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Ideas for a bit of i/f |
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Andrew |
Message #102613, posted by andrew at 11:11, 2/6/2007, in reply to message #102606 |
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What's Blaise Woods? Part of Forest of Dean? |
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VinceH |
Message #102616, posted by VincceH at 13:22, 2/6/2007, in reply to message #102613 |
 Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
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No. Blaise Castle Estate (to give it its proper name) is part of the so-called Forest of Avon. It's a wood/parkland on the outskirts of Bristol and 10 or so minutes walk from my home.
The Forest of Avon site has a fairly basic page here and a slightly more detailed one here.
The third photo down on that page is the water mill - Stratford Mill - which was moved here in the 60s(?) to preserve it when the Chew Valley Lake/Reservoir was formed. |
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Andrew |
Message #102622, posted by andrew at 18:20, 2/6/2007, in reply to message #102616 |
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Sounds ideal to do some shots in. Ancient monuments? Are these celtic/pre-historic? I remember Arya was very similar - are you sure they didn't go to the same place? |
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VinceH |
Message #102623, posted by VincceH at 19:00, 2/6/2007, in reply to message #102622 |
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I'm pretty sure if the Blaise Castle Estate was used for photos in a RISC OS game, I'd have known about it!
There isn't a great deal to see in terms of ancient monuments in Blaise, as such - not in terms of Celtic/prehistoric stuff, anyway - though there has been evidence found of Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age inhabitation AIUI.
For example, the Iron Age fort mentioned on one of the links I provided is actually on the same hill that the faux castle is built on. Most such hill forts are fairly easy to make out, but even then you can only really appreciate what they are from high positions, such as aerial photographs.
In this case, however, there is a large clearing on the top of the hill, but beyond that is woodland on all sides, so even from the air, you can't 'see' the Iron Age hill fort at all, as such. That said, I think the paths around the castle on the edge of/in the woods basically form the shape of the hill fort - so it's quite easy to define in that sense.
Most of what you can see in Blaise isn't really all that ancient - the castle is only three hundred ish years old IIRC. There are a couple of caves on either side of the hill the castle's built on, but they're clearly man made and I think were built when the estate was landscaped (by a chap called Repton - so there's a link  - in the late 18th century.)
The best thing about Blaise is that it's all free, including the museum AFAIK. It's a great little estate for a family day out. (If you have an other half and one or more sprogs. Or dogs.)
I didn't go for an especially long or wide ranging walk this morning - I had two specific goals; the tennis court (which wasn't in Blaise) and the mill (which was) - but I did wander up to the castle and take a few pictures of that and the caves. I also wandered around to a Roman ruin near the tennis court. Of the small number of pictures I took, I'll put the better ones online tomorrow. |
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Andrew |
Message #102627, posted by andrew at 19:16, 2/6/2007, in reply to message #102623 |
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Getting there for 5:30 is pretty impressive btw.
ISTR your pictures looking like 16M colours - that should do them justice. |
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VinceH |
Message #102628, posted by VincceH at 19:35, 2/6/2007, in reply to message #102627 |
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That sort of time was a deliberate choice, to avoid having to stand around waiting for dog walkers to get out of frame.
Your memory matches the fact - the pictures you saw were (and still are ) 16M colours. The game runs in 800x600x16million colours.  s with 1MB of VRAM should be fine.
(I had a couple of comments about the size of the text and the fact it uses the system font. The former will be solved by a text only version running in MODE 15 for older machines, and the latter I don't know about yet. ISTR it being possible to select a font for use outside the desktop, so I'll have to rummage through the PRMs - if that can be done and OS_PrettyPrint still be used to save me the effort of formatting the 'PRINTed' text, I'll do it.) |
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Andrew |
Message #102639, posted by andrew at 00:22, 3/6/2007, in reply to message #102628 |
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Using the font manager should be straightforward as I recall. The main problem is word-wrap (which apparently prettyprint should do).
The other problem with fonts is having to use those which are guaranteed to exist on the user's computer so that rules out any game-specific font unless you use BBC fonts or design your own (  )
[The way I did word wrap for an unreleased adventure was a scan-ahead mechanism where it did a "virtual" print out and if a character was printed at the end of a line and another followed it, it inserted a space into the buffer and tried to "print" again untl no word crossed the end of line. Phew.] |
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VinceH |
Message #102642, posted by VincceH at 07:50, 3/6/2007, in reply to message #102639 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
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Using the font manager should be straightforward as I recall. The main problem is word-wrap (which apparently prettyprint should do). Yes, that's exactly why I used it. Writing something to format text in a full screen program is hardly rocket science, but why re-invent a wheel that's already been implemented in the OS?
