[Audyssey] MOTA questions

2013-05-03 Thread Charles Rivard
Tom:  What should, and what should we not, do with the MOTA betas?  Thanks.

---
Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.
---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


Re: [Audyssey] MOTA questions

2013-05-03 Thread Thomas Ward
Hi Charles,

Hmm...To be honest I haven't decided. Since they were released to the
general public and there are no legal restrictions I suppose if you
want to keep them and continue playing them go ahead and do so.
Although, the games themselves are technically abandonware now the
sounds, music, characters, etc are still the property of USA Games and
will be used in Ark of Hope so as long as people don't take my
intellectual property  rights I'm fine with people playing the old
betas. Basically, I am not going to support them, but I am not going
to be a jerk and say don't play them either.

Cheers!

On 5/3/13, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote:
 Tom:  What should, and what should we not, do with the MOTA betas?  Thanks.

 ---
 Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second.

---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-09 Thread Thomas Ward

Hi Che,
Yeah, threading is definitely my friend right now. I spent an hour or so 
last night splitting the game into multiple threads and it is running 
far better than I had expected. As for the speech issue now that I have 
started breaking the game down into individual threads the speech is 
working far better. It doesn't hang the input thread up, and I've got it 
so it will interrupt the speech most of the time. With a day or two of 
work I think I'll have this major issue solved soon.

Smile.

Che wrote:

 Hi,
 Regarding the interruption of the speaking of .wav files, you should be 
able to put the code that handles that in a separate thread, then 
continue to run the main game loop. If the interrupt key is hit, you can 
just abort and join that thread, stopping the speaking of the wav 
sounds.  I do something similar with the simulation of poker hands with 
the new hold em game,and it works perfectly.

 Threads are definately your friend in the accessible gaming world.
HTH,
che



---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


[Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-08 Thread Valiant8086
Hi.
I figured I would repeat all of my questions in one place.

When I get too close to the giant to hit, he can still hit me. Is this supposed 
to be the case?

I just hit the giant on advanced difficulty with 10 arrows and he didn't die. 
Is this reasonable? This isn't a complaint btw I'm just observing and makeing 
sure this stuff is working the way it's expected to.

The guns don't do any damage to the giant it seems. Why is this? I can't 
imagine why arrows would hurt him but guns don't even begin to.


I'm wondering if we can re-implimint ducking the way it used to be, so you can 
stay ducked as long as you want, it just doesn't do you any good to stay ducked 
down for more than one hit because the enemy will compensate. It is confusing 
when you duck and stand up again, I find that it makes it difficult to keep 
track of what's going on. I would like to be able to duck, shoot, stand up, 
then maybe jump and shoot, but the way ducking works in beta 2 this isn't realy 
possible to control, because ducking works for it's own amount of time and all 
that. You mentioned possibly impliminting keystrokes to be able to walk while 
ducked down. I can see some reasons to do this. If you code in a new kind of 
obsticle, an air duct, or something like that, or a ledge is too low to the 
ground, you have to duck to go under it.


There's been a lot of discussion regarding your range to an enemy. I think I 
believe that the  character should be blocked by the enemy and thus unable to 
pass the enemy. I also believe the pistol and the  combat knife should still be 
useable in such close contact. The pistol could be jammed against the enemy and 
fired that way, and the knife could be jabbed at the enemy from the side etc. 
If the character is blocked from passing the enemy, when the enemy tries to 
fire a weapon too close to the enemy, the weapon is not fired at all.


In the menues, should the first item in the menu be selected automatically and 
spoken after the menu title is heard? Select a menu item. new game. press 
enter. Select a game. Arcade. Press enter. Select a difficulty level. Beginner. 
Down arrow. intermediate. press enter. for yes no prompts if an option is 
selected automatically it should be no, not yes. Just a thought.


In the view scores menu, should the score be spoken without having to press 
enter? Intermediate. 20, 5, thousand, 9, hundred, 40, 5. 

