NEW! yet another elastomania application

totem · Post by **totem** » 12 Oct 2010, 09:24

A program to generate levels, edit levels and watch replays.

download latest version

Mawane · Post by **Mawane** » 12 Oct 2010, 09:48

(cant see images in your post)

Zweq · Post by **Zweq** » 12 Oct 2010, 13:02

fak, how do you keep interest to take project so far alone

Xiphias · Post by **Xiphias** » 12 Oct 2010, 14:05

DaFred · Post by **DaFred** » 12 Oct 2010, 14:29

omg, sickest Elmaprogram ever!

At first the hide behaviour of the items confused me. I drawed a poly and then clicked to "Add Pipe" and the Poly disappeared. But if you understand that you only see the items you have choosen in menu it's cool.
Dunno if it's a bug but if you uncheck "Generate in a new level" it generates the lev in the same file (what I very like) but without deleting the old polies. Max overlapping is the result

The Menu is hiding for a short moment when generating a lev in a new File.
(Sometimes the Point Cloude algorithm generates errors in the lev...)
I will keep my Eyes open for more Bugs

[Edit]
The Image and Text tools are soo nice!!

Igge · Post by **Igge** » 12 Oct 2010, 15:10

it's epic)

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 12 Oct 2010, 16:07

Very nice! Open source is +++. Maybe I'll try coding something when have much spare time.

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 12 Oct 2010, 16:53

damez, i won't win gaa again

DaFred · Post by **DaFred** » 12 Oct 2010, 18:26

Is it possible to attach level generate algorithms without compiling the whole program? Would be cool if ppl could write own algos. I guess I would write some when having time

Maybe it's possible to load each algo from a dll?

Smibu · Post by **Smibu** » 12 Oct 2010, 19:11

This program is graphically superior to mine. I also like the MDI style, being able to have many recs+levs open.

What I don't like is that the installer doesn't ask where to install the program. Because of that at first I thought that it didn't even work. :)

totem · Post by **totem** » 12 Oct 2010, 19:11

thank you for feedback

DaFred wrote:Dunno if it's a bug but if you uncheck "Generate in a new level" it generates the lev in the same file (what I very like) but without deleting the old polies. Max overlapping is the result

this is the expected behavior, even if it's not great as you pointed out.

DaFred wrote:The Menu is hiding for a short moment when generating a lev in a new File.
(Sometimes the Point Cloude algorithm generates errors in the lev...)

Qt (the C++ framework I use) does not provide a support for Multiple Document Interface menu system...
I had to code it myself, and it's not perfect. So yes, menu disappear each time you change current
document. Maybe I could make something better if it's really needed.
Concerning the point cloud generation errors, I'm afraid I know where it comes from but if I correct it,
the generation takes a lot more time (like 2 times slower). So I thought it's acceptable to have some
easy-to-fix errors from time to time.

DaFred wrote:Is it possible to attach level generate algorithms without compiling the whole program? Would be cool if ppl could write own algos. I guess I would write some when having time
Maybe it's possible to load each algo from a dll?

Very interesting

it's absolutely possible with a certain amount of work. How do you see that ?
Dll Plugins ? Scripts ? We should write a generation protocol first.. Interesting idea

totem · Post by **totem** » 12 Oct 2010, 19:16

Smibu wrote:What I don't like is that the installer doesn't ask where to install the program. Because of that at first I thought that it didn't even work.

Indeed... The problem is that NEW! uses a settings.ini file, and in first tests under Windows7, the application did not have the rights to write a file in the ProgramFiles folder... So I decided to force the installation in a OS-independant user-folder.
On XP it's like :

C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/NEW!

Igge · Post by **Igge** » 12 Oct 2010, 19:22

totem wrote:C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/NEW!

W7: C:\ProgramData\NEW!\

klisse · Post by **klisse** » 12 Oct 2010, 19:55

Hi! Tried to build this from src, but missing tsplevelclipboard.h file.. Have you forgot to add this to repo?

