pipmak-users — Content creation for the Pipmak Game Engine

Re: Save and Load in Pipmak for Windows

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

Evgen wrote:
> Here I want continue about save and load game without Windows dialogs
> I’m also use windows and ubuntu, but play games only windows.
> And I think about functions for windows-pipmak first, in my topic on  
> Loadlib
> thread =)

Actually I don't think there's much Windows-specific about this,  
except for the choice of the location where to put the files. All the  
rest should be the same on all platforms.

> I have some knowledge of C#, and today try open source in C++  
> (pipmakLuaLib
> and pipmak_windows files) where I think see functions what we need for
> update

Nitpick: it's C, not C++.

> But big problem for me, that I cant work with Makefiles and never  
> work with
> C++, only C#
> For example in C# you can also open Solution, where included all  
> files.
> And if I try write some functions (for load and save game without  
> windows
> dialog) I cant complete *.exe in C++ Makefiles

Since you talk about C#, you're probably using MS Visual Studio. You  
should talk to Andrea Viarengo, he has worked on compiling Pipmak with  
Visual C++ 2005. He has never submitted his project files and stuff  
for inclusion into the source repository though. Maybe you'll find his  
wiki article <http://pipmak.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/ 
MSVC8_Build> useful.

> Maybe I can include dlls (or some plugins) to pipmak, and after it  
> use new
> functions?

You could probably do that, but why not implement it directly in  
Pipmak where it belongs.

> Some variants(windows):
> gamesave("name") -- main folder ( / )
> -- or /save/ folder in game directory,
> -- or special path (for windows: MyDocuments/game_name/)
>
> we can use names, but I think use numbers
> gamesave(1) --2,3,4,5..
> savegame1.pipsave,
> savegame2.pipsave,
> savegame3.pipsave files, as variants..

Using just names, without paths, is what I like best. I think this can  
be handled as an overload of the existing pipmak.savegame() function:  
when you call it without arguments, it brings up the dialog as before,  
when you call it with a name it saves in the standard folder. Dito for  
pipmak.opensavedgame(). What happens when writing to that folder (or  
creating it) fails? Throw an error? In addition, we'd need a function  
to enumerate all saved games in the standard folder. And, in the far  
future, maybe the ability to read some information from them for  
display in a saved game browser (screenshots, even).

As for what the standard folder should be, for Mac OS I propose ~/ 
Library/Application Support/Pipmak/<project name>/ or ~/Library/ 
Preferences/Pipmak/<project name>/. Or perhaps leave out the  
intermediary Pipmak folder, since game users don't care if their games  
are made with Pipmak - although that would increase the risk of naming  
collisions? For Windows, probably something in My Documents, as you  
say. (What to do with project names that are not valid file names?  
Windows in particular has all sorts of restrictions on file names.) On  
Linux and other Unixes, maybe ~/.pipmak/<project name>/ - or has a  
better convention than littering the home directory with invisible  
items been established by now?

> Oh… It will be so good, if some body understand my english =)

No problem :)

   -Christian

Re: Save dialogs

[Evgen <ev-...@ya...>]

 > I can think of another use for a function like this: a developer might
want 
 > his game to automatically save its state at set points in the game. 
"Clock 
 > Tower" (the original SNES "Clock Tower" that was renamed "Clock Tower:
The 
 > First Fear" when its sequel was released) would autosave every time you
enter 
 > a room, which made things much easier, because its easy to forget to save
when 
 > you're being chased.

I like this idea, its very useful, but for it we need functions 

 > This could frustrate users (of games, not developers using Pipmak) who
want to 
 > take their saved games to another system.  Maybe the path should not be 
 > hard-coded into Pipmak, but put in "defaults.lua"

How we can write this path in defaults.lua?
may be use installing program? (as I know some installing wizards may write
options files, after installing)
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Re: Save dialogs

[Aidan G. <wgs...@ih...>]

 > From a personal point of view, I disagree. I prefer being able to
 > save as many games as I want, under whatever name I want, anywhere I
 > want to the limited in-game save facilities some games have.

