Another Aide-Memoire Post

Now Spring is here, I find any free time gets gobbled up by gardening, repairs, golf and other chores. The trouble is that, though programming progresses steadily, images take lots of time.

However, there is an upside to tedious activities, namely that I can think about Jade while I'm doing them. Unfortunately, many of my most brilliant thoughts tend to vanish before I get time to implement, or even record them. So, I've taken to scribbling these gems of wisdom on any convenient sheet of paper or cardboard, and I'm getting them down in writing before they get rained upon.

Additional images required:

Junk:

• Stationary - no sails, Animated - raise sails - May be the same view from junkhie
• Moving off - May be the same animation varied only by size
• Seen from sea level

Rocket (from junkhie):

• Lift off
• Graceful parabola

Furniture:

• More furniture for views from junk (distant junks, gulls, already provided). Perhaps purloin scenes from the Povray library
• A few oddments for the interior/deck of junk
• Arrows on pylons (no need for binoculars in close-ups - use a single background and bounce)

Another Aide Memoire post

I have so many scribbled bits of paper that I keep losing. I'm going to do a list of the scenes with scene numbers and names.

• 200 Hi N (junkhin) (with rocket launcher)
• 201 Hi S (junkhis) (above beach)
• 202 Hi W (junkhiw) (towards rocks)
• 203 Hi E (junkhie) (to distant sea)
• 204 Unlikely to use
• 205 Unlikely to use
• 206 Lo N Parked junk (junklopark)
• 207 Unlikely to use
• 208 Lo SW beach Probably won't use it
• 209 View back up cliff (junkloup) Cliff path painted in.
• 210 Lo South beach (junklosb) Landing place on lo level.
• 211 No use at present
• 212 High, looking down on beach but beach has to be painted in (junkhisx)
• 213 Lo N no junk (junklon)
• 214 Lo W (junklow)
• 215 Lo E Dark cave (junkloe)

That's all for the time being. I'm building another prototype.

Catch-up

What time I've spent on the project since November has been spent on Povray, which doesn't lend itself to blogging. But Christmas, another issue of Mythaxis, and a bit of home improvement took priority at various times. We now have a couple of animated junks, an advance on Rock design, and a cave.

On Jade code, plans are afoot to distinguish between animated and static images for the same sprite. Also, it's now clearer how to restore configurations which are changed as a result of user action. e.g. where zone destinations have been altered, or resources used up, or doors opened.

Another Idle Month

I've done no more on Jade in the last month - Real Life intervened.

I'm now ready to start setting up a more satisfactory demo version with some interesting action, so I'll be working in Povray a lot - a condition that isn't conducive to much reporting from me.

I'd like again to appeal to anyone who wants to collaborate on the Povray side. I'd be delighted to share the load and the credit with you.

Meanwhile, and this is the problem with me, I've seen another possible use of the Jade engine and I keep thinking about that instead of getting on with what I should be doing!

(below) Junk sprite with bluescreening.

A few Renders from the Junk Journey

Hello again, GFORGE

To be honest, I was happier with GFORGE's terrains than I am with Terragen's, so I dug out the old W98 Notino, and verified that it would still run GFORGE. It gives me another development route problem, but I am relieved that I can get back to GFORGE if I have to.

Goodbye, GFORGE. Hello, Terragen

Oh, dear. GFORGE no longer works for me, not in Windows XP and not in a DOS cmd box within Windows XP. Rather than drag out my old Windows 98 laptop to try that, I downloaded a free copy of Terragen, which does a similar sort of thing.

Unfortunately, Terragen doesn't output in a form that POVray understands as a height field.

But after much googling, I discovered For Export Only (FEO) which is a set of plugins for Terragen, including one that creates a BMP file that POVray understands.

Ah, well. No-one said it was going to be easy.