../NEW/tspundocommands.h:5: error: tsplevelclipboard.h: No such file or directory

URL: http://ballelevgenerator.googlecode.com/svn/trunk
Repository Root: http://ballelevgenerator.googlecode.com/svn
Repository UUID: 4eccb95a-db3d-11de-ae71-c59d11f48c9c
Revision: 402
Node Kind: directory
Schedule: normal
Last Changed Author: totemtrash@gmail.com
Last Changed Rev: 402
Last Changed Date: 2010-10-11 21:39:52 +0200

totem · Post by **totem** » 12 Oct 2010, 21:18

klisse you are right, i just committed the missing file, sorry
edit : i guess that if you want to commit code changes, i will have to give you rights. PM me if you're interested

@igge : thanks for info

zworqy · Post by **zworqy** » 13 Oct 2010, 18:12

Very, very awesome editor!

However the text kerning (distance between characters) seems weird: http://zworqy.com/up/files/new_text.png

welle · Post by **welle** » 13 Oct 2010, 18:22

yeah, you gotta dean up the keming

totem · Post by **totem** » 13 Oct 2010, 19:53

ok I see what you mean
I don't know if i can do something about it though. I'll take a look at it and tell you as soon as possible

NoZKeY · Post by **NoZKeY** » 14 Oct 2010, 00:01

new

D

Cool name, cool project,

I'll test it later..

jonsykkel · Post by **jonsykkel** » 17 Oct 2010, 18:17

very awseom job ez gaa

jblaze · Post by **jblaze** » 17 Oct 2010, 22:01

SIIIIICK!!!

rly great porgram

Mrrrr · Post by **Mrrrr** » 17 Oct 2010, 22:17

Wow! This is so cool!!

Thanks!

Mawane · Post by **Mawane** » 20 Oct 2010, 15:12

totem asked me to ask you, designers, following my suggestion to add apples in the pipes by 2 ways:
- Every x distance between apples
- Specific amount of apples

Do you want this feature despite it "could" (not done yet, so dunno) be heavy for the program?

totem · Post by **totem** » 20 Oct 2010, 20:31

Mawane wrote:totem asked me to ask you, designers, following my suggestion to add apples in the pipes by 2 ways:
- Every x distance between apples
- Specific amount of apples

Do you want this feature despite it "could" (not done yet, so dunno) be heavy for the program?

well, it's one of your ideas, not mine. Also, I didn't mean it would be "heavy" for the program itself, but more for users.
Why not placing apples yourself and save GUI simplicity ?

Concerning NEW!, I'm curious to know who would be interested in a make-your-own-generation-scripts module
(Well, I am, so it might see daylight some day)

Juish · Post by **Juish** » 26 Oct 2010, 06:17

does this program or any other program have an "auto-mask" a polygon.

example:

right click any polygon(foreground)

in the right-click menu have an option that says
Auto-Mask Polygon->
(sub category options):
Brick
Ground
Sky
Stone 1
Stone 2
Stone 3

a few considerations to look at:
- have it use the least number of Masks possible to cover the selection, utilizing all three sizes
- in tight areas not to overlap mask corners onto a polygon next to it. and if it does over lap have it auto fix the other polygon using a different distance mask
- possible fun automasks like barrel, bridge, any squarish picture
- obviously the masks would always be set to "ground"
- and if you can select multiple polygons at the same time right click on one of them and can change all the selection to a specific mask at once.

is there a way the program can just code the level to say a certain polygon's "foreground" is a specific mask, similar to the level properties but like a "polygon properties" to avoid using hundreds of pictures?

I could see this feature being extremely time saving when designing levels with tight spaced polygons that take hundreds of mask littles to accomplish. There are numerous benefits to this feature.

I'm not a programmer, i'm sorry if this is impsy, and I apologize if this feature exists already.

Great program!

totem · Post by **totem** » 26 Oct 2010, 10:05

I'm glad if you like it

Your mask-tool request has been discussed already. In my point of view, this is a
NP-hard problem, not sure though. That is, you cannot solve it if you did not verify every
possible solution. Obviously you can provide more or less simplistic heuristics to suggest a solution in an acceptable
computation time, but in some (most ?) cases it won't be good enough for the "hard to please" software users.

In few words : it is hard to code this feature correctly

welle · Post by **welle** » 26 Oct 2010, 13:51

I agree that this might be hard to implement, but I doubt that here is a NP-hard problem involved.