I'm with Christian on this one.  I liked that the Myst games let you do this.

 >> I think it nice if players will save/load game with special functions
 >> without Windows dialog.
 >> for example pipmak.savegame2("name") -- and game will saved as
 >> name.pipsave
 >> in game folder without windows dialogs.

I can think of another use for a function like this: a developer might want 
his game to automatically save its state at set points in the game.  "Clock 
Tower" (the original SNES "Clock Tower" that was renamed "Clock Tower: The 
First Fear" when its sequel was released) would autosave every time you enter 
a room, which made things much easier, because its easy to forget to save when 
you're being chased.

 > I disagree with the suggestion to save in the game folder though
 > (assuming you mean the folder that contains the project), because this
 > location might not be writable by the user (e.g. located on a CD). The
 > standard location should be somewhere in the user's home directory (~/
 > Library/Application Support/ on Mac OS, don't know where on Windows).

This could frustrate users (of games, not developers using Pipmak) who want to 
  take their saved games to another system.  Maybe the path should not be 
hard-coded into Pipmak, but put in "defaults.lua"

  -Aidan

Save and Load in Pipmak for Windows

[Evgen <ev-...@ya...>]

Hi =)
Here I want continue about save and load game without Windows dialogs
I’m also use windows and ubuntu, but play games only windows.
And I think about functions for windows-pipmak first, in my topic on Loadlib
thread =)

I have some knowledge of C#, and today try open source in C++ (pipmakLuaLib
and pipmak_windows files) where I think see functions what we need for
update

But big problem for me, that I cant work with Makefiles and never work with
C++, only C#
For example in C# you can also open Solution, where included all files.
And if I try write some functions (for load and save game without windows
dialog) I cant complete *.exe in C++ Makefiles

Maybe I can include dlls (or some plugins) to pipmak, and after it use new
functions?
Or idea of this functions will try in new version?

Some variants(windows):
gamesave("name") -- main folder ( / )
 -- or /save/ folder in game directory,
 -- or special path (for windows: MyDocuments/game_name/)

we can use names, but I think use numbers
gamesave(1) --2,3,4,5..
savegame1.pipsave,
savegame2.pipsave,
savegame3.pipsave files, as variants..

I think that saving and loading in game, without windows very nice for game.
Without this functions, games will be as little test example =( and not be
such as big interesting adventure game 

Oh… It will be so good, if some body understand my english =)
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Re: Save dialogs (was: Loadlib and co.)

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

Hello Evgen

Administrative detail first: please start a new thread for a new  
topic, instead of replying in an unrelated old thread. Makes the list  
archives easier to follow.

> Next I try build little demo, but when I check save and load  
> functions, I
> saw Windows (save/load) dialog with MyDocument folder.. I think it  
> not nice
>
> When players play game, and want to save/load progress, I think  
> nobody want
> see Windows dialogs or Windows system messages, and search files, or  
> get
> keyboard and write long special name with description =)

 From a personal point of view, I disagree. I prefer being able to  
save as many games as I want, under whatever name I want, anywhere I  
want to the limited in-game save facilities some games have. True, I  
wouldn't want to see Windows dialogs, but I'm pretty happy with my Mac  
OS dialogs ;).

But I recognize that my personal opinion is not the measure of all  
things here, so of course project authors should eventually be able to  
implement an in-game saved game browser if they so choose. The present  
solution was just the minimum necessary.

> I think it nice if players will save/load game with special functions
> without Windows dialog.
> for example pipmak.savegame2("name") -- and game will saved as  
> name.pipsave
> in game folder without windows dialogs.
>
> May be in future versions it will be? Or anybody already do it?

