LassieAS: The Flash engine
Alright, while there has been some discussion about this subject there has been no official announcement. So here it it, announcing LassieAS: Adventure Studio for Action Script. LassieAS will use the same editor application in Director and compose games in exactly the same way (with some new editor features included), however it will have an output feature to dump data formatted for Flash... At which time, the game will be able to be assembled and run within Flash natively. The big difference is that AS will use all external files, so you will set up a graphics library the way you would a website 'images' folder. All Flash media will need to be saved as JPG or SWF files (that's all that Flash will load externally), however the media imported into the editor does not need to be that in the graphics library. The plan is to allow developers to create a Director and Flash version of their game simultaneously. So, you can import the uncompressed image for the editor/Director version, then specify a link to the optimized JPG or SWF file of the same graphic for use in the Flash player. Rooms will load on call, so there will be load screens between rooms to space out the burden. I do plan to implement a system for load optimization (to preload upcoming rooms during game play), though that will be a follow-up system. Overall, this system is being engineered for online-playable delivery. The Director player will now lean toward self-standing application delivery. Either way, it removes me (the developer) out of the publishing process for all LASSIE material.

So does this mean that for a Flash version of a game, all graphics that are BMPs or GIFs will have to be resaved as jpegs? I'm just curious because I had tried using jpegs when I first started my game, but jpegs have some artifacting and so transparencies in the graphics didn't display properly.

There will be one pre-compiled SWF file that will load all gamedata and assets into it to assemble and play the game. You just need to format media to be loaded in. And yes, that means you will have to save assets as JPGs. Elements with transparency will have to be saved as SWFs.

Wow
Ok... ok... this is a good feature for Lassie... export directly to .swf!! great job!

Hold on there professor... LassieAS will still not *export* a SWF file, however it will load all game assets into and run the game *within* a pre-compiled SWF. These are very different processes, although the end result is essentially the same. I emphasise this point becasue I don't want to get developers' hopes up that there will be a SWF export feature.

uooo
Ea... ok... i get it. Still... a grat feature for Lassie.

Quick update on the AS player development... After a progress stand-still for some seasonal projects and happenings, I have gotten some time recently to do a bit more work on the project. Overall, I'm pretty happy with its progress and general flexibility. Some features that you can expect to see include: :arrow: The room objects now descend from the same class as the character sprite, so all control LASSIE currently offers over the character extends to all room objects (scale matrix, light matrix, moveToLoc, flipToFace, plus a bunch of new stuff). :arrow: dialogue will be able to be released a few lines at a time as apposed to the one big delivery that currently happens with playDia. Pair this with all room objects being able to follow paths, play animations, etc, and you have everything you need for in-game cut scenes. :arrow: Light matrix incorporates color transform as well as value, so you can tint a character orange as they approach a flame or match the glow of a neon sign. :arrow: All text fields are loaded externally, so you will be able to configure the size, color and font of game texts. :arrow: The greatly requested "fadeOutScreen" feature similar to the one currently present between room transitions will be made available. Aside from just creating a screen overlay, developers will be able to specify the overlay color, target opacity, speed to animate to the target opacity, and of course if the overlay should block room mouse response. Fun stuff. More later.

AWESOME.

So LassieAS is an Action Script version of the Lassie Adventure game development system? Do you really need Director to utilize it or can this be used in the Flash environment? How would this be implemented and what framework would it be used in? Would you just import the AS files into Flash and compile it there? Sorry for all the questions, I just want to understand further on how this works...

As a developer you won't need Director for either version of the LASSIE Studio. You will still need Flash, though, to make your animations and export graphics to .SWF (though some other programs can export to .SWF as well.)

thank for the post, I'm glad to hear that people are interested in the project. There is no anticipated release date at this point and I will probably never set one. Chances are that a build will just show up out of the blue one day when something is ready. I don't mean to keep developers in the dark, but I don't like having a hard line that people get mad when I don't deliver by... I have to put up with that at my real job! I will say though that progress is going well and I will be posting a production demo pretty soon that will show the flash player in action. I have a lot of the editor features set up too, although it will require a round of beta -*test*-('")ing to iron out bugs introduced with the new AS features. Check back occasionally, I do plan to keep a running status log in this thread.

Hurrah! Full screen gameplay is a go! I never realized that flash natively supports full screen display, and with its sub-pixel rendering capabilities, even a 640x480 game looks decent when taken up to the size of a large moniter... and of course vector artwork looks perfect. So, you can expect to find a full screen display option (it will auto-disable, however, when the game is being played within a web browser). On the down side, some things currently supported will not appear in the early AS builds... Sound (as crucial as it is) will be an added system (I still have to decide on the best way to implement massive dynamic sound libraries). The conversation architecture will not be immediately available either. It is a lesser-used game asset and a development-heavy component, so I am placing efforts into general game play. Other than that, the bulk of the current capabilities will be supported.

Ehh... Director does support fullscreen... The projector should be on full screen and there is an free extra on the web that can change the screen resolution with a simple line of script... If you want I can get it for you, I tried it and it is working fine.

I was going to get Director running LASSIE full screen, but I decided to focus my efforts else where (ie: flash). Out of curiosity though, which Xtra are you referring to? I found two: one that cost $150, and the other was a feature of the Buddy API that is only supported on Windows (which is not helpful for my Mac development).

I don't know if it isn't supporting MAC but here is what I got :: http://www.digicrafts.com.hk/xtras/resx.html Its a free version that just shows a splash screen when opening Director for 1 sec. Still if it supports only windows let us the option of using it(if you don't have any other solution).