In some cases when speech is happening it is impossible to interrupt speech. 
These include when the  score is being spoken, when some things are being 
performed status keys like s for score, a for ammo. When the game is started 
and the copywrite information is being spoken, etc. Should it be made possible 
to press any key and  interrupt these things? I know that for instance when you 
check your ammo the game is paused until the speech is complete. what i'm after 
is the possibility to just stop speech and have the timer resume. I could press 
control, or press an arrow key to walk etc. One problem with this is that I 
like to hold down navigation keys and do other stuff simultaneously, it would 
be nice if the keys could avoid interrupting speech unless they are released 
and pressed, not if they have been held down from the begin with.

Did you receive my improved 5 sound?

I have noticed that my character can get hit even after the eneemy is dead by 
the dead eneemy, or after the view or inventory menues are brought up. Say I 
walk into that giant. I hear the character scream. I press tab because I have 
the wrong weapon and I want to switch useing that menu because I'm not 
comfortable pressing the numbers to change weapons just yet. So I press tab, 
the menu comes up, the voice says select a menu item. and then I hear the 
character scream again. I have been killed this way. I have also been killed 
after having already killed the enemy that killed me, more than once in a row. 
For example imagine I go aft3er a harpy with my 9mm. I blast 5 times, but I had 
40 percent health, I got hit once while I was banging away. The harpy dies and 
hits the floor, and then, almost a full second later, I hear angela cry, and 
collapse to the floor. I am useing a netbook. The performance could, but 
probably isn't the issue. I have a 1.7ghz processor and 2gb of ram on windows 
xp. I have been able to run any audio game I want without a single performance 
related problem that I am aware of.

I am going to regret this change if it is impliminted, but I think it should be 
impossible to fire the bow quickly. There should probably be a two second delay 
or there abouts. The pistol makes sense but you know the 9mm probably can only 
hold 15 shots. Have you thought about makeing it complicated and you have to 
change clips or something like that? I don't know anything about those guns 
really but the shotgun can probably only fire one shot, or maybe two if it is a 
side by side or over and under. It could also be a revolver but those things 
are huge and 

Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-08 Thread Thomas Ward

Hi,
ok, there are alot of questions and ansers here and i'll try and answer 
them all as best I can. Here goes.


Aaron Asked:
When I get too close to the giant to hit, he can still hit me. Is this 
supposed to

be the case?

Tom Says:
There is no minimum range feature for the enemy AI so for the moment it 
works like it is suppose too. That could change in a future release, but 
for the moment it is only doing what it is programmed to do.


Aaron Asked:
The guns don't do any damage to the giant it seems. Why is this? I can't 
imagine

why arrows would hurt him but guns don't even begin to.

Tom Says:
That's  because those are enchanted arrows not normal arrows. Magic 
weapons have a much higher melee rating than standard ones. Once the 
User's Guide gets completed all of this will become more clear, and 
hopefully make much more sense.


Aaron Asked:
I'm wondering if we can re-implimint ducking the way it used to be, so 
you can stay
ducked as long as you want, it just doesn't do you any good to stay 
ducked down for

more than one hit because the enemy will compensate.

Tom Says:
I suppose so. However, that feature is going to take a lot of time and 
energy to get working properly, and just be patient with me please. That 
is only one of several issues I am trying to work on as I find the time 
to do so.


Aaron Said:
I also believe the pistol and the  combat knife should still be useable 
in such close
contact. The pistol could be jammed against the enemy and fired that 
way, and the

knife could be jabbed at the enemy from the side etc.

Tom Says:
I've already explained the reason why I used a minimum range for each 
weapon. Basically, if you are too close to an enemy creature the firing 
code starts screwing up. To fix that problem means I basically have to 
completely rewrite the firing code from scratch. Since this is not a 
simple or easy job I'd truly appreciate if all of you would lay off the 
subject for a while. I'm really beginning to feel a bit irritated about 
the constant requests for me to fix this. I will, but don't keep on my case.
Besides that the minimum range constants are usually what you would 
expect any way. For example the knife has a minimum range of 0.5 units 
which is equal to 6 inches. That should be close enough anyway for most 
purposes. So I don't really understand why most of you are complaining 
about the minumum range values. Most of the time you probably don't even 
notice them except in a case where you need to backup to give yourself a 
little more room.


Aaron Asked:
In the menues, should the first item in the menu be selected 
automatically and spoken

after the menu title is heard?

