pipmak-devel

[Pipmak-Devel] Photorealistic Panoramas With Pipmak

[D. C. S. <co...@co...>]

Hi All,

Christian asked if I would post the following to the Pipmak mailing
list, of which I am happy to do [with edited the the attachment image to
a link to share with you]:

Hi Christian,
        
        For the past couple of months, I have steadily worked on an
        interactive fiction game in my spare time. The goal is to create
        a work that give the player a chance to immerse themselves in a
        story that takes place in the Astoria, Oregon area. For this I
        built a powerful server capaple of producing 360 panoramas in a
        reasonable amount of time. To get an idea of what I am talking
        about, please see [the following link] (I am an amateur
        photographer):
        
          http://cooper.stevenson.name/beach/lighthouse.png
        
         complimenting the following description:
        
            [Cove]
        
                    Jutted basalt rocks extend defiantly into the ocean
                to the West and sweep past to you, extending Eastward.
                The rocks give way to the sandy beach found in the
                deepest part of the cove to your Southeast. To the
                South, a massive continental outcropping in the
                coastline jets into the ocean such that it comprises
                most of the coastal horizon. Atop the outcropping is an
                old lighthouse who's light beacon sweeps the horizon
                seen as an occasional flicker of light in your
                direction.
                
                A trail appears to meander up the stone outcropping and
                lead to the lighthouse to your Southeast.
        
        And so on. You get the idea. If you have a second, I would like
        to ask you a couple of questions:
        
          1) I think it will be possible to "flatten" my panoramas, cut
        them to size, and place them in Pipmak's engine as sides of a
        cube. Do you foresee any trouble with this? How would I
        consistently ensure that I have the correct pixel length plus
        the half-pixel necessary for seamless transition between frames.
        
        It seems like this process could be relatively straightforward
        or 
        incredibly variable.
        
        2) Does Lua support user input at the "amateur programmer"
        level? In other words, would it be a large effort to implement
        commands such as "examine seashell" with Lua and Pikmap?
        
        I hope, Christian, that at the very least I have helped stir
        your 
        imagination. An thank you again for a great project.
        
        
        -Coop

Re: [Pipmak-Devel] Photorealistic Panoramas With Pipmak

[D. C. S. <co...@co...>]

>From my original message, Christian replied:

Hi Coop

> To get an idea of what I am talking about, please see the attached 
> image (I am an amateur photographer) complimenting the following 
> description:
>
>    [Cove]
>
>    ...
>
> And so on. You get the idea.

Beautiful photo! Can't wait to see it in Pipmak...
One idea I don't completely get (not that it's relevant for your 
questions, but anyway...): Is that description part of the game too? 
And if so, how is it presented? As text overlaying the panorama? 
Independent of the panorama, with the user being able to switch between 
text and panorama? Spoken?

> If you have a second, I would like to ask you a couple of questions:
>
>  1) I think it will be possible to "flatten" my panoramas, cut them
to 
> size, and place them in Pipmak's engine as sides of a cube. Do you 
> forsee any trouble with this? How would I consistently ensure that I 
> have the correct pixel length plus the half-pixel necessary for 
> seemless transition between frames.
>      It seems like this process could be relatively straightforward
or 
> incredibly variable.

That depends on the form of your source material. If I understand you 
correctly, you took these photos and then stitched them together in 
some panorama application? What types of panoramas can that application 
produce? Cubic would be easiest, but equirectangular (spherical) or 
cylindrical could be reprojected to cubic too, at the expense of some 
quality (the tool of my choice would be POV-Ray, but there might be 
specialized apps for that task). That half-pixel thing also applies to 
cubic QuickTime panoramas, so if your app can create those, that's 
already taken care of (hopefully).

>  2) Does Lua support user input at the "amateur programmer" level? In 
> other words, would it be a large effort to implement commands such as 
> "examine seashell" with Lua and Pikmap?

Depends. If "examine" is the only verb that applies to the seashell, 
it's easy - just place a hotspot over the seashell and have it do 
whatever you like when clicked (say, go to a slide node that displays a 
close-up picture and a description of the shell). If there are multiple 
verbs, the question is, how should the user interface for that look. A 
problem could be that Pipmak currently doesn't support graphic elements 
that are fixed to the screen (as opposed to attached to the panorama). 
That's a planned feature, though.

Also, there is currently no text output capability except for the 
Pipmak terminal (pipmak.print() function), which is mainly intended as 
a debugging tool and not for user interaction in a finished game. So 
everything that exceeds the terminal's capabilities has to be done with 
pictures. There's no text input either, unless you program it yourself 
by reacting to individual key presses.

