This is in reference to something I posted earlier, but it's been bothering me. There's still no information on using pictures or movies with dialogs, whether or not this is possible, even though the dialog editor allows you to select a picture or movie and we've been told that this would be possible (particularly the movie part). As far as I can tell, trying to use this feature only causes crashes and freezes. Since I discovered this, I've been feeling a lot less inclinded to register and use Coldstone, not because I really need these features, but because I feel kind of cheated. Maybe there's a way to make it work, but I have no idea what it is. If it's a bug, then I don't , but there's a difference between a bug that occasionally appears and a feature that doesn't work at all, even though the manual says it does.

Is this something that's being worked on for the near future? Dee? Anybody?

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--
Mark

Quote

Originally posted by markborok:
**This is in reference to something I posted earlier, but it's been bothering me. There's still no information on using pictures or movies with dialogs, whether or not this is possible, even though the dialog editor allows you to select a picture or movie and we've been told that this would be possible (particularly the movie part). As far as I can tell, trying to use this feature only causes crashes and freezes. Since I discovered this, I've been feeling a lot less inclinded to register and use Coldstone, not because I really need these features, but because I feel kind of cheated. Maybe there's a way to make it work, but I have no idea what it is. If it's a bug, then I don't , but there's a difference between a bug that occasionally appears and a feature that doesn't work at all, even though the manual says it does.

Is this something that's being worked on for the near future? Dee? Anybody?

**

I noticed there was nothing in the manual about positioning or layering, or even accepted file formats. I strongly suspect this is an imcomplete feature. Was it used at any place in PoG? I strongly dislike that it causes a lock-up, and that has given me an aversion to experiment more.

My request to the staff is simpler -- an official address/page to send bug reports. Coldstone is five times more complete and bug-free than most software released these days, but Ambrosia is also much more supportive and communicative than most software companies. I would like to continue to help them, if I could.

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

Are you making a plug-in, or a new game, because plug-ins seem to be more problematic.

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"Dont be angry, not everyone can be as cool as me."
Check out my games website at: (url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/picquilarius/")http://www.geocities.com/picquilarius/(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Picquilarius:
**Are you making a plug-in, or a new game, because plug-ins seem to be more problematic.

**

I was making alterations to the demo game that came with Coldstone. Why, did you get it to work in a new game?

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Mark

I didn't get a lockup on my test... but it wasn't what I would call a successful test.

I used a 75x75 pixel PICT, 32 bit RGB. The dialogue box displayed lower on the screen, and about 20 pixels of the top of the PICT was displayed peeking out from behind the top center of the dialogue box. My guess is a custom dialogue box must be made, with a "hole" to clear for the picture or movie, but I haven't tested this yet.

I'll update if I get any further...

myshkyn

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"I'll give the fans just what they want, and nothing else at all."

Coldstone places the center of the PICT about 150 pixels from the top of my (640 x 480) game screen, no matter how big it or the dialogue interface picture are. Allowance for the placement of the PICT with a transparent spot in the dialogue PNG shows the PICT no problem. (The PICT seems to be placed "behind" the dialogue PNG.) Not being able to place the position of the PICT in the dialogue interface options is annoying, but with a little work I was able to align the two in the game. I'll have to use PICT of the exact same size for every dialogue, and create an "empty" PICT for dialogue that won't have pictures.

I haven't tried movies yet, and I don't know why you guys are getting crashes.

I'm using OS 9.2 and I'm giving Coldstone plenty of RAM, but I don't know if either are the answer...

I'll report back on the movies bit.

myshkyn out

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"I'll give the fans just what they want, and nothing else at all."

Quote

Originally posted by myshkyn:
**Coldstone places the center of the PICT about 150 pixels from the top of my (640 x 480) game screen, no matter how big it or the dialogue interface picture are. Allowance for the placement of the PICT with a transparent spot in the dialogue PNG shows the PICT no problem. (The PICT seems to be placed "behind" the dialogue PNG.) Not being able to place the position of the PICT in the dialogue interface options is annoying, but with a little work I was able to align the two in the game. I'll have to use PICT of the exact same size for every dialogue, and create an "empty" PICT for dialogue that won't have pictures.

I haven't tried movies yet, and I don't know why you guys are getting crashes.

I'm using OS 9.2 and I'm giving Coldstone plenty of RAM, but I don't know if either are the answer...

