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Work in Progress / Vi-Studio (Visual Interface Creator)

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Ric
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Posted: 20th Mar 2005 11:55 Edited at: 24th Mar 2005 09:42
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Vi-Studio (Visual Interface Creator)
____________________________________

Here's the first W.I.P. report for Vi-Studio. It's a user friendly drag and drop interface creator, for making interactive menus, hud's, dashboards, control panels, media players etc. etc. It's at a very early stage, but here's where it's at so far:

Implemented so far:

-Entity creation by simple mouse dragging
-Drag and drop positioning of entities
-Zoom function
-Load/Save layout
-Import into DBP program
-Layouts automatically adapt to all screensizes and fields of view
-Windows environment

Short term priorities

-entity labelling system, for easy manipulation within DBP
-texture properties
-transluscency properties
-snap to grid
-text function

Medium term priorities

-media pack (for lego style panel building)
-special effects (eg. 3d menu components, fade-ins, slide-ins, etc.)
-special entities (eg. speed dials, sliders, health bars etc.)

Early screenshot, showing a couple of minutes worth of interface building using the default panel tool:




Any feedback is very welcome.


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Benjamin
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Posted: 20th Mar 2005 12:04
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Unfortunatly I can't offer any constructive critisism on the design of the program because I can't design to save my life and therefore it probably wouldn't help you, but I must say it looks pretty good. Are you going to create a set of functions to use in DB to make them interactive at all(such as being able to click buttons, etc)? I suppose people could program that stuff themselves, but it would be nice to have a basic skeleton to work around. I swear, everything you do puts my projects to shame


"Lets migrate like bricks" - Me
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Nack
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Posted: 20th Mar 2005 12:08
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acutally....looks pretty nice. lol, i was thinking of doing something like this b4....but got lazy so i just made functions. but its really nice, cant wait for u to release it.


I have NOT abandon these ^......^_^V hehe
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Ric
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Posted: 20th Mar 2005 12:26
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Quote: "Are you going to create a set of functions to use in DB to make them interactive at all (such as being able to click buttons, etc)? "


Absolutely - that's going to be a fundamental part of it, although I'm still working out the best way of doing that. A prime concern is in making it user friendly - I want to give the user full control of the interface from within their code, but with the minimum of coding for them to do.

@ Nack: yes - I'm quite amazed that nobody has done this before - at least not that I'm aware of .....


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MikeS
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Posted: 20th Mar 2005 23:03
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Very nice and stylish Ric. Only critque I have to offer, is to make sure everything stays organized as it is now, and doesn't get to complex for users like me.



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Neil19533
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Posted: 21st Mar 2005 00:53
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Looks smashing. it would be intresting to see you do it like visual basic in the way it is used like clicking buttons opens a code viewer then you have a set of commands in your program that are converted to db code but you could also use db code. it wouldnt be hard to do but would be very effective

Any spelling mistakes are totally In tensional.
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Cian Rice
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Posted: 21st Mar 2005 01:25
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It's looking nice so far.

Have a heart and join my message board.And now my messageboards work again!Woot!
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BatVink
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Posted: 21st Mar 2005 04:13
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Nice one, Ric, looks like you've spent a lot of time on it already.

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dj blackdragon3710
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2005 05:47
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Looks great! It's good to see that you have made quite a bit of progress on this.

It has been said that the body is a slave to the mind. Only the mind knows no freedom.
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Ric
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2005 09:33 Edited at: 24th Mar 2005 09:44
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Thanks for the comments. Still early stages, but making good progress - small update:

- Jazzed up the entity buttons using icons, that light up when they are toggled on or off.
- Added an all important 'undo' feature to the deletion process.
- Incorporated a simple layering system to bring entities fowards or backwards.
- Created a set of tabs (on the right hand side) for properties of each entity type, which flip to the correct tab when you select an entity you've created - was more tricky than it sounds! Next is for me to add the actual properties to the tabs, such as scale, opacity, texture, handle name etc.
- Other behind the scenes stuff, like the texture loading system and various bits of debugging.




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Cian Rice
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Posted: 23rd Mar 2005 09:41
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Looking even better!