> I hope, Christian, that at the very least I have helped stir your 
> imagination.

Sure - your project sounds exciting, and hearing about users' needs 
also provides ideas and helps me in setting priorities for Pipmak's 
further development.

By the way, if you think this discussion could be useful for others to 
read as well, I encourage you to continue it on the pipmak-users 
mailing list (http://pipmak.sourceforge.net/maillists.php). But if 
you'd like to keep your project private, that's OK too.

Greetings

  Christian


On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 11:15 -0800, D. Cooper Stevenson wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Christian asked if I would post the following to the Pipmak mailing
> list, of which I am happy to do [with edited the the attachment image to
> a link to share with you]:
> 
> Hi Christian,
>         
>         For the past couple of months, I have steadily worked on an
>         interactive fiction game in my spare time. The goal is to create
>         a work that give the player a chance to immerse themselves in a
>         story that takes place in the Astoria, Oregon area. For this I
>         built a powerful server capaple of producing 360 panoramas in a
>         reasonable amount of time. To get an idea of what I am talking
>         about, please see [the following link] (I am an amateur
>         photographer):
>         
>           http://cooper.stevenson.name/beach/lighthouse.png
>         
>          complimenting the following description:
>         
>             [Cove]
>         
>                     Jutted basalt rocks extend defiantly into the ocean
>                 to the West and sweep past to you, extending Eastward.
>                 The rocks give way to the sandy beach found in the
>                 deepest part of the cove to your Southeast. To the
>                 South, a massive continental outcropping in the
>                 coastline jets into the ocean such that it comprises
>                 most of the coastal horizon. Atop the outcropping is an
>                 old lighthouse who's light beacon sweeps the horizon
>                 seen as an occasional flicker of light in your
>                 direction.
>                 
>                 A trail appears to meander up the stone outcropping and
>                 lead to the lighthouse to your Southeast.
>         
>         And so on. You get the idea. If you have a second, I would like
>         to ask you a couple of questions:
>         
>           1) I think it will be possible to "flatten" my panoramas, cut
>         them to size, and place them in Pipmak's engine as sides of a
>         cube. Do you foresee any trouble with this? How would I
>         consistently ensure that I have the correct pixel length plus
>         the half-pixel necessary for seamless transition between frames.
>         
>         It seems like this process could be relatively straightforward
>         or 
>         incredibly variable.
>         
>         2) Does Lua support user input at the "amateur programmer"
>         level? In other words, would it be a large effort to implement
>         commands such as "examine seashell" with Lua and Pikmap?
>         
>         I hope, Christian, that at the very least I have helped stir
>         your 
>         imagination. An thank you again for a great project.
>         
>         
>         -Coop
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
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> 

Re: [Pipmak-Devel] Photorealistic Panoramas With Pipmak

[D. C. S. <co...@co...>]

Of course, just to confuse things, I replied as follows to Cristian's
reply:

Hi Christian,

On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 13:41 +0100, Christian Walther wrote:

> Beautiful photo! Can't wait to see it in Pipmak...

Thank you! 

> One idea I don't completely get (not that it's relevant for your 
> questions, but anyway...): Is that description part of the game too?

Yes. I think you touched on a great thing that I had only thought of in
passing. See below...

> And if so, how is it presented? As text overlaying the panorama? 
> Independent of the panorama, with the user being able to switch
between 
> text and panorama? Spoken?

Honestly, I had originally thought of the text printed
semi-translucently printed over the image and had flirted only briefly
with speech. I wonder, though, with the popularity of "spoken novels,"
if speech combined with text in a separate window would work even
better.

One could even lay the spoken text to one track, sound effects (the
lapping of the waves in this example), and background music on a third.
The player could toggle each individually. The Inform library (see
below) does this.

It turns out that there is an entire interactive fiction library
(Inform) that does all of these things:

  http://www.inform-fiction.org/index.html

The trick may be writing an interface between Pipmak and the Inform
Library.

> If there are multiple 
> verbs, the question is, how should the user interface for that look.

Right. In this case you could both "look" and "listen" to the seashell.
If we could make Inform and Pipmak "talk" to each other, it would be a
truly powerful tool for interactive fiction...groundbreaking, I would
say.

>  A 
> problem could be that Pipmak currently doesn't support graphic
elements 
> that are fixed to the screen (as opposed to attached to the
panorama). 
> That's a planned feature, though.

Oh, don't worry; I'm happy to do the patching work for interactive game
elements.

