pipmak-users — Content creation for the Pipmak Game Engine

[Pipmak-Users] Re: engine settings et al

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

Wenzler, Thomas wrote:
> I was asking this because most of the time stepping from node to node 
> was done correctly with some exception where i was "turned around" 
> facing the node i left...

The easiest explanation for this would be that you messed up the order 
of the cube faces. If not, it sounds like a bug, and if you can 
reproduce it, I'd appreciate a minimal example so I can have a look at it.

>>  What you're supposed to do until that day (apart from asking here) is
>>  search for these functions in the demo project or in Pipmak's internal
>>  nodes and see how they're used.
>>  ...
> 
> Great, you saved me browsing  a lot of lua files, i owe you another hour ;-)

Then you're not using the right tools. :) Use grep or TextWrangler's 
multi-file search or some similar text search tool, and you know which 
files to look at in seconds.

>>  direct painting of the hotspots in Pipmak.
>>  ... pipmak_internal.tool(2) ...
> 
> Btw. Can these functions be supressed for delivery of a finished 
> project?(I#m still far from shipping something but who knows...*g*)

I once thought about providing a runtime-only version of Pipmak without 
any editing features, but since there aren't any (completed) editing 
features yet, that idea isn't really relevant yet. I'm not sure it's 
even necessary - the resources (disk and memory) taken up by unused 
editing features are likely negligible compared to the resources used by 
the game itself, and having two different versions of Pipmak floating 
around has potential for confusion.

Why would you want to do that, anyway? You can't prevent your users from 
messing with the game's resources if they really want - they're all 
readily accessible in the project anyway. Of course, in a finished 
product, you're supposed to override the default keydown handler that 
invokes all the debugging features like the Lua command line. (The plan 
is to eventually replace all those key commands with a graphical 
interface - then you'd override the entry point to that interface, 
whatever it may be.)

> I guess I'll wait for the next update.But good to know so I cann look up 
> Ogg Vorbis in the meantime....

<http://vorbis.com/>. It's just a lossy sound compression format like 
MP3, but free of any royalty or patent issues. It's supported by many 
modern audio applications, e.g. <http://audacity.sourceforge.net/>.

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] re:engine settings et al

[Wenzler, T. <we...@st...>]

=20

"Christian Walther" <cwa...@gm...> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:e4csu4$duq$1...@se......

> Wenzler, Thomas wrote:
>> Dear developers
>=20
> That would be "developer", at the current time :)
>=20

Dear Christian, :-)


>> While reading the Reference, some questions poped up to my mind:
>>=20
>> 1.since pipmak.setviewdirection() is a global state, can it be
deleted=20
>> or set back to default or do i have to set it from the first use to
the=20
>> end of the project?
>=20
> I think you're misunderstanding something (which probably means I
didn't=20
> explain it properly in the reference). The viewing direction (English=20
> speakers, any better word for this? My dictionary says "line of sight"

> for German "Blickrichtung", but that doesn't sound appropriate to me.)

> is what you change by looking around you in a panorama. The numbers
you=20
> give to pipmak.setviewdirection() are the spherical coordinates of the

> point on the panorama that you want to see in the middle of the
screen.=20
> You can call that function any time you like, but usually you only
need=20
> to do it when you go from a slide to a panorama. The default is 0,0=20
> (i.e. looking north and horizontal).

=20

I was asking this because most of the time stepping from node to node
was done correctly with some exception where i was "turned around"
facing the node i left...well, I guess i will play around with
setviewdirection a bit....


>=20
> (It just occurs to me that there should probably be a
"getviewdirection"=20
> function as well. Added to the To Do list.)
>=20
>> 2.pipmak.setfullscreen() sets the window to fullscreen at whatever
the=20
>> current resolution of the window was,
>=20
> That's not true. It uses the next bigger (or same) resolution if the=20
> argument ("smaller") is false or absent, or the next smaller
resolution=20
> if it is true. Of course, this isn't explained in the reference yet,
so=20
> I can't blame you.
>=20
>  so images even when rendered with
>> 1024x1024 look blurred. is there a way to set the screen resolution
and=20
>> the window/fullscreen resolution to a certain value other than
pressing=20
>> F several times, such as/.a lua command in the main.lua /?
>=20
> No, but something better than the current awkward handling of
resolution=20
> switching is planned: item 6 on the To Do list=20
>
(http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/pipmak/trunk/pipmak/To%20Do.txt?
view=3Dmarkup
<http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/pipmak/trunk/pipmak/To%20Do.txt?
view=3Dmarkup> ).

=20

That was a worthy piece of information to start from, thank you.


