Can anybody tell me what they are looking at?

(Yes, it's a mess... it's a test skin... and yes, the effects are intentional)

For those interested, the skin file (Right-click, Save As)

hmm, seems like transparency on text(not sure if thats new), Angle's on picture's/vids, some new image resizing or something? how does the image angle's work? Hmm, what does the different variables on the image skew do? (Z, tu...) it also seems as though you can set conditions depending on what section your in. like having certain things light up when youre in apps, or games or whatnot.

QUOTE (ub312g0d @ Jan 6 2004, 11:06 PM)

hmm, seems like transparency on text(not sure if thats new), Angle's on picture's/vids, some new image resizing or something? how does the image angle's work? will you have to set each corner's xy co-ordinates?

Close.... it's "ZPoints" X, Y, Z, and Normal plus Texture placement on 4 points, instead of a normal position.

I had the idea stuck in my head tonight, so I put it into practice. The twisted image above is really two image gadgets, using different ZPoint sets.

You create a named set of points, then use those in the element. elements can share ZPoint sets (needed when I get a tweening modifier for smooth scroll of an element, textured onto a quad moving in 3-D space.

Any eta on when alpha masking will be enabled? That(aside from 3d skinning) is the feature im most looking foward to in the future. The image skewing must be good for something...

QUOTE (ub312g0d @ Jan 6 2004, 11:15 PM)

Any eta on when alpha masking will be enabled? That(aside from 3d skinning) is the feature im most looking foward to in the future. The image skewing must be good for something...

Well, technically, it's not just skewing, it's moving all four corners in 3-D... if I add a tweening modifier tied to the smooth-scroll ticker, you'll be able to move text elements and image elements around in 3-D (think about it for a moment).

As for alpha masking, I really need to bang on the rendering stuff for that... I'm always scanning for information on how it might be done. It should be simple - but I'm thinking I'll have to write a pixel shader to do it (something new for me) if I can find a standard set of operators to do it. It's low priority compared to the other things I'm doing for the new release. .7 will be 'significant' - and the skins will add some impressive capabilities. I might also dabble with 3-D objects.

damn awesome! i see you have the previously mentioned pinwheel menu working too.. very nice!

what are the 1 2 3 4 5 for?

QUOTE

The image skewing must be good for something...

What if you had a kick ass layout with a tv in it (think the RING skin) but the TV was at a slant, so much that you couldnt create a skin with it because the perspective would look all FU.

thats what makes it incredibly delicious.

Nice! I can imagine the possibilities.. That new menu feature can make skins look more 3d and it looks like u could probably use it to look like the ms dash. Could those point modifiers (skew) also be used on preview vids, and text? I was just thinking of a skin that could use that feature. Oh, and do u have an ETA for the public release?

OOOOHHHH!!! ZPoints!!! And that pinwheel menu looks awesome!

To add to KF's question, why is it that Futuram is selected but Conflict Desert Storm is the preview vid?

geniusalz better quit playing tetris and get hot on some dx programming, gonna be hard for MXM Skinner to keep up.

QUOTE (koldfuzion @ Jan 6 2004, 11:25 PM)

damn awesome! i see you have the previously mentioned pinwheel menu working too.. very nice! what are the 1 2 3 4 5 for? QUOTE The image skewing must be good for something... What if you had a kick ass layout with a tv in it (think the RING skin) but the TV was at a slant, so much that you couldnt create a skin with it because the perspective would look all FU. thats what makes it incredibly delicious.

The 1 2 3 4 5 is using conditionals to enable/disable a numeric selection based on the displayed values.

Basically, it's possible to make a custom menu/skin combo, for example, that features hotspot-type selection.

The pinwheel arrangement are text fields using offsets into what's selected. There is also no stop on either end - the menu cycles from bottom to top and vice-versa.

The ZPoints need to be calculated, if shifting through the "Z" values... but that should be a trivial exercise for somebody who knows what they are doing. My example isn't too careful about handling that, thus the ugly placement and skewing.

QUOTE (DBZRacer @ Jan 7 2004, 02:21 AM)

OOOOHHHH!!! ZPoints!!! And that pinwheel menu looks awesome! To add to KF's question, why is it that Futuram is selected but Conflict Desert Storm is the preview vid?