> 
> Also, there is currently no text output capability except for the 
> Pipmak terminal (pipmak.print() function), which is mainly intended
as 
> a debugging tool and not for user interaction in a finished game. So 
> everything that exceeds the terminal's capabilities has to be done
with 
> pictures. There's no text input either, unless you program it
yourself 
> by reacting to individual key presses.

Right. Is it be possible to send short user messages between Pipmak and
Inform?

Perhaps Pipmak could specialize in displaying the panoramic scene in
lock-step with the adventure. That would boil the interaction to
basically a one-way affair, such that Inform would pass something like
the following to Pipmak when the user types "SouthEast" in the
adventure:

   pipmak.gotonode(18)
   
Two windows in the end: one for text/speech/music and one for the rich
panoramic views.

> Sure - your project sounds exciting, and hearing about users' needs 
> also provides ideas and helps me in setting priorities for Pipmak's 
> further development.

In kind, having responsive developers makes people chose some projects
over others!

> 
> By the way, if you think this discussion could be useful for others
to 
> read as well, I encourage you to continue it on the pipmak-users 
> mailing list (http://pipmak.sourceforge.net/maillists.php). But if 
> you'd like to keep your project private, that's OK too.
> 

I'm posting to the list directly and am happy to do it.


Thanks!


Coop


On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 11:17 -0800, D. Cooper Stevenson wrote:
> >From my original message, Christian replied:
> 
> Hi Coop
> 
> > To get an idea of what I am talking about, please see the attached 
> > image (I am an amateur photographer) complimenting the following 
> > description:
> >
> >    [Cove]
> >
> >    ...
> >
> > And so on. You get the idea.
> 
> Beautiful photo! Can't wait to see it in Pipmak...
> One idea I don't completely get (not that it's relevant for your 
> questions, but anyway...): Is that description part of the game too? 
> And if so, how is it presented? As text overlaying the panorama? 
> Independent of the panorama, with the user being able to switch between 
> text and panorama? Spoken?
> 
> > If you have a second, I would like to ask you a couple of questions:
> >
> >  1) I think it will be possible to "flatten" my panoramas, cut them
> to 
> > size, and place them in Pipmak's engine as sides of a cube. Do you 
> > forsee any trouble with this? How would I consistently ensure that I 
> > have the correct pixel length plus the half-pixel necessary for 
> > seemless transition between frames.
> >      It seems like this process could be relatively straightforward
> or 
> > incredibly variable.
> 
> That depends on the form of your source material. If I understand you 
> correctly, you took these photos and then stitched them together in 
> some panorama application? What types of panoramas can that application 
> produce? Cubic would be easiest, but equirectangular (spherical) or 
> cylindrical could be reprojected to cubic too, at the expense of some 
> quality (the tool of my choice would be POV-Ray, but there might be 
> specialized apps for that task). That half-pixel thing also applies to 
> cubic QuickTime panoramas, so if your app can create those, that's 
> already taken care of (hopefully).
> 
> >  2) Does Lua support user input at the "amateur programmer" level? In 
> > other words, would it be a large effort to implement commands such as 
> > "examine seashell" with Lua and Pikmap?
> 
> Depends. If "examine" is the only verb that applies to the seashell, 
> it's easy - just place a hotspot over the seashell and have it do 
> whatever you like when clicked (say, go to a slide node that displays a 
> close-up picture and a description of the shell). If there are multiple 
> verbs, the question is, how should the user interface for that look. A 
> problem could be that Pipmak currently doesn't support graphic elements 
> that are fixed to the screen (as opposed to attached to the panorama). 
> That's a planned feature, though.
> 
> Also, there is currently no text output capability except for the 
> Pipmak terminal (pipmak.print() function), which is mainly intended as 
> a debugging tool and not for user interaction in a finished game. So 
> everything that exceeds the terminal's capabilities has to be done with 
> pictures. There's no text input either, unless you program it yourself 
> by reacting to individual key presses.
> 
> > I hope, Christian, that at the very least I have helped stir your 
> > imagination.
> 
> Sure - your project sounds exciting, and hearing about users' needs 
> also provides ideas and helps me in setting priorities for Pipmak's 
> further development.
> 
> By the way, if you think this discussion could be useful for others to 
> read as well, I encourage you to continue it on the pipmak-users 
> mailing list (http://pipmak.sourceforge.net/maillists.php). But if 
> you'd like to keep your project private, that's OK too.
> 
> Greetings
> 
>   Christian
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2005-12-13 at 11:15 -0800, D. Cooper Stevenson wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > Christian asked if I would post the following to the Pipmak mailing
> > list, of which I am happy to do [with edited the the attachment image to
> > a link to share with you]:
> > 
> > Hi Christian,
> >         
> >         For the past couple of months, I have steadily worked on an
> >         interactive fiction game in my spare time. The goal is to create
> >         a work that give the player a chance to immerse themselves in a
> >         story that takes place in the Astoria, Oregon area. For this I
> >         built a powerful server capaple of producing 360 panoramas in a
> >         reasonable amount of time. To get an idea of what I am talking
> >         about, please see [the following link] (I am an amateur
> >         photographer):
> >         
> >           http://cooper.stevenson.name/beach/lighthouse.png
> >         
> >          complimenting the following description:
> >         
> >             [Cove]
> >         
> >                     Jutted basalt rocks extend defiantly into the ocean
> >                 to the West and sweep past to you, extending Eastward.
> >                 The rocks give way to the sandy beach found in the
> >                 deepest part of the cove to your Southeast. To the
> >                 South, a massive continental outcropping in the
> >                 coastline jets into the ocean such that it comprises
> >                 most of the coastal horizon. Atop the outcropping is an
> >                 old lighthouse who's light beacon sweeps the horizon
> >                 seen as an occasional flicker of light in your
> >                 direction.
> >                 
> >                 A trail appears to meander up the stone outcropping and
> >                 lead to the lighthouse to your Southeast.
> >         
> >         And so on. You get the idea. If you have a second, I would like
> >         to ask you a couple of questions:
> >         
> >           1) I think it will be possible to "flatten" my panoramas, cut
> >         them to size, and place them in Pipmak's engine as sides of a
> >         cube. Do you foresee any trouble with this? How would I
> >         consistently ensure that I have the correct pixel length plus
> >         the half-pixel necessary for seamless transition between frames.
> >         
> >         It seems like this process could be relatively straightforward
> >         or 
> >         incredibly variable.
> >         
> >         2) Does Lua support user input at the "amateur programmer"
> >         level? In other words, would it be a large effort to implement
> >         commands such as "examine seashell" with Lua and Pikmap?
> >         
> >         I hope, Christian, that at the very least I have helped stir
> >         your 
> >         imagination. An thank you again for a great project.
> >         
> >         
> >         -Coop
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files
> > for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX search engine that makes
> > searching your log files as easy as surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
> > http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click
> > _______________________________________________
> > Pipmak-Devel mailing list
> > Pip...@li...
> > news://news.gmane.org/gmane.games.devel.pipmak.devel
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pipmak-devel
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files
> for problems?  Stop!  Download the new AJAX search engine that makes
> searching your log files as easy as surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
> http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click
> _______________________________________________
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pipmak-devel
> 

