Is there a trailer/commercial/video for PyWright? I propose somebody makes one.

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That's a great idea GolemDx. Maybe you would do the honors ;) Sorry for the long response time, I was sick last week :(

Hey all, I just put up b10.94. It's NOT the last beta 10 release :P but we are getting close. Many requested features and bug fixes were added. It may have trouble updating, I did when I tested it, just skip the auto update and download through the download service itself. If THAT doesn't work you can always download the zip directly. Info on site

I'm still waiting for tutorials, so no news on that front just yet. I think they are very close :) But I did start a faq. I am going to scan through the forum and keeping adding to that. Also, I hope to put up an html version of the documentation soon. Don't hold me to it, but it's a priority!

Enjoy the release, let me know what works, what doesn't.

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After Downloading the update, I can't seem to open Checkmate and Turnabout or any other game. Does anyone else have this problem?

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Oops, it should be fixed now if you re-update. Sorry for the inconvenience! There are some discrepancies between the library that's included with the release and the libraries I develop with, I'll have to keep this in mind.

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Hey, saluk. Just dropping by to say that your casemaker is looking great;D

I keep seeing more and more cases being made on pywright, and I'm always excited to try new cases.

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Thanks for the post papermario. Trying new cases is my favorite part of being a creator creator :)

Hope you are having fun making your case!

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How do you press on a witness testimony? When I do it, it messes everything up, I'd give you an example but I can't upload it onto the net *Clicks about stupidly*

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You make a label below the endcross - all statements are defined within cross/endcross commands; all actions on statements are defined afterward. The label should be named "press [statement]" where statement is the name of the statement. If you have a statement called "noprints", the label it will jump to when you press should be "label press noprints". After some lines showing what happens, you will probably want a "resume" to go back to the cross exam.



If you still have trouble, just copy and paste your malfunctioning code into a post, no need to upload anything.

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Hi Saluk,

I'm currently developing a game using pywright obviously (I haven't posted anything about it in the Games section but I will soon.) and it will feature Apollo as the main character. I'm currently developing the first case and have ran into the problem of Perceive. I'm not sure if pywright supports perceive yet and if it does, I haven't been able to find anything about it yet in this topic. So I need help. If you or anyone else could post anything a.s.a.p about it and how to use it (with examples if possible), then it would be greatly appreciated.

Ptapcc

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It can be hard to find, there is no information in the doc about it. I'll add it to the faq.

Anyway, it's pretty complicated, but here's the basics:

* The example for perceive is located in the beta 10.9 test game. Download this game through the download service in PyWright. Navigate to PyWright/games/beta10.9/percieve, and copy the intro.txt you find there, to your own game. Rename it perceive_scene1.txt, or some other name that signifies where in the story the perceive is supposed to take place. Then, edit the file changing each section marked with “#CHANGE” to match what you want the perceive to be.
* You will have to change the lines of text that the character is speaking, including which emotion they should be for each line (make sure the animation containing the twitch is in the proper line)
* You will have to change the character graphic that will be used
* You will have to adjust the region for the twitch
* You will have to make sure the script cleans things up in the right way at the end

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Hm, sounds complicated but it shouldn't be much of a problem if I experiment around with it before I actually use it in my game.

Thanks a lot.

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Hey Saluk,

Is there a way of making scrolling examine backgrounds?

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There was one in Turnabout Substitution, so I suppose so. I don't know how though.

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Cardiovore > from what I recall, you just need to have a 512 x 192 bg... Then if one of the objects is outside of the traditional 256 x 192 regions (for instance, in TS, "region 485 75 15 20 goldenplate") you'll be able to examine the other part of the bg using the arrow.

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It works!

Thanks a bunch, Ping'!

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Status update
Oh noes, my thread is at the bottom of the front page!