The other problem with fonts is having to use those which are guaranteed to exist on the user's computer so that rules out any game-specific font unless you use BBC fonts or design your own ( ) Or supply a public domain one.
[The way I did word wrap for an unreleased adventure was a scan-ahead mechanism where it did a "virtual" print out and if a character was printed at the end of a line and another followed it, it inserted a space into the buffer and tried to "print" again untl no word crossed the end of line. Phew.] What you should have done was scan ahead through the text to be printed to see how long the next word is (ie how far until the next space or end of the line).
You then call an OS_Word (IIRC) to return the current text cursor position. Subtract that from the text-width of the screen, and if the result is greater than the length of the word, print it. If it's shorter, start a new line then print it.
That's pretty much the equivalent of what OS_PrettyPrint does.
(I assume you couldn't use OS_PrettyPrint because, like the one you recently updated, it was originally written for the Beeb?) |
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VinceH |
Message #102648, posted by VincceH at 13:14, 3/6/2007, in reply to message #102623 |
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Of the small number of pictures I took, I'll put the better ones online tomorrow. Done. |
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Andrew |
Message #102649, posted by andrew at 14:00, 3/6/2007, in reply to message #102642 |
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That's what I did except for the OS_Word part (I just kept a counter of where the text was). The word-wrap was in 6502code and had to decompress some text beforehand into a temporary buffer so I was glad enough to have it doing what I wanted that I didn't fiddle any more! |
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Andrew |
Message #102650, posted by andrew at 14:02, 3/6/2007, in reply to message #102648 |
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Of the small number of pictures I took, I'll put the better ones online tomorrow. Done.
They look really good. You could apply a filter if you wanted to add atmosphere and also avoid that web-page being too much of a spoiler |
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VinceH |
Message #102654, posted by VincceH at 15:14, 3/6/2007, in reply to message #102650 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
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They look really good. Ta.
I am quite pleased with the castle ones, because those I can find online are few and far between, and fairly bland. Which means my photographs of Blaise Castle are The Best in the Whole World, Ever, and I am Therefore Completely Brillianttm.
Or something. 
You could apply a filter if you wanted to add atmosphere and also avoid that web-page being too much of a spoiler Nah, there's no need - I could publish all the pictures from the game online and there'd be no spoilers. They're really just 'gloss' for the game. All the clues are in the objects to be found (which aren't pictured) and the words. |
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VinceH |
Message #102771, posted by VincceH at 20:59, 7/6/2007, in reply to message #102639 |
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Some PRM reading and experimenting later...
I won't be using outline fonts. If I use them, I have to mess around doing all the formatting myself - which, while not beyond my capabilities, IS beyond the amount of effort I want to go to for a freebie. At least one of the things mentioned below I'd have to do as well and it would also leave me with the player's input having to be handled differently - more effort - (or inconsistently).
My two more obvious solutions are:
1. Easiest solution: redefine the character set (or find a suitable BBC font definition file I can use). This would allow for a nicer and more readable text, but won't address the problem of text size that some people commented on.
2. Plot the text at the graphics cursor. Doing this means I'd be able to change the text size and spacing, so I can make the text bigger and put a blank row of pixels between each line. I'd have to handle scrolling myself, which is the only snag - but the quickest and easiest way to do this is to define a text window that maps exactly onto the graphics window, and just scroll the text window whenever necessary, and update the graphics cursor position accordingly. Easy peasy - so that's what I'll do.
And, of course, I could do both if I can find a good BBC style font file that I can (legally) use. (I don't really want to spend time designing my own!) |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #102775, posted by monkeyson2 at 07:55, 8/6/2007, in reply to message #102771 |
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I won't be using outline fonts. If I use them, I have to mess around doing all the formatting myself - which, while not beyond my capabilities, IS beyond the amount of effort I want to go to for a freebie. At least one of the things mentioned below I'd have to do as well and it would also leave me with the player's input having to be handled differently - more effort - (or inconsistently). Does this help?
http://tofla.iconbar.com/tofla/gfx/fnt01/index.htm |
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VinceH |
Message #102776, posted by VincceH at 08:34, 8/6/2007, in reply to message #102775 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
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Does this help? Not really. Key words and phrases include "not beyond my capabilities" - by which I mean I've already worked out how to do what needs to be done, and know I can do it - and "IS beyond the [...] effort I want to go to" - by which I mean, I don't want to do it.
