Shepherd Usability Test (r.1)
Okay, here's the first interface design of Shepherd, the new LassieAS editor. Please see the info document for a list of tasks to try to accomplish and a list of questions concerning your experience using the interface. Reply to this forum thread with feedback. Thanks, and good luck! NOTE: this is NOT a working build. This is an interactive draft of the interface design which, yes, does have a few working features. Please just don't report any "bugs". http://www.lassieadventurestudio.com/files/as/shepherd_demo_r1.zip (125K, requires Flash Player 8 )

hi greg it wont allow me to add the background and sprite images: the box appears grey, when you click "image" or "bg img" button you get the text field telling you " path: library" and the button, you can input details but nothing displays after you hit the button.. i tryed the obvious, bg.jpg, bg, library/bg.jpg etc and Flash 8 player everything else seems ok, i'm impressed, the general layout is great, a lot easier to use and probably a lot less confusing for new users a question would be.. hows it going to behave on 800x600 screen res? will it scroll bars or just fit to screen? nice work

It wont allow me to add the background and sprite images Ah, I probably have a Mac-specific path header written in... I haven't written a dynamic file access system yet. So, it's probably trying to access a "file:///" instead of "C:///" or whatever it is on a PC. hows it going to behave on 800x600 screen res? will it scroll bars or just fit to screen? The application is 1000x600. That's 800x600px of work area and 200px of side interface. The simple answer to your question is: system requirements demand a minimum of 1024px monitor resolution for the game developer. While I continue to make Lassie as accessible as possible, at some point I just have to expect some things from the end user. I want to move Lassie forward as a cutting-edge Flash tool, and that mission is not accomplished by adhering to five-year depreciated system standards.

i never expected you just to fit the editor round little old me and my prehistoric equipment :lol: actually with the new graphics card it will run 1024, the monitor overlaps the left hand side slightly on higher res's and refuses to pan, which is hardly your problem

I couldn't get the background image or greg sprite to load either.

Weird with a capitol "W". Works fine for me... just for clarification, you do NOT need to include "library/" as part of your path. To access that background image, you'd just enter "bg.jpg". The app will automatically look within the "library" directory.

Doesn't seem to do anything. I click on Bg Img, the little path window pops up, enter "bg.jpg" then when I click anywhere the window disappears and nothing happens.

thats what i/we are doing greg... the text area shows grey where the name should appear

Notes on Shepherd
Looks great Greg! Though I'm stuck at the same point as everyone else. Can't load the media. But I'm enjoying the interace so far. One thing I would suggest is to avoid having to scroll through the list of editors. If you can fit them all on one longer drop down menu that would save time when flipping back and forth. ROOM EDITOR NOTES I love the colored sheep graphic for the tints. (Could there be a way to plop your character in there for reference?) More graphic based controls like that are helpful and would attract more "technically challenged" developers like myself. (you also did this with the arrows in the sprite editor! Very nice.) Couldn't get the points to join and I wasn't wild about the drop down menu for the walk editor. I liked the multiple buttons in the old version as it was easier to add and delete points and boxes. SPRITE EDITOR NOTES Much easier to understand this interface then the old AS one. I really like that there's only one place to enter the sprite's depth as that confused me on the old version. As I mentioned, I also really like the graphical arrows instead of numbers for direction. And the little toggles at the bottom are great for turning the highlight on and off and showing the walkable area. I wonder if you could add a toggle to completely hide a sprite from view? When I work in AS I've got a few sprites that are huge and block others behind them and I'd love to temporarily be able to hide them. CONCLUSION Great interface. I'm loving it - much cleaner and easier to understand. Just be careful not to go overboard with the dropdown menus. Sometimes its annoying to have to drop down a menu when there might be space for the buttons right there. The only place this bugged me right now is the walk editor. But others might feel differently. And scrolling through dropdowns is no fun either. The more graphical elements the better. The arrows and color tint were very helpful. Also liked how easy it is to move through the different editors. It also makes logical sense. Can't wait to play around with some media in it. Nice job. This new engine is really going to attract more developers!!! Its awesome.

With the light matrix color tint, is is possible to also control character lightness/darkness as in LassieAS? I suppose this would be the alpha/opacity of the tint on the sprite. For example, as it is in Shepherd now, it seems you can only tint a sprite as if you were overlaying a clear color on them, as if you were looking at them through colored sunglasses. But in the LassieAS light matrix, you can give the effect of light being shined on the sprite. I know it may be hard to get what I mean without an example. But if you look at how the sliders in Shepherd have little effect on the black of the sheep, that might give you an idea. If I've got a character that is wearing a black shirt and say he walks past a spotlight, his shirt would look gray. This effect can be accomplished in AS, but it doesn't seem like it could in Shepherd. Anyway, I just don't want to lose that effect, if possible.

Kudos
BTW John, I'm blown away at how you've used the light matrix in your game. Your character meshes perfectly with the background lighting. One of these days you gotta give a tutorial on how you got such good results.

Still Set the Graphics
Sorry, Greg. I still can't set the graphics. Typed it out, pressed the orange arrow, nothing.