It has been in a corner of my head as a vague idea, but as far as I  
know nobody has done any work on it. It hasn't even made it onto the  
to-do list yet :).

I disagree with the suggestion to save in the game folder though  
(assuming you mean the folder that contains the project), because this  
location might not be writable by the user (e.g. located on a CD). The  
standard location should be somewhere in the user's home directory (~/ 
Library/Application Support/ on Mac OS, don't know where on Windows).

   -Christian

Re: Loadlib and co.

[Evgen <ev-...@ya...>]

Some time ago i find Pipmak, and i think that is very interesting project =)
My english not well, and first time I translate wiki and manual.
Next I try build little demo, but when I check save and load functions, I
saw Windows (save/load) dialog with MyDocument folder.. I think it not nice

When players play game, and want to save/load progress, I think nobody want
see Windows dialogs or Windows system messages, and search files, or get
keyboard and write long special name with description =)

I think it nice if players will save/load game with special functions
without Windows dialog.
for example pipmak.savegame2("name") -- and game will saved as name.pipsave
in game folder without windows dialogs.

May be in future versions it will be? Or anybody already do it?
Thanks
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Re: Playing movies in pipmak

[NigeC <nig...@gm...>]

other engines i can think of use ogg to good effect, quality is usually ok,
it'll be nice to see it sometime :)

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Re: Playing movies in pipmak

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

Hello Ulysse

Welcome to the list, after your subscription odyssey! (Nomen est omen?)

> I'm in team who wants to develop a game using pipmak. We wonder if  
> it 's possible to play movies like .mpg or .mov files in pipmak  
> because we wil have to use such feature in our game.
> If it's not, is this feature planned in a next release or is this a  
> feature that will never be in the pipmak engine ?

Unfortunately this is not possible currently. For the moment you're  
stuck with storing every frame of an animation as a separate image  
file and flipping through them, as done for the rotating wheel in the  
demo project.

It is a planned feature (and probably the most often requested one),  
but no concrete work has been done towards it and I can't commit to  
any specific date of arrival (I know, I've been saying that for  
years... :) ). In particular, it has not been decided yet what video  
decoding library to use, so I can't say anything about what file  
formats will be supported. Most likely, the first implementation will  
support Ogg Theora exclusively (like with Vorbis for sound). I can say  
with certainty that I'm not going to use QuickTime, because it only  
exists for Mac OS and Windows. It's possible that at some point we  
will use a library that can read some QuickTime files, but I wouldn't  
hold my breath for it.

(This is getting kind of a FAQ, I guess I should put it on the wiki  
some time.)

   -Christian

Playing movies in pipmak

[Eric G. <uly...@ho...>]

I'm in team who wants to develop a game using pipmak. We wonder if it 's possible to play movies like .mpg or .mov files in pipmak because we wil have to use such feature in our game. 
If it's not, is this feature planned in a next release or is this a feature that will never be in the pipmak engine ?
I'm a Java programmer for business and I work also on another project based on python and pygame. 
I don't learn programming in lua, but if I can help in the project, it will be certainly possible. 
Thanks for your answer
Ulysse

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Re: loadlib problems

[Aidan G. <wgs...@ih...>]

Christian Walther wrote:
> I suspect that your error is "file not found" - the library will  
> certainly not be found inside a zipped project, and even in an  
> unzipped project, unless you changed the working directory to there,  
> it won't be found inside the node if you just say "hello.so" without a  
> path.

Ah, it finds it, if I give it the full path. It doesn't seem to like relative
paths (or, more likely, I can't figure out what the working directory is).

> (As noted in commit message 188: "plugin support is quick-and-dirty  
> for now, there is no standard way to locate plugins, and no formal API  
> for plugins to interact with Pipmak". The former issue will be  
> addressed in the real module support that I should be working on.)