So you guys probably noticed a huge slowdown of output from me lately. If you didn't notice, I guess I have just faded away without a sound... Anyway, things have been pretty shakey in real-world land for the past month. I am excited going into December, I might have a chance for a good month to wipe the last one away. PyWright has pretty much been as bottom of the barrel priority wise as it could possibly be. But now it is rising. I was hoping to finish beta 11 this year, but I don't think that's a realistic goal. There are some nice things about beta 11, but the amount of work to get it polished and ready is on the insane side. Pretty much, my PyWright related projects are huge enough already without beta 11, and if I try to do too much nothing will get done. I am reorganizing my priorities a bit, to actually finish some things. Here are all of the projects I have left to do, and where I am on them:

website/documentation:
I started working on docs again! It's shameful to only have the badly formatted, badly worded, doc.txt, which makes so many pywright tasks seem ten times as complicated as they really are. PyWright is "easy to use", but only if you can get past the obtuseness of this document. I am making better docs my highest priority. A new version of PyWright is going to be useless if people still don't understand how to use it. There are a few things in beta 11 that are actually easier to use and less confusing, but I think docs first, then fix the code, and modify docs to reflect those changes, is a better path. I wrote three sections of this already today, it's still going to take some time, but I plan to finish this SOON. It's just got to be done. When the first version is up, hopefully I can get some feedback on what sections still need work, and then polish everything as much as possible.

By the way, FerdieLance, if you are out there, any progress on the tutorial?

aao converter: I've had this one in progress since the summer. Not having looked at it in a while I don't quite remember how far along it is. Next to documentation I want to finish this. My goal is to enhance the "easy to use" part of my engine before enhancing the inner workings with b11. There are a lot of great AAO cases out there, and it would be cool to be able to play them in pywright, with save and screen zoom etc. Also there is something to be said for using AAO for the initial writing of the case, and then move that to one of the other casemakers for polish and specialized features. I think Unas has made the best editor around, being able to use that to jumpstart a pywright project would be amazing. There are still a lot of commands the converter doesn't handle, and cross examination is a pain. The code this creates is pretty awful too. I want to make it output code you can still edit easily, but we'll see about that. I'll try to finish this in the next month.

beta 10 series: there are still things that could be done before beta 11. It's almost as good as it can get I think, but there is call for improvements here before switching to the new codebase. Some things like the court macros are still pretty flakey. I want to find a better way to manage games and updates, the updater works for what it is, but my games folder at least is fairly unmanageable. It's hard to see when an individual game needs to be updated for instance. I also want to make a way to record metadata about games like the author. There are enough games now that this is pretty important. And there's still a bug here or there, especially with unicode and custom art. I want to include some more tools to help with problems like gif animations not displaying right.

By the way, if you are making a pywright game and it's not at http://pywright.dawnsoft.org/wordpress/?page_id=12 (and you want it there) send me a link!

and beta 11! I still check in code for this every week or so, and probably still will, but I am more interested in widening the user base rather than work too hard on something that might divide the users, or not even get used at all because people still haven't come to grips with the old version. I'm still really excited about this project and where it can go in the future! But I have decided I want to kind of get everything else out of the way first so I can really focus on this when the time comes.

So that's where I'm at. Expect posts about updated documentation as I finish them.

Wee I like to ramble :) Does anyone disagree with the ordering above? I'm open to suggestions. Just don't suggest any new projects, hehe.

By the way it's great to still see so many active game projects on here, no matter which case maker you are using. Go Go AA fandom!

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Good to see you back, saluk.


How are you doing with pywright? Hopefully it's going well.

I know what it's like not to have any time, I haven't had much for the last 6 months:O

Anyways, can't wait to see more cases from pywright I can play! I love playing new cases all the time ;D

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UM, SALUK, how do u reupdate? I tried the .pwv thing but nothing happened. Waht should I do?

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Hey jaydrick. If you delete PyWright/.pwv, that will force it to reupdate. You can also try deleting the .pwv, going into "download games and content", clicking on "update pywright" and seeing if anything shows up there. Finally, you can manually download the update from here:

http://pywright.dawnsoft.org/updates_human.php

Download the latest one of those, rename to .zip, and extract into your PyWright directory, overwriting all files.