>=20
>> 3.At what time do you plan to further explain the engine settings
listed=20
>> in 3.10 of the reference, or the other way round, can you shed some=20
>> light on what these settings do?
>=20
> Uhm... when I feel like it? :) Or when a contributor feels like it?=20
> Seriously, I don't have a plan any stricter than "sooner or later". By

> asking about it, you just increased the likelihood that it will happen

> sooner rather than later. After all, point 3 on the To Do list is
"Write=20
> documentation". :)
>=20
> What you're supposed to do until that day (apart from asking here) is=20
> search for these functions in the demo project or in Pipmak's internal

> nodes and see how they're used. For these specific functions, it's=20
> mostly the latter - they're the ones used by many of the key commands=20
> listed on the preliminary "Preferences" screen. Have a look at the=20
> default keydown handler in defaults.lua in the "Pipmak Resources" ZIP=20
> archive (assuming you're on Linux or Windows), or at=20
>
<http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/pipmak/trunk/pipmak/resources/re
sources/defaults.lua?view=3Dmarkup
<http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/pipmak/trunk/pipmak/resources/re
sources/defaults.lua?view=3Dmarkup> >.=20
> It's in the pipmak_internal.loadmain function, search for
"function(key)".
>=20
> Here's a short synopsis (mostly off the top of my head, so some
details=20
> might be incorrect):
>=20
> - getmousemode/setmousemode: returns/takes either pipmak.joystick or=20
> pipmak.direct. This is what you switch between using the M or shift=20
> keys. Joystick means free mouse, drag to pan; direct means mouse fixed

> in the middle of the screen, immediate panning.
>=20
> - setwindowed: go to a 640x480 window (from fullscreen or a window of
a=20
> different size) (W key).
>=20
> - setfullscreen: see above (F & D keys).
>=20
> - screensize: size in pixels of the current window or fullscreen mode.
>=20
> - getinterpolation/setinterpolation: switches on and off bilinear=20
> interpolation (I key).
>=20
> - getshowcontrols/setshowcontrols: shows or hides controls and patches
-=20
> hotspots solid, handles striped, patch corners (C key).
>=20
> - getjoystickspeed/setjoystickspeed: gets/sets how fast panning is in=20
> joystick mode. Panning speed (degrees/second) is proportional to
dragged=20
> distance (pixels), this is the proportionality constant in=20
> degrees/(s*px) (1 & 2 keys).
>=20
> - getverticalfov/setverticalfov: zoom in or out in a panorama. Sets
the=20
> vertical field of view in degrees, the default is 45 (Z & X keys).
>=20

=20

Great, you saved me browsing  a lot of lua files, i owe you another hour
;-)

=20


>> 4.It's said you plan to remove pipmak.saveequirect which imho speeds
up=20
>> the hotspot generation to minutes. Will this be replaced with
something=20
>> equally usefull?
>=20
> That's up to you to decide, but I hope so... it will be replaced by=20
> direct painting of the hotspots in Pipmak. In fact, this is already=20
> semi-functional and you can try it if you like: On a panorama that=20
> already has some hotspots, call pipmak_internal.tool(2) to bring up
the=20
> brush tool and paint away. Press the option/alt key or call=20
> pipmak_internal.tool(3) to select the eyedropper tool to pick up
another=20
> color (hotspot number). Pan using the right mouse button (or using
shift=20
> to switch to direct mode). pipmak_internal.tool(0) brings you back to=20
> the hand tool. Currently, your paintings aren't saved, you can't
change=20
> the brush size (without recompiling), and it only works on panoramas.
>=20

=20

That's indeed great news...

Btw. Can these functions be supressed for delivery of a finished
project?(I#m still far from shipping something but who knows...*g*)


> There's also an item on the To Do list to implement cubic hotspot
maps,=20
> which are easier to create externally for cubic panoramas, but that's=20
> not a high priority at the moment.
>=20
>> 5.How does the engine decide on the viewdirection when linking from a

>> hotspot to the next node?
>=20
> Not at all. It just uses the same direction as before. That's usually
OK=20
> for panorama-to-panorama transitions, if not (e.g. on
slide-to-panorama=20
> transitions) use pipmak.setviewdirection(). See e.g. node 13 in the
demo=20
> project.

=20

thanks for the hint.


>=20
>> And some wild wishes for the future development of the engine would
be:
>>=20
>> Sound. Eventsounds (and background Soundloops as well) would add 200%

>> percent value to all pipmak projects.
>=20
> I'm actually working on this. The next release will have sound,
although=20
> it'll only support a single file format (Ogg Vorbis) for the time
being.=20
> If you're adventurous, you can try a Subversion checkout, most things=20
> should already work there.

=20

I guess I'll wait for the next update.But good to know so I cann look up
Ogg Vorbis in the meantime....


