Malban did it!
Although there was no diary entry the last 10 days or so, he steadily kept going! Vide is now in a “feature freeze” mode. There are a couple of cleanups to do, more documentation, but no new stuff anymore befor the first release! In a week Malban will be going on a holiday for a fortnight, he will try to do at least an official release candidate till than.
Now to the exciting changes that were implemented:
Vecci
Vecci – although I am blushing as I say it – turned out very well, IMHO it is the best vector editing tool for vectrex on the market (well – the vectrex editor market is not so very big…). In the turn of events Malban tried out the “usual” tools like Inkscape and the like – but either these are out of his brains scope or … well that may just be it… They seem to be much out of proportion for vectrex editing. A couple of times he thought about implementing a svg import, but utlimately decided against it.
His reasoning goes like this:
People who already used tools like above, won’t use vide to import, they already have their import facilities. People who have not used above tools, will decide against using them anyway, once they see vecci in action!
Also, all stuff usable in current vectrex assembler code can be imported to vecci, since a very workable ASM import is implemented!
Here a short long list of things vecci can do:
- (3d-) edit vectorlists (add, delete, move points/vectors/selections, complete undo/redo functionality, copy/cut/paste)
- load and save vectorlist (also only selected “segments”) in vecci format (xml)
- import from assembler statements of pretty much all kinds of data statements
- with the help of dissi, scan vectrex roms and grab lists from vectrex “memory”
- with the vector-screenshot ability of dissi import all other vectrex runnable vector “stuff”
- generate vectorlists from rasterimages (not rasterimages on vectrex this time!)
- export to different vectrex “list – types” of data
- export to code (actual direct code generation of vectorlists, aka compiled vectorlists)
- vectorlists directly runnable in vecxi (code generation from vecci)
- lists (size of vectors) expandable/shrinkable/optimizable on a button press
- vectors can be displayed with arrows and order information (numbers)
- move vectors (invisible (pattern = 0)) can also be shown (dark blue)
- patterns and intensity per vector editable
- shortcuts (button press) for “needed” functions:
+ center vectorlist
+ connect where possible
+ order vectorlist
+ split where needed (vectorlength > 127)
+ fill gaps (connect unjoined vectors with “moves”)
+ remove dots - detailed information about the current “state” of the vectorlist can be viewed (tab “vectorlist status”)
- support of 3d vectorlists and generating 3d effects
- support of animations/scenarios (list of vectorlists) (generation, load, save, export, editing, joining…)
- building of animations (rotations in 1-2 or 3 axis, morphing of two different vectorlists)
- building of scenarios (from vectorlists with unjoined paths in the vectorlist, e.g. vectorlists of raster images)
- import of vectorlists in vedi via popup and select insert vectorlist
Two examples of animations build in a matter of minutes in vecci:
Example of import from sources:
Example of export:
Example of an image – production process, including code generation and direct running in vecxi:
Result of a dissi/vecxy – vectorlist scan:
The preliminary documentation has been updated, it is not nearly so preliminary anymore!
So long…
and thanks for all the fish!