Illusion of Life (Week 12): "SHUT THE DOOR SHUT THE DOOR SHUT THE DOOR SH--"

Linearting/colouring/tweening my second sequence for IoL is going fairly smoothly!

Some quick technical notes on this scene:

• Each panel in this image is actually a button on a transparent GUI.
• Adventure Game Studio lets you apply "views" (short animation loops) to buttons, which is what allows each panel to animate. You can change the speed at which these animations play, and manually set extra delays for specific frames, which gives you a lot of control over the timing.
• While it's not shown off here, you can set sound effects to play on specific frames of animation as well. This is going to make syncing door-slamming sound effects up with the visuals so much easier.
•  AGS also lets you preview these animations in the editor, at whatever speed you desire. Absolute lifesaver.
• All that said: the first panel isn't animated in-engine, but rather in PhotoShop. Having all the movements as separate images is super lazy and bloats the filesize, but for a quick blocking test like this it does the trick. One day I'll figure out how to move the hat diagonally...
•  The cashier shoving the door shut is tweened in-engine. It's just a simple matter of changing the button's X position, while playing the animation of her moving.
• All the code for this sequence is contained in one of AGS's Dialog scripts. While they're intended for... y'know, dialog trees, I find them a convenient way to organise cutscenes as well.
• (Speaking of, my code is pretty messy at the moment: lots of repetition that could be reworked into custom functions. But since I'm still trying to get a handle on the logic of coding these scenes/what tools I actually need, it works for the moment.)

Still to do:

• Maybe add more frames to the first panel. I like the idea of tweening the hat so it properly falls out of frame, and having the cashier steady herself in the second before the first panel disappears - that way, there's a smoother leading action to her shoving the door shut.
•  Fill in the dead space. The scene of the open door is supposed to have a monster barreling towards the camera before the cashier shuts it on them, but I haven't had time to block that in yet. I can't really tween things at that angle, so I'll have to fully frame-by-frame animate something.
• Experiment with the font/dialog boxes for this particular sequence. Unfortunately the service I previously used to make my fonts has shut down, but I think I've found another website that'll work just as well. Shouldn't take too long, just gotta sit down and do it.
• Storyboard a third sequence. I've got a few stray sketches done on paper, but nothing worth showing off yet. Going to really buckle down and see if I can get a first pass done by the end of Friday.