That's because it's using an offset value to show the "previous" preview video.

The "WIP" has the ability to do a CIRKULAR-type menu layout in a more direct manner.

QUOTE (fLEx7325 @ Jan 7 2004, 02:10 AM)

Nice! I can imagine the possibilities.. That new menu feature can make skins look more 3d and it looks like u could probably use it to look like the ms dash. Could those point modifiers (skew) also be used on preview vids, and text? I was just thinking of a skin that could use that feature. Oh, and do u have an ETA for the public release?

Yes, I have ZPoints working on image elements (which means static or video), and I'll also add the capability to text elements and maybe even the menu. Once the "tween" modifier is in place, you'll be able to create very sophisticated pseudo-menu blocks using text fields, though...


As for an ETA, well, I have to finish the System UI, Plug-In system, and remove the need for MXM.xml in "Dash mode" (user will edit all settings from the system menu) before it goes "public"

Oh wow, where have I been? Tweening is good, actually, great. I always wanted that. 3d is good too

KF: I actually was looking over some directx stuff recently to use in skinner, but right now I don't have anything figured out.
MY motivation was the awful slowness of alpha-blended PNG files, that can have a much higher framerate using directx. Also, I'd be able to do semitransparent boxes and such.

Yeah, and if you know anyone that can do directx in vb (or even c++, as long as they make an activex object out of it), refer them to this thread

I'll post an update to MXM tonight, probably, with the ZPoints capability.

I wished I had time to get on those ActiveX components for you, geniusalz... I really want to get the FontBundler stuff moved out of the "illegal" status and into a nice cohesive tool.

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Jan 7 2004, 02:16 PM)

I'll post an update to MXM tonight, probably, with the ZPoints capability.

I cant wait for this. 3d skins sounds dank

QUOTE (MrSelfDestruct @ Jan 7 2004, 11:58 AM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Jan 7 2004, 02:16 PM) I'll post an update to MXM tonight, probably, with the ZPoints capability. I cant wait for this. 3d skins sounds dank

I'm tweaking the "ZPoints" concept a hair.... you'll be able to tell MXM what the primitive type is (such as a triangle list, or fan) and make more complex "objects" - just make sure you get the mappings correct. So you'll be able to wrap textures around fairly complex objects. How I go about handling them with modifiers... well, that's anubody's guess.

I'll have to play around with the modifier stuff, for now, the easiest will be a tweener, which merely maps, point-for-point between two sets (no mismatches - if you are using the QUADLIST ZPoint set as the bas, you must use the same for a destination) given a value between 1.0 and -1.0 (0.0 represents the "base" location). As you scroll back and forth, during the smooth scroll process, I'll adjust the tweener number.

I may also allow a "source" (other than the smooth-scroll period) for the tweener, just to make it generic, and later allow you to put it on a timer, causing an object to move between points, for example. Dunno... I'm sure when I get it in, somebody will figure out ways to do crazy $hit with it.

For smooth-scrolling 3-D animation in menus, you'd set up a tweener modifier with two sets of Z-Points - the Previous item location and the next item location, for each item displayed... set the source as the menuscroller, and for end items, you might have to get creative (actually, you could shift the texture mapping - the last two numbers in the ZPoint)


For those who know the math, you can do some wild things. Each "Z Point" is 6 values:

X (0-640), Y (0-480), Z (0-1.0), Normal (-1 to 1), TextureU (0 to 1), TextureV (0 to 1)

Normals can be changed to warp the image's appearance. The textureU is like the "X" of the texture (V is the "Y") and you can adjust those values to slide things around. Quads are defined in a clockwise manner (Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Right, Bottom Left).

I'll try a preview video tonight, when I get home, to make sure that still works fine.

Custom animated menus are great. Can't wait.

