VirtualScape 1.070 available

[Usagi3]

[English text below]

Bonjour Bathory ! Ici c'est un forum anglophone, tu devrais poster en anglais... Il y a de rares francophones (comme moi), mais c'est loin d'être la majorité !!! Il existe par contre un forum en français pour Heroscape, ici:
Clique ici !
Zzzzz fréquente aussi ce forum français.
A bientôt j'espère sur le forum fr !

Hi Bathory ! This forum is an English one, you should post using the English language... There are some French-speaking people, as myself, but we are only a few. However, there is a French Heroscape forum, here :
Click here !
Zzzzz is also a member of the French forum.
See you !

[yanks114kd]

I am on vacation and can't wait to get back home so I can download 1.0 and get a chance to play around. THX

[srmalloy]

If I understand the Google translation of your post, Bathory ("it plants dice" is a little baroque), your problem is that you don't get a 3D view -- it crashes, displays wrong, or something similar? If I understand Zzzzz's work correctly, VirtualScape uses the OpenGL graphics library; you may want to look at updating your video drivers to ensure that you have the most recent OpenGL drivers, and then try again.

[Zzzzz]

Thanks srmalloy for your help. I already answer to Bathory in the french forum. I think this is a problem with the working directory of shortcut because all is ok if bathory launch the application from the installation directory.

[D-Dyzzle]

hey 5z. excellent work on 1.0. i found a bug though

the piont click wont work on the starting zones corectly. they all appear black. and the right color will only work with drag n drop. i dont get it but thats the only "bug". another prob i have is that the 3d veiw freezes a lot. i dont think its a bug its prob just my computer.

[srmalloy]

After using VirtualScape to build a fairly sizeable map, I've only found four annoyances, and no outright bugs:

1) When you place a tile, you have to click on it again to select it in order to rotate it. Is it possible to automatically change the selection to the tile you just placed?

2) There is no clear indicator of which tile/scenery object is 'active'; several times I thought I'd selected the tile I wanted after changing tabs in the materials list, but wound up dropping the previous tile, because the click on the new tile didn't 'take'.

3) Getting the view you want in the 3-D window is fairly clumsy; having the rotations occur around a zero coordinate that is well outside the map makes the change in view when you rotate the 3-D view less than intuitive. Is the coordinate system for rotation fixed at its current point, or could it be moved to the middle of the 'table' before rendering the map, so that all the rotations leave the map in the same general position in the window? Or am I missing a set of commands for moving the 3-D image?

4) There doesn't seem to be a way to save the 3-d image to a file; it's easy enough to capture it with a graphics editor, but the uncompressed Windows BMP format should be easy to dump to. Although I suspect that this is probably already on the 'to do' list.

On the whole, though, I'm quite impressed with the program; it's easy to use and has a straightforward user interface (aside from an interesting learning curve when dealing with onion-skin mode and building both up and down in a map). Well done. I need to do the rest of the map configuration (what I think will be an interesting special rule) and a scenario to go with it, then I can post the map.

[Zzzzz]

Originally Posted by D-Dyzzle

hey 5z. excellent work on 1.0. i found a bug though

the piont click wont work on the starting zones corectly. they all appear black. and the right color will only work with drag n drop. i dont get it but thats the only "bug". another prob i have is that the 3d veiw freezes a lot. i dont think its a bug its prob just my computer.

Thank for the information D-Dyzzle. I will correct this bug. I haven't lot of new feature to do so next version at the end of this week will be optimised and perhap's this will correct your freezes.

[D-Dyzzle]

YAY!

id like to note ive had the same probs that srmalloy listed above

thnx again for your work 5z

[Zzzzz]

Originally Posted by srmalloy

After using VirtualScape to build a fairly sizeable map, I've only found four annoyances, and no outright bugs:

1) When you place a tile, you have to click on it again to select it in order to rotate it. Is it possible to automatically change the selection to the tile you just placed?

2) There is no clear indicator of which tile/scenery object is 'active'; several times I thought I'd selected the tile I wanted after changing tabs in the materials list, but wound up dropping the previous tile, because the click on the new tile didn't 'take'.

