Making things move on game screen[solved]

[kori]

I was playing Riven again last night. (I play it again every few years.) And I noticed that the plants did not sway in the wind. The water moved, and of course the rocks and sand did not move, but the plants were not moving either. It got me to wondering why they did not make the plants sway in the wind. I have been asking other people how you make things move in a game that has a 2d screen image, and what are the limitations? I have been told about animations laying on top of the screen, and about something called sprites.

Can someone discuss the different ways of making things move, and the limitations when using a game engine?

Thanks
Kori

[Skye]

Hi Kori,

Yes, the animations are laying on top of the screen (or more precisely the background image). In order to make an animation like this you would need to get images of the object a various stages of its movement against the background. Each stage of movement is cut out from the full image and combined into an avi or animated GIF file. In AM there is an option to position a 'hotspot' in a frame that is a looping video or animated GIF. AM allows you to set the speed of the animation and whether it loops or not.

Hope this helps at least a little bit

Skye

[kori]

Yes, that does help.

I have been over at the WME forum and they have told me about GIF animations and scripting. It seems you can script an object to move across the background in any direction or speed.

One thing I did not understand is why so few things are animated in adventure games. I was told that it takes up computer memory to run large GIF animations. As for scripting, I do not know how much memory it takes.

I guess where I am going is, I wanted to have a lot of movement in my game scenes: water moving, clouds moving, plants swaying in the wind. But, if I understand what I am reading, the computer memory limits this to just a few animations running in a loop.

Kori

[Candle]

Your looking at more them memory , you have to look at the size of the computer the users will have as everything you add to the screen is going to add to the processor load and one down the line in the computer.
So the faster the computer the better the game will run.

[Bortdafarm]

newbie here!

little thought tho for non graphically minded folks and animated trees etc--

using very small areas of water ripple effect on parts of trees smoke bushes curtains etc etc seems to work pretty well and by gum it's quick and easy--

[Skye]

Good Idea!

Hadn't thought of that

[Bortdafarm]

Thanks
great program this AM--i'm fairly use-less at code work--and have-ing just bought the two DarkFall adventures (highly reccommended) stumbled across the AM site and it's spot on for this sort of thing--i'd worn my self out completely trying to learn VB6 and Blitz basic and others---but with AM i can get on with trying to create a game and at the same time put to use what little i did pick up in VB6---two birds with one stone --sorry to hi-jack the thread

[mercedes]

I have the free version of Am...am i able to make things move as well...like a flame..dance slightly..?...screen move a bit...is this possible..?


I'm a noob..but wouldlove to know what i could do to make it happen..i uploaded animated flames...both fireplace and torches..and theyre not moving...just wondering if there was a solution..



Many Thanks.!

[Candle]

mercedes stop bumping old post here.
if you want help start a new post.