>=20
>> Flash. Do you see any chance of using .swf files for animation, as=20
>> panels or even an interface between actionscript and lua code? I know

>> this is a really wild one...but Flash and Actionscript are capable of

>> many things that are veeery useful in game production...
>=20
> Hmm, I don't know much about Flash. I suspect that it would be a bit
too=20
> heavy-weight for Pipmak. Is there a platform-independent open-source=20
> implementation of it, anyway?

=20

Sorry for myself dreaming away.....I use to spent 95% of my working
schedule with multimedia projects in flash, so i thought about giving it
a shot, hehe....


>=20
>> Video. Any way to diplay Video from within pipmak would be great.
>=20
> Sure. That's planned for the future, though no concrete work has been=20
> done on it yet.

=20


>=20
>=20
> Thanks for your interest! Those were good questions. Getting feedback
on=20
> which parts of the reference need most work is useful.
>=20
>  -Christian
>=20
>=20
>=20
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services,
security?
> Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job
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2>=20

=20

[Pipmak-Users] Re: engine settings et al

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

Wenzler, Thomas wrote:
> Dear developers

That would be "developer", at the current time :)

> While reading the Reference, some questions poped up to my mind:
> 
> 1.since pipmak.setviewdirection() is a global state, can it be deleted 
> or set back to default or do i have to set it from the first use to the 
> end of the project?

I think you're misunderstanding something (which probably means I didn't 
explain it properly in the reference). The viewing direction (English 
speakers, any better word for this? My dictionary says "line of sight" 
for German "Blickrichtung", but that doesn't sound appropriate to me.) 
is what you change by looking around you in a panorama. The numbers you 
give to pipmak.setviewdirection() are the spherical coordinates of the 
point on the panorama that you want to see in the middle of the screen. 
You can call that function any time you like, but usually you only need 
to do it when you go from a slide to a panorama. The default is 0,0 
(i.e. looking north and horizontal).

(It just occurs to me that there should probably be a "getviewdirection" 
function as well. Added to the To Do list.)

> 2.pipmak.setfullscreen() sets the window to fullscreen at whatever the 
> current resolution of the window was,

That's not true. It uses the next bigger (or same) resolution if the 
argument ("smaller") is false or absent, or the next smaller resolution 
if it is true. Of course, this isn't explained in the reference yet, so 
I can't blame you.

  so images even when rendered with
> 1024x1024 look blurred. is there a way to set the screen resolution and 
> the window/fullscreen resolution to a certain value other than pressing 
> F several times, such as/.a lua command in the main.lua /?

No, but something better than the current awkward handling of resolution 
switching is planned: item 6 on the To Do list 
(http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/pipmak/trunk/pipmak/To%20Do.txt?view=markup).

> 3.At what time do you plan to further explain the engine settings listed 
> in 3.10 of the reference, or the other way round, can you shed some 
> light on what these settings do?

Uhm... when I feel like it? :) Or when a contributor feels like it? 
Seriously, I don't have a plan any stricter than "sooner or later". By 
asking about it, you just increased the likelihood that it will happen 
sooner rather than later. After all, point 3 on the To Do list is "Write 
documentation". :)

What you're supposed to do until that day (apart from asking here) is 
search for these functions in the demo project or in Pipmak's internal 
nodes and see how they're used. For these specific functions, it's 
mostly the latter - they're the ones used by many of the key commands 
listed on the preliminary "Preferences" screen. Have a look at the 
default keydown handler in defaults.lua in the "Pipmak Resources" ZIP 
archive (assuming you're on Linux or Windows), or at 
<http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/pipmak/trunk/pipmak/resources/resources/defaults.lua?view=markup>. 
It's in the pipmak_internal.loadmain function, search for "function(key)".

Here's a short synopsis (mostly off the top of my head, so some details 
might be incorrect):

- getmousemode/setmousemode: returns/takes either pipmak.joystick or 
pipmak.direct. This is what you switch between using the M or shift 
keys. Joystick means free mouse, drag to pan; direct means mouse fixed 
in the middle of the screen, immediate panning.

- setwindowed: go to a 640x480 window (from fullscreen or a window of a 
different size) (W key).

- setfullscreen: see above (F & D keys).

- screensize: size in pixels of the current window or fullscreen mode.

- getinterpolation/setinterpolation: switches on and off bilinear 
interpolation (I key).

- getshowcontrols/setshowcontrols: shows or hides controls and patches - 
hotspots solid, handles striped, patch corners (C key).

- getjoystickspeed/setjoystickspeed: gets/sets how fast panning is in 
joystick mode. Panning speed (degrees/second) is proportional to dragged 
distance (pixels), this is the proportionality constant in 
degrees/(s*px) (1 & 2 keys).

- getverticalfov/setverticalfov: zoom in or out in a panorama. Sets the 
vertical field of view in degrees, the default is 45 (Z & X keys).