I'll report back on the movies bit.

myshkyn out

**

I figured making a frame would work -- it is good to know that the placement seems consistent. It seems a little chancy to me, tho. What if the user selects a different window size? Also a little cheesy; what would page designers say if HTML only allowed graphics to appear centered on the page?

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

It's not that Coldstone is more limiting than I expected it to be. It's that it's limited in places I didn't expect. All in all I am crap-in-my-pants happy with the storytelling capabilities of CS though...

Here's my report on dialogue movies, for those of you who haven't already figured it out.

Quicktime movies are placed in exactly the same manner as pics. They loop, with sound, for as long as the window is open. This will work for my dialogues (we wanted shifting, blinking characters who changed expression depending on the response). But I still have a major problem. We have a real life cell animator drawing up storyboards for our cutscenes. Have I missed something simple or is there no clear way to do a full screen Quicktime movie that plays through once? Anybody see how to do this?

myshkyn

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"I'll give the fans just what they want, and nothing else at all."

I remember a discussion about dialogue pics on the beta list -- I'll see if I can dig it up.

As to having a QT movie play full screen, once -- isn't there an event for playing a movie?

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quitcherbellyachin.
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Hrm, can't seem to find the info about the dialogue pics...sorry.

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quitcherbellyachin.
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I don't recall that we had a discussion per se, but I reported this as a bug in FC2 (on January 4)... the next e-mail I received on the list was the announcement (on January 16) that Coldstone had been released. (Go figure, hmm?)

After verifying that this was still problematic in the released version, I sent another e-mail to the list (January 21) asking for clarification of the matter (figuring that maybe I was just not using the feature properly), but I received no response. I asked again on January 31, and have still not received any answer.

Given that this is one feature I was specifically planning to make use of if and when I develop a Coldstone game, I plan to ask again some time this week, and continue asking until I get an answer of some sort and/or I am booted off the beta list.

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"A scientist can discover a new star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do it for him."

Quote

Originally posted by theGlueBubble:
**As to having a QT movie play full screen, once -- isn't there an event for playing a movie?

**

Although I am somewhat famous for missing what is directly in front of me, I am almost positive there is no event reserved for playing movies. You can make a dialogue movie full screen with the size multiplier menu whatsit, and it is placed above the dialogue interface graphic, but it loops. All things considered, this is a very usable feature, but I was hoping for a one-play-go-to-next-event kind of thing. As it is, the player must click to stop the movie and continue with the game.

Oh, I guess I'm being nitpicky.

myshkyn

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"I'll give the fans just what they want, and nothing else at all."

Quote

Originally posted by myshkyn:
**Although I am somewhat famous for missing what is directly in front of me, I am almost positive there is no event reserved for playing movies. You can make a dialogue movie full screen with the size multiplier menu whatsit, and it is placed above the dialogue interface graphic, but it loops. All things considered, this is a very usable feature, but I was hoping for a one-play-go-to-next-event kind of thing. As it is, the player must click to stop the movie and continue with the game.

Oh, I guess I'm being nitpicky.

myshkyn

**

Well, can give it a really long roll-out (like a black screen). With the right compression, said roll-out wouldn't add too much to the file size. Basically, if the player is willing to watch a minute of black screen then the movie will start again.

Movie displays above the default dialog box? If so, can solve the hole-in-the-dialog requirement by using a QT still for the portrait of the NPC talking to you.

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everywhere else, it's --
"Nomuse"

Ah yes. 50 frames of black take up very little more than 1 frame of black. I had completely forgotten about all that. Thanks Commander.

And an inconspicuous "click to continue" in the corner couldn't hurt either. At any rate, I've wanted to watch animations again when I've played RPGs before (especially FF9, where the only reason to continue playing was for the animation scenes) so it won't hurt to leave the movies in danger of looping I suppose.

And that's a good idea to use QT stills instead of picts... I'm positive that would have never occurred to me. It might have occurred to our artist, but since you said it first, you get the credit.

Heh.

myshkyn

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"I'll give the fans just what they want, and nothing else at all."

I just thought I would bring this up to top to answer questions for the new guys. Not that this subject has been completely fleshed out anyway. I have a couple new ideas myself that I'll bring up when my boss isn't looking.

myshkyn

One quick test I did with QT's found it buggy if you had any dialogue in the text fields. When I created a full screen QT, selected it and typed any dialogue in, the QT would loop infinitely (with occasionally blitting up the dialogue), and the only way to stop was to force quit the game. If I selected the same QT and entered no dialogue, it played the movie one time through then went back to the game. . .

I didn't try it with smaller movies.