what remains to be done in the way of abstracting Allegro code from the main source?

I remember palette & colors, and path operations, slightly different way to access bitmap data directly, also controllers (mouse, keyboard).
There is a research made by BigMC: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?issue=355.0

8-bit image loading for Allegro 5 is happening here:
https://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/610190

Yes, I saw that. If I understood that right, it is about converting 8-bit image on disk to some other format in memory (AFAIK Allegro5 uses OpenGL textures?). But what about palette manipulations, like color changing? The only information I found on this was one guy's suggestion to use shaders. I have no idea how difficult/effective that would be.
I suggest to very seriously consider the 8-bit aspect here, if we want to keep 8-bit compatibility (this was feature of AGS for years, and some people still use it in their projects).
I heard that SDL2 supports 8-bit natively. I am not an expert here, so I'd rather not make this decision (at least not alone).



UPDATE: I emailed Janet Gilbert, and what she sais basically is that the people still working on that, but this work is not their first priority, so... dunno what that means in time terms. I asked for a bit more information.

Operation: Forklift?

Correct