Cirkular remix very high on my todo list. (Maybe I'll make it low resource so it can be included with MXM)

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Jan 7 2004, 01:29 PM)

Custom animated menus are great. Can't wait. Cirkular remix very high on my todo list. (Maybe I'll make it low resource so it can be included with MXM)

I liked the thought in Circular, but when I went to use it, it was really slow and seemed buggy... as it didn't accept my menu selections about 20% of the time, tryed it on both my xboxes and got the same results... it was difficult to navigate as well... as it only seemed to accept left and right on the game controller instead of the standard up and down... I'm not dissing your skin genuisalz... when I saw the screen shots of it.. I wanted to use it as my main skin.. but then I was disappointed by the troubles that I had with the above mentioned... I have used other skins that really slowed down the box, other wise great skins, just too resource hungry...

QUOTE (yourwishismine @ Jan 7 2004, 02:25 PM)

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Jan 7 2004, 01:29 PM) Custom animated menus are great.  Can't wait. Cirkular remix very high on my todo list.  (Maybe I'll make it low resource so it can be included with MXM) I liked the thought in Circular, but when I went to use it, it was really slow and seemed buggy... as it didn't accept my menu selections about 20% of the time, tryed it on both my xboxes and got the same results... it was difficult to navigate as well... as it only seemed to accept left and right on the game controller instead of the standard up and down... I'm not dissing your skin genuisalz... when I saw the screen shots of it.. I wanted to use it as my main skin.. but then I was disappointed by the troubles that I had with the above mentioned... I have used other skins that really slowed down the box, other wise great skins, just too resource hungry...

Well, to defened geniusalz on the left/right thing... I think that was the intention there. Some people like the "horizontal" navigation for menus. The option is for horizontal or vertical... not both (though I could add that, as confusing as it might be for some.).

QUOTE (yourwishismine @ Jan 7 2004, 03:25 PM)

it didn't accept my menu selections about 20% of the time, tryed it on both my xboxes and got the same results...

Not accept menu selections as in ignore the keypresses? Don't know why it would do that. It worked for me 100%

The skin had no video in the main layout (besides the preview vid). I guess the problem could be that I was using 2 fullscrees alpha png's instead of just one overlay. But that should never be a problem.
Speed was fine on my xbox.

One problem was that it didn't show folder icons properly, so I had to remove them from the smaller thumbnails. However, the new version of MXM supports multiple thumbnails without having to create multiple menu elements, so that will be fixed.

I can't wait to see all the crazy stuff that comes for this.....It's going to be sweet!

I should probably qualify my earlier statement, BTW... the update tonight will be a "WIP" binaries update, not a public release.

(Of course, that depends on how late I have to work tonight, since we are in crisis mode ATM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Jan 7 2004, 01:41 PM)

(Of course, that depends on how late I have to work tonight, since we are in crisis mode ATM)

Since when does work not revolve around crisis modes?

QUOTE (DBZRacer @ Jan 7 2004, 04:52 PM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Jan 7 2004, 01:41 PM) (Of course, that depends on how late I have to work tonight, since we are in crisis mode ATM) Since when does work not revolve around crisis modes?

Well, the thing is, I'd be home right now, except we have to call Japan - thus the late work day... but hopefully we can resolve some issues.

OK, I've updated the "WIP" binaries with the new "ZPoints" stuff, including the "Tweener"

New screenshot (Updated - "Refresh"if you don't see Godzilla)



Yes, those are warped videos.

and the MXM_Skin.xml used....

Look at it for an example of how to do the ZPoints and Tweener modifiers. I basically created a layout in Corel Draw, rotating my blocks, then exported as a 640x480 jpg, and used the pixel positions for each corner to position the text element ZPoints.

The tweener is a bit crude at the moment. I am considering expanding it to allow multiple "tweens" - Instead of A -> B, you might have A -> B -> C -> D, but the tweening looked good enough in my test.

That's some extreme stuff your doing there, BJ. Really great.

Maybe I should talk to you more (but not before I reach my goal) . Keep up the good work.

This is OT and please pardon me, but anyways, I'm thinking of some ways to add a new the menu layout in UnleashX. There are two things I'm looking at: 1) Horizontal (due to requests) and 2) Fix points. Number 1 is easy enough but Number 2 is what I'm very keen on doing and been giving a thougt for a while. Basically, the user (thru skinning of course), will provide a series of coordinates for each menu item (X, Y and Width only, no Z-Points ). The items will be displayed using these coordinates, instead of being listed down vertically or horizontally. This will give the user the capability to have several columns, rounded or even V-shaped layout for the menus or like the menu in DVD movies. Now, I don't know how your DVD mode or CDI (or was it XDI? I beg your pardon) mode works, but if it was something similar or even the same, I'd like you to know in advance that I'm planning to do this (too) and hope that you don't get offended or anything. The "dev scene" is a little bit shaky right now and I don't wanna rock the boat a little further. Please tell me what you think.

