4.- The First Scene

Ok, now we are ready to create scenes, first you should think what resolution are you going to need, nowadays 1024x768 seems pretty standard and current and a bit old computers can handle it, but for this tutorials sake Im going to set it at 600x480, I will also going to be using two backgrounds from the game Monkey Island 4, but Im using them for educational purposes ONLY.

So lets go to the SCENE and MENUS tab and create a new SCENE (it will give you two choices, scene and menu, so choose Scene since that is what we want right now) and name it MAIN_SCENE (or what ever you like)

Then go into the PROPERTIES tab and import the background image (for this tutorial Im using a Monkey Island 4 background) You can also name your scenes, this will be used for the save game description.

Now go to the SCENE OBJECTS tab and you should have a background image, that is your actual scene, but there is nothing going on right now and you cant play in it yet..

We need to define where the character is going to walk on, for this we need to use and get familiar with the WAY SYSTEMS.

Go open up the WAY SYSTEMS tab and create a new system, you can leave it with default names but I prefer to Name everything to keep it clean.

You can create several Way systems for a single scene, if you do this you can change the layout of a scene at any moment without having to create different scenes for each change. One example would be to have a pillar suddenly block a path, and at this moment the way system can change specifying the new walk able area.

To Define the walk able area, select the Way Borders tab and we are going to define the areas of the floor where the character is going to walk on, something like this should do, Note how I defined only the FLOOR and some parts like the stall and the corner of the table in front of the door are inside the walk able area. We are going to use images later on to cover for these.

Now the scene is walk able, but we need to tell visionaire where the character is going to start, for this tutorial I want the character to start in the door so we are going to make a new Scene Object and we rename it START (follow the image bellow), then we are going to adjust that objects position, the easiest way is by selecting the Icon in the alignment box at the right, this will open a new window with your scenes background in it and there you can click where you want the start position to be, this will be marked as a small dot cross. (see that the way system is displayed so you know the floor limits for your character)

NOTE, whenever you adjust an objects positions you MUST place the cross INSIDE the walk able path, if you place it outside the walk able path your character will never reach that spot or object.

SETTING THE CHARACTER

Once thats done we can go to the Characters properties and we are going to set the initial characters starting point (Follow the image bellow)

NOTE: Take this time to add the font we created earlier into the font and dialogue options, also select the cursor that is going to be used for selecting dialogue selections. A Pointer or cursor Arrow is more suitable for the dialogue selections but I didnt create one for this tutorial.

IMPORTANT configurations before testing the game

Before we run the game we must do a couple of things so we dont run into trouble.

Go to the Game tab and go to the KEY ACTIONS tab, add a new action, in the execution type select the key (keyboard keys that is) of F5. The action we are going to select is QUIT GAME.

By doing this we can close the preview or test by hitting the F5 key on the keyboard instead of closing it trough the windows task bar. (quite useful if we are in the fullscreen mode.)

Now go to the GAME PROPERTIES tab and establish the scene we just created into the FIRST SCENE tab, also establish the MAIN CHARACTER as the ACTIVE CHARACTER, take this time to set the resolution of your game (for this tutorial I left it at 640x480), and allow dragging of items and skip active text.

Now Save and Run the game, GREAT, you now have a working scene, but youll notice when you walk around that your character steps over everything and we dont want our character to walk over the center stall display, and of course, the character is WAY too big (this also depends on the size you created your character, but we will fix this in visionaire).

Lets make a hole in the base of the stall so the character cant step into it. For this we are going to the scenes Way Systems, select the Way borders and add a new border. A way border inside another way border creates a hole in the floor.

There are two ways you can create WAY BORDERS inside other way borders, but you CANT create way borders inside other way borders directly.

The first and easies way is to hold the key, this will let you create the way border for the pillars base inside the other way border

The second way we can also create the hole way border is by starting on an empty area and make the rest of the border in its proper place, when the border is closed just move the initial point into its intended position.

Ok, we now have a HOLE in the floor so our character wont walk in that area; you can refine your initial border by adding more points if you need to.

Now, do a save-run.