[Pipmak-Devel] Re: Photorealistic Panoramas With Pipmak

[Christian W. <cwa...@gm...>]

D. Cooper Stevenson wrote:
> It turns out that there is an entire interactive fiction library
> (Inform) that does all of these things:
>   http://www.inform-fiction.org/index.html
> 
> The trick may be writing an interface between Pipmak and the Inform
> Library.
> ...
> Is it be possible to send short user messages between Pipmak and
> Inform?
> 
> Perhaps Pipmak could specialize in displaying the panoramic scene in
> lock-step with the adventure. That would boil the interaction to
> basically a one-way affair, such that Inform would pass something like
> the following to Pipmak when the user types "SouthEast" in the
> adventure:
>    pipmak.gotonode(18)
>    
> Two windows in the end: one for text/speech/music and one for the rich
> panoramic views.

I did not know about Inform (I've never been a fan of text adventures) 
and am just reading up on it. If I understand correctly, Inform is just 
an authoring tool, and the thing that Pipmak would have to communicate 
with is a Z-Machine interpreter. If we find some suitable cross-platform 
way of inter-process communication, I could probably do the Pipmak half 
of such a project, but since I know nothing about the Z-Machine, a 
Z-Machine expert would have to do the other half. Or, first, judge 
whether it is feasible at all.

So, you should probably ask that question on an Inform/Z-Machine related 
newsgroup and see what they say.

  -Christian

Re: [Pipmak-Devel] Re: Photorealistic Panoramas With Pipmak

[D. C. S. <co...@co...>]

All,

I wrote the following to the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup:

Overview
--------

This post is to explore the possibility of integrating the Inform
Interactive Fiction Language with photo-realistic panoramic views.
Optionaly, GIS (Geographical Information System) data could be
incorporated to aid the player and designer in mapping the world.

