How to use AGS Part 13 (Scaling) Video Lecture | Learn and Master: Adventure Game Studio (AGS) - Game Development

welcome back to the tutorial in the last
video we we linked the two rooms
together the party hall in the main hall
we allowed Sammy to go from one room to
the other by using the screen edges in
this video we're going to clean up a
couple of things that we did in that
video the first thing I mentioned was
there was a walk behind issue where I'm
gonna run the game and just show what
what the issue is and then and then
we'll discuss how to fix it so here I am
in the party hall and if I go up to the
top of the screen here so now I'm at the
top I'm at the landing at the top of the
stairs and you can see that there's
there's at the top of his head there's a
walk behind problem where where Sammy is
being drawn on top of the ceiling where
in reality he should be behind the
ceiling but but really that's that's as
a result of sort of an overarching
problem and that is that Sammy's just
huge I mean he you know down here I've
made the comment earlier that Sammy
doesn't even reach the top of the table
you know he's barely taller than the
table is down here but yet when he goes
up to the top of the screen all of a
sudden now he's like you know monster
sized so it would be you know it's what
we really should do is make Sammy's
smaller as he walks up the stairs he
sort of gets smaller and smaller and
smaller so that by the time he gets to
the top of the stairs you know maybe
he's just slightly taller than then the
mouse cursor stickman is here so maybe
he you know maybe he goes up to the top
of the flowers or something like that
instead of being such this huge
monstrous looking guy so that's well
that's how we're gonna address this
problem because it'd be smaller he's
actually not going to go up to the top
of the screen so we really alleviate
that walk-behind area problem well the
way that you do that in AGS is really
really a neat feature it's called
scaling and it's sort of built in I'm
gonna select the walkable areas again
from the room from the main hall and I'm
gonna select walkable area - which was
the walkable area we drew on top of the
stairs now I mentioned that that I've
made this a separate walkable area for a
reason and this is the reason that I did
that is because I want to do there's a
scaling issue here that I want to
address so what we want to do is we want
to say okay Sammy we should as he walks
up this
there's he should get smaller and
smaller up to this point right here at
the top of the stairs which case he
should be maybe 65% let's just say of
his normal size which you know I've
experimented with that number
65% would put him about the right
proportion up here so in other words
when he's down here he should be a
hundred percent of his of his full
height so he should be drawn normally
and then as he goes up the stairs he
should get smaller and smaller and
smaller until finally when he's at the
top of the stairs he's sixty-five
percent of his total height let's do
that now if I go over to the I've got
the part of the walkable area to select
it I go over to the properties of that
area now it says there's a property here
it says use continuous scaling and
that's set to false by default well this
is this is that property that allows us
to do exactly what I was just talking
about so if we set this to true all of a
sudden now we get two new properties
that appear to that appear we get min
min scaling level and Max scaling level
well these two are the two properties
that that define how big he is at the
bottom of that walkable area and how big
he is at the top the min scaling level
is well let's start with the max the max
scaling level is how big he is in as a
percentage at the bottom of that
walkable area so in other words he'll be
a hundred percent of his normal size
when he hits the bottom of that walkable
area which is what we want but when he
gets to the top of the stairs I said
that he really needs to be about 65% of
his total size so that's where you type
in 65 here now these are sort of flipped
because they're they're in alphabetical
order but this this max scaling level is
actually what happens at the bottom of
the walkway area and this min scaling
level is what happens at the top of this
walk-up the de walkable area despite
their relative order here in the
properties window again this is sorted
by alphabetically here so so this will
say let's just see how this works let's
run the game and demonstrate how this
works now okay so as semi walks up to
the top of the screen watch him he'll
get smaller I'm going to start here he's
a hundred percent of his size here and
he walks up to the top of the stairs
he's getting smaller and smaller and now
he's
65% of his total size so he's a lot
smaller his head doesn't actually you
know reach the top of the ceiling
anymore it's exactly the behavior that
we wanted however there's more to this
the the walkable area that I used to go
up the stairs is actually part of the
same walkable area so as I go up the
stairs he's actually gonna get smaller
and smaller it was hard to tell because
because of the screen transition but
because all of we switched back to the
the screen here because all of this here
is part of that same walkable area he's
actually not gonna hit his 65% until the
very end till if Sammy would get to the
very very top of this walkable area here
which is isn't really what we want so
let's fix that by setting this part of
the walkable area here as a separate
walkable area ID so the first thing I'm
gonna do is clear out this part here
that goes up the stairs from this
walkable area so just very quickly let
me just break it here with the again
with the right drag I'm right I'm right
dragging the line draw it sort of breaks
these these two pieces off and then I'm
just gonna right fill these pieces to
clear them away so now that walkable
area just goes up to the top of the
stairs and I'm gonna create a new
walkable area that goes the rest of the
way up the stairs and notice that as I
draw these walkable areas each walkable
area has its own color this one is sort
of a turquoise the last walkway area was
a was a green and then the first one was
a blue so that's just to let you
visually keep them separated within the
editor now let's see if I can fill these
in okay good so now I have a separate
walkable area so now let's think about
this Sammy's gonna be a hundred percent
100 percent of this size here he's gonna
be 65% of his size here so he needs to
be 65% of his size on these walkable
areas as well so I'm gonna go over to
the properties of the walkable area set
the scaling level to 65 here because
that way he's just he's is going to be a
constant 65 percent of this size
throughout the entire walkable area for
the for these for these stair pieces so
that's what I want let's try that out
now
okay so now when he walks up to the top
of the stairs
now he's 65% of his size and then as I
walk up the stairs again it'll switch to
the next room but just watch it as I do
it okay so he stayed 65% of his size at
the top so that really gives them more
of an illusion illusion of depth to the
screen when you can create these
walkable areas with with a scaling
percentage in there okay great now we
want to talk about one more thing and
that is what I introduced at the end of
the last video where we really want him
to be able to finish walking up the rest
of the stairs when he leaves the room
and then to to walk in when he comes in
from the party hall to be able to walk
down the stairs and then from that way
and I'll address that in the next video
where we will talk about the actual room
transitions in the next video so I'll
see you then guys