> 4.It's said you plan to remove pipmak.saveequirect which imho speeds up 
> the hotspot generation to minutes. Will this be replaced with something 
> equally usefull?

That's up to you to decide, but I hope so... it will be replaced by 
direct painting of the hotspots in Pipmak. In fact, this is already 
semi-functional and you can try it if you like: On a panorama that 
already has some hotspots, call pipmak_internal.tool(2) to bring up the 
brush tool and paint away. Press the option/alt key or call 
pipmak_internal.tool(3) to select the eyedropper tool to pick up another 
color (hotspot number). Pan using the right mouse button (or using shift 
to switch to direct mode). pipmak_internal.tool(0) brings you back to 
the hand tool. Currently, your paintings aren't saved, you can't change 
the brush size (without recompiling), and it only works on panoramas.

There's also an item on the To Do list to implement cubic hotspot maps, 
which are easier to create externally for cubic panoramas, but that's 
not a high priority at the moment.

> 5.How does the engine decide on the viewdirection when linking from a 
> hotspot to the next node?

Not at all. It just uses the same direction as before. That's usually OK 
for panorama-to-panorama transitions, if not (e.g. on slide-to-panorama 
transitions) use pipmak.setviewdirection(). See e.g. node 13 in the demo 
project.

> And some wild wishes for the future development of the engine would be:
> 
> Sound. Eventsounds (and background Soundloops as well) would add 200% 
> percent value to all pipmak projects.

I'm actually working on this. The next release will have sound, although 
it'll only support a single file format (Ogg Vorbis) for the time being. 
If you're adventurous, you can try a Subversion checkout, most things 
should already work there.

> Flash. Do you see any chance of using .swf files for animation, as 
> panels or even an interface between actionscript and lua code? I know 
> this is a really wild one...but Flash and Actionscript are capable of 
> many things that are veeery useful in game production...

Hmm, I don't know much about Flash. I suspect that it would be a bit too 
heavy-weight for Pipmak. Is there a platform-independent open-source 
implementation of it, anyway?

> Video. Any way to diplay Video from within pipmak would be great.

Sure. That's planned for the future, though no concrete work has been 
done on it yet.


Thanks for your interest! Those were good questions. Getting feedback on 
which parts of the reference need most work is useful.

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] engine settings et al

[Wenzler, T. <we...@st...>]

Dear developers of the ingenious pipmak engine,

congrats to your fine engine, i found it recently and was stunned as it
is comprehensive and easy to use as well.

While reading the Reference, some questions poped up to my mind:

=20

1.since pipmak.setviewdirection() is a global state, can it be deleted
or set back to default or do i have to set it from the first use to the
end of the project?

=20

2.pipmak.setfullscreen() sets the window to fullscreen at whatever the
current resolution of the window was, so images even when rendered with
1024x1024 look blurred. is there a way to set the screen resolution and
the window/fullscreen resolution to a certain value other than pressing
F several times, such as.a lua command in the main.lua ?

=20

3.At what time do you plan to further explain the engine settings listed
in 3.10 of the reference, or the other way round, can you shed some
light on what these settings do?

=20

4.It's said you plan to remove pipmak.saveequirect which imho speeds up
the hotspot generation to minutes. Will this be replaced with something
equally usefull?

=20

5.How does the engine decide on the viewdirection when linking from a
hotspot to the next node?

=20

And some wild wishes for the future development of the engine would be:

=20

Sound. Eventsounds (and background Soundloops as well) would add 200%
percent value to all pipmak projects. A Soundobject with linked Sounds i
would like best.=20

=20

Flash. Do you see any chance of using .swf files for animation, as
panels or even an interface between actionscript and lua code? I know
this is a really wild one...but Flash and Actionscript are capable of
many things that are veeery useful in game production...

=20

Video. Any way to diplay Video from within pipmak would be great.

=20

Thanks for giving us such a great tool

=20

Thomas=20

=20

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Agon features

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

> Quick question. How hard do people think it would be to make a game of 
> say the level of Agon with Pipmak?
> 
> http://www.agongame.com/
> 
> It has a couple of very cool features (generally it seems very Pipmak 
> node-like) but some neat little extras are the ability to have movies 
> run in certain scenes - in one you pass a window and can see and hear 
> that it is raining outside (another nice touch is that you see yourself 
> in the window).

I had not played Agon before, but here's what I can say after having had 
a look at its first few nodes this morning.

In general, the intention is that Pipmak should eventually be able to do 
  most of the things Agon does. Many of the basic features are already 
available, some are not. The following points come to my mind that you 
would have trouble replicating in today's Pipmak:

- Sound: Pipmak 0.2.4 is mute. However, I'm working on that, and the 
next release should have a solid foundation of sound functionality 
(though it'll only support a single file format, Ogg Vorbis, for the 
time being).

