JInput
Just a few updates about the last days. The “major” thing was adding support for more input devices. Thru the use of the JInput library many devices are available (Win/Mac/Linux).
JInput requires native support, so the native libraries will be included in the next release version. Vide will still run without them however. But as before than only the keyboard will be accessable as input device.
Using JInput enables e.g. analog devices (Hyperchase is playable…).
Before any user actually can USE an input device – it must be configured (in the config section – new tab input). This is as yet not beautiful and not documented. But it does work :-).
Also implemented (on the vectrex side) are now “spinner” controllers. This can be emulated by the old keyboard, or JInput devices. My personal findings for e.g. “Rounders” is – that it does not add to playability (on the emulator) – but at least that input method is emulated.
Some other stuff I did:
Synced Vectorlist
I added support of a new vectorlist format. The format allows output of so called synced vectorlists. Vectorlists (and example code) can be created by vecci.
With this new format one can output large vectorlists without worrying about lose ends:
See this old frog, this is the list directly taken from the Frogger game. On the emulator (and actually all vectrex with drift) – the frog will be slightly (or sometimes more) distorted. The reason is, that displaying a list of 63! vectors in one go invites the “drift” in. And especially since I was dumb enough to actually “close” the list – the fault can be seen even by half-blinds.
The following image shows the same vectorlist – but this time I let vecci export it in the new format:
I like that output much better… (although it is slightly slower).
(further documentation pending)
Uni-directional raster image output
I also added example code to output raster images uni-directional (and synced, nearly drift immune).
Other:
- in vecci added routines to use the scale factor on complete scenarios/animations
- also added the ability to generate vectorlists with a “factor”
- corrected the mirror and rotate functionality for 2d images
- added ability to add single “vectorlists” from a scenario to the current edited list.
With this you can actually use a scenario as a “storage area” for vectorlist parts (usefull if you edit/create sprites which consist partly of equal vectorlists) - added vector length display in the vectortable in vecci
- added the befor mentioned new synced “printStr” routine to the codi section
- dumpi speed up on the display of large raster images
- address/textfields in dumpi now work correctly
- added another option to speedup display
- created (vector) rasterimages now possible on selection of the loaded images
Next things I am thinking about:
- rewrite/add output routines to be more performant
- add an option in vecci to do “hidden line removal” for generated 3d vectorlists
Thats it for today…
Malban