The_BoneLESS · Post by **The_BoneLESS** » 26 Oct 2010, 14:21

This problem is nothing more complex than NP-complete in my opinion.

The problem of covering a polygon with the optimal amount of masks is simple enough. The problem lies in not exceeding the limits of the polygon (to counter overlapping other polygons), which is quite impossible unless using an almost infinite amount of masks (being the masks are all rectangular and polygons can have all angles and all sizes).

In addition, in the actual state of the elma graphics system (and i might say a definite one), it is impossible to cover a tiny polygon (smaller than the smaller mask) without overlapping adjacent polygons (Well, you could put the foreground texture of the level the one you want and mask every other polygon in the level but that would be pointless in the case you want tiny polygons in different textures).

So in my opinion, it is impossible to fully solve this problem though it would be simple enough to offer decent solutions.

welle · Post by **welle** » 26 Oct 2010, 17:37

An optimal solution (like minimal number of masks) should be pretty hard to find. But I believe most of us would be happy with any automatic solution at all. You're right that there are impossible problem instances, but I'm pretty sure you can decide whether or not a given problem is solvable in like O(n^2) where n is the total number of vertices in the level. If proven solvable, you should be able to find a cover with k masks in something like O(k*n^2).

I'm not saying it's easy though...

totem · Post by **totem** » 26 Oct 2010, 19:01

welle wrote: I believe most of us would be happy with any automatic solution at all.

If you say so, then it worths a try

Juish · Post by **Juish** » 27 Oct 2010, 05:15

This may be far fetched but i was just brainstorming on the way home on possible ways to fix this auto-mask problem:

I feel the problem is the masks themselves.

Solution: A new LGR. The Lgr would be identical to the current but would have a wide range of mask littles. (Like an mandatory LGR for eol)

Angles:
There would have to be four sets of angles (this is only with mask little): Right-up, right-down, left-up, left-down
The grey area in the diagram would be where the "brick" or "stone 2" would be displayed. The rest of the mask little will be see-through.
The 05, 10, 15, 20... are the degrees of the angles.
it has a simple naming system

for example the "Right-Up" Mask littles would consist of:
RU005, RU105
RU010, RU110
RU015, RU115
RU020, RU120
RU025, RU125
RU030, RU130
RU035, RU135
RU040, RU140
RU45

Size, Vertical and Horizontal:
pretty straight forward same sort of changes but instead of angles its in percentages. size is the % of both width and height. Vertical is % of the width. and horizontal is % of the height. Yet again, the grey area in the diagram would be where the "brick" or "stone 2" would be displayed. The rest of the mask little will be see-through.

As for the naming system, the "size%" would consist of:
s10
s20
s30
s40
s50
s60
s70
s80
s90

Using the new masks:
Now that we have a great deal more angles and shapes to work with, design the "auto-mask" feature to find the best combination of these new mask littles and the existing 3 sizes to cover a polygon with a maximum of a 0.99mm overhang. The naming system helps the program quickly identify the appropriate mask little to use.

Other Possibilities:
- Instead of having every 5 degrees or every 10 % have it every 1 degree and 1%
- some sort of round mask little or diamond shaped using the % system
- Wide selection of medium to large masks.
- What about a "pixel sized mask" lol that way the computer can generate a mask almost perfectly shaped with no overhang.

Conclusion:

I feel people would be quick to adopt a new lgr if it made auto-masking possible.

Lousku · Post by **Lousku** » 27 Oct 2010, 06:20

If solutions are that complicated, is it really worth it?

Juish wrote:I feel people would be quick to adopt a new lgr if it made auto-masking possible.

Remember that there are multiple lgr's already being used and a mandatory lgr would not be accepted by everyone. The new lgr could (should) be optional, but then levels would look really ugly with other lgr's.

Not really worth the effort imo, unless there's a simpler solution. They're just... textures. Try playing with default ground/sky and low details, you won't feel like anything important is missing.