The placing of menu items anywhere is in mxm allready the circular one is just an example of it

QUOTE

<Layout Screen="Menu">   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="-2">   <TextColor>0xA8FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="117" T="126" W="101" H="32"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="-1">   <TextColor>0xD4FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="126" T="151" W="132" H="27"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle">   <TextColor>0xFFFFFF00</TextColor>   <Pos L="136" T="183" W="183" H="52"/>   <IsMenu Wrapped="true" Horizontal="false">true</IsMenu>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="1">   <TextColor>0xD4FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="123" T="210" W="186" H="32"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="2">   <TextColor>0xA8FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="107" T="238" W="205" H="52"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="3">   <TextColor>0x7FFFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="79" T="252" W="339" H="63"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="-3">   <TextColor>0x7FFFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="85" T="109" W="170" H="20"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="-4">   <TextColor>0x54FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="59" T="126" W="131" H="19"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="4">   <TextColor>0x54FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="57" T="236" W="142" H="32"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="5">   <TextColor>0x29FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="48" T="211" W="104" H="22"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Text" Source="CGTitle" Section="-5">   <TextColor>0x29FFFFFF</TextColor>   <Pos L="41" T="149" W="100" H="23"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Image" Source="GameIconP">   <Scaling X="True" Y="True"/>   <Pos L="360" T="150" W="40" H="33"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Image" Source="GameIcon">   <Scaling X="True" Y="True"/>   <Pos L="374" T="192" W="46" H="35"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Image" Source="GameIconN">   <Scaling X="True" Y="True"/>   <Pos L="363" T="231" W="45" H="34"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Image" Source="PreviewMediaP">   <Scaling X="True" Y="True"/>   <Pos L="380" T="12" W="135" H="97"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Image" Source="PreviewMedia">   <Scaling X="True" Y="True"/>   <Pos L="462" T="155" W="141" H="107"/>   </LayoutElement>   <LayoutElement Type="Image" Source="PreviewMediaN">   <Scaling X="True" Y="True"/>   <Pos L="398" T="287" W="144" H="116"/>   </LayoutElement> </Layout> </

Oh I see, thanks Jezz_X, but nonetheless, I wanted BenJeremy to know.

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Jan 7 2004, 11:35 PM)

OK, I've updated the "WIP" binaries with the new "ZPoints" stuff, including the "Tweener" New screenshot (Updated - "Refresh"if you don't see Godzilla) Yes, those are warped videos. and the MXM_Skin.xml used.... Look at it for an example of how to do the ZPoints and Tweener modifiers. I basically created a layout in Corel Draw, rotating my blocks, then exported as a 640x480 jpg, and used the pixel positions for each corner to position the text element ZPoints. The tweener is a bit crude at the moment. I am considering expanding it to allow multiple "tweens" -  Instead of A -> B, you might have A -> B -> C -> D, but the tweening looked good enough in my test.

cool!

I tried it out, and it looks good. However, there is a little problem with text being horizontally compressed. Here's what I mean

When you start MXM, the text is fine.

When you go to an item with long text, it gets horizontally compressed (expected)

However, when you go back to the short text it also gets compressed (not expected)

This really is amazing.

A few suggestions:
-Allow a tween speed modifier
-Tween for the color tag as well
-Easing options

-Most important IMO, the ability to define MXM to wait for an animation to complete before starting the new one. Animation could be speeded up by using the shift key in realtime. I'm saying this because the current system looks amazing when you scroll one at a time, but holding the directional button down just kills the effect.

