Save game data

Hey, regarding savegames... For some reason the autosave in my game doesn't work in the compiled version. It loads perfectly well when I use the "Save and run" option, but after the game is compiled - nope. Maybe I'm forgetting something?

Barney ... I just experimented & the save game path changes depending on if the game is run from the Editor or the '.exe'. I've only tried saves not autosaves but would imagine it's the same.

If in the editor you save a game to "example.vsd", the savegames would be stored in C:\Users\**your user name**\AppData\Local\VisionaireStudio\example\Savegames

From the ".exe", you have an object "GameComposedFile " which defines the filename for composing the main output file (.vis file) when compiling the game.
So if for example this is set to "test.vis", the game will compile as "test.vis" & be stored in whatever folder you selected with the "build" option BUT the save games will be stored in
C:\Users\**your user name**\AppData\Local\VisionaireStudio\test\Savegames
This object is set from the build game panel (like most things it can be changed from the Explorer tab).

The above paths assume you have no Company name or Game name set, if you do the will be added to the save paths as well i.e. C:\Users\**your user name**\AppData\Local\VisionaireStudio\** company name **/game name ** etc

minibigs: not sure if I understand you, but is there any way how to force the engine to store the savegames in the same folder where the game.exe is? Why to put shit inside C:\Users\**? There are always troubles because of windows admin rights, multiple accounts and so on. It would be much much easier if savegames would be stored in subfolder "/savegames/" where game.exe is located..

@ gusty: I believe that is how it operated in 3.7.1 & before. It created a save folder in the .exe root. I don't know why it changed to appdata for 4.x.

I'm not seeing any options in the data structure for setting the save game file path/folder, but that doesn't mean that one doesn't exist as not all fields are listed on the data structure page yet.

Off topic, but AFRLme could you please give me a quick run down on comment sets as I can't find anything anywhere about them?

Thanks in advance,
Steve

Comment sets are random comments the character might say when you try to interact with a scene object or combine 2 objects together, if the action does not exist for the scene object or items. These are for global use, so not all comments/sets will be valid in all situations.

You can create multiple sets, so... you could on mouse over a scene object set a specific comment set to be used for that instance or alternatively if you want to create custom comments for each specific object then create the actions inside of the object & add a display text or narration text action part with custom text.

Does this help?

That's spot on thanks & just what I was looking for... I thought there must be some "catch all" way to show text for an interaction that hasn't been explicitly catered for.

VS seems to have a solution for 99% of what I want to do, early days for me still but I will get there.

There's often a work-around solution for everything.

You can even do things the engine wasn't designed for, but things like that take patience & a lot of work, trial & error.

Guys, there's a problem. This issue with the autosave that I've mentioned - turns out it's not about whether you run the game in the editor or standalone. After cleaning the save data in the AppData\Local\VisionaireStudio and starting the game anew a couple of times, I was able to pinpoint exactly where the process goes wrong.

See, currently the structure of my game is as follows:
Scene 1 - Intro
Scene 2 - The action begins, and I make an autosave at the start of this scene
Then there are a couple more scenes, and finally
The End Menu - Here you press the button Again, which loads the autosave, and you go back to Scene 2

If you start the game with Scene 1, the autosave doesn't work. However, if you go to the game properties in Visionaire and set the game to start at Scene 2, then run it, all works perfectly. AND, for some reason, if after doing that you go back to the properties tab and set the starting point back to Scene 1, the savegame still continues to work.
So, basically, it just doesn't want to work if you try to start the game from the beginning. Any ideas on what may cause this problem?

The "messages" file reads "Error: Failed to initialize the composed file", if that tells you anything.

Not sure but save game data depends on what is in your game... so if you add, remove or edit the project file then the autosave/savegame may no longer work correctly. Other than that I can't really say.