Have a heart and join my message board.And now my messageboards work again!Woot!
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Dodo
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Posted: 24th Mar 2005 20:27
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looking good Ric! I probably won't have much use for this, but if its freeware then I shall definately download it. It looks sooo cool.

Part of solving the problem is actually noticing that the problem is there in the first place

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Siege1975
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Posted: 25th Mar 2005 19:04
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This really looks interesting. I shall look forward to downloading it for further study

Everybody, Have some fun!

http://www.whits-end.co.uk/deimos/index.html
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SageTech
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Posted: 26th Mar 2005 05:39
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O, i thought you were talking about that god-awful c compiler for linux. anyway looks good.

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NinJA99
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Posted: 26th Mar 2005 07:28
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Looks cool, but
Quote: "-Import into DBP program"

will you/do you support DBC?

END TRANSMISSION
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AndLabs
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Posted: 27th Mar 2005 11:42
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Put it on your website?

For the Software You Want, AMPERSAND LABORATORIES is the place!
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BF game programmer
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Posted: 27th Mar 2005 14:32
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looks pretty good

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Scraggle
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Posted: 27th Mar 2005 19:39 Edited at: 27th Mar 2005 19:40
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Looks good.
I did notice, however, that the two squares in the second screeny are not quite in alignment ... perhaps a 'snap to grid' function could be implimented?

[Edit] Seconds after posting I re-read your initial post and found that 'snap to grid' is on your list of things to do [/Edit]

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ALPHA ZERO PRODUCTIONS
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Posted: 30th Mar 2005 09:54
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cooooooooooooolllll

NEW WEBSITE ONLINE (best viewed with FireFox)
XboxLive Gamertag: AZP [URL=http://www.a-z-p.co.nr][/URL]
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Ric
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Posted: 31st Mar 2005 10:56 Edited at: 31st Mar 2005 11:27
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Woohoo - a mention in the newsletter!

@ Ninja99 - Initially I'm concentrating on getting it working in Pro. I may do some testing in Classic at a later stage.

@ Andlabs - yep, I'll be putting it onto my website soon.

@ Everyone - thanks for the comments ........ next update coming tomorrow .....


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Ric
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Posted: 1st Apr 2005 14:37 Edited at: 1st Apr 2005 15:08
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Added a few bits and pieces since the last update - worth another screenshot:



The texture browser at the bottom allows you to scroll through any textures you have put into your media folder, and apply them to the entities you are creating. As usual, something which sounds really simple was in fact a lot more tricky than I thought - mainly because when you reloaded the layout you created, the textures were all getting applied to the wrong entities - because image numbers are constantly changing as you do stuff. Works now though.

Also, the much needed snap to grid tool, which allows fine, medium or course control over creating and positioning of entities, is now working, as can be seen by the nice neat arrangement of panels in the screenshot!

The object properties tabs are beginning to take shape. Linking the info on the tab to the entities' properties, and incorporating them into the load/save routine is the next step, and should be quite straight forward. Then I'll work on some button effects like mouse over/mouse down/mouse up transitions.

At some stage before too long I'll be needing a few beta testers - people willing to test it hard enough to dig out the bugs and give feedback about usability. Hopefully there will be a few people who could help me out there ........


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Siege1975
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Posted: 1st Apr 2005 20:43
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I'll help with beta testing. Just let me know when

Everybody, Have some fun!

http://www.whits-end.co.uk/deimos/index.html
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Digital Dragon
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Posted: 1st Apr 2005 20:59
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Same as here I would love to test this out for you

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dj blackdragon3710
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2005 02:47
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I'll do it (beta test). I was here in this thread from the beginning.

It has been said that the body is a slave to the mind. Only the mind knows no freedom.
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Ric
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2005 15:14
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Great - thanks for the offers. I'll let you know when it gets to Beta.

Update>>

Been working on the property adjustment panel - got the width, height and opacity (using alpha mapping) controls working, transparency was easy to add, and I've added controls for scrolling/scaling of uv data (ie the textures).