Youll notice it will be quite hard for the character to move around now because of that hole in the floor (and the character is still way too big)

So we are going to create some way-points, waypoints help our characters move around the scene and around objects, so go back to the scene editor and create way-points .

We mostly need to tell our characters how to walk around obstacles, and something like this should be fine.

Save/Run and youll notice your character now walks around the obstacle without problems, but the character remains to bee too big.

Go back to the scene editor and lets configure a couple of the WAY-POINTS so the character can change sizes while he walks up or down the area, for this select the closest point (lower one) and youll notice bellow the scene area a CHARACTER SIZE settings panel, here youll adjust the Size of the characters, there is also a tab for displaying a preview of a character in the scene, since we only have created on we select it and see its original size in the scene.

We can adjust the size by manipulating the size bar, -1 means default size, but since I wanted a smaller character I changed it to 44 (%). (you can change the character sizes individually in the characters panel if your characters all have different sizes.

Now select the top way point and make the character look even smaller since the door is farther away.

You will notice the character will change sizes when it walks to the front or back of the scene.. cool isnt it?.

Do a Save/Run and you should see your character change sizes while it walks to the top or bottom of the screen. BUT, it still walks OVER a great part of the stall in the center of the room.

We are going to create an object in the scene to cover the stall with an isolated image. To illustrate the point clearly, we are going to use a cut out image of the stall to cover it.

Something like this with transparent background (Use PNG files with Alpha maps for this)

Lets create a new object in the scene, for this tutorial I named it STALL, then in the IMAGE tab import the image you are going to use.

Then select the icon PLACE IMAGES AND ANIMATIONS and move the image where you need it to be, in this tutorial I moved it on top of the backgrounds stall since that is the place I need covered.

Now, before we go testing and finding yourself in a lot of frustrations we are going to do one thing that MUST be properly set.

In the STALL properties we are going to establish the objects center by using the icon , a window will pop up and we establish the center BUT we need it to be on the center of the BASE of the object, not the image itself.

Do a save/run and you should see the character gets covered when it goes behind the stall and when it comes around he can be seen in front of it.

CREATING INTERACTIVITY

OK, now what?, lets create some basic interactivity, we created a Take/Use and a Look at icons, so we can start with those and our new object, the Stall.

Before creating the interaction we must tell the game what areas are going to be the triggers of the interactions this is done for EACH object, so we click on create polygonal areas and create a shape that covers your object, since this is the stall I covered that object (you dont need the polygonal object to bee too defined)

Note, its important to adjust the Objects position because your character is going to use that when he approaches the stall (and remember to place the cross INSIDE a walk able area), also configure the alignment the character will use when its interacting with the object as well (using the compass).

Now we are ready to create some interaction

Lets go to the Actions tab of the STALL and lets add an action, Choose Executed command on object, for the command LOOK (its the cursor) then we add the action part, then we add a display text action where we write whatever we want.

NOTE that I added a code of <p2> to each line that creates a pause of 2 seconds between each text is displayed, you can increase the number depending on the amount of text.

If you DONT put a <p(number)> at the end of the text, the text will be displayed forever unless the player clicks with the mouse to stop it.

You can also make another character talk when you use the actions instead of the main character, so you can choose the character on the Character tab if you want an npc to say something instead of the players character.

Save and run and youll see now that the look at cursor changes when you hover the mouse over the stall, and after you clicked on the stall the character walked to the stalls position and then talk..

You dont need to insert a new image to create interactivity, we can create a new object called WINDOW and use the elements of the background image instead, create a polygon area around one of the windows in the scene, establish the objects position (REMEMBER TO PLACE THE CROSS INSIDE THE WAY BORDER), and establish the alignment the character will have when it reaches this object.

And lets add some actions for that window, it can be something simple (you can play with the long list of options)

Save and Run your game, you should have a working interaction with the window now. NOTICE how the character got positioned and aligned when it interacted with the window, if the position cross was placed outside the way border the character could have never been able to reach the object and so the actions would have not been performed.

Now you can start adding interactions all over the scene if you like.