[Kde-games-devel] granatier

[Arturo Silva]

Hello all,

Sorry to say I can't upload anything today since I spent my free time
doing R&D on that impossibly annoying SVG rendering bug.  But it was a
worthwhile endeavor as I think I finally cracked the mystery, thanks
to a little trial and error.  ^^b

Although I won't say this occurs in ALL cases (because we can still
see the bricks in arena_block), it appears that the QTSVGRenderer will
fail to display a path if it does not contain at least one or two node
handles.  Mmaning that if you just create an angular object using the
pen tool without at least at some point curving the line (or after the
fact, dragging some handles from a specific node), then the object
will disappear in either Gwenview, the KDE preview window, and of
course Granatier.

This is certainly in accordance to the problems I had with the first
tiles.... I thought it was object complexity that caused the rendering
but, but I couldn't understand at the time why the pebble floor (which
was super-complex) rendered perfectly, while the original wall
decoration (a little pyramid shape composed of 4 perfect triangles,
that was eventually replaced by tho current bolt pattern) would not
even display no matter what I did.  It also explains why everything in
the original bonus_bomb icon displayed except for the lively spark,
since that was composed of three perfectly-angular shapes.

I of course tested this theory by dragging out at least two node
handles for every path that made up arena_arrow_up, and lo and behold,
the ENTIRE thing displayed beautifully in Gwenview/Granatier!
^_______^

Feel free to try it yourself, but if my theory is correct, then I
think I can finally begin drawing with full confidence, and maybe even
go nuts on the detail, LOL.  [j/k, j/k]  :D


==========================================================================
Mathias Kraus wrote:
==========================================================================

> I will add an option to show all tiles even if the feature is not yet implemented,
> so you can see how it looks like in the game.

Thank you very much!  This actually ended up being very useful during
the trial and error process. ^^
Now between this and my discovery, I think I may be able to get your
theme up and running in no time.  ^__~

[or at least a little bit quicker]  ^^;


> don't remove it. I'll use it as land mine. just rename it to arena_mine.

You got it!  ^__^b
Hope you noticed that the skull on the landmine kinda/sorta looks like
the player critters.  ^.^


> or something like a geyser?

Ah!  I got it!  What do you get when you cross a geyser and a pipe?

A cannon!  ^^

It makes sense,... you dump a bomb in a cannon tile, and naturally it
gets projected to some distant random location on the map.  And if you
really want to go all out, you can somehow get it to play a different
sound (like a "woosh" or "boom", instead of the usual "thuck")
whenever the player inserts a bomb in that tile.  ^^

If you like the idea, I propose a rename to either: "bonus_cannon",
"bonus_turret" or "bonus_mortar".


> I think both ;)

hehe, my goal is to make the shield perhaps the most desired power-up
in the game, if only because it gives a little bit of comfort to the
player.  But of course it's not the only great power-up -- after all,
the ability to survive one bomb blast is useless if the other players
are 10x faster than you are, can lay 15 bombs at a time, and have bomb
ranges that pretty much cover the entire arena.  :P


> that's a really good idea

np! ^^
Okay, you can consider the archery range icon officially decommissioned! ^.^


> I also think it should be recognizable as ground. have you thought to make the ground tile glossy, like the bonus items?

No, but now that you describe it that way, I think it's a great
compromise solution.  :)
It will still use the same marble pattern as the floor so it would
blend with it nicely, but it would be tinted just a tiny bit on the
blue side, and it will also have some streaking gloss effects that
would offer the shiny, slippery appearance we want on an icy surface.
So I'm sold!  ^^b

And yes, after trying out my original ice tiles in the game, I do
agree they do look more like walls (or even destroyble blocks) than
floor tiles, so off to the cemetary it goes.

On the other hand,... precisely because it looks like a wall........ i
wonder if it would be a perfect candidate for the arena_wall in the
Waterbomb theme?  ^___^


> sorry, I ment that the bonuses should disapear if bombed. in clanbomber bad bonuses are kicked
> to a different place, but I'm not really sure if I also want it that way. consistent behaviour would be better.

Consistent behavior is better, so whatever fate befalls the bad
bonuses should affect the good ones too. ^^
But I'm a little worried about having the bonuses be destroyable,
because if you happen to lay two bombs in succession, the second blast
is bound to destroy whatever goodies the first uncovers.

IMHO, I think the safest behavior is for all bonuses to remain
"invincible", but that they disappear after 10 seconds or so if
they're not picked up.  And if time permits, maybe the bonus icons can
blink a few times right before they disappear.


> I thought of making the player wobling while the bad bonus is active or showing an icon
> beside the player with the bad bonus and blink the icon.
> at first there might be only the wobling.

I like the icon idea, but if it's too much to code over the player
itself, you can also have it appear on the sidebar you plan to make
(showing the player stats). ^^


> ok, I added a checkbox to the settings dialog. life for artists is now a little bit easier.
> attached are some arenas I imported from clanbomber. just unzip it to ~/.kde/share/apps/granatier and select the arena you want.

Oh darn, I found this too late. But I'll try these maps eventually. ^^
Oh, and thanks again for the checkbox!  ^^b


> there is now also
> bonus_bad_slow: makes the player really slow
> bonus_bad_hyperactive: makes the player really slow
> bonus_bad_drug: inverts the moving keys. this one will probably become bonus_bad_mirror. not sure yet

hehe, this is great!  ^^b

BTW, I noticed your bad bonuses are colored in red.  If you'd like, I
can do the same when I begin drawing icons for the bad bonuses,
although my original intention was to keep them all green (so as to
not offer an immediate visual queue to the player to avoid them).  ^^

Well, so far this is going well!
Sorry I can't contribute any code, but hopefully you're having fun
looking at our artwork and reading our comments (which have already
ballooned this Grantier thread). ^___^b



--Arturo