3) Getting the view you want in the 3-D window is fairly clumsy; having the rotations occur around a zero coordinate that is well outside the map makes the change in view when you rotate the 3-D view less than intuitive. Is the coordinate system for rotation fixed at its current point, or could it be moved to the middle of the 'table' before rendering the map, so that all the rotations leave the map in the same general position in the window? Or am I missing a set of commands for moving the 3-D image?

4) There doesn't seem to be a way to save the 3-d image to a file; it's easy enough to capture it with a graphics editor, but the uncompressed Windows BMP format should be easy to dump to. Although I suspect that this is probably already on the 'to do' list.

On the whole, though, I'm quite impressed with the program; it's easy to use and has a straightforward user interface (aside from an interesting learning curve when dealing with onion-skin mode and building both up and down in a map). Well done. I need to do the rest of the map configuration (what I think will be an interesting special rule) and a scenario to go with it, then I can post the map.

Hi srmalloy,

First thanks for your feedback.

1) Good idea. This will be done on the next version.
2) Ok, I will add the currently selected tile somewhere.
3) I understand your problem. Currently the moving is like if you was in a real world and when you rotate, this is the camera which rotate like if you rotate your camera in a real world. If you pratice videogame like Unreal Tournament for exemple, it's easy for you to move in virtualscape because it is like in the video game. But i know that it isn't easy if you don't practice video game. I don't know exactly how correct this probleme. perhap's I will add a second moving mode.
4) Your are a soothsayer (I'm not sure of the word). Yes this is in the todo list and will be available on the next version.

I'm impatient to see your map. And feel free to said me if you want I add it to the map list on the virtualscape web site (available at the end of the week)

[Zzzzz]

Originally Posted by D-Dyzzle

YAY!

id like to note ive had the same probs that srmalloy listed above

thnx again for your work 5z

Can I know what is your configuration D-Dyzzle ? (to know if freeze is normal)

[srmalloy]

Originally Posted by Zzzzz

2) Ok, I will add the currently selected tile somewhere.

If you could highlight the background of the tile selection area for the currently-selected tile, that should be enough; not having the highlight on the current tab would warn the user that they don't have anything selected from that tab. That might be simpler than finding room in the window for an image of the active tile type.

3) I understand your problem. Currently the moving is like if you was in a real world and when you rotate, this is the camera which rotate like if you rotate your camera in a real world. If you pratice videogame like Unreal Tournament for exemple, it's easy for you to move in virtualscape because it is like in the video game. But i know that it isn't easy if you don't practice video game. I don't know exactly how correct this probleme. perhap's I will add a second moving mode.

I found the height control, so that addresses one part of the problem. What appears to be happening is that the origin for rotation of the map is at the lower-left corner of the working surface in the 2-D window, so that when I build a map in the upper-left corner of the 2-D window (because that's where the display area is when the window opens), so rotations in the 3-D window are around a point well outside the area where tiles are.

I'm impatient to see your map. And feel free to said me if you want I add it to the map list on the virtualscape web site (available at the end of the week)

I put the zipped .hsc file in my gallery here. Two pictures of the map (done before I added start positions and glyphs; the computer I'm on now doesn't have a good graphics card and won't do shadowing):

Side view:


Oblique view:

[Zzzzz]

Hi srmalloy,

2) This is already done. I add the currect selected tile in the status bar (but perhap's I will add something in the tab also).

3) If I understand you correctly, you make a mistake. The rotation is not around a particular tile but this is a rotation from the point of view. But I understand your difficulty to move correctly and I will add a special move mode which is always toward the center of the map.

Really nice map. simple and nice.
I looked the pdf and I see that you don't use the 3D view. Do you know that on the first page (with title and author) you can insert automatically the 3D view ?
To do that, just create a 3D view, place camera where you want, select the 2D view and print. If a 3D view exist then the image is insert on the document. this is important to make a big 3D window because this is a screen capture and resolution will be better.

Are you agree if I insert the map in the virtualscape web site ? (picture, pdf and hsc)