- Subtitles and other text output: You could reproduce Agon's behavior 
in Pipmak, but you'd have to store every piece of text as a picture. 
Apart from the terminal, which is mostly meant for debugging purposes 
rather than for player interaction in a finished game, there is no 
possibility of text output in Pipmak. This is a planned feature, though.

- Real-time-rendered objects: In Agon, the rain outside of the windows 
and your reflections in them seem to be real-time-rendered 3D objects. 
This is not something that's on my immediate to-do list for Pipmak. I'm 
not ruling out the possibility that it might be implemented some day, 
but I'm not planning to do it anytime soon.
However, you could probably implement the rain and the player 
reflections using Pipmak's current primitive animation capabilities 
(demonstrated by the rotating wheel in the demo project).

- Movies: Pipmak currently can't play movies. Of course this will be 
possible some day, but no detailed planning has been done yet. You can 
do animation by storing each frame as a separate image file (what I 
called "primitive" above), but that's neither convenient nor fast enough 
for bigger movies (see Urs' "Fully animated cube").

These are the "big" limitations of Pipmak in its current state. If you 
can live with those and go on with your project, it's very possible that 
you run into some "small" limitations: "I can't figure out how to do 
this or that. It would be easy if Pipmak could do xy." In that case, 
please come here and ask. It might turn out that feature xy is trivial 
to add. This has happened to me repeatedly while working on the demo 
project. Because I'm not really "eating my own dog food" with Pipmak 
(I'm not using it to create a serious game), I need other people's 
feedback on such things.

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] (no subject)

[Liam S. <Li...@fr...>]

Howdy,

Quick question. How hard do people think it would be to make a game  
of say the level of Agon with Pipmak?

http://www.agongame.com/

It has a couple of very cool features (generally it seems very Pipmak  
node-like) but some neat little extras are the ability to have movies  
run in certain scenes - in one you pass a window and can see and hear  
that it is raining outside (another nice touch is that you see  
yourself in the window).

Just curious. Oh yes, and I am still working on a series of nodes  
that look about like Agon in terms of look.

Liam


Liam Shannon
Creative Director
Fresh Cut Grass Advertising

22 Everett Street
Sherborn, MA 01770
(508)545-2125

[Pipmak-Users] Pipmak 0.2.4 released

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

In version 0.2.4, Pipmak now allows you to define your own mouse 
cursors. Also, a lot of new built-in cursors were added. Read all about 
this and some other, smaller enhancements to cursor handling in the new 
section 3.4 "Mouse Cursors" of the reference documentation.

Download Pipmak 0.2.4 for Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux from 
<http://pipmak.sourceforge.net/downloads.php> or read the detailed 
release notes at 
<http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=405636&group_id=112801>.

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Weird speed problem on laptop

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

Hi Christian

Christian Walther wrote:
> Urs Holzer wrote:
>> The following actions change from low to high:
>> - Resizing the window.
>> - Using the console: Hitting N to show the Node number or hitting L
>> to enter a lua-command. Every time the console shows up, the
>> framerate changes to high.
> 
> I guess the former is a special case of the latter, then, as resizing
> the window writes the new window size to the terminal. (You could test
> whether the effect of resizing the window goes away when you comment
> out the terminalPrintf() near "case SDL_VIDEORESIZE:" in main() in
> main.c.)

I'm now sure that the framerate raises only when the terminal appears
and that it drops only when the terminal disappears. I will experiment
with the sourcecode later if I have enough time.
Do you do something special while displaying the terminal?

> So, does that mean that you can keep it running at the high frame rate
> indefinitely (at least until you leave the current node) by doing
> something like
> 
>   pipmak.schedule(0, function() pipmak.print("*") return 8 end)
> 
> ? (Not that this helps us around the problem, just as an experiment.)

This works!

>>> pipmak_internal.texrect()
>> Calling this function without arguments seems to do nothing.
> 
> Yes, that's the point. Calling it without arguments returns the
> current state without changing it. Calling it with an argument changes
> the state (and returns the previous state).
> 
> (I'm actually considering using such combined getter/setter functions
> also in the "official" (non-internal) Lua API in a (distant) future
> version. Do you find them confusing? Or did I just not explain it
> properly?)

Sorry, I'm an idiot. You explained it clearly enough. If it is called
without arguments, it will *return* the current state. And return
doesn't mean *print*. I thought, the return value will be printed. I
don't know why I thought this. (Perhaps because Perl returns the value
of the last statement in a function?) So, those getter/setter functions
are not confusing.

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Weird speed problem on laptop

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

Urs Holzer wrote:
> The following actions change from low to high:
> - Resizing the window.
> - Using the console: Hitting N to show the Node number or hitting L to
> enter a lua-command. Every time the console shows up, the framerate
> changes to high.

