Cutscene idea...

[*b*]

ok, as some of you may already know, VisualBoy Advance records .avi files. I was thinking, that, maybe this idea could be added into ZQuest, only reversed, it can PLAY .avi files. that way, there wouldn't have to be all these maps and complex triggers for cutscenes. maybe there could be a new program that could record AVI files, and maybe edit them? that could also help in developing cutscenes.

also, if this should go in the normal suggestions forum, by all means, please move it

[bigjoe]

Cutscenes and title screens would more likely consist of GIF. Allegro cannot handle AVIS.

[Cloral]

Actually Allegro can handle .fli movie files. It can play them with just a few function calls:
http://docs.mandragor.org/files/Comm.../index022.html
(and no, I don't know what functionality the callback for the play() function is supposed to implement)
fli seems to be a rather outdated file format though, so I don't know how many utilities there are that'll save as a .fli.
And if this were to get added, it would probably have to be handled like the tracker music since it would quickly make the quest files very big.

edit:
well here's the callback:
" If the callback function is not NULL it will be called once for each frame, allowing you to perform background tasks of your own. This callback should normally return zero: if it returns non-zero the player will terminate (this is the only way to stop an animation that is playing in looped mode)."
So I guess the way you would play it is either to
1) open the fli using open_fli and then get one frame at a time using next_fli_frame, or
2) call play_fli and use the callback in order to be able to continue running other background tasks (although I don't know that it would be necessary since you could assume that during a movie nothing else is going to happen)

So, on second thought, it seems that in order to play a movie one would simply have to do:
play_fli(filename, screen, 0, NULL);
Of course, if it were handled like t-music, a check would have to be added first to make sure that filename actually existed. And if it didn't, the movie would be skipped.

[*b*]

and to elaborate on this, there could be a combo or screen flag that started playing the movie. and to take it a step further, another combo would be like, Cutscene, where it would play the movie once, and revert to a normal combo or go to a secret/under combo after the movie has played. that way, people wouldn't have to watch the same thing over and over...