Lesson learned today - projects always grow in inverse proportion to the distance you thought you were to the end. In other words, you think you're getting close to finishing, and the project doubles in size!

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ALPHA ZERO PRODUCTIONS
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Posted: 3rd Apr 2005 10:16
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can i be a beta tester ?


[URL]www.a-z-p.co.nr[/URL]
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Ric
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Posted: 3rd Apr 2005 11:22 Edited at: 3rd Apr 2005 11:22
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Sure - thanks for offering.

Update >>

I suddenly panicked today when I tested the editor out on a different computer running a lower resolution, and none of the panels fit onto the screen! There I was thinking that changing the display mode within DBP would automatically adjust the windows panels - turns out the DBP resolution (directx) and the panel resolution (windows desktop) are totally independent.

So, in order to make it compatible with different resolutions, I've made the panels (3 of them now) draggable, so the user can arrange them to suit their own resolution/preference, and made sure they all fit on even at 800x600 (albeit at a squeeze).

No major changes to the way things look, but here's an updated screenshot anyway - showing the opacity and transparency (the big arrow) functions working, and the few additions mentioned in the previous post:



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Digital Dragon
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Posted: 4th Apr 2005 05:22
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Just a quickquestion how did you get your toolbar up there?

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MikeS
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Posted: 4th Apr 2005 05:57
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I'd love to beta test. Looking very sharp so far Ric. Are all of these buttons and dialogs using windows calls?



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Ric
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The toolbar, and the entities, textures and properties panels are all windows gadgets using Rob's BlueGUI. The texture browser (the strip at the bottom with the arrows either end) is done within dbp, as I couldn't get it working how I wanted using windows gadgets.

I appreciate you offering to beta test, Mike - not quite sure how long before it gets to beta, but I'll let you know when!

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PowerSoft
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Posted: 5th Apr 2005 19:54
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Ric this is good work. If you want me to Beta Test i will

[b]PowerScript: Currently Working on Expression Parsing
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BatVink
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Posted: 5th Apr 2005 20:47
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looking good Ric. I'm happy to test. I have a very basic looking menu in place in a game, I'd love to try and remake it with your tool.

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Ric
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Posted: 6th Apr 2005 01:52 Edited at: 6th Apr 2005 10:25
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@ Powersoft and Batvink: That's great - thanks. I'm hoping to get to beta within the next couple of weeks, (all going well), and I'll really appreciate your input.

<edit> Couple of weeks may be rather ambitious, actually - forgotten I have a job as well!

@Powersoft - Quadring? I'm from Lincolnshire too (originally), and I've never heard of it - you sure it's a real place?

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PowerSoft
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am i sure its a real place? Course im bloody sure i live there

Its Lincoln side of Spalding about 10 miles from Spalding.

http://www.museums.co.uk/mapsearch/includes/images/counties/lincolnshire.gif
[href]

Im about 1 mile from Donnington

[b]PowerScript: Currently Working on Expression Parsing
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Ric
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Posted: 6th Apr 2005 10:22 Edited at: 6th Apr 2005 10:23
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Oh right - I've got family not far from there. Lincolnian, myself.

Vi-Studio update:

- Written in the button creation routine, which allows you to create buttons with three interchangable textures - normal, mouseover and mousedown. Also written a preview mode to show how the buttons will work in your game/application. Seems to work nicely, in that it takes less than one minute to create a nice set of fully functioning buttons, with your choice of textures, shapes, sizes, positions and opacities. And of course they all have names so you can control them in your code. Stuff that takes ages to hard code. Now here's the paradox - I had to hard code the texture browser for this editor, but if I'd waited until this editor was finished, I could have made the browser so much quicker using the editor. But then, with no texture browser, I couldn't finish the editor.... chicken and egg stuff.



-Done a whole load of bug busting. For a project that is a fair way off completion, it's amazing how much degugging needs to be done already. In particular, I had a real problem with the saving/loading of the uv mapping of textures. You could scroll and scale the textures fine, but when loaded back in, they looked different. Took me a fair while to realise that if you scale a texture a bit, then scroll it, that is not the same as if you scroll it then scale it. Even when you get something that looks exactly the same, the values stored internally are completely different, depending upon the order of operations. Reminds me of Euler rotation nightmares. Sorted it now though - once I'd figured out how it was working.