I guess the former is a special case of the latter, then, as resizing 
the window writes the new window size to the terminal. (You could test 
whether the effect of resizing the window goes away when you comment out 
the terminalPrintf() near "case SDL_VIDEORESIZE:" in main() in main.c.)

So, does that mean that you can keep it running at the high frame rate 
indefinitely (at least until you leave the current node) by doing 
something like

  pipmak.schedule(0, function() pipmak.print("*") return 8 end)

? (Not that this helps us around the problem, just as an experiment.)

>> pipmak_internal.texrect()
> Calling this function without arguments seems to do nothing.

Yes, that's the point. Calling it without arguments returns the current 
state without changing it. Calling it with an argument changes the state 
(and returns the previous state).

(I'm actually considering using such combined getter/setter functions 
also in the "official" (non-internal) Lua API in a (distant) future 
version. Do you find them confusing? Or did I just not explain it properly?)

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Weird speed problem on laptop

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

Hi

I wrote:
> I write my conclusions before the rest of this post:
> I have the strange feeling that it has something to do with power
> management, sleepstate of the processor and similar. But manipulating
> the powermanagemant of my laptop I tried does not change anything. It
> could also have to do with the kernel or the X-window system changing
> the priority of pipmak. (The software renderer is built in into the x
> window system. This causes the CPU usage for the Xorg-Task to be
> around 99.5%)

The kernel gives pipmak priorities 15 or 16. It seems that pipmak has
priority 15 while high framerate. But this value does not immediately
switch after changing the framerate. It takes some seconds!

I changed the nice value of pipmak. The nice value affects the priority.
I set the nice value to -8 which caused the kernel to give pipmak a
priority of about 7. This was the "best" priority of all running
applications! So, this framerate problem does not have to do with
application priorities given by the kernel.

cu

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Weird speed problem on laptop

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

Hi

Thanks for the help up to now.

I write my conclusions before the rest of this post:
I have the strange feeling that it has something to do with power
management, sleepstate of the processor and similar. But manipulating
the powermanagemant of my laptop I tried does not change anything. It
could also have to do with the kernel or the X-window system changing
the priority of pipmak. (The software renderer is built in into the x
window system. This causes the CPU usage for the Xorg-Task to be around
99.5%)

Christian Walther wrote:
> Urs Holzer wrote:
>> After starting Pipmak, the framerate is very slow (about 10 seconds
>> per frame). But if I resize the window, I have to wait a few seconds
>> and then the framerate becomes high and one even could play the game.
>> But after about 20 seconds, the fun is over and the framerate falls
>> back and the game becomes unplayable.
> 
> No idea. Sounds like some OpenGL resource is being exhausted after a
> while, but what could it be? Does it also happen when you stay at one
> node without doing anything (i.e. no new textures or display lists are
> being uploaded to OpenGL)?

After starting pipmak, something weird happens: The content of the
pipmak window starts with the startup node. It fades smoothly to a
completely black screen. Often, this stops before the whole window is
entirely black and the node is displayed normally again. 

So after this, the framerate is low. (From now on I will refer to the
very slow rendering "state" with "low framerate", and to the normal or
expected speed with "high framerate".) 

If the framerate is low, the following things do *not* change the
framerate to high:
- Hitting I: The framerate speeds up a little if I switch off
interpolation, as one expects. But the framerate does not change to
high.
- Going to another node: This does absolutely nothing to the framerate.
- 

The following actions change from low to high:
- Resizing the window.
- Using the console: Hitting N to show the Node number or hitting L to
enter a lua-command. Every time the console shows up, the framerate
changes to high.

And when does it change back from high to slow?
- A constant time after the change to high.
- Often it happens when the console disappears. (Whether the constant
time then is over, I don't know)

This was a full description of my observations so far.


> Can you run Pipmak through some performance analysis tool to see where
> the time is spent? I don't know if something like Shark
> (http://developer.apple.com/tools/sharkoptimize.html) exists for
> Linux. It records a callstack of the running application at a regular
> interval and can then analyze that data in various ways, including a
> callstack-vs-time graph.

Unfortunately, I don't know about such things. Though I heard of such
utilities. Recently, I read about a tool that logs all calls of to the
OpenGL library. I will perhaps follow this later.

> Two other things you can try to improve rendering performance, tell me
> if these have any influence on the behavior you're seeing:
> - Turn off interpolation (I key).

no

> - Switch between power-of-two and rectangle textures, if your renderer
> supports both. By default, rectangle textures are used if supported
> (power-of-two textures are always available). Call the Lua function
> pipmak_internal.texrect() without arguments to query whether rectangle
> textures are on, and call it with true or false to try to turn them on
> or off. If not supported, turning them on will silently fail.