Also, I've heard arguments against autograss saying that manually added grass tells everyone how much effort you put into a level etc. Can that not be applied to this? If you're going to put a lot of effort into making this, just know that some people will say it sucks.

jonsykkel · Post by **jonsykkel** » 27 Oct 2010, 06:39

i found this http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf

totem · Post by **totem** » 27 Oct 2010, 08:26

Juish it's interesting but imo what said LousQ is true : the LGR should be optional which makes it a bit useless in the end. On the other hand LousQ, I prefer high-detail textured levs when it's done properly. It's a matter of taste.
Jon

i'll take a look a this paper

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 27 Oct 2010, 10:30

LousQ wrote:If solutions are that complicated, is it really worth it?
Juish wrote:I feel people would be quick to adopt a new lgr if it made auto-masking possible.
Remember that there are multiple lgr's already being used and a mandatory lgr would not be accepted by everyone. The new lgr could (should) be optional, but then levels would look really ugly with other lgr's.

Not really worth the effort imo, unless there's a simpler solution. They're just... textures. Try playing with default ground/sky and low details, you won't feel like anything important is missing.

Also, I've heard arguments against autograss saying that manually added grass tells everyone how much effort you put into a level etc. Can that not be applied to this? If you're going to put a lot of effort into making this, just know that some people will say it sucks.

The autograss thing is relevant but also not. I use textures in a great quantity in my levels, and when you have a situation where this is needed - it can become almost impossible to mask properly. The LGR thing would work, most people use low detail anyway, so if they wanted to see pictures, they could.

Lousku · Post by **Lousku** » 27 Oct 2010, 11:50

Haruhi wrote:The LGR thing would work, most people use low detail anyway, so if they wanted to see pictures, they could.

What about people who have the masks from the original default.lgr and other things changed? Would not work unless they added the new masks to those lgr's, and that's too much of a hassle for something as unimportant as this.

Anyway, kind of unnecessary to discuss this further since the propro humanoids are getting towards a better solution.

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 27 Oct 2010, 13:10

I don't like the LGR thing because I use some kind of HighQ.lgr.

The_BoneLESS · Post by **The_BoneLESS** » 27 Oct 2010, 14:03

Concerning Juish's idea, it just seems overly complicated and not all that "backward compatible" with levels done with other lgrs (every level done since the creation of elma).

Concerning jon's idea, I was actually about to start testing some stuff with my personal adaptation of the floodfill algorithm and i was thinking of something in the likes of the paper you've just posted. Seems to me like the most reasonable idea.

totem · Post by **totem** » 9 Mar 2011, 18:55

totem wrote:
DaFred wrote:Is it possible to attach level generate algorithms without compiling the whole program? Would be cool if ppl could write own algos. I guess I would write some when having time
Maybe it's possible to load each algo from a dll?
Very interesting it's absolutely possible with a certain amount of work. How do you see that ?
Dll Plugins ? Scripts ? We should write a generation protocol first.. Interesting idea

After countless hours of work I'm glad to show you a preview of a the new generation system.
It works with "blocks". Each block represents a function, like defining a random number, a random 2D point, a random shape, etc... Anything you want. One block might also contain the code to generate an entire level. But it's not mandatory, and obviously not the goal.

Once you have several blocks you can build an algorithm, like
1. get X random points (1 script-block)
2. make a polygon out of it (1 script-block)
3. repeat steps 1 and 2 in a loop, Y times (1 loop-block)
4. merge all resulting polygons together to avoid intersections (1 script-block)

You can save whole algorithm or a specific block to your library, share your blocks with other people, import other people's block in your algorihthm, etc.. This gives an huge number of possible combinations, which is exciting

For now it's possible to add a given polygon to the level. But I'll try to make all NEW! tools available to the script engine (shouldn't be hard). This means you'll be able to simplify polygons, merge polygons, transform vertices, add text, images, etc... directly from script.

By the way, this is not available for download right now, i'll advertise when it is.