Tom Says:
No, and I have a very good reason not to do so. The main reason is I am 
having a technical issue with DirectInput where a key repetes even when 
it shouldn't. For example if you were to press enter on new game and you 
landed on the first item in the mode menu it would automatically select 
arcade mode, open the experience menu, automatically select beginner, 
and continue until you either released the key or it could no longer 
open any menus. To solve that problem for the moment I pass a 0 to the 
new menu function so that enter can't do anything until you scroll to an 
actual valid menu option. Does this make sense?


Aaron Asked:
In the view scores menu, should the score be spoken without having to 
press enter?


Tom Says:
No. Since you can not interrupt the SpeakNumber function when it is 
speaking using it in the high scores menu would be a lot worse than 
having to press enter. Basically, if you pressed down arrow and it 
started speaking the score you couldn't down arrow again until the score 
finished speaking. So I felt it was more practical to press enter on a 
menu option instead.


Aaron Asked:
In some cases when speech is happening it is impossible to interrupt 
speech. These
include when the  score is being spoken, when some things are being 
performed status
keys like s for score, a for ammo. When the game is started and the 
copywrite information
is being spoken, etc. Should it be made possible to press any key and 
interrupt

these things?

Tom Says:
I'm not really sure how Draconis, GMA, etc handles using speech with wav 
files, but I know the way I wrote the SpeakMessage function it can not 
be interrupted when speaking a long string of stuff like numbers. The 
way it works is like this.


Load message wav file.
Play the wav file.
Wait for wav file to finish.
Load another wav file.
Play the wav file.
Wait for wav file to finish.

The way this works everything else is haulted why the while loop is 
waiting on the wav file to finish. If someone has a better suggestion or 
better way of handling this I am all ears. Otherwise things are going to 
work the same until I find a better way to process wav files and speak 
status messages etc. What you and and others are asking for is beyond my 
technical and programming skill right now. Sorry, but I really 

Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-08 Thread Cory
hi,
I think it's important to thank tom for all he does despite the constant 
requests. 
keep up the good work!

Cory


On Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:40:47 -0500, Thomas Ward wrote:


Hi,
ok, there are alot of questions and ansers here and i'll try and answer 
them all as best I can. Here goes.

Aaron Asked:
When I get too close to the giant to hit, he can still hit me. Is this 
supposed to
be the case?

Tom Says:
There is no minimum range feature for the enemy AI so for the moment it 
works like it is suppose too. That could change in a future release, but 
for the moment it is only doing what it is programmed to do.

Aaron Asked:
The guns don't do any damage to the giant it seems. Why is this? I can't 
imagine
why arrows would hurt him but guns don't even begin to.

Tom Says:
That's  because those are enchanted arrows not normal arrows. Magic 
weapons have a much higher melee rating than standard ones. Once the 
User's Guide gets completed all of this will become more clear, and 
hopefully make much more sense.

Aaron Asked:
I'm wondering if we can re-implimint ducking the way it used to be, so 
you can stay
ducked as long as you want, it just doesn't do you any good to stay 
ducked down for
more than one hit because the enemy will compensate.

Tom Says:
I suppose so. However, that feature is going to take a lot of time and 
energy to get working properly, and just be patient with me please. That 
is only one of several issues I am trying to work on as I find the time 
to do so.

Aaron Said:
I also believe the pistol and the  combat knife should still be useable 
in such close
contact. The pistol could be jammed against the enemy and fired that 
way, and the
knife could be jabbed at the enemy from the side etc.

Tom Says:
I've already explained the reason why I used a minimum range for each 
weapon. Basically, if you are too close to an enemy creature the firing 
code starts screwing up. To fix that problem means I basically have to 
completely rewrite the firing code from scratch. Since this is not a 
simple or easy job I'd truly appreciate if all of you would lay off the 
subject for a while. I'm really beginning to feel a bit irritated about 
the constant requests for me to fix this. I will, but don't keep on my case.
Besides that the minimum range constants are usually what you would 
expect any way. For example the knife has a minimum range of 0.5 units 
which is equal to 6 inches. That should be close enough anyway for most 
purposes. So I don't really understand why most of you are complaining 
about the minumum range values. Most of the time you probably don't even 
notice them except in a case where you need to backup to give yourself a 
little more room.