Detail
------

I recall vividly waiting in feverish anticipation for my uncles to
arrive at our house on a weekend night. They're arrival ultimately meant
one thing: an intense game of "Adventure" on the Apple IIc. I recall
listening to the floppy drive, praying that it would whir more than
normal--this was our first que that we had hit upon the solution!

I like to travel, and in my spare time I've thought about ways to push
out my experiences to family members in as near real time as possible.
The answer is yes, it is possible to provide a basic journal of one's
travel with others. I tested this last fall on a backpacking trip; my
goal wasn't to create the next Times Magazine picture of the year, but
rather to explore mechanics of taking down images, recording their
positions, and posting them to the Internet. You may see the results
linked here (3.5M PDF file):

  http://cooper.stevenson.name/backpacking/obsidian_flows.pdf

Naturally, my thought evolved into thinking about how neat it would be
if one could actually visit the area virtually, wich of course gave way
to the idea of incorporating a full interactive adventure complete with
puzzles, etc.

It turns out that there is an open source engine that lets you turn your
360 deg. images into an interactive world. If you've never seen a
panoramic image and your browser supports Java, you can see an example
panorama here:

  http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~dersch/StBp_ptvj.html

Pipmak, the Open Source Interactive Engine that I am referring to is
linked here:

  http://pipmak.sourceforge.net/

Pipmak is a cross-platform 3D game engine including with support for
clickable "hotspots" and and a complete scripting language backend
called "Lua."

Imagine for example, viewing a panorama of the scene linked below and
hearing a recording of the actual place, along with a narrative:

  http://cooper.stevenson.name/beach/lighthouse.png

  [Cove]

    Jutted basalt rocks extend defiently into the ocean to the West and
    sweep past to you, extending Eastward. The rocks give way to the
    sandy beach found in the deepest part of the cove to your Southeast.
    To the South, a massive continental outcropping in the coastline
    jets into the ocean such that it takes up most of the horizon to the
    South. Atop the outcropping is an old lighthouse who's light beacon
    sweeps the horizon seen as an occasional flicker of light in your
    direction.

    A trail appears to meander up the stone outcropping and lead to the
    lighthouse to your Southeast.

The idea, then would be to pass messages between the Pipmak engine and
the Inform language. 

For example, suppose the user clicked on the far left side of the image
above. This would send the message "se" to the Z-machine interpreter.
Various other hotspot clicks would send messages such as "examine,"
"open door," etc. The user would still have the option, of course, of
entering in commands to the interpreter directly. It's also feasible to
forgo the hotspot clicks and interact with the game completely with the
keyboard while Pipmak handles the panoramic images exclusively.

Two primary questions arise: is it feasible to create a cross-platform
interface between the two game engines and if so, may we enlist the help
of a Z-machines developer to make this a reality?

If this proposal achieves progress to the next phase of planning, it
will be discussed on the this newsgroup and the Pipmak mailing list
linked here:

  http://news.gmane.org/gmane.games.devel.pipmak.devel

Best,


Cooper Stevenson


On Thu, 2005-12-15 at 16:22 +0100, Christian Walther wrote:
> D. Cooper Stevenson wrote:
> > It turns out that there is an entire interactive fiction library
> > (Inform) that does all of these things:
> >   http://www.inform-fiction.org/index.html
> > 
> > The trick may be writing an interface between Pipmak and the Inform
> > Library.
> > ...
> > Is it be possible to send short user messages between Pipmak and
> > Inform?
> > 
> > Perhaps Pipmak could specialize in displaying the panoramic scene in
> > lock-step with the adventure. That would boil the interaction to
> > basically a one-way affair, such that Inform would pass something like
> > the following to Pipmak when the user types "SouthEast" in the
> > adventure:
> >    pipmak.gotonode(18)
> >    
> > Two windows in the end: one for text/speech/music and one for the rich
> > panoramic views.
> 
> I did not know about Inform (I've never been a fan of text adventures) 
> and am just reading up on it. If I understand correctly, Inform is just 
> an authoring tool, and the thing that Pipmak would have to communicate 
> with is a Z-Machine interpreter. If we find some suitable cross-platform 
> way of inter-process communication, I could probably do the Pipmak half 
> of such a project, but since I know nothing about the Z-Machine, a 
> Z-Machine expert would have to do the other half. Or, first, judge 
> whether it is feasible at all.
> 
> So, you should probably ask that question on an Inform/Z-Machine related 
> newsgroup and see what they say.
> 
>   -Christian
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
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> searching your log files as easy as surfing the  web.  DOWNLOAD SPLUNK!
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> _______________________________________________
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> Pip...@li...
> news://news.gmane.org/gmane.games.devel.pipmak.devel
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pipmak-devel
>