Aide-memoire for the Junk navigation map

This entry is PROVISIONAL. It will be updated as necessary.
Route S start -> F finish * = defined

  W   X   Y   Z
1 * - F   * - * 
  |       |   |
2 *   * - *   *
  |   |       |
3 *   *   S   *
  |   |   |   |
4 * - *   * - *

Y3 Start. Sprite rocks stbd 
   Sprite cone port
Y4 Open sea. Sprite cone stbd
Z4 Rocks 2 + pylon on port - visible from cockpit port, bow port and cabin port
Z3 Sprite rocks port 
   Sprite cone port
Z2 Sprite rocks stbd 
   Sprite cone port
Z1 Sprite rocks port and stbd
   Rocks 3 + pylon fwd - visible from bow fwd only
Y1 High Rocks fwd - visible from bow fwd only 
Y2 Rocks 2 stbd
X2 Rocks 1 fwd. Visible bow fwd only
X3 Girders
X4 Open sea. Sprite cone port.
W4 Rocks fwd.
W3 Open sea. Sprite cone stbd.
W2 Wreck port. Sprite cone stbd.
W1 Rocks 1 + pylon on stbd - visible from cockpit stbd, bow stbd and cabin stbd
   Jade on stbd bow - visible from bow fwd only
X1 Finish. Jade fwd - visible from bow fwd only 

Rocks at sea

One of the sets of rocks I've been developing for scenery purposes. The texture used is Cork, which appears as a nice arid island. Note the shadow of the junk's sails on the sea in front. In use, there will be a pylon with guidance 'traffic lights' on the island.

Back in harness

Having been distracted for several months by, for example, two editions of Mythaxis Magazine (worth a read), a golfing holiday, a new palmtop computer, new books and so on, I made a restart, two nights ago on my POVray creations.

In fact, though I only hinted about it, I made a plan for the first part of the game that involved a bit of varied scenery. At first, I was envisaging sprites to supply even static scenery. Now, I'm more inclined to a mixture of sprites and static images.

In the original post, I reproduced my notebook pages here. Totally incomprehensible, I'm afraid. I removed them.

The plan is to gradually reveal the route to be followed by indicating previous and next positions by traffic light style markers on shore or on buoys. The map is gradually revealed on the screen in the cabin. When the problem has been solved, the player can go straight to the destination, but the first time he has to either guess it or work it out by following the route.

POVRAY woes

In rendering the junk final images, I've encountered problems with ropes and the cabin textures. It only needs time, as ever. Even on my quickest machine, rendering takes hours per scene, and every time I get a rope position wrong, it has to be done again. I think I'll use cylinders and tori to get the anchor positions right, before final render. We're getting there. At least I'm working on it virtually every night now.

I've embedded the instructions for multiple renders in the junk.pov code. In the past it's always taken forever to remember how to do it.

KFI and KFF are the initial and final frame nos (each scene's file label is appended with frame no, which corresponds to scene no)

KI and KF are the initial and final clock values which I use to change the scene no.


// "animation" command line string (paste in empty command line box above)
// +KFI100 +KFF102 +KI0 +KF2

// comment out next line if animation in force
#declare scene=100;

// comment in following line if animation in force
// #declare scene = clock+100;

The Junk Puzzle

Yup. Got it now. I've devised a 16 point maze - not really a maze, because there's many ways through it, and when you've solved it, you can go straight to the end next time you play. Each point in the grid, let's call it, has its own ID lights, and a different set of scenery around it, viewed from the junk. There are ten positions on the junk, bow, stern, facing various ways, and there is a different scene visible from each of these junk scenes, depending on the ID of the current point in the grid.

So... the scenery is delivered by sprites rather than background, and the 160 possible visible scenes are reduced to ten with different sprites at each location.

Each point in the grid indicates the adjacent IDs and the navigation system allows the player to move to whatever ID he favours.

It's quite a lot of code, but it saves masses of scene files. Instead of 160 scenes, we have just the 10 on the junk, the background sprites being imposed on an empty sea/sky.