Aaron Asked:
In the menues, should the first item in the menu be selected 
automatically and spoken
after the menu title is heard?

Tom Says:
No, and I have a very good reason not to do so. The main reason is I am 
having a technical issue with DirectInput where a key repetes even when 
it shouldn't. For example if you were to press enter on new game and you 
landed on the first item in the mode menu it would automatically select 
arcade mode, open the experience menu, automatically select beginner, 
and continue until you either released the key or it could no longer 
open any menus. To solve that problem for the moment I pass a 0 to the 
new menu function so that enter can't do anything until you scroll to an 
actual valid menu option. Does this make sense?

Aaron Asked:
In the view scores menu, should the score be spoken without having to 
press enter?

Tom Says:
No. Since you can not interrupt the SpeakNumber function when it is 
speaking using it in the high scores menu would be a lot worse than 
having to press enter. Basically, if you pressed down arrow and it 
started speaking the score you couldn't down arrow again until the score 
finished speaking. So I felt it was more practical to press enter on a 
menu option instead.

Aaron Asked:
In some cases when speech is happening it is impossible to interrupt 
speech. These
include when the  score is being spoken, when some things are being 
performed status
keys like s for score, a for ammo. When the game is started and the 
copywrite information
is being spoken, etc. Should it be made possible to press any key and 
interrupt
these things?

Tom Says:
I'm not really sure how Draconis, GMA, etc handles using speech with wav 
files, but I know the way I wrote the SpeakMessage function it can not 
be interrupted when speaking a long string of stuff like numbers. The 
way it works is like this.

Load message wav file.
Play the wav file.
Wait for wav file to finish.
Load another wav file.
Play the wav file.
Wait for wav file to finish.

The way this works everything else is haulted why the while loop is 
waiting on the wav file to finish. If someone has a better suggestion or 
better way of handling this I am all ears. Otherwise things are going to 
work the same until I find a better way to process 

Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-08 Thread Valiant8086
Hi.
Woo, Now we're all on the same pages. I'm going to comment in a couple of 
places below. Hopefully this email isn't getting too big for the mailman thing.

  Aaron Asked:
  The guns don't do any damage to the giant it seems. Why is this? I can't 
  imagine
  why arrows would hurt him but guns don't even begin to.

  Tom Says:
  That's  because those are enchanted arrows not normal arrows. Magic 
  weapons have a much higher melee rating than standard ones. Once the 
  User's Guide gets completed all of this will become more clear, and 
  hopefully make much more sense.

  Aaron said: Ah, nod this makes sence now. I figured it was something like 
that but I wanted to find out for sure.

  Aaron Asked:
  I'm wondering if we can re-implimint ducking the way it used to be, so 
  you can stay
  ducked as long as you want, it just doesn't do you any good to stay 
  ducked down for
  more than one hit because the enemy will compensate.

  Tom Says:
  I suppose so. However, that feature is going to take a lot of time and 
  energy to get working properly, and just be patient with me please. That 
  is only one of several issues I am trying to work on as I find the time 
  to do so.

  Aaron Said: Nod I'm not going to get out my sub machine gun and wave it 
around screaming and jumping up and down yelling at you to hurry up or else! 
lol I'll just let Lara do that.

  Aaron Said:
  I also believe the pistol and the  combat knife should still be useable 
  in such close
  contact. The pistol could be jammed against the enemy and fired that 
  way, and the
  knife could be jabbed at the enemy from the side etc.

  Tom Says:
  I've already explained the reason why I used a minimum range for each 
  weapon. Basically, if you are too close to an enemy creature the firing 
  code starts screwing up. To fix that problem means I basically have to 
  completely rewrite the firing code from scratch. Since this is not a 
  simple or easy job I'd truly appreciate if all of you would lay off the 
  subject for a while. I'm really beginning to feel a bit irritated about 
  the constant requests for me to fix this. I will, but don't keep on my case.
  Besides that the minimum range constants are usually what you would 
  expect any way. For example the knife has a minimum range of 0.5 units 
  which is equal to 6 inches. That should be close enough anyway for most 
  purposes. So I don't really understand why most of you are complaining 
  about the minumum range values. Most of the time you probably don't even 
  notice them except in a case where you need to backup to give yourself a 
  little more room.

