[gcompris-devel] Re: Maze plugin enhancements (and cleanup)

[Christof Petig]

Bruno Coudoin wrote:
> I did a small change on my home PC with great effect by changing the
> background in 3D view with a half sky/half ground picture made rapidly
> with gimp. This make a good effect but then changing the view angle too
> much can put the wall in the sky ;)

perhaps a bigger image which is moved up/down, too, might be a good 
idea. One can also chose a different scenery for each direction (e.g. 
east: raising sun over snowy mountains; south: midday, desert; west: sun 
falling into ocean; north: night over a forest). If you like the idea, 
I'll draw it. (stopping my enthusiasm)

> For the shortkey, I added 'space' as a toggle 2D/3D which makes it
> easier for use. Ideally, there could be a toggle button in the main
> area.

good idea.

> Testing it on my childs (6 and 9), it is too hard for them. It is hard
> to easily discover on which side we are looking at and they lack the
> patience and switch to 2D.

I tested it on my son, too. He really liked it but was confused by the 
wrong color of the right wall (yesterday's version). [Of course my son 
could not tell exactly.] This was actually the time I noticed that 
something was wrong.

> Perhaps we could put some indices on the floor like a small colored
> round in the 2D and 3D view. This could be put on places where there is
> 2 or more direction choices.

What about images on the floor? We have a bunch of nice images in 
gcompris, we should use them. And it is not _that_ hard to code.

> Another approach is to display one way or another the direction we look
> at in the 2D view. What do you think ?

Perhaps rotating the penguin?

> I am wondering if we should not keep the 2D version where it is in
> gcompris and adding the 3D version in the fun menu beside the left/right
> hands activity.
> My idea here is to say 2D is to learn arrow keys in discovering the
> computer. 3D is more space orientation activity. Then in the 3D game,
> the 2D view can be displayed but you cannot move in it.

Given my background ideas and the images on wall / on floor idea, this 
plugin tends to move towards the fun / games section. This way even more 
people would notice that there's a new feature to the maze plugin ;-)

Actually part of the code is from some kind of 3D multiplayer game, we 
originally planned at school back in '88. That was on an Apple ][e under 
Turbo Pascal CP/M with a self soldered network cable.

Sadly we never finished it (one week was way too optimistic)! [The 
assembly written line drawing algorithm had a bug ...]

    Christof

PS: If we have a nice background image, I should make the exit 
transparent instead of green (actually it's really easy to code).
PPS: My wife said I should draw more of the side walls, because now it 
looks like you run too far against the wall.