If you have good ideas, it's time to give them here

main interface with graphical algorithm editor, and code editor. The level you see is generated by the little script:

example of graphical algorithm (fake scripts though):

Smibu · Post by **Smibu** » 9 Mar 2011, 21:40

Dame!! Looks very nice totem, gonna try this right away. :) edit: as soon as it becomes available

Bismuth · Post by **Bismuth** » 10 Mar 2011, 06:51

WHY am I NOT using this 24/7, it looks so awesomepicompletely-fucktheresnowordstartingwithyicanthinkof

jonsykkel · Post by **jonsykkel** » 10 Mar 2011, 10:50

generator looks max!!1 ;d;d;d;d;dD cant wait to test
theres only a few stuffs that keeps my from using new! as default: (shoudnt be too hard to code i guess)
-cant figure a way to change direction of vertex add thing (in elma editor and ale you press space), this is ultra neccesary
-im mainly using a laptop so its hardik to zoom with scroll wheel as i dont have one so a coupel of zoomik buttons in the top toolbar would be nice (pasible with keyboard shortcuts +/-) (was about to write zoomrect also when i discovered you can do that holdingm shift and draging mouse)
-option to turn off all lgrs loading at startup (and load only default.lgr), takes a long time when you have many lgrs and crashes sometimes. right now i have to copy all of mine somewhere else just to get the program going
edit:
-save as dosnt work (or im doing something wrong?)

some other not so important stuff:
-option to turn off realtime error checking and add manual button
-level statistics somewhere (number of aples, polys, vertices...)
-large levs load kinda slow (maybe not the actualy file loading (?) but something else happening when you load a file, duno)
edit:
-thumbnail seems to be bugy
-when you delete all polygons you cant make a new one

very thx if you do some of these ; D

totem · Post by **totem** » 10 Mar 2011, 14:06

thanks this is valuable feed-back and bug report

By the way in the future if you have a gmail account, you can fill bug report or enhancement suggestion.
You can also check all bugs already fixed, or filter issues using the search options

Jon several of your wishes could be fulfilled with an "application settings dialog". I wanted to make one but never did - I will.

- option to turn off all lgrs loading at startup
- option to turn off realtime error checking and add manual button

jonsykkel · Post by **jonsykkel** » 10 Mar 2011, 14:23

ah didnt see that page :D ill use that next time
settings dialog would be very many nice!

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 10 Mar 2011, 16:28

jonharkulsykkel wrote:-cant figure a way to change direction of vertex add thing (in elma editor and ale you press space), this is ultra neccesary

fuuuuck i didnt know such a thing existed in ale and editor 8DDDDDDD was such pain without it... ez stop using NEW until its added :d

hello jongy!11190()(()()()() back ;D

nick-o-matic · Post by **nick-o-matic** » 10 Mar 2011, 17:06

Respect!

totem · Post by **totem** » 15 Mar 2011, 09:19

done : cant figure a way to change direction of vertex add thing (in elma editor and ale you press space), this is ultra neccesary. With a little bonus

done : zoomik buttons in the top toolbar would be nice (pasible with keyboard shortcuts +/-). No button though, are they necessary ?

done : option to turn off all lgrs loading at startup

done : option to turn off realtime error checking and add manual button

partially done : large levs load kinda slow. Fixed and tried on ChainPieII.lev, seems acceptable now.

done, though not a v1.4.1 bug : save as dosnt work

done, though not a v1.4.1 bug : thumbnail seems to be bugy

can't reproduce : when you delete all polygons you cant make a new one.

not done : level statistics somewhere (number of aples, polys, vertices...).

Will be available in next release.

Also, added a scriptable entry which allow to generate a random polygon with some parameters

Code: Select all

level.randomPolygon(boundingRect, percent, snapToGrid)

  - boundingRect : the 2D rectangle where random points should be picked
  - percent : used (along with boundingRect) to compute number of points to pick
  - snapToGrid : boolean, indicate wether you want a grid or not

Script API ideas :

Code: Select all

clearLevel()
mergePolygons(Polygon,Polygon)
substractPolygons(Polygon substractPolygon, Polygon fromPolygon)
smoothPolygon(Polygon)
pipePolygon(Polygon)
simplifyPolygon(Polygon)
addGrassPolygon(Polygon)

Don't hesitate to suggest nice ones. The should be simple and useful

Mrrrr · Post by **Mrrrr** » 3 Apr 2011, 12:31

Can't wait for next release

totem · Post by **totem** » 4 Apr 2011, 10:38

I'm slowly fixing several things (it's getting better and better), but can't spend that much time on NEW! lately... sorry

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 4 Apr 2011, 11:17

don't worry, elma community has always been patient ;) NEW! beats all by far anyway :)