There is a possibility to corrupt your pywright installation enough that the update wont work. If you deleted any files that aren't modified by the update, then the update won't fix those. In that case, you should download the full package and extract that into your pywright directory. Full download links are available here: http://pywright.dawnsoft.org/wordpress/?page_id=44

The full install will not screw up anything in your games folder, so it is safe to extract on top of existing files.

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how do you make the menu show up and
Examine, talk, move and present?

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Hi Saluk,

Just dropping by to see any new changes to the engine. Like Papermario13689, I too am excited about all the new fan games being created on Pywright (*cough*turnabout scapegoat*cough*). What sort of updates are we looking at with the engine? Are any new features going to be added with beta 11?

Ptapcc

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@Ptapcc:


The new features in beta 11 are too many to mention! In fact, every time I finish one feature, I find 3 more things that I want to do. So now, instead of a quick tidy up of a specific part of the code that I originally intended, beta 11 is basically a new engine. And the release date is further away than ever before. Primarily, you can look forward to much improved 3d support (current beta 10 series doesn't even have 3d enabled); and a more well designed scripting system. When you can look forward to this however is a big unknown. Maybe I should rename it PyWright Forever instead of beta 11!




@DefenceLawyer:
You need to make a script for each action for an area, and then call the menu command. Here's an example. If you are investigating a sewer, make these scripts:

sewer.script.txt
sewer.examine.txt
sewer.talk.txt
sewer.move.txt
sewer.present.txt

Somewhere, to get to the sewer, you will have a line "script sewer" that runs sewer.script.txt.

Then, in sewer.script.txt, you might have some introductory lines for when you first arrive in the sewer, at the end of which you want to show the menu. You do that with this line:

menu sewer

That will show the menu options, and each option will run it's respective script. The case test/the_test (game "test" can be downloaded from the download option in pywright), has an example of the menu command at the end of intro.txt.

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thanks, but It still won't work, I'll have another try later, also:
when I put this into the 'fg' folder

, I get this:

any ideas why?

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I don't think Pywright supports GK styled gameplay yet DefenceLawyer.

Ptapcc

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I know, but I'm trying to bypass it with creativity

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Good luck with that then. The only way I could see GK working on the engine at the moment is an edit of a scrolling background fused to the GK characters.

Ptapcc

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that's what I'm trying to do, I have already sorted out the sprites:

I'll announce the game soon, I just need to sort the mini sprites thing and controlling the sprites

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Very nice. If you can get it to work properly, then Pywright too will have the added feature of GK styled gameplay. It's similar to a scrolling idea I had and working on for AAO.

Ptapcc

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Last edited by Tap on Tue Dec 29, 2009 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hahaha, very clever DefenseLawyer. You can scroll anything, not just backgrounds - so technically you can move sprites around the screen. Also, you can tecnically do checks on their position (if you keep track of it) to make sure they don't cross bounds etc. I say technically, because in practice it sounds nightmarish. But feel free to attempt!

That artifact with the image is due to a form of gif compression that python doesn't understand. Whatever you used to save the gif, see if you can save it uncompressed. Alternatively, make it a png strip instead of a gif. (take each frame and lay them end to end) If you have trouble with this I can do it. By the way, it is probably better to make the gumshoe and edgeworth separate sprites instead of stuck in the same animation; but I don't know the origins of this particilar animation.

You'll have to show me specifically what you tried and how it failed with the investigation menu for me to know what happened there. Did you look at the example in the test game?

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DefenseLawyer, here is a png-ified version of that gif file:

http://pywright.dawnsoft.org/art_for/30lf4eh.zip
Use that instead. Delete the .gif, and rename the .png and .txt from the zip to the right name (i.e. edge_and_gum.png, edge_and_gum.txt for example, if that's the name you were using). I was testing my gif converter for other reasons and remembered this file, the converter worked well on it. I still think it would make more sense to have edgeworth and gumshoe be separate sprites, so that you can have more flexibility.

