Controlling which hotspots are on top

[taleg]

Hi! I'm really new to AM but I think I'm off to good start.

My only real problem so far is that I try to make a frame where two videos are playing at the same time in two different hotspots, one on a TV screen and one on a computer screen that is partly in front of the TV (a quarter of the tv is behind the computer monitor). Between these two I've placed a hotspot containing a picture of the computer monitor frame.

The TV video file is behind the computer video file, but the frame of the computer monitor should be visible in between the two videos and that, for some reason, poses a problem. It's as if there's some hidden rule that hotspots containing videos are displayed on top of hotspots containing pictures. I have tried to right click the hotspots and tell the TV one to go behind the one with the picture but it just won't.

Summary: I have a hotspot with a picture that I want to partly cover a hotspot with a looped video but no matter what I try the video ends up on top of the picture.

I've tried to search the forum but I haven't found any help. Is there anyone here that knows how to deal with this problem?


Update: I made a looping video out of the picture of the computer monitor and that worked, now I can place the monitor hotspot anywhere I want but the picture quality became so much worse that I can't use this method. The question still is; how do I put a hotspot with a picture on top of a hotspot with a video? (I'm using the free version of AM)

[Mystery]

Welcome to the forums taleg

On my laptop it works well to put an image hotspot over a hotspot with a looping video.

But I ran into an issue earlier with one of my games where I had a clickable hotspot over a video file, and for some players it didn't show up on top of the video file.

I don't know why it works or does not work on different machines.

[reneuend]

I'm just wondering. but can't a hotspot with a looping video be clickable?

[Mystery]

On my machine it works

[juhuwoorps]

It works with Vista

[reneuend]

so that begs the question....do you need to put a hotspot on top of it?

[Mystery]

No. I can just use the Hotspot Properties of the hotspot with looping video.

[taleg]

It seems weird that it works on one machine but not on the other.. Is the makers of the software active in these forums?

[GM-Support]

Hi,

The difference is likely due to the fact that you are using different versions of Adventure Maker.

The behavior of the looping videos has slightly changed since Adventure Maker v4.6.0, because changes have been made to ensure that the games are compatible with Windows 7.

In AM v4.5.4 and older, looping videos were completely integrated into hotspots, so the Z-Order of the hotspots applied to the looping videos as well.

In AM v4.6.0 and newer, looping videos are "overlapped" on top of all the other elements. Therefore, you cannot display a picture on top of them. However, they are still "transparent to clicks", meaning that when you click on a looping video, the click is redirected to the underlying hotspot (or to the hotspot associated to the looping video itself, if its Z-Order is in the foreground). Therefore, even though you can no longer display pictures on top of looping videos, you can still place hotspots on top of them and have some actions be executed when the user clicks on some portions of the looping videos.

Best regards,
GM-Support

[Mystery]

Thanks for the explanations GM!

[taleg]

Hi,

The difference is likely due to the fact that you are using different versions of Adventure Maker.

The behavior of the looping videos has slightly changed since Adventure Maker v4.6.0, because changes have been made to ensure that the games are compatible with Windows 7.

In AM v4.5.4 and older, looping videos were completely integrated into hotspots, so the Z-Order of the hotspots applied to the looping videos as well.

In AM v4.6.0 and newer, looping videos are "overlapped" on top of all the other elements. Therefore, you cannot display a picture on top of them. However, they are still "transparent to clicks", meaning that when you click on a looping video, the click is redirected to the underlying hotspot (or to the hotspot associated to the looping video itself, if its Z-Order is in the foreground). Therefore, even though you can no longer display pictures on top of looping videos, you can still place hotspots on top of them and have some actions be executed when the user clicks on some portions of the looping videos.

Best regards,
GM-Support

Thank you for your answer!
Is this final or are you working on changing it in later updates? There's a lot of cool things that can be done visually if you have the opportunity to do this.

If it is final, or at least isn't going to change soon, is it possible for me (using Windows 7) to use an earlier version or are the issues with using them on Windows 7 to big?

[taleg]

I might as well ask some other questions while I have your attention:

Whenever I click on a video in-game (as a fullscreen transition or on a clickable hotspot) it ends. The result looks very unpolished if the meaning of the video is just superficial, but if the video contains important information to the player it's actually a big problem gameplay wise. Is there some way to remove the possibility to click-stop the videos in Adventure Maker v4.6.1 Free Edition? (Or in the non-free version, since I'm planning to buy this software within a year).

Also I wonder if it's possible by using standard tools or scripting to make hotspots other shapes than rectangles? A star, a circle, some kind of 28 edged creature of my imagination?
If this is possible can I, instead of fitting the hotspot to the video or video to the hotspot, visually crop the video so that the part of the video that end up outside the set hotspot borders is not shown? I guess this is the reverse of my first question, instead of hiding parts of the video hotspot I want to reshape the hotspot and crop the video so that solving my first problem is not necessary. By crop I don't mean real cropping, I know Adventure Maker is not a video editing software, but like I said; not showing the parts of the video that are outside the set hotspot borders.

[Mystery]

Only rectangle shaped hotspots are supported at this time.

For the video hotspot question:
You mean that if you click on a hotspot with video it stops, or only if you have assigned an action to the hotspot in which the video plays?

[taleg]

Not a hotspot that's showing looped video automatically but hotspots with videos that start as you click on the hotspot. And also video that is playing fullscreen either as a result of clicking a hotspot or that starts playing automatically right before/after you're entering a new frame.