I don't know if this could be done, but how about changing Pipmak to look for
plug-ins (when loadlib() is called, maybe write a wrapper function) in a 
directory named "plugins" in the same
directory as the Pipmak project? (i.e. all plug-in paths are relative to the
"plugins" directory.)  So the directory structure might look like this...

loadlibTest/
|-- loadlibTest.pipmak
|   |-- 1
|   |   |-- face.png
|   |   `-- node.lua
|   `-- main.lua
`-- plugins
     `-- hello.so

  -Aidan

Re: loadlib problems

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

Aidan Gauland wrote:
> I'm want to write a plug-in for Pipmak, so I tried using the example  
> plug-in that comes with Pipmak, but I keep getting "attempt to call  
> a nil value" when I try this.

>
> loadlib("hello.so", "init")()

loadlib() returns nil when it can't load the library. Check the second  
and third return values in that case, the second is an error message  
and the third "open" or "init" depending on whether the error was in  
opening the library or in finding the function.

I suspect that your error is "file not found" - the library will  
certainly not be found inside a zipped project, and even in an  
unzipped project, unless you changed the working directory to there,  
it won't be found inside the node if you just say "hello.so" without a  
path.

(As noted in commit message 188: "plugin support is quick-and-dirty  
for now, there is no standard way to locate plugins, and no formal API  
for plugins to interact with Pipmak". The former issue will be  
addressed in the real module support that I should be working on.)

   -Christian

loadlib problems

[Aidan G. <wgs...@ih...>]

Hello,

  I'm want to write a plug-in for Pipmak, so I tried using the example plug-in 
that comes with Pipmak, but I keep getting "attempt to call a nil value" when 
I try this.  I've attached an example Pipmak project that shows exactly what 
I'm doing, so if anyone can look at it and tell me what I'm doing wrong, that 
would be great.  I'm running Debian etch GNU/Linux with Lua 5.0.

Thanks,
Aidan

Re: TrueSpace

[NigeC <nig...@gm...>]

I found the best way to do it was create 6 cameras, as a single camera moves
slightly off axis as it turns, FOV for 512x512 is 1.255
camera1 = X-90.00 Y-0.00 Z 0.00
camera2 = X-90.00 Y 90.00 Z 0.00
camera3 = X 90.00 Y-0.00 Z -180.00
camera4 = X-90.00 Y-90.00 Z 0.00
camera5 = X 0.00 Y 0.00 Z 0.00
camera6 = X 

check location x,y,z is zero for all and group them so you can move them
around, ungroup when they are in the desired location, I had strange sh*t
happen leaving the grouped as a camera isn't exactly an item you'd group!

-----
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TrueSpace

[NigeC <nig...@gm...>]

You can now get Truespace 7.6 free 
http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpace/tS75/brochure/intro.asp here 

Most of my 3D is done in a earlier TS but most pano images i do in Bryce,
because TS's camera control is very basic and annoying 
But in TS 7.6 you can control the FOV a lot better and you can do cubic
pano's

-----
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Re: Graph based game model

[Urs H. <ur...@an...>]

Christian Walther wrote:
> Interesting theory!
> 
> The location graph seems a natural concept for a Pipmak game, judging
> from my own and rivenwanderer's use of it. My intention is that one
> day you will be able to view and graphically manipulate that graph in
> Pipmak itself.
> 
> Your idea of extending the graph to the game state is interesting,
> I've never thought of that. I might have to spend a bit more thought
> on it to recognize its usefulness. Can you give some more examples of
> problems that your final software would help solve? [...]

First I have to say that it is rather an idea than a theory. It would not
surprise me if, at the end, I have to conclude that this idea is useless.
The next step will be that I look at some games and try to find out,
whether they can be modeled as I imagine and whether the question of the
dead end is useful.
 
> Some questions spring to my mind right away: [...]

Yes, all those questions have to be answered. But this will take me a lot of
time. So you have to be patient (or help me).

