[Kde-games-devel] Ksudoku, Kubrik 3D background

[Ian Wadham]

On Fri, 9 May 2008 12:21 am, Eugene Trounev wrote:
> How possible do think is it to add a background to 3D version of Ksudoku,
> and Kubrick? It looks rather grave being all black and all :)
>
Well, actually, Kubrick is a nice, deep, tastefully-chosen midnight blue :-)

I think it is possible to do a background but I have not read up on the
programming requirements yet.  Also I think the requirements for
the graphics-file format might be a bit limiting, so better not draw
anything yet.  And OpenGL calculates lighting and shading, which
changes the colors and reflections as the objects move around.  So
I think the background graphics would have to follow some rules :-(

A more immediate need is some icons.  The main one is a hack, drawn
by me.  We also need icons for the three scene selectors at the left of
the toolbar: for the 1-cube, 2-cube and 3-cube views.  The present
icons are stop-gaps only and are wrong for the job.  Can you do those,
Eugene?

Long-term (KDE 4.2+) we could look at themeing the cubes.  Alternate
color schemes would be easiest to do, but it is possible to put individual
sticker-pictures on each cubie or one big picture across each face.

Such things would have to be introduced carefully, however.

For example, if you put a picture of the Sydney Opera House on one
face, solving the puzzle suddenly becomes much more difficult,
because each piece must now have the right orientation as well as the
right position.

OTOH, if each sticker on a face has a 4-way symmetrical picture on
it (such as a black circle on a white background), only the
position of each piece counts and the puzzle is just the same as if
the stickers on that face had a plain color.  A theme like that might
be made available for visually impaired people.

Short-term I won't have time to add a background facility before the
feature-freeze on May 19th, due to other commitments.  But I would
like to have a go at sneaking it in before the Artwork Freeze on July 8th,
provide you guys can turn a blind eye to it being a "feature" ... ;-)

If it just a single background at first (not themed), it can probably be
added without any GUI or message changes.

All the best, Ian W.

P.S. I have been assuming we are talking about a simple 2-D backdrop,
to be placed behind all the cubes, like on a stage-set, not some 3-D
landscape of planet Vars.  The latter is possible, but I doubt if I will be
rising to the challenge ...