I've been playing "Uncertainty Machine" and think the author did a relatively good job w/ graphics, but didn't like the fact that he didn't do 8 directions of movement with the chartacter (if you've played it, you know what I'm talking about). Does AGS allow for the character to move only in 4 directions? If so, is there an engine which is not as limiting? (or can be messed with enough so that you could have 8 directions of movement?) Thanks

AGS supports 8-directional animations, but you try finding someone who's willing to actually draw that many frames for their characters :)

I'm thinking, motion capture a 3d character?

As long as you could export the frames as bmp, pcx or png, you can use them in AGS...

Anyone who wants quality...

I've never played an AGS game with 8 directional animations, although I've definitely played some quality AGS games. The thing is, most people who make amateur adventures aren't professional-quality amateurs, they're doing everything themselves for free as a hobby. When it comes to making an amateur game, efforts are generally better spent making a more compelling story, better puzzles, or more well-developed characters than animating multiple sprites from as many angles as possible. I don't know how many 2d sprites you've animated from 8 angles, but it takes serious time, and the payoff isn't really worth it unless you only have one main character and no moving NPCs. Not to mention, many professional adventure games don't have 8 animated directions. 8 is a fairly arbitrary number anyway. Why not 32? After all, you don't want to sacrifice quality.

Shall I hang myself again? I do apologise for hurting your whatever. Why do you hate me? I never said that not having animations from 8 directions is SUCH A BIG DEAL as you seem to think I thought. Sheesh, it was an offhand comment.

My gripe was with Uncertainty Machine, because the author drew the character as if she was going to move in these directions : /(towards the screen and to my left), |(up & down) & \ (towards the screen & to my right), so when the character moved away from the screen and to the right, for example, it looked as if she was moving backwards. I just thought it was a weird choice, and thought, if he didn't want her turned all the way to the right or left, he could've drawn 8 directions of animation. (the DIG had 8, BTW) Then I thought, maybe he couldn't? But yeah, I guess it's a drag.

I'm gonna have eight. 32 is just gratuitous and I feel that it is silly of me to even address that point. I will have eight and still make a decent story and the whole nine yards since I will animate only ONE walk cycle for the lead character and film it from eight directions.

Most of the animation (all character animation in any case) I'll do in 3D because I am a shitty animator - can't draw the same thing twice to save my grandmother - while a fairly decent sculptor.