I'll make a web application for the gif converter soon, I have been working on the AAO converter and since most of those images are .gif files, and many of them are not loadable without artifacts in python, I need to have everything converted to strips.

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oh, I get it now, thanks a lot. I'll show you the outcome later. also, how do you examine in court?
like examine a letter or something on a first case?

also, how do you 'check' evidence?

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You set up the examine in court the same way you would do in a regular examine script. Typically, it will go something like this:



An example of checking is in the_test/test. You have to "set evid_check scriptname" and then make a script "scriptname.txt". In the check script, use a bg, perhaps some fg objects if you need them, and probably a textregion or two to show the text on the screen. Then you can use the "waitenter" command, or "gui Back", to show all of the items on screen until the player does something to make it go away. Multiple pages are not built in but could be done with several bits of code in the check script, so the player cycles through each page with each 'waitenter'.

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Howdy, the gif2strip program has been written and is up at http://pywright.dawnsoft.org/gif2strip/index.cgi

I hope it helps somebody!

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That's awesome, it'll speed up the animation of characters considerably.

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This is a very awesome application! Now those who wish to turn GIF to PNG (sheet) forPYWright is now made easier! Is there someway to download this thing? Or it just stays on the net? Thanks!

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It stays on the net for now, I can make a download eventually though. It's just a bit more work to make the interface, and it's also a bit of extra work to make it work on different platforms (probably won't be able to make an OSX version).

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Sorry I've been away so long!

The special engine for one of the big puzzles in SBX's case is almost done, but I've run into an odd bug. I can't seem to scroll objects reliably when they're on the bottom screen... which is really critical for the strongest effect; otherwise there's a lot of teleporting going on, which isn't TERRIBLE, it just doesn't look good.

This woks - moving something around the top screen.


This doesn't work - moving something around the bottom screen.


Any suggestions? Everything else about my minigame engine is working incredibly well. My current, awful way of doing this by making the "things" (whose names I've censored as spoilers) mostly transparent and so tall that they extend into the top screen.

Bug: Scrolling small fg objects on the bottom screen doesn't work.

Fix: Alter the PNG to add a tall "header" of transparent background. This won't affect the display, but will ensure that when you 'place the object' on the bottom screen, you're actually putting in y coordinates less than 191. This will allow scrolling, but beware of changes to the foreground when you jump around the courtroom! You'll need to make up to five different copies of your object - one for each view of the court! It's a nightmare.

Problem with the fix: If the header's too tall, it'll hit the top of the top screen, or won't be long enough to let your animation scroll to the bottom of the bottom screen! Plan carefully. Also, see above - this is a nightmare in court.

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I'll take a look at it asap, sounds like a major bug. 10.85 should probably be the next thing on my todo list, mostly with bug fixes (more seem to be turning up all the time). I've got some free time this weekend to put into things.

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Hey FerdieLance, here is a hotfix for that bug:

http://wikisend.com/download/435422/scr ... hotfix.zip

Will be included in 10.95, whenever that makes the cut.

Put files in PyWright/core

The issue was the general scrolling function is designed to only work on the top screen (otherwise it would move all of the buttons etc that are usually on the bottom). The new version, if given a name=, the scroll will scroll it no matter what. Also, you can give it a filter=top or filter=bottom to scroll only objects on the top or bottom (as long as you DONT use name=)

If you have any other suggestions for improving this function I can include those as well, I know it is a bit of a lame function. It was designed for one thing when pywright was more rigid, and hasn't grown well as things have gotten looser.

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Thanks for the fix! I'm working without it for now - the "giant invisible object" works very well as a workaround.

Two more; thanks to Videocrazy for help in pinning these down:

Bug: Saving while evidence is displayed on screen is an instant crash.

Workaround: Don't save while evidence is on-screen.

-

Bug: Profile/Evidence button is lowercase, which is a little odd.

Workaround: Use custom buttons.

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