Calling this function without arguments seems to do nothing. But calling
it with true or false works. At the beginning, texrect is on. It can be
switched of. Either way, it does not affect the framerate.


cu

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Weird speed problem on laptop

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

Urs Holzer wrote:
> After starting Pipmak, the framerate is very slow (about 10 seconds per
> frame). But if I resize the window, I have to wait a few seconds and
> then the framerate becomes high and one even could play the game. But
> after about 20 seconds, the fun is over and the framerate falls back
> and the game becomes unplayable.

No idea. Sounds like some OpenGL resource is being exhausted after a 
while, but what could it be? Does it also happen when you stay at one 
node without doing anything (i.e. no new textures or display lists are 
being uploaded to OpenGL)?

Can you run Pipmak through some performance analysis tool to see where 
the time is spent? I don't know if something like Shark 
(http://developer.apple.com/tools/sharkoptimize.html) exists for Linux. 
It records a callstack of the running application at a regular interval 
and can then analyze that data in various ways, including a 
callstack-vs-time graph.

Two other things you can try to improve rendering performance, tell me 
if these have any influence on the behavior you're seeing:
- Turn off interpolation (I key).
- Switch between power-of-two and rectangle textures, if your renderer 
supports both. By default, rectangle textures are used if supported 
(power-of-two textures are always available). Call the Lua function 
pipmak_internal.texrect() without arguments to query whether rectangle 
textures are on, and call it with true or false to try to turn them on 
or off. If not supported, turning them on will silently fail.

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Weird speed problem on laptop

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

I have to provide more information:

I wrote:
> I tried to run Pipmak on my Laptop (IBM Thinkpad X41) which has no
> graphic acellerator. The CPU has a frequency of 1.5GHz.

I'm running Debian GNU/Linux. I use the xorg xserver. Because I don't
have a graphics acellerator, software rendernig is done through mesa.

[Pipmak-Users] Weird speed problem on laptop

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

Hi

I tried to run Pipmak on my Laptop (IBM Thinkpad X41) which has no
graphic acellerator. The CPU has a frequency of 1.5GHz.

After starting Pipmak, the framerate is very slow (about 10 seconds per
frame). But if I resize the window, I have to wait a few seconds and
then the framerate becomes high and one even could play the game. But
after about 20 seconds, the fun is over and the framerate falls back
and the game becomes unplayable.

This has nothing to do with the size of the window! I can even switch
into fullscreen after resizing the window and play the game with a
resolution of 1024x768!

Does anyone of you know what could cause this weird behaviour?

Greeting
Urs

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Pipmak-Users digest, Vol 1 #40 - 4 msgs

[Liam S. <Li...@fr...>]

>
> Message: 1
> From: Christian Walther <cwa...@gm...>

Christian your solution worked. Safari did automatically unzip. It  
did not add a .zip suffix but it didn't add a .pipmak suffix either.  
On adding .pipmak to the file name it turned the file into a single  
app, changed the visual icon to that of a pipmak project (colored  
cubes and little hat) and was then easily launched with a double click.

BTW, very cool concept and definitely worth the time to get it to  
work. Pipmak keeps amazing me with its amazing power for what seems  
like such a little program.

I am planning to do some higher end renderings of a scene this  
weekend and should have something to give back by next week.

Cheers and again what an incredible application you guys have  
created. It is so cool. I am dying to see how it handles larger file  
sizes and more detailed images to see how well it's perspective works  
with more detail.


Liam

Liam Shannon
Creative Director
Fresh Cut Grass Advertising

22 Everett Street
Sherborn, MA 01770
(508)545-2125

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Fully animated cube

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

Hi

Christian Walther wrote:
> Urs Holzer wrote:
>> In this case, I configured the webserver to send the file with
>> Content-type application/zip. Would it be better to choose another
>> Conteent-type like application/octet-stream or application/x-pipmak?
> 
> Yes, do use application/octet-stream. I don't think there's any
> advantage in inventing our own x-pipmak type.

Thanks for this advice. I changed the server configuration and added a
notice in the readme. It would probably also make sense to mention this
in the documentation of pipmak.

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Fully animated cube

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

Urs Holzer wrote:
> In this case, I configured the webserver to send the file with
> Content-type application/zip. Would it be better to choose another
> Conteent-type like application/octet-stream or application/x-pipmak?

Yes, do use application/octet-stream. I don't think there's any 
advantage in inventing our own x-pipmak type.

(I actually simplified things a bit in my reply to Liam. I'm pretty sure 
Safari doesn't look into files, but uses the Content-type to determine 
what extraneous extension to add.)