Again, thanks for an amazing dash, and continuous dedication to make it even better

QUOTE (unleashx @ Jan 7 2004, 11:13 PM)

That's some extreme stuff your doing there, BJ. Really great. Maybe I should talk to you more (but not before I reach my goal) . Keep up the good work. This is OT and please pardon me, but anyways, I'm thinking of some ways to add a new the menu layout in UnleashX. There are two things I'm looking at: 1) Horizontal (due to requests) and 2) Fix points. Number 1 is easy enough but Number 2 is what I'm very keen on doing and been giving a thougt for a while. Basically, the user (thru skinning of course), will provide a series of coordinates for each menu item (X, Y and Width only, no Z-Points ). The items will be displayed using these coordinates, instead of being listed down vertically or horizontally. This will give the user the capability to have several columns, rounded or even V-shaped layout for the menus or like the menu in DVD movies. Now, I don't know how your DVD mode or CDI (or was it XDI? I beg your pardon) mode works, but if it was something similar or even the same, I'd like you to know in advance that I'm planning to do this (too) and hope that you don't get offended or anything. The "dev scene" is a little bit shaky right now and I don't wanna rock the boat a little further. Please tell me what you think.

OK... "DVD-R" mode is basically just intended to force MXM to optimize for DVD operations. XDI mode is a compatibility mode to work with the old CPX MenuX created menus, so MXM can simply replace the menux xbe. They don't really effect skinning all that much, but alter some things to give priority for the skinner, since in all likelyhood, the skins were selected to go with the collection of games or programs on a DVD-R.

As for the "free form" menus and such, I'm using the "gadget strings" AKA text elements, to display the information. By adding the ability to use offset information in the skin, I can internally change the text to match a menu item to be displayed. The nice thing about XML is that you can "add" to your specification fairly easily. In this case, we are unhooked from a normal menu block (the logic for running it is not completely tied to the menu block in the app).

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Jan 8 2004, 04:37 AM)

This really is amazing. A few suggestions: -Allow a tween speed modifier -Tween for the color tag as well -Easing options -Most important IMO, the ability to define MXM to wait for an animation to complete before starting the new one. Animation could be speeded up by using the shift key in realtime. I'm saying this because the current system looks amazing when you scroll one at a time, but holding the directional button down just kills the effect. Again, thanks for an amazing dash, and continuous dedication to make it even better

The tween is currently based on a fixed value, 500ms, which will be adjustable soon. It's tied into the main system, to keep the tween value constant among all elements using it.

Color is one I hadn't thought of. I will look at adding that.... I was going to add an Opacity value to the ZPoints, too.

Easing Options?

On the issue of waiting for the animations to complete - yes, I thought about that last night. I will fix it so if the tween is in progress, it will not start a new one (unless the direction is different). Some tweeking in the special case of changing direction, though.


The text issue is another thing I will look at. I have an idea what might be happening there.

Oh.... I also forget to add the tweener to the image element. I'll throw that in tonight, depending on what time I finish work (another conference call to Japan)

Easing as in accelerating/decelerating tweens (a la Macromedia Flash)
Its a neat effect.

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Jan 8 2004, 05:54 AM)

Easing as in accelerating/decelerating tweens (a la Macromedia Flash) Its a neat effect.

Ahh... so as I go between 0.0 and 1.0, the number would change as it approached either end? OK, I'll think about that one.

Does anybody have a handy function to take a time period value between 0.0 and 1.0 and return an "eased" tween value such as this graph displays:

Well, Flash does only one of easing in or out, (lets you specify which one, and the amount of easing)
But both can also work together

(Note that was geniusalz 666th post)


Now, can somebody give me the quicky formulas for each of these?

I could probably work it out myself, but that might take some time... what I'm looking for is a simple C function I can call like so:

float CalculateEasedTween( float fValue, int iStyle ) // Where 0=neither (returns fValue), 1=Ease In, 2=Ease Out and 3=Ease both


Any takers?

Oh... and when I get some more "tweening" sources (such as periodic timers), I can do some much nicer scrolling text fields.

i have some tweening scripts i worked on in flash...im not sure if you could use those or not...

QUOTE

yspeed = .2; yfriction = .1; ygravity = .8; yweight = .10; ythrust = 1.4; ygoal = 130; xgoal = 23; yspeed = yspeed*yfriction+(ygoal-_y)*ygravity*yweight*ythrust; _y += yspeed; yspeed = yspeed*yfriction