But I want to make two remarks:

1. The graph becomes too big. It grows exponentially in the size of the
state table. Since a game can easily have 100 entries in the state table,
this yields at least 2^100 nodes for the graph. So this would have to be
improved. The graph could be stored in memory without listing all nodes
explizitely. But what happens if one wants to run a breath first search on
it? It would take exponential time in the size of the state table, which
perhaps would be too much.

2. Example for a dead end (similar to the ones that turn up in my game): I
have positions A and B connected through a gate. At position A there is a
button which opens the gate and at position B there is one that closes it.
If you hit the button at B, you will no longer be able to go to A. 
But now I have some dought that all dead ends can be found by an algorithm:
A friend of mine once played a game where one can rotate a bridge such that
it connects a point C to points 1, 2, 3 or 4. At point C there is the
control panel for the bridge which requires a code. Unfortunately the code
can only be derived if one has seen a painting at point 1. Actually, my
friend entered the right code by accident without knowing how to construct
it. (I believe that for every position you need a slightly altered code.)

Greetings
Urs

Re: Graph based game model

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

Interesting theory!

The location graph seems a natural concept for a Pipmak game, judging  
from my own and rivenwanderer's use of it. My intention is that one  
day you will be able to view and graphically manipulate that graph in  
Pipmak itself.

Your idea of extending the graph to the game state is interesting,  
I've never thought of that. I might have to spend a bit more thought  
on it to recognize its usefulness. Can you give some more examples of  
problems that your final software would help solve? I mean, "can the  
game be finished at all?" is an interesting question from a  
theoretical point of view, but I doubt that anyone would design a game  
complex enough that they would need the help of specialized software  
to arrive at the answer "yes". Would your software somehow display the  
graph, or is the graph only a theoretical concept used internally?  
Does it even need to explicitly know the full graph (derivation of  
which seems like a non-trivial problem in itself), or can some insight  
be gained already from abstract graph theory, with limited input? What  
kind of input would it take, anyway?

Some questions spring to my mind right away: What if the effect of  
some user action does not only depend on the current node and the  
state table, but also on time or on a (pseudo-)random number or  
something like that? Does your model cover that too? If it does, is  
the resulting graph still small enough to be of any practical use?  
What if some dimensions are continuous? Does graph theory apply to  
graphs with uncountably many vertices? Or are you relying on the fact  
that in a digital representation, all dimensions are necessarily  
finite? Does your system for determining what to render take into  
account that some of the dimensions that apply to a particular node  
can be "separable"? E.g. when I have a lever with two states, and on  
its handle a light that can be either red or blue, then I need to  
render patches for all four combinations (the whole cartesian  
product): on-red, off-red, on-blue, off-blue. But when the lever and  
the light are in different parts of the screen, I only need to render  
two images, one with both on, one with both off, and can get two  
independent patches from them that together can represent all four  
states. Rendering all four combinations would still work, but in a  
situation of realistic complexity would be a gigantic waste of  
resources.

   -Christian

Graph based game model

[Urs H. <ur...@an...>]

Hi

As some discussion about automatic creation of hotspots and node.lua files
has arised here, I tell you the following ideas now instead of doing that
when my first game is finished. Since my time is sucked up by other
projects and also because there is some technical problem in my game, it
will take a lot more time until it is actually finished. But here my ideas,
they are a bit mathematical, since I am a math student, but anyway:

I have observed that a Pipmak game is actually an finite state automaton.
(Well, one could imagine a Pipmak game that can not be described as an
automaton, but would it be interesting?) We can describe the whole game as
a directed graph. The vertices of the graph are all possible combinations
of the location (i.e. the name of the node) and the possible values of the
state table. The edges are the traversals the user can make: Changing the
node, klicking a switch, moving a lever and so on. One vertex is the
beginning of the game, and another (or several others) mark the end of the
game. Now, using graph algorithms, we can answer some questions: Can the
game be finished at all? If one reaches a given vertex by starting at the
beginning, can the game still be finished (i.e. are there no dead ends)?
Are there states we do not have to render since they can not be reached?

