Re: [TuxKart-devel] GUI

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

Robert Kooima wrote:

> I do feel that joystick control of the GUI is a significant thing,
> especially since joystick control is the primary mode of game
> interaction.  It seems hackish to have to reach for the mouse to
> select a level.  Is this an issue we can address within PUI?

Yes - easily - although I've never seen a game that did that.

PUI doesn't read input devices itself - it relies on the
application to pass on mouse or keystrokes.  PLIB's Joystick
routines are entirely separate - so it would be a snap to
pass joystick events and positions into the PUI widget tree
in order to make it run.

We could even make it so that either joystick *or* mouse
would work - or both together.

But I'm still suprised you'd think that was important.

> Certainly a great deal of GUI work needs to be done, yes? 
> Configuration, high score lists, etc?  Are these on the ToDo list?

Yes.  'A great deal of GUI work' would be something like the application
that our principle PUI maintainer wrote - I havn't seen it - but I'm
told it has over 150 'pages' of GUI widgets!

> Great, as I'd like to help  I offered to take on GUIs because GUI work
> is mundane and boring and I expected it to fall by the wayside as
> people clambered to do sexy stuff like physics, graphics, and AI. 
> Where would you like me to contribute?

Well, I think we have a couple of AI volunteers.  Graphics is mostly
to do with:

1) 3D model building - if you can handle Blender or have AC3D - then
    there is an endless pit of 3D models for karts, tracks, decoration
    (trees, carniverous plants, squirrels in trees, dancing mushrooms,
    *ANYTHING* that you could imagine in a 'cute' game).

    Anyone who can model needs to model.

2) Special effects - smoke, flame, animation, sparks, rocket trails,
    ...anything we can add in the realm of eye-candy.  This is programming
    PLIB/SSG's particle systems - plus putting together some textures to
    stick onto the particles.

3) *PERHAPS* we need a better way to get models from Blender into the game.

We kinda sorta have a physics volunteer - I think we'll need two physics
people - one for dynamics and one for collision detection.

There will be a big pile of integration bits to glue everything
together.  I kinda suspect that should be my job (because I know
the software better than anyone - I'd rather be doing some of the
fun stuff).

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjb...@ai...>    WorkEmail: <sj...@li...>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
Projects : http://plib.sf.net    http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
            http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
GCS d-- s:+ a+ C++++$ UL+++$ P--- L++++$ E--- W+++ N o+ K? w--- !O M-
V-- PS++ PE- Y-- PGP-- t+ 5 X R+++ tv b++ DI++ D G+ e++ h--(-) r+++ y++++
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----