Although I have to admit, when Trellis is using outline fonts, white on black (just a quick test last night- no formatting or anything, so half the text vanishes off the RHS of the screen, and if the bottom is hit, there's no scroll. And I don't even want to talk about the mess the user input made, which wasn't using outline fonts) it looked really nice. |
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VinceH |
Message #103916, posted by VincceH at 21:52, 12/8/2007, in reply to message #102776 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
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The game can now be downloaded, btw - an announcement should be appearing on comp.sys.acorn.announce soon, and I tried sending it via the form linked on the side bar, but got an error. I'd have said something sooner, but I got distracted and forgot all about it.
Not many of the suggestions I received actually got implemented, because I just didn't have the time. (Have I said something like that often enough for it to qualify as my catchphrase yet?)
What I did do (mostly today) in the run up to uploading it:- Put the photographs that I've taken more recently into the game to replace the temporary (testcard) image.
- One of the pictures was of a tattered and lonely rowing boat instead of a tattered and lonely motor boat - so I changed the end game slightly. (As a result, one of the locations that was key to the original game now serves no purpose - though it can still be reached after a certain point, but it's just a waste of time).
- Added abbreviations for directions. Which made play testing it much faster. I've easily halved the time it takes me to complete the game.
- Found lots and lots of bugs in the script, which strangely didn't affect things before. Fluke of the order the lines in the script, some of which got moved around. Fixed them.
- Realised that the reason some commands weren't working properly was because they included 'at' (boat, batteries) - 'at' being one of the synonyms I'd used for location/where, which it no longer is. (Where/location being a useful aid to mapping - it reveals the player's location number).
- Corrected numerous glitches and sillies in terms of the location and object descriptions. (Shades of the 'You have a poster nailed to a tree' one that I spotted many months ago).
- Puzzled over why I'd defined the same location twice, one of which wasn't actually used, so I used it for something else.
- Realised that instead of releasing two versions (one text only, and one graphical) I'd actually written Trellis in a way that makes this simpler; a few bits of tidying later, and the game can be released text only with the graphics an optional extra download. Much more practical.
- Uploaded it. Yay!
There is still much wrong with it but, as I said, I don't have the time; it needed releasing so I've released it.
http://www.softrock.co.uk/products/quicksand.html |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #103918, posted by Phlamethrower at 22:13, 12/8/2007, in reply to message #103916 |
 Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff
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The game can now be downloaded, btw Yay!
I tried sending it via the form linked on the side bar, but got an error. Boo!
It looks like the message made it through OK though. I'll give the script a poke and see what's wrong.
[edit]
Looks like it's some of Rich's anti-spammer code misbehaving and claiming it hasn't sent the mail when it actually has. I'll get it fixed.
[Edited by Phlamethrower at 23:31, 12/8/2007] |
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VinceH |
Message #103919, posted by VincceH at 22:38, 12/8/2007, in reply to message #103916 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
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There is still much wrong with it but, as I said, I don't have the time; it needed releasing so I've released it. And in the true tradition of rushing through some last minute changes and uploading it, the first version uploaded was broken! Yay me!
(Loaded the wrong version of SRSlibrary, and from the wrong place, the graphics file had the wrong name for the app directory inside it, AND it was running in a 32Kcolour screen mode instead of 16million) |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #103924, posted by rich at 10:53, 13/8/2007, in reply to message #103918 |
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Looks like it's some of Rich's anti-spammer code misbehaving and claiming it hasn't sent the mail when it actually has. I'll get it fixed. When in doubt, tell people to fuck off
I've made quite a few tweaks recently, including introducing some of the new thresholding stuff, so it's not surprising there were a few problems. I tested it to fail and to succeed, but obviously not the grey areas in between.
________
 Cheers,
Rich.
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Andrew |
Message #104018, posted by andrew at 10:46, 18/8/2007, in reply to message #103924 |
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Considering Vince startedat the end of April I'd says he's done well to release a game in four months. He talks about putting things off but finding the time at all is impressive. That's the secret to writing an Acorn/ RISC OS game.
[Edited by andrew at 11:47, 18/8/2007] |
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