Pandora Pandora Panic

[PokeParadox]

Just a quick status update (from my devBlog)

 

[todd]

2. One of the games (I forget which and do not have access to them right now) popped up a subtle little prompt suggesting which button I should use. Just a little circular icon with the letter "A" inside. That was quite excellent. This is no Atari 2600 with but a single button. The Pandora is covered with buttons! Wouldn't it be great if there was a little library in the engine to make it easy for all of us to pop up those same icons in order to prompt the user about how to use our applications? I would imagine this would be fairly easy since someone has already basically done it in one of the games.

2. If someone can provide me with nice button images, then it's possible. The less art assets I have to make myself keeps me coding instead. (I can make images, but it takes me way longer to get the results I want...) I also want to create a general Button mapper, I got a headache on my last attempt at this though.


Calling all artists! There's a model already buried in the project:

This is from the OneButtonBandit game. Clean, simple, informs without distracting I like it. Who made it? Can you make more?

 

[MarkoeZ]

Sorry it's just a case of British English vs American English... lol.
For me, as a Brit, it makes more sense to say "Maths" as it is a truncation of the word Mathematics. It doesn't make much difference but I obviously have a British bias... you know, being English and all...

The British usage is always superior. h34r:

Lol, well i'm from the netherlands so i'm all if favor of Britain, it's just that most of the television series/movies shown here are American so my English tends to lean that way. Correct if you wish, it's not worth the effort for me

Edit: clarification

 

[TheBrainSquid]

2. If someone can provide me with nice button images, then it's possible. The less art assets I have to make myself keeps me coding instead. (I can make images, but it takes me way longer to get the results I want...) I also want to create a general Button mapper, I got a headache on my last attempt at this though.

If you want, I can make some button images. Just tell me what image type you prefer, how you want the buttons to look, what size you want them, and what letters or numbers the buttons should have on them and I'll do what I can.

 

[todd]

If you want, I can make some button images. Just tell me what image type you prefer, how you want the buttons to look, what size you want them, and what letters or numbers the buttons should have on them and I'll do what I can.

Personally, I thought that button from OneButtonBandit was perfect. It was shaped like the actual button, legible, demure colors:

What do we need?

A/B/X/Y
Up/Down/Left/Right arrows
Left shoulder, Right shoulder (differently shaped?)

That sounds like a good start!

 

[TheBrainSquid]

Okay, I just made the A,B,X,Y really quick to see how well you like them. Its not exactly the same as the picture you gave me to go off of, though I could probably make it that way if you strongly prefer it. Also, I think I might need to fix the top outline of them since I just freehanded it and I think it looks just slightly wrong, but I decided I'd save myself some time and see what you thought first.

EDIT
Also thought I'd ad that I can change any of the colors as well in case you want it more gray or whatever.

 

[MarkoeZ]

Major update on Double Nub Trouble

Now it's more of a game instead of a programming excercise But i can't seem to get the transparency right as you can see

Most important feature is that more birds are added. Also you will lose a second from the timer if you don't shoot 2 birds with one shot, that way forcing to use both nubs.

Ofcourse, timing will have to be adjusted to the nubs but that is a minor issue.

Also a question to the graphic artists out there, as you can see it looks crappy, i'm open to any target/background replacements as i "borrowed" the birds.

Cheers!

Edit: edit

 

[TheBrainSquid]

It looks like the layers have the wrong attributes to them for what you want. I don't know how programming the game works, and that probably isn't the reason its happening haha. If you can, send me the the images you used for the targets and birds and I'll try see why they're doing that.

 

[todd]

Okay, I just made the A,B,X,Y really quick to see how well you like them. Its not exactly the same as the picture you gave me to go off of, though I could probably make it that way if you strongly prefer it. Also, I think I might need to fix the top outline of them since I just freehanded it and I think it looks just slightly wrong, but I decided I'd save myself some time and see what you thought first.

This looks fabulous to me!

 

[TheBrainSquid]

Thank you ^^, I'll get started on the shoulder and arrow buttons then.

EDIT

Heres the rest

Here's a download for the folder of the PNGs as well as the PSD files (even though I kept the layers in the PNGs, but whatever.)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BWJZHY5W

Once again, the R and L buttons are bothering me and I'll fix them if you guys want me to.

 

[todd]

Heres the rest

These are awesome.

I'll try to write a simple little library for them. Something along the lines of "display(icon, position, duration)"? It might be nice to have a further effect to draw attention to them. Maybe not so dramatic as the whole thing blinking, but perhaps little motion lines around them, suggesting they're being pressed? Then I could flash the motion lines a couple times.

PokeParadox, what would be the cleanest way to make these available for use by all the minigames?

Two questions/comments on the icons themselves:

Re: the shoulder buttons, do they wrap around the corner of the case? I'm having trouble finding a render which shows this. If they did, that would provide a little more cue as to what they are. I think they look quite nice as they are. But I'm not sure they provide enough context to make the inexperienced viewer instantly think of those buttons. But that may be as good as it gets without drawing the whole device outline.

Re: the arrows, I have similar thoughts. Is that called the D-pad? It's halfway tempting to suggest circles (looking like the other buttons) with arrows inside, just like the letters. That would look nice and continue to communicate that we're talking about a button here. The consistency would be good. But the render I did find of the Pandora showed a single button in the shape of a plus sign. I'm not sure where to go with that.

But these look great: thanks! A busy weekend is planned, but I'm going to have to try to carve out some time for this.

--Todd

 

[TheBrainSquid]

The fourth image of the original design of the Pandora on the official site makes it seem as though the shoulder buttons just barely start to wrap around the corners. I really couldn't think of anything else so I just used what I normally saw in DS and Playstation games since those use similar shapes. I could change them to say "LB" and "RB" so that it makes more sense to think of it as the shoulder buttons rather than the keyboard.

