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It occurred to me just now that I might be approaching this backwards.  It might make more sense to figure out where not to draw the trees and rocks first and then make the map match that rather than make the trees and rocks match the map since it's all relatively arbitrary. 

So, I'm using the @eri0o Mode 7 module and it's working great with one little exception which isn't really related to the module itself but a problem more broadly so I thought I would start a new thread.

The code to add an object to the "ground" sprite is as such:

Code: ags

Mode7Object* Mode7World.AddObject(int x, int z, float factor, int graphic)

I want to randomly populate the ground with trees and rocks.  So far so good, he does this himself in the demo.  The problem is that I don't want rocks and trees to be drawn into the road and I don't know a good way to do this.  The sprite I am using is roughly 3000x800 which makes it feel huge.  I assume going over the sprite with GetPixel is out since that's like 2.5 million pixels to iterate through.  And also there are two colors to disallow not just one (the black of the highway and the yellow painted lines).  I have a Python script that takes a mask of the highway portion of the ground sprite and returns a CSV with the appropriate coordinates but that's still like 600,000 coordinates and I don't think making an array of Points of 600,000 is a really good answer and I'm not even sure how that would be done anyway.  It doesn't need to be pixel perfect, however.  That is there isn't a real need to tell it not to draw a tree on 0,345 0,346, 0,347 0,348 et al. since a block of fifty pixels to allow or disallow is probably sufficient.  You could also anticipate the disallowed shape somewhat by using a pattern (like maybe a sine wave or something) although I'm going to be using a few different maps just to give variation to the highway.  I'm only kind of trying to recreate Desert Bus here!

The short version is that I somehow need to supply that function with "correct" coordinates so that it can draw the objects but not in particular places.  Anyway, thanks for reading!

I think there are some debug keys you can use to move the camera around.  I, K, O, L all do something with the camera at least in the demo.  Arrow keys, too.

Once I read the theme I pretty much had to stop what I was doing and immediately make a background.

Holy Cow Deluxe Paint lol.  How do you find the workflow?  Is there an advantage to using it?  I only know of it as kind of a relic to be honest.

As an aside, making GUIs like that just for yourself that show your variables in-game like that can be very useful for debugging purposes.  It's a really good trick to know.

Now that I've learned how it works I think it's a fantastic module and really you get a lot of character out of some relatively easy steps.  I do have a question, though.  Is it possible to have two characters talking over top of each other at once?  I was thinking you could make the speech line a single WAV file but the characters seem to block one another when called in tandem.  It's not a big deal but I was trying to script an argument lol.  Thanks for the module all the same!

Well, with @Stupot in the unenviable position of tie breaker it takes @Creamy over the top!  Great work all around!  I'll pass the baton now!

Oh great now we have a tie! 

Okay, last call for votes!  I'll close this out in the next eight hours!!

[Concept: Your background should tell us something about the place you have depicted.Playability: does it have clearly defined walkable areas, things to interact with, etc?Artistic Execution: does the image convey the wanted atmosphere? What's the feeling of the place?]

Okay, then with the entries in it looks lie it's time to vote.  Remember you're voting on the following criteria:

Concept: Your background should tell us something about the place you have depicted.
Playability: does it have clearly defined walkable areas, things to interact with, etc?
Artistic Execution: does the image convey the wanted atmosphere? What's the feeling of the place?

@RootBound entry:


@Creamy entry:

Great entries so far!  Anybody else got anything in the pipeline or shall I wrap this baby up?  I'm never very clear as to when a deadline expires since we're all in different time zones so I guess I'll just close it tomorrow unless I hear something from somebody.

Nice!  I like the high amount of intrigue there @RootBound !!  Excellent.

Maybe not a bad idea to showcase a few different art styles since you can do whatever you want and as a game dev it's sort of easy to forget that.  But I'm happy to contribute a background or some characters or really anything like that.

It's definitely not a perfect system but I think most of that has to do with Instagram's compression algorithm making the pixels blurry than anything else.  Anyway, I'm having fun with it and I thought a few people here might get a kick out of it as well.  If you want to follow Brick Sundown and Ham Embargo's adventure feel free to check it out:

Several minutes of content!

About halfway there so it's almost time to get started!!

Newwaveburritos: Very mysterious behavior.
Snarky: Pretty standard stuff.  Did you read the documentation?
Newwaveburritos: Very mysterious indeed...

I had a bit of trouble getting this to work in AGS 3.6.0.35 and I can't really explain it so I thought I would mention it.  I think the problem was basically that it was not loading the files correctly.  Eventually, I discovered that it was writing in the warnings.log what was going on:

Game : (room:2)[R 369] FileOpen: FAILED: c:/Brick Sundown 3.6/Brick Sundown/Compiled/Windows/sync/Bric1.dat

When I had the files name 1.DAT and 1.WAV it wasn't working but when I renamed them BRIC1.DAT and BRIC1.WAV it started working.  The name of the character is "Brick" so it sort of makes sense and seems to work fine now once I determined that maybe I should rename the file to the one that it's looking for.

I'm using Papagayo for the lip-syncing file.  The .DAT file is in Compiled>Windows>sync and the .WAV is in Compiled>Windows>Data

Anyway, it's working great now and I really like the module so thanks for making it!

In brainstorming ideas for a new Background Blitz I took a look around my workspace where I do all my pixels and thought to myself "is this an artist's studio?"  Maybe, maybe not but that's what we're gonna do here this month!  How do you work in a studio?  What makes a studio?  Maybe the studio is a crime scene.  I think I remember seeing an AGS game with an artist's studio as the scene of a crime.  Anyway, your imagination is the only limit.

So, for this competition you can do you own studio, your dream studio, an imagined studio, or really any place an artist could work.  The whole world's a studio!

Deadline: June 21st, 2023.  Of course, this is made up and we can fool around with it as needed.

Voting:

Concept: Your background should tell us something about the place you have depicted.
Playability: does it have clearly defined walkable areas, things to interact with, etc?
Artistic Execution: does the image convey the wanted atmosphere? What's the feeling of the place?

Good luck and have fun! Can't wait to see the results of this somewhat meta theme!!

Oh, wow, thanks everybody!  Great entry, Creamy!  I guess I better come up with a theme and post it!