How to use AGS Part 5 (Walkable and Walk-behind Areas) Video Lecture | Learn and Master: Adventure Game Studio (AGS) - Game Development

okay in this video we're going to get a
little bit more interesting in what we
can do with the room we're going to have
him restraint we're going to restrain
Sammy to certain areas of the room so
that he can't walk all over the walls
like he was doing in the last video and
also I'm going to show a little bit
about what's called walk behinds and
then we're going to get into one one
thing where he can look he look at the
books on the on the shelf and he can
comment on them but I'll explain all
that as we go the first thing we want to
do is constrain Sammy Sammy to walking
just to certain areas of the room for
example we don't want him to walk on the
walls we don't want him to be able to
walk on this table right now we don't
want him to be able to walk up the
stairs just because there's really
nothing up there and so we'll just kind
of constrain him to the landing just
before the stairs well he can walk in
the closet since there's no door there
so we'll be able to let him walk in the
closet a little bit and then anywhere on
this main floor is okay before I do that
though I'm going to change one thing on
the character in fact I already changed
it before the video this was set to
three earlier and this is this is the
movement speed of the character I'm
setting that to six just doubling the
speed that he walks that because he was
walking far too slow so I just doubled
doubled that so that he walks a lot
faster now so really what we want to do
is we want we want to show the walkable
areas now the walkable areas are just
regions on the screen that the character
is able to walk on if I see this little
drop down here it says nothing that says
show this rooms nothing someone's not
showing anything but if I click on the
drop down we can see lots of different
things we can see the edges the objects
the hot spots the walkable areas the
walk behind in the regions I'm going to
select walkable areas and then it colors
the whole screen blue basically that
means everything that's blue is
somewhere that Sammy can walk so right
now Sammy can walk anywhere on the
screen well we obviously want to change
that and you can do that from right in
the editor now there's two ways you can
do this you can either go into another
program a paint program one of the
things you could do is go into a paint
program load up your new changes
inspector none load up your background
image here and then create a layer on
top of that on your paint program and
then start drawing on the layer so you
could start drawing your
walkable areas and then just fill them
in with a certain color that's probably
the best way to do it as opposed to
doing it directly from from a GS editor
but I'm going to go ahead and do it from
a GS editor oh and by the way a great
program to use for that kind of thing is
paint.net it's a freeware program it's
for Windows and it works really really
well it allows you to do layering and
drawing things like that and it's really
really really good for this kind of
thing everything that was done in
Sammy's quest was done with just regular
Microsoft paint which is the paint
program that comes with Windows but
paint.net it's a great a great
alternative to that and it's free which
is just the right price so going back to
walkable areas what we really want to do
is clear away everywhere that we don't
want Sammy to walk so basically it's
upper half of the screen we don't want
Sammy to be able to walk
AGS gives you some basic primitive paint
tools here which is what I'll use I'm
going to click on the line tool and I'm
going to right drag because right drag
will erase the color so I'm going to
click here and I'm going to right drag
things away so I don't want them to be
able to walk sort of around this table
so I'm just going to draw a line and
have my line to find where Sammy can and
cannot walk so you'll see what I'm
talking about when I get done so I'm
just going to kind of draw a line here
you can walk into the closet so I'll go
into there again this will all become
clear in just a second once I get
through with this what I'm doing okay
and now you have the fill tool now I'm
going to right fill all the area above
that so that just cleared out everything
up to where up and bound bounding the
area that I drew around so now
everything in blue is the area that
Sammy can walk so he can walk all over
here you can't walk into the table can't
walk up the stairs and he can walk into
the closet a little bit so let's see how
that works I'm going to click run he
says hello world like we told him to and
now Sammy can walk if I click anywhere
in the room he can walk anywhere in the
room but he can't walk over here he
can't walk on the table notice I'm
clicking on the wall he's not he's not
going up into the wall anymore he can't
go up the stairs because we bound him
so they couldn't go up there he can go