Next thing I'm working on is the text entity. Should be interesting.

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PowerSoft
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Posted: 6th Apr 2005 15:44
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that looks pretty cool



(i was born in Lincoln)

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Ric
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No way! I lived there for 19 years. Small world.

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BatVink
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Posted: 6th Apr 2005 19:25
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Ric, will the system "clean" itself? By that, I mean will there be a "Delete Menu" option that deletes all images, sprites etc?

One more question: Can you specify what range of images / sprites / objects it uses? Can I say, for example, that I want the images to use the range 8000 - 8999?

BatVink
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PowerSoft
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Yes way.

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Ric
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Posted: 7th Apr 2005 03:52
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Quote: "Ric, will the system "clean" itself? By that, I mean will there be a "Delete Menu" option that deletes all images, sprites etc?"


There is a 'new' button on the tool bar and in the file menu, which gets rid of everything - or did you mean from within your program? I haven't started writing the functions yet for control over the interface from within your program, but a 'Vi_delete_interface()' function would be a good idea.

Quote: "
One more question: Can you specify what range of images / sprites / objects it uses? Can I say, for example, that I want the images to use the range 8000 - 8999?"


At the moment, I seeded the objects and images at 1 000 000, but I could easily include an option for the user to change the seed.

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BatVink
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Quote: "but a 'Vi_delete_interface()' function would be a good idea"


That's the one!

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dj blackdragon3710
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Hey, any updates lately? Or is this dead?

It has been said that the body is a slave to the mind. Only the mind knows no freedom.
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Ric
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Not dead, and not going to be!! I've been working on the 'create text' side of things. Bit problematic - I seem to have unearthed a DBP bug with the way 'get image' and 'colorkey' work with each other on some setups, which I will have to sidestep.

Full update soon.

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Digital Dragon
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Just checking on this thread sin ce not many ppl have but Ric you got a demo yet? I really wanna try it


Yeah There Might Be A Edit Button, Who Says I Have To Use It?
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hackinc 2000
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I really wanna tried too!
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Ric
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Thanks for showing an interest in the project. Not ready for a demo just yet I'm afraid, as I haven't had a moment to myself for the last couple of weeks - but I'm itching to get this finished. Still on the text rendering part of it at the moment, then I'll be moving onto a dial construction tool. I'm going to keep that reasonably simplistic for version 1.

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spadge1970
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Keeping a watchful eye on this. Looks great.
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hackinc 2000
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Soooo.. How the proyect going.... Please give us an Update
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Ric
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Hi - I now (finally) have a decent chunk of time coming up for continued development on this. (One of the benefits of my job - long summer holidays!) I'll be hoping to make considerable progress during this next week, and I'll write a progress update next weekend.

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Ric
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Posted: 28th Jul 2005 10:53 Edited at: 28th Jul 2005 19:30
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Well, here's an update on the progress I've made over the last two days. I've been concentrating on the text creation function - not as easy as you'd think. For several reasons, dbp's built in text engine just doesn't do a good enough job for what I need, so I've made my own bitmap font system.

The advantages of my system are that it's dead easy to create new fonts, and unlike other existing bitmap font systems I've seen, it allows for non-uniform letter widths, as well as lower and upper case letters. Here's an example of the process:

1 - copy the special characterset from a text document:


2 - paste it as text in paintshop and style however you like:


3 - here's the clever bit - the extraction code then loads the image of the characterset, determines where each letter starts and ends, grabs an image of each letter and saves it in a folder:

(As you can see, it's chopped the odd character - needs a bit more work!)

4 - Another bit of code, which I've yet to incorporate into Vi-studio, then converts any desired text string into a set of numbers which relate to the correct images, loads them and pastes them to the screen:


As you can see, the end result is bitmap text that looks naturally spaced. Was quite hard work for something so unimpressive, but there you go! Next job is to incorporate the code into the VI-studio code, and them produce a handful of nice fonts to go with it.

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