  Aaron Said: Ok. I'm following.

  Aaron Asked:
  In the menues, should the first item in the menu be selected 
  automatically and spoken
  after the menu title is heard?

  Tom Says:
  No, and I have a very good reason not to do so. The main reason is I am 
  having a technical issue with DirectInput where a key repetes even when 
  it shouldn't. For example if you were to press enter on new game and you 
  landed on the first item in the mode menu it would automatically select 
  arcade mode, open the experience menu, automatically select beginner, 
  and continue until you either released the key or it could no longer 
  open any menus. To solve that problem for the moment I pass a 0 to the 
  new menu function so that enter can't do anything until you scroll to an 
  actual valid menu option. Does this make sense?

  aaron Said: yes, it does make sence. It's not a show stopper by any means so 
we can do without for sure.

  Aaron Asked:
  In some cases when speech is happening it is impossible to interrupt 
  speech. These
  include when the  score is being spoken, when some things are being 
  performed status
  keys like s for score, a for ammo. When the game is started and the 
  copywrite information
  is being spoken, etc. Should it be made possible to press any key and 
  interrupt
  these things?

  Tom Says:
  I'm not really sure how Draconis, GMA, etc handles using speech with wav 
  files, but I know the way I wrote the SpeakMessage function it can not 
  be interrupted when speaking a long string of stuff like numbers. The 
  way it works is like this.

  Load message wav file.
  Play the wav file.
  Wait for wav file to finish.
  Load another wav file.
  Play the wav file.
  Wait for wav file to finish.

  The way this works everything else is haulted why the while loop is 
  waiting on the wav file to finish. If someone has a better suggestion or 
  better way of handling this I am all ears. Otherwise things are going to 
  work the same until I find a better way to process wav files and speak 
  status messages etc. What you and and others are asking for is beyond my 
  technical and programming skill right now. Sorry, but I really can't 
  help on this issue at the moment.
  As for interrupting the intro message I can do that. In fact it is on my 
  todo list for Beta 3, and will be available in the 

Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-08 Thread Thomas Ward

Hi Aaron,

Aaron Said:
Nod, I just figured those sounds were queued up for the engine to play,
and all you had to doo to make it stop was just send the direct x a 
command to stop

and it would make everything stop.

Tom Says:
No, it certainly doesn't. I know some game developers such as Justin and 
Dan use to load all of there common speech files into sound buffers and 
when they wanted to stop speech they would have a function that stops 
any or all of the voice files that are being played back. This is 
certainly one possible solution to the whole speech problem.


Aaron Said:
I see now it doesn't quite work like that. From
your explanation it looks like you have a while loop that keeps going 
and checking
to see if the sound is playing. When the sound is not playing the loop 
plays the

next sound and somehow in so doing initiates itself again.

Tom Says:
That's not exactly how it works, but close enough to get the point 
across. The while loop that monitors the speech state is actually what 
is holding up the active game thread. It has the input threads attention 
and why the game stops responding while it is active.


Aaron Said:
I don't know if the input
still workks but a though I have is an if statement inside that could 
check to see
if a variable interupt is set to 1. If it were, it could pull out of the 
loop. Only
problem there is is there enough input support while this is going on to 
be able
to set a variable if I press a key while it's looping. And, would it 
slow the speech
down to be checking that variable every time it loops. I know in vb it 
does. In vb
if I loop something the whole program seems to stop and give all it's 
attention to

the loop. If that's the case input support wouldn't get any attention.