into the to the closet but watch what
happens when he goes into the closet
here okay he goes into the closet but
it's not exactly what we wanted he's
he's in the closet but he's on the wall
so actually what we want to do is we
really want this wall here to be drawn
on top of Sammy's so that if I'm you
know halfway in and halfway out of the
closet like this I really want the back
of his head here that would be covered
by the wall I really want that to be
covered by the wall how do we do that
well that's what's called a walk behind
area very similar to a walkable area but
this is a walk behind area so if I click
on walk behind here
by default there are none but I really
want this area right here this wall to
be a walk behind in other words let the
character be able to walk behind that in
that area you're going to do it this
you're going to define it the same way
I'm going to zoom out zoom up a little
bit here so that I can get a little bit
finer detail and I'm going to draw a
little box around this wall
and then I'm just going to fill it in so
that fills in this area so in other
words Sami can walk behind this
rectangle there's really no reason to
walk behind anything else I mean I could
play he could walk behind this table too
but he can't get to there in the first
place so there's really no reason to
walk behind it so there really this is
the area that we want him to walk behind
now what we have to do is we have to be
able to define the baseline of this walk
behind and what the baseline is is
that's basically an area that if the
character is above the baseline he will
be will be drawn behind the walk behind
area
by default the the baseline is this
dotted blue line up here at the top so
I'm just going to drag that down
typically you want to drag that down to
the base of your walk-behind region so
this is my walk-behind region and this
is my walk behind line and again what
this is saying is when Sami is above
this line this wall will be drawn on top
of Sami
but if Sami is below this line let's say
that Sami is right here for example his
feet are here below the line well then
we don't want we don't want the wall to
be drawn on top of sanhui we want this
we want Sami to be drawn on top of the
wall so and that will happen as long as
you have your baseline set correctly in
other words again just just to recap
above this line if Sami is above this
line over here he will be the wall will
be drawn on top of Sami if Sammy is
below the line then the Sami will be
drawn on top of the wall so let's just
run that and see how that works
okay so we have Sami he says hello world
and then we'll walk over here let's make
sure that this works if he's below the
line again below the leave below the
line right now
Sami is drawn on top of the wall but if
I go into the closet now all of a sudden
the wall is drawn on top of Sami so
that's exactly the effect that we want
now it looks like Sami is really
entering the closet it looks like it
sort of gives a 3d component to the room
even though the room is just a 2d
picture so that's that's a really really
cool feature in AGS another thing I want
to say about walk behind in walkable
areas as well you can have several of
them you can have up to 16 from 0 to 15
walk behind areas and you might think
well why
I want more than than one well for one
thing you may want to have you know more
than one I might have had a closet over
here that had a different baseline and
everything like that I may have wanted
to to turn you know to have a different
different walk behind area well you can
do that you can have up to 16 of them
also what you can do if you watch the
intro you can turn these things on and
off if you watch the walkthrough you
remember that you can actually open this
this trapdoor when you open the trapdoor
you see the trapdoor wall the trapdoor
actually kind of leans leans over to the
side and it sort of appears over here
sort of leaning over well that becomes a
new walk behind area because if you
think about it when the when the door is
open and it's sort of leaning up when
Sammy walks behind the door we want the
door to be drawn on top of Sammy's so
that becomes a walk behind area so you
can actually draw the area that the door
will actually enter and then you can
turn that off in script you can turn it
off and turn it on so when by default it
would be off but when Sammy opens the
door we would turn that area on and so
then that would become a walking up walk
behind area so that's you know that's
one one of the ways that you could use
multiple walk behind areas so the next
thing we're going to do is we're going
to set it a set of region on this books
over here and we're going to have Sammy
say something whenever these books are
whenever whenever the character look the
player looks at these books we're going
to have them say something about the
books we'll actually do that in the next
video it looks like we're running out of
time on this video so we'll do that in
the next video so see you then