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That made me think of this:

Robin of Sherwood? (That's the name of a RH show or movie, right?)

This is going a bit off-topic, but following some of the github discussions, I've seen claims that the rewritesâ€"both of the compiler and the backend switch from Allegro to SDL, I believeâ€"have led to worse performance. Is that correct, and if so, has it been addressed?

AGS already does not have great performance, so I would be nervous about an upgrade that degraded it further.

If you want the background completely transparent, that shouldn't be an issue?

If you want a semi-transparent background, the workaround is usually to have the background and text on two separate GUIs.

[ags4]

ags4
We do not yet know what number will this version use, but probably we'll skip couple of them to reserve for "ags3" branch, so somewhere in the range of AGS 3.7.0 - 3.9.0.

Wouldn't it be best to just make it AGS 4.0.0?

Some arguments in favor:

• It's a significant enough change that we want to very clearly distinguish it from earlier versions:
  
  
  
  • The new version has breaking changes in the API. While you can update older projects to earlier 3.x versions (though in some cases you need to enable some script compatibility options) without it breaking, you won't always be able to do so with this new version. It's much easier to remember the limitation if it's a new main version number.
  • If there is a ScummVM port of ags3, it will be confusing if it doesn't work with AGS 3.8.0 games or whatever. Again, much easier to communicate that it supports AGS v2.x and v3.x but not v4.x.
• Keeping two separate branches that increment on the same release number level is both confusing and a risk for the future:
  
  
  
  • There can be cases where you have version 3.8.5 as the most up-to-date "ags4" release, but if somebody looks at the release dates the most recent version is actually 3.6.0, and they won't have any clue why.
  • It constrains what release numbers you can use in the maintenance branch. What if someone fixes some major bugs or makes major improvements (e.g. to performance or compatibility), but we've run out of version numbers below the earliest "ags4" version (e.g. "ags3" is on 3.6.15 while the first "ags4" version was 3.7.0)? It will have to be a third-level increment even though it's a pretty significant upgrade.
• We're already talking about it as "ags4," it's in github as ags4, and at some point people will start making games with ags4 builds of the engine. To then jump back so that the unofficial ags4 builds are followed by AGS 3.8 (or whatever) as an official release is a recipe for confusion.

I'm guessing the reason you resist incrementing the main version number is that this is not the kind of fundamental revision of the engine you've had in mind for AGS 4.0.
I have a simple solution for that: AGS 5.0.

That in English, "cloves" is a unit of measurement for garlic, and also a completely separate and different spice in its own right. Unacceptable.

Now that you mention it, yes it's Rome. That's Cleopatra in the first two pictures.

You got it, Quint. Eyes Without a Face it is.

Yeah, it looks worth checking out.

OK, so it's a historical gangster drama set in LA, from 1996… Mulholland Falls?

That's the same location as that scene in La La Land, isn't it? (Apparently "Cathy's Corner" on Mount Hollywood Drive.)

Spoiler

[close]

(And come on, Romy & Michele is funny!)

I'll guess Casino.

[the TotalLipSync module]

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But again if that logic is "true" then how come it wasn't with the Lipsync? When you clearly said the Lipsync does not have anything to do with how long the text stays on screen.

I said the TotalLipSync module bases its animation on the sync files, not the dialog text. But what we're talking about here is the built-in AGS lipsync support. AGS has two different kinds of lipsync:

1. Text-based lipsync is based on the dialog text and ignores the voice audio (you don't even need to have any voice clips).
2. Voice-based lipsync is based on the voice audio (actually, the sync-files created for the voice audio clips) and ignores the dialog text.

Currently, TotalLipSync offers an improved version of voice-based lipsync only (though I have an in-development version that also supports text-based sync). But the main point is that you have to choose: there's no feasible way to combine both methods.

Now, if I understand your issue correctly, it's that you don't actually want the animation to lip-sync when speaking: you just want it to play a generic "talking" animation loop. The only thing you want the "lip sync" functionality for is to determine when the characters are actually speaking, and when they are silent.

I have two suggestions:

1. Don't have significant silences in your speech files. Divide the lines whenever there is a long pause, and trim the audio files to contain near-constant dialog. Forget about lipsync and just use regular AGS talk animations.
2. As you have tried to do, edit the sync-files to only distinguish silent periods (frame X in Rhubarb terms) from speaking periods, and then fill the speaking periods with a standard sequence of frames. Since this is tedious work, it would be best to automate it unless the number of lines to sync is very small.

If you are getting errors with the edited sync files, you have made some error in the editing. Without seeing the files or the error message there is no way to tell what that might be, but one possibility is that your text-editing app uses the wrong format for the line endings (one way to test this would be to take a sync file that is confirmed to work, and delete and reinsert a line ending and see if it breaks).

[It turns out]

First i want to share an important Accident/Lesson i've got today, and second a question. I think you should add this to the first post, btw (Unless i'm blind and don't see it, already being there). I didn't realise the importance of wave length.

It turns out that all voiceclips needs to be cut VERY precise in the endings or else, no matter what your syncfile info says.

This doesn't really have anything to do with TotalLipSync. If you use voice speech in AGS, the character is considered to be speaking for as long as the audio clip lasts.

Question: I have played around with the lipsync and the results are pretty ok! But i'm still thinking i want to see if it's possible to do it differently i am doing pixelart only. I don't need a "specific mouth shape for S or T or A or B". All i want is movement, and stops. I want to be able to run the actual animation all the way thru that is frame 2 to 8 on all single letters, apart from one letter (that is never used in the game text ofc) That should represent the closed mouth shape. So forexample.  letter A is typed = Edit: Images 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 get's played in a row. If letter is B same thing.

I don't really understand what you're asking for (you say that Rhubarb gets the silences right, so why do you need a hack for the closed mouth shape?), but in any case it doesn't sound like what this module is for.

The module merely plays animations defined in external sync-files. The result will depend on the quality of those sync files; it is not something the module can control, and it has nothing to do with the text you put in the dialog. If you type one line in the game text, use a different voice clip, and a sync file for another different clip, it will of course play the animation from the sync file (though it will be cut off when the voice clip ends), and it won't match either what is written or what is said: it's only by keeping all three consistent that things stay in sync, but the module has no way to know that.

If you want the animation to be based on the written dialog text, you can use AGS's built-in text-based lipsync.

I'm always up for some Talking Heads, and I found the Igorrr track pretty interesting (I think I liked the music more than the video).

I kept thinking about Kathy Barra, and finally realized what was niggling on my mind—this song about Catherine de Barra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbAKMz-Lv7E

What have I been listening to...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWqRmceG2J8

(It's educational)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgyDHMXF0Y

Something makes me think of the Dardenne brothers. I'm gonna guess The Son (which I haven't seen).

No, that's Henry Cavill.

Smallville?

Oh, I think I've seen this. Is it that romantic comedy where Mark Ruffalo falls in love with the ghost of Reese Witherspoon?

This is an actual movie?

You tell me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sq56IG85CY

Oh, I think I've seen this. Is it that romantic comedy where Mark Ruffalo falls in love with the ghost of Reese Witherspoon?

(A quick google later) Just Like Heaven?

(Another quick google) Nope.