Tom Says:
That is true. What is happening here is that the speech is currently 
operating on the same thread/process as the master input loop so 
wwhenever you start speech the input and everything else operating on 
that thread waits for the speech to stop. Fortunately, since I am using 
C-Sharp I do have an option open to me that VB 6 programmers don't have. 
Are you familiar with multithreading?
Basically, what multithreading does is you split your application into 
multiple concurrent streams that allows the program to perform several 
different actions virtually at the same time. If I put speech on its own 
thread, input on another, then it would be possible to press a keywhich 
tells the sspeech thread to shut up. Also doing this would allow you to 
continue walking while checking direction, location, whatever without 
the speech interfering with your movement. So this is definitely 
something I need to look in to for Beta 3.
What I am saying here is I think it is possible to interrupt the speech, 
but I just need some time to work out the technicalities. I've never 
done this before so it could take me anything from an  hour or a entire 
month to come up with the right solution. Although, I am fairly certain 
I'll be able to do it by splitting the game into concurrent threads. 
That almost certainly has to be part of the solution right there.

HTH



---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-08 Thread Che

 Hi,
 Regarding the interruption of the speaking of .wav files, you should be 
able to put the code that handles that in a separate thread, then continue 
to run the main game loop. If the interrupt key is hit, you can just abort 
and join that thread, stopping the speaking of the wav sounds.  I do 
something similar with the simulation of poker hands with the new hold em 
game,and it works perfectly.

 Threads are definately your friend in the accessible gaming world.
HTH,
che


---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.


Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS

2009-03-08 Thread Che
 Lol, just got this message about threading after I sent mine about the 
same solution.  Yes I think doing multiple threads here will possibly answer 
some other problems you are having as well, and should help with the overall 
smoothness of the game.  Just a word of advice from someone that has been 
there a lot the past two years, keep your threads very very well organized, 
and locked up as much as possible. If they cross rails at any point, the 
code blows up real good.

 Good luck,
Che

- Original Message - 
From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com

To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org
Sent: Sunday, March 08, 2009 5:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] MOTA QUESTIONS



Hi Aaron,

Aaron Said:
Nod, I just figured those sounds were queued up for the engine to play,
and all you had to doo to make it stop was just send the direct x a 
command to stop

and it would make everything stop.

Tom Says:
No, it certainly doesn't. I know some game developers such as Justin and 
Dan use to load all of there common speech files into sound buffers and 
when they wanted to stop speech they would have a function that stops any 
or all of the voice files that are being played back. This is certainly 
one possible solution to the whole speech problem.


Aaron Said:
I see now it doesn't quite work like that. From
your explanation it looks like you have a while loop that keeps going and 
checking
to see if the sound is playing. When the sound is not playing the loop 
plays the

next sound and somehow in so doing initiates itself again.

Tom Says:
That's not exactly how it works, but close enough to get the point across. 
The while loop that monitors the speech state is actually what is holding 
up the active game thread. It has the input threads attention and why the 
game stops responding while it is active.


Aaron Said:
I don't know if the input
still workks but a though I have is an if statement inside that could 
check to see
if a variable interupt is set to 1. If it were, it could pull out of the 
loop. Only
problem there is is there enough input support while this is going on to 
be able
to set a variable if I press a key while it's looping. And, would it slow 
the speech
down to be checking that variable every time it loops. I know in vb it 
does. In vb
if I loop something the whole program seems to stop and give all it's 
attention to

the loop. If that's the case input support wouldn't get any attention.

Tom Says:
That is true. What is happening here is that the speech is currently 
operating on the same thread/process as the master input loop so wwhenever 
you start speech the input and everything else operating on that thread 
waits for the speech to stop. Fortunately, since I am using C-Sharp I do 
have an option open to me that VB 6 programmers don't have. Are you 
familiar with multithreading?
Basically, what multithreading does is you split your application into 
multiple concurrent streams that allows the program to perform several 
different actions virtually at the same time. If I put speech on its own 
thread, input on another, then it would be possible to press a keywhich 
tells the sspeech thread to shut up. Also doing this would allow you to 
continue walking while checking direction, location, whatever without the 
speech interfering with your movement. So this is definitely something I 
need to look in to for Beta 3.
What I am saying here is I think it is possible to interrupt the speech, 
but I just need some time to work out the technicalities. I've never done 
this before so it could take me anything from an  hour or a entire month 
to come up with the right solution. Although, I am fairly certain I'll be 
able to do it by splitting the game into concurrent threads. That almost 
certainly has to be part of the solution right there.

HTH



---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to 
gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.

You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the 
list,

please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.




---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.