First, let us define the the Location graph of a game. It contains every
node in the game as vertex. The directed edges are the directions the user
can move to by simply clicking on a hotspot. This graph can be laid out in
3D space using the locations of the cameras. This layout would allow us to
automatically generate hotspots.

An entry in the state table is what I call a dimension. It is simply the set
of all values this entry can take. For example, in my game one can switch
off the light, so I have a dimension Light={off,on}. Also, one can move a
lever which yields a dimension Lever1={1,2,3,4}. The cartesian product of
the set of nodes and all dimensions gives the state space. The state space
is simply the set of all possible states the game can have. The vertices of
the game graph G are elements of this state space.

Now every location can be annotated with the dimensions that can be observed
there. For example in my game, the dimension Lever1 can only be observed on
some locations, since one can not see the lever from the other locations.
However the dimension Light can be observed everywhere. This
actually "glues" together vertices in the game graph. I currently use this
information for rendering.

The ultimate goal is to transform my ideas into a software package that
greatly aids in designing games for Pipmak. What do you think about that?

Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

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

>> - It would be nice to have a file browser for the "path" field  
>> instead
>> of having to type it.
>
> Hm, I'll see if Blender's API has an easy way to do that.

http://www.blender.org/documentation/248PythonDoc/Window-module.html#FileSelector

   -Christian

Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

[rivenwanderer <riv...@ya...>]

> - Is there a reason for having the panorama rendering and camera 
> location saving in two separate steps? I'd have expected it to save the 
> camExport file already in the rendering step.

There isn't a good reason, it just made more sense during development :p 
Next version will combine them.

> - It would be nice to have a file browser for the "path" field instead 
> of having to type it.

Hm, I'll see if Blender's API has an easy way to do that.

> - For nodes that lie at different heights, the elevation of the handles 
> is inverted: the handle that goes up on my tower is down on the floor 
> instead of covering the top of the tower.

Oops! ^_^;; I'll fix that in the next version.  Must be a sign error or
something.

> - Node names that are not numbers must be put in quotes in the 
> "target=xyz" line. Otherwise Lua sees them as variables, which have 
> value nil when undefined, and nothing happens when you click on the 
> handle (not even an error message). (For Pipmak >= r209, even numbers 
> could be put in quotes, but that wouldn't work for 0.2.7.)

The script has a "use_pipmak_2_7" variable which I'm already using to
determine whether to use az/el or caz/cel--I can use the same variable to
switch off of quoting all node names or not, and allow the variable to be
set via commandline args (defaulting to assuming it's the standard 0.2.7
version if it's not specified).  I think that 0.2.7 and "the latest version
from SVN" are the only two versions of Pipmak I'm going to care about, so I
won't worry about versions between 0.2.7 and r209.

Thanks for testing!
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Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

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

rivenwanderer wrote:
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p20401034/panos-for-pipmak.py panos-for-pipmak.py 
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p20401034/pipmak-auto-handle.py
> pipmak-auto-handle.py 
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p20401034/connectivity connectivity 

Cool, works!

- Is there a reason for having the panorama rendering and camera 
location saving in two separate steps? I'd have expected it to save the 
camExport file already in the rendering step.

- It would be nice to have a file browser for the "path" field instead 
of having to type it.

- For nodes that lie at different heights, the elevation of the handles 
is inverted: the handle that goes up on my tower is down on the floor 
instead of covering the top of the tower.

- Node names that are not numbers must be put in quotes in the 
"target=xyz" line. Otherwise Lua sees them as variables, which have 
value nil when undefined, and nothing happens when you click on the 
handle (not even an error message). (For Pipmak >= r209, even numbers 
could be put in quotes, but that wouldn't work for 0.2.7.)

