Animation?

[Frommomsbasement]

Since Hugor doesn't do video, has anyone experimented with using sequential images to make small or looping animations?
I noticed the end of the Future Boy! demo had some flashing images that played in Hugor, has anyone tried to use that instead of video?

[Roody_Yogurt]

It's possible under certain situations but probably not how you'd like it. You can't run any code while the game sits at a normal prompt, but sure, you could do a faked animation in between prompts or during a loop that's looking for a keypress.

[pinback]

Feels like adding support for animated GIFs wouldn't be too hard.

I say this without knowing anything about Hugo or animated GIFs.

LOOK JUST DO IT.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I put together five jpgs to create an effect during the scene with the Jackalope in my game Cryptozookeeper. Like Roody says, nothing else can happen while it is running.

I think Nikos, the creator of Hugor, reads all the Hugo threads. Any chance there's video support one day in Hugor?

[RealNC]

I hope so. Din't look into how much work it would involve though, so I don't know when it will happen.

[pinback]

Can someone answer my question about animated gifs, though? Is that a "non-starter"? Is implementing video easier? I honestly don't know, and would like someone to answer me in a respectful manner.

[RealNC]

Can someone answer my question about animated gifs, though? Is that a "non-starter"? Is implementing video easier? I honestly don't know, and would like someone to answer me in a respectful manner.

Hugo doesn't support gifs, so adding it to Hugor isn't an option, as that would make it incompatible with the official interpreter. It would be very easy to do though.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

How about you implement it and we sort of forget about the official interpreter?

Let's talk real talk to each other. The original interpreter is only around to support Future Boy!. Nothing else uses video. But that's OK because each copy of Future Boy! comes on a CD with the official interpreter.

You're saying we could all have animated gifs! This would literally revolutionize Hugo games. I think breaking away from the official interpreter is a good thing.

[RealNC]

Well, it would violate Kent's license. Somehow I feel like asking him for permission to distribute an incompatible fork of his software isn't very polite :-P What the license means is basically "here's the source code, make sure whatever you create with it is still Hugo."

Feel free to do the asking though, if you know him better. Just CC me in the email.

PS:
If he agrees, then there's other things that could be added too, like Vorbis audio and MNG animations (it doesn't have the 256 colors limit of GIF and is just as easy to support.)

[Bainespal]

You're saying we could all have animated gifs! This would literally revolutionize Hugo games. I think breaking away from the official interpreter is a good thing.

I agree! Animations would be better than video for certain things. I could have a cover image with stars in a night sky that twinkle and shift. Imagine that entered in a comp beside all the Inform/blorb games -- it would really stand out! I imagine ICJ could use animation to create fades and blends in the picture window for games like Fallacy of Dawn and Cryptozooker. I don't know if anything like that has ever been done before.

[RealNC]

I don't know if anything like that has ever been done before.

Well, this one uses MNG animation in order to catch some attention:

http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=c8qs0xgkkfp5u6u4

When I first saw that game, I thought it was Robb using a pseudonym and trying out TADS. Though after 15 minutes or so it became obvious that the writing wasn't anywhere near Robb's standards.

Still, it shows that animation can have quite an effect on someone's expectations. Looking at the intro of that game makes you think "this is gonna be the best thing ever."

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I think the thing we ought to do is all go to Kent and says, hey, we want to put animated gifs in Hugo. We realize there are other things you want to fix, but we want a minor release with just that. How does that sound? And then all terps, official and Hugor, can be updated.

That is how I would swing it.

[RealNC]

Should we go for GIF though or MNG? Both should be equally easy to support, but MNG is not limited to 256 colors. Most software does support exporting to MNG, and if not, there are GIF to MNG converters.

Or we could go for a home run and request both.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Is it just as easy to add MNG? The situation I don't want to get into is feature creep that makes it a pain in the ass for you.

It sounds like adding support for animated GIFs is trivial. That would open up a giant avenue for what I can do in games. Part of me is content to say, "let's just try to get that in." But if you are not annoyed by the work to put MNG in then sure - it would be logical to argue for that, too.

So let me turn your question around and ask YOU - what do you think? Animated GIF and MNG?

[RealNC]

I've already implemented MNG support in QTads, so it would be pretty much a copy&paste job (Hugor and QTads looking very similar isn't a coincidence; they share some of the basic architecture.) The same code can also deal with GIFs. So it's really no effort to have both.

If we had to pick just one though, in case adding both to the official interpreter might involve more work for Kent, then MNG makes more sense, due to the 256 color limit in GIF.

[Flack]

While I don't have a dog in this fight, I have a dozen apps on my computer that will allow me to create and/or edit animated GIFs, and have never heard of a MNG file before.

But yeah, adding short animated pictures of PCs, NPCs, or anything else would really make the games exciting.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I have also never heard of an MNG but I do trust Nikos as a computer programming genius.

The gif that Flack posted is exactly the sort of thing I am gonna put in Cyberganked should we get this going.

[RealNC]

Ease of access to software supporting MNG is a factor. If you think you don't have a convenient way of exporting directly as MNG or converting GIF to MNG, then we can go with GIF instead.

but I do trust Nikos as a computer programming genius.

Ooh, I liked the sound of that. Flattery always helps with feature requests, right? ;-)

[Flack]

According to Wikipedia, none of the major browsers natively support MNG files. If you're thinking about a web-based version of Hugo in the future, that might be a consideration.

[RealNC]

A web version would probably render the MNG into a canvas. Browser support isn't really needed.