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Fully animated cube

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

Hi

Christian Walther wrote:
> Did you unzip the project file (or did Safari unzip it
> automatically)? You shouldn't. Safari has the annoying misfeature of
> appending a ".zip" extension to the file name (and probably
> automatically unzipping it if this is enabled in the preferences)
> because it sees that the file technically is a ZIP file. 

In this case, I configured the webserver to send the file with
Content-type application/zip. Would it be better to choose another
Conteent-type like application/octet-stream or application/x-pipmak?

Greetings
Urs

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Fully animated cube

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

Liam Shannon wrote:
> how does one access this project?
>
> I tried opening the main lua doc using Pipmak but all options were  
> grayed out. I tried opening the node 1.lua doc with Pipmak but  
> again no luck. I tried clicking on the lua node but it only opened  
> it in text edit (at least I've gotten that far).

Did you unzip the project file (or did Safari unzip it  
automatically)? You shouldn't. Safari has the annoying misfeature of  
appending a ".zip" extension to the file name (and probably  
automatically unzipping it if this is enabled in the preferences)  
because it sees that the file technically is a ZIP file. Just remove  
that extension, so that the file name ends in ".pipmak" as it  
originally did (you may need to do this in the "Name & Suffix" field  
of the "Get Info" window since renaming it the usual way only hides  
the extension instead of actually removing it). The project should  
then take on the usual pipmak project icon and you should be able to  
open it by doubleclicking (if Pipmak isn't already running) or using  
the "Open Project" button (if Pipmak is running).

You can also use the project unzipped, just make sure that the name  
of the folder into which you unzipped it (i.e. the folder that  
contains the "1" folder and the "main.lua" file) ends with ".pipmak".  
Again, this should make it take on the pipmak project icon and make  
it openable in Pipmak.

Hope that helps

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Fully animated cube

[Liam S. <Li...@fr...>]

>
> Message: 2
> To: pip...@li...
> From:  Urs Holzer <ur...@an...>
> Date:  Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:20:47 +0100
> Subject: [Pipmak-Users] Fully animated cube
> Reply-To: pip...@li...

Sorry to continue being dense (but at least I didn't include the  
entire digest ;}) but how does one access this project?

I tried opening the main lua doc using Pipmak but all options were  
grayed out. I tried opening the node 1.lua doc with Pipmak but again  
no luck. I tried clicking on the lua node but it only opened it in  
text edit (at least I've gotten that far).

Any input would be appreciated.

Otherwise, I am learning a good bit by going through all the code in  
the various node  files.

Thanks for everyones patience,

Liam

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Fully animated cube

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

Hi Christian

Christian Walther wrote:
> Would you mind if I place a screenshot and a link to your URL on a
> "showcase" page on the Pipmak website? I've wanted to make such a page
> for a long time, but so far there haven't been any projects to link
> to...

Ok, you can do that if you want.

cu

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Pipmak 0.2.3 released

[hOSHI <ho...@ga...>]

was just an idea ^^;

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Fully animated cube

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

Urs Holzer wrote:
> Look at
> http://www.andonyar.com/rec/2006-03/pipmakfullanimation/

Heh, that's neat!

When I change the "return 0.5" to "return 0" to render as fast as=20
possible, it runs at about 3 fps on my Powerbook. I hope performance of=20
the real video support will be better...

I noticed that the edges of the objects flicker a bit - it appears that=20
your POV-Ray uses jitter with the antialiasing by default. You should=20
turn that off (-J).

You're using the wrong field of view, by the way. If you look closely,=20
you can see that the pictures don't match up perfectly at the cube=20
edges. In POV-Ray, you can use

camera {
	location 0
	up 2*image_height/(image_height-1)*y
	right 2*image_width/(image_width-1)*x
	direction z
	//rotate in the desired direction
	//translate to the desired location
}

to get the correct field of view (half a pixel larger on each side than=20
90=B0).

Would you mind if I place a screenshot and a link to your URL on a=20
"showcase" page on the Pipmak website? I've wanted to make such a page=20
for a long time, but so far there haven't been any projects to link to...=


  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] Re: Pipmak-project as Zip-File

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

Urs Holzer wrote:
> If you make a zip-File out of your folder, you have to make sure, that
> you don't include the whole project-folder but only its content.
> Otherwise it doesn't work. I think this is not clearly enough stated in
> the documentation (Reference.pdf)

You're right. I'll add a sentence or two to the explanation. I'm trying 
to get the next release (0.2.4) out this week, please check the 
documentation then and tell me if it's better.

  -Christian

[Pipmak-Users] Pipmak-project as Zip-File

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

Hi

If you make a zip-File out of your folder, you have to make sure, that
you don't include the whole project-folder but only its content.
Otherwise it doesn't work. I think this is not clearly enough stated in
the documentation (Reference.pdf)

cu