Feverish Activity behind the Scenes

Over the last few weeks, I've concentrated on a variety of articles on the junk - table, chairs, a bucket etc.

The next stage is to build it into a new version of the example game, but that will involve some new work on the Sprites, to give the water a more realistic appearance.

I also have to re-write the BridgeData module to control the new scenes.

I am a little conflicted on the "Junk Puzzle" - i.e. how to get from the initial scene of being on the junk to getting to the island. It mustn't be too obvious - the player should have to think about it - but I don't want it to turn into a maze.

Comments on POVray techniques

Following up on the comments in the previous post, I should point out that I can optionally apply a grid to any scene. The grid is a series of cylinders, set 5 units apart and centred on the origin of the scene. That gives me an accurate measure of where to put an item. I build the item and rotate it at origin, then move it to the desired location.



The animation (which I may use for a multi-render batch file), briefly, works like this:

"POV-Ray supports an automatically declared floating point variable identified as clock (all lower case). This is the key to making image files that can be automated. In command line operations, the clock variable is set using the +k switch. For example, +k3.4 from the command line would set the value of clock to 3.4. The same could be accomplished from the INI file using Clock=3.4 in an INI file.

If we do not set clock for anything, and the animation loop is not used, the clock variable is still there - it is just set for the default value of 0.0, so it is possible to set up some POV code for the purpose of animation, and still render it as a still picture during the object/world creation stage of our project.

The simplest example of using this to our advantage would be having an object which is travelling at a constant rate, say, along the x-axis. We would have the statement

translate <clock, 0, 0>"

Green Shoots of Recovery

Last night, I dusted this project off, improved the staircase algorithm, and added a staircase to the Jade island.

One of the problems is the length of time each render now takes, even for a minor adjustment. However, once some new component is settled, I think it's probably going to be possible to set up a batch rendering job to produce all the renders anew, every time a significant component is added.

I have decided to inch the project forward in its incomplete state, adding as many of the individual stages of the game as possible, even based on an incomplete background picture.

For example, if a new bridge, building or piece of furniture is added to the island, then I might have to re-render a number of backgrounds later, and I might have to modify the positions of sprites to an extent, but better incomplete scenery at this stage rather than incomplete gameplay.

Update

Like most bloggers, I sometimes take time off from blogging.

I have had a number of interruptions, including a trip to Barcelona, work on Mythaxis and (guiltily) replaying Myst III - magnificent scenery.


I haven't been totally idle, though. Since I last blogged, I have refined the Junk and modified a spiral staircase algorithm to give me swooping stairways. I'll post some examples real soon now. And Christmas hols are coming up. I should get some more design done then.

Reporting completion on the Junk

It's been a slowish business, but I'm now reasonably happy with the junk. After all, it's only a platform for transport and a piece of furniture to view from afar.

As a sprite, it'll be viewable at various sizes and seen from left or right, but not animated.

I'll do a separate animation of the waterline splashing along, so it appears to be moving, and calculate speeds / sizes for various manifestations of it.

Yet More Junk

The latest version of the junk and its dinghy (which shares the junk's hull shape) sans ropes, but ropes will appear soon, thanks to Chris Bartlett's Rope macros and "after-sales support".

Benjamin Roux has also volunteered to help with the project.

More Junk

Got the masts and sails in the junk. Had some difficulty with the decks, because patches are not 'real' shapes and differences, intersections etc don't work the way you'd expect. Solving it by fitting a deckhouse and then painstakingly filling in the areas left with boxes and polygons, which will lead to a more authentic final appearance. The picture here is hull, deckhouse, mast and sails.

Junk

Put together the hull for a Chinese Junk, using 3 bicubic patches (actually 2, because the port and starboard hull sections are mirror images of each other.) The view is of the transom (rear end) of the boat. I took the measurements for the hull profile from a design on the internet.

Next, the decks and masts.