  -Christian

Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

[rivenwanderer <riv...@ya...>]

http://www.nabble.com/file/p20401034/panos-for-pipmak.py panos-for-pipmak.py 
http://www.nabble.com/file/p20401034/pipmak-auto-handle.py
pipmak-auto-handle.py 
http://www.nabble.com/file/p20401034/connectivity connectivity 

Here are instructions on using python scripts in blender, which you'll need
for the "panos-for-pipmak" file:
http://www.alienhelpdesk.com/python_scripts/using_python_scripts

The Blender script is still in a bit of a mess, since I mostly cannibalized
it from something else.  Most notably, it doesn't return the cameras to
their original orientation when it's done.  I also haven't made it correctly
do the "1 extra pixel larger than 90 degrees" thing, because it hasn't been
noticeable at a 1024 resolution :p  Oh, and the cameras need to be named
things that Pipmak recognizes as node names--so only numbers if you're using
the build that's on the website.

The "path" you set in the script UI should be the directory you intend to be
the .pipmak directory for the project.  That's where the script will also
save the object location file, called "camExport", and where you should save
the connectivity map called "connectivity" (I've attached an example).  You
should also execute the pipmak-auto-handle.py script from immediately inside
the .pipmak project directory.  The easiest way is to place a copy of the
script in the directory, but you obviously don't have to.

Let me know if you have any questions or run into any problems!
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Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

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

rivenwanderer wrote:
> I've got the basics working, yay!
> ...
> Any Blender users out there who'd like to beta-test this?  It would be
> instructive to have someone besides me use this :)

I wouldn't call myself a Blender user as I haven't used Blender a lot, 
and then only as a modeler, not for rendering, so I don't have a scene 
ready to use it in - but I'd be interested in having a look just out of 
curiosity.

I used a similar system in POV-Ray when I started with the demo project.

  -Christian

Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

[rivenwanderer <riv...@ya...>]

I've got the basics working, yay!

Right now, my script only creates the node.lua file if one doesn't exist. 
So if you have made changes to a node and then want to re-generate handles
in it, you need to rename or move the node.lua file and manually merge in
your changes.

Any Blender users out there who'd like to beta-test this?  It would be
instructive to have someone besides me use this :)
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Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

[rivenwanderer <riv...@ya...>]

I hadn't been planning on doing auto-handle-placement with slide
nodes--mostly because in the types of games I'd like to make, slide nodes
would be the result of clicking on *something* rather than in a direction,
if that makes sense, so I'll be more likely to want to manually trace a
custom hotspot map.  But a bit of Pipmak-centric scripting could certainly
be done for slide nodes in Blender--an analogous batch-renderer that placed
renders into the appropriate subfolders, and perhaps also generated a
skeleton node.lua .


Aidan Gauland wrote:
> 
> Sounds... amazing!  Do you have plans for a way of specifying slide nodes?
> 
>   -Aidan
> 
> rivenwanderer wrote:
>> I'm working on making some tools for getting Pipmak environments together
>> as
>> quickly and easily as possible.  The first is a Blender Python script
>> made
>> from the Panorama Maker tool at
>> http://www.alienhelpdesk.com/python_scripts/old_scripts .  The tool
>> renders
>> panoramas for all selected cameras in a Blender scene, placing them into
>> node subfolders where the names are taken from the names of the camera
>> objects in Blender.
> 
> 
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Re: Working on some tools for Blender and Pipmak

[Aidan G. <wgs...@ih...>]

Sounds... amazing!  Do you have plans for a way of specifying slide nodes?

  -Aidan

rivenwanderer wrote:
> I'm working on making some tools for getting Pipmak environments together as
> quickly and easily as possible.  The first is a Blender Python script made
> from the Panorama Maker tool at
> http://www.alienhelpdesk.com/python_scripts/old_scripts .  The tool renders
> panoramas for all selected cameras in a Blender scene, placing them into
> node subfolders where the names are taken from the names of the camera
> objects in Blender.