As for the D-Pad, I couldn't think of anything other than the arrows. I can redo them as a circular button with arrows on them if you'd like, just let me know.

 

[mali]

Re: the shoulder buttons, do they wrap around the corner of the case? I'm having trouble finding a render which shows this.

The shoulder buttons are quite large and wrap around the corner. I don't know where to search for that render, though. The info is off my head.

Edit:
I've found it:
http://forum.openpandora.org/viewtopic.php?p=8424#p8424

 

[todd]

The shoulder buttons are quite large and wrap around the corner. I don't know where to search for that render, though. The info is off my head.

Edit:
I've found it:
http://forum.openpandora.org/viewtopic.php?p=8424#p8424



Nice find. Thanks, Mali!

I'm impressed & quite happy with the icons as they are. But if it's not too much trouble....

Maybe the shoulder buttons could have a little hook at the outside? Sort of like a side-ways capital "L" With the hook on the right for the right button and the hook on the left for the left. And I would probably stick to "L" and "R" for the labels.

For the D-pad arrows... I am quite ignorant of modern games with all these new-fangled buttons. The Atari 2600 was my only console. So I don't really have any idea of how to make it any more obvious. We'll leave it go unless someone comes up with something better.

Thanks again, TheBrainSquid. This is great stuff.


---------------------

Off topic but tangentially related: This image: http://openpandora.org/bigone.jpg shows:

• one D-pad
• one set of four buttons (A/B/X/Y)
• one nub
• a second nub!

Please save me from my ignorance. Why are there THREE directional controllers? How doe the nubs differ from the D-pad and why are there two nubs?

 

[PokeParadox]

Wow everyone is busy when I am working in the pub!

Now it's more of a game instead of a programming excercise But i can't seem to get the transparency right as you can see

I think this problem will be fixed with the next update, don't worry about your transparency being broken right now! (more info on my devblog)

Heres the rest

These are awesome.

I'll try to write a simple little library for them. Something along the lines of "display(icon, position, duration)"? It might be nice to have a further effect to draw attention to them. Maybe not so dramatic as the whole thing blinking, but perhaps little motion lines around them, suggesting they're being pressed? Then I could flash the motion lines a couple times.

PokeParadox, what would be the cleanest way to make these available for use by all the minigames?

I concur, they are most awesome!

Well that gives me one less thing to do then I'll of course help out if needed. If you inherit the Image class you can load all the buttons as a tilesheet rather than individually.

Hmmm to make it accessible to each MiniGame... it would have to be included in the BaseState... although that's not a Pandora/PandoraPanic! specific class so that's not good. I think if you create a lib then we can just include it in the relevent states that require it... unless there are any better ideas. hmmm.

Please save me from my ignorance. Why are there THREE directional controllers? How doe the nubs differ from the D-pad and why are there two nubs?

I suspect their main use will be emulation... although two analogue controllers are useful for 3D games applications.
Dpad are the best for 2D, although Yoshi's Story used the Analogue stick well on the N64.
nubs differs from the dpad by being analogue it means you can run left faster the further you push the nub left.
Dpad is simply on or off.

 

[Miggles]

Calling all artists! There's a model already buried in the project:

This is from the OneButtonBandit game. Clean, simple, informs without distracting I like it. Who made it? Can you make more?

I stole it from a render of the DS Lite.

I didn't even do a good job with the drop shadow on it.

 

[PokeParadox]

Eeep... it's a good job we are getting replacements then... lol

 

[TheBrainSquid]

I didn't make the hooks too radical, they're actually barely there, but the images do give a better sense of which button they're trying to convey now. I just used the same image with the same small canvas so I there wasn't much room for the hooks anyways. If you want the hooks more present, I can always do so, I did them like this partly out of laziness.

EDIT
On the topic of the 3 different direction inputs, I assume its because it makes the device have a more modern console controller feel and it really helps for games. Console FPS's tend to use the dual analogue sticks (which really helps with the lack of a mouse and keyboard) while the D-pad is used to change weapons or something similar. Then there's the fact that the D-pad is strong preference for some people while playing certain types of games like Tekken while the analogue sticks are more useful for other games like a 3D platformer.

 

[todd]

TheBrainSquid: Thanks. Those are looking pretty good. I'll try to put some code together this weekend & we can tidy things up more later if need be.

Well that gives me one less thing to do then I'll of course help out if needed. If you inherit the Image class you can load all the buttons as a tilesheet rather than individually.

Looking at Image.cpp, I'm guessing here that a tilesheet is a single png holding all the images? Each image is held in a rectangle the same size as all the others. And they are displayed simply by clipping that image. Do I have it, more or less?

Will there be any problems displaying more than one symbol at a time?

I'm assuming if I figure out how to make my tilesheet with a transparent background, that will function appropriately.

That doesn't sound too hard.

Hmmm to make it accessible to each MiniGame... it would have to be included in the BaseState... although that's not a Pandora/PandoraPanic! specific class so that's not good. I think if you create a lib then we can just include it in the relevent states that require it... unless there are any better ideas. hmmm.

That makes sense. If I can just #include "ButtomPrompts.h" in my class and use it, that would be easy enough.

--Todd

 

[TheBrainSquid]

Thanks again, I'm happy to help.

I forgot about the arrows, did you want me to try something else and see what we like more? I also forgot about the "pressing effects", were you asking me about those? lol. I don't have an animation program, I used to have flash but that was on my old PC and I never really got into it. I could just make alternate versions of the buttons that are a medium shade of gray and it could flash between the two images. Other than that, I'm not really sure how you could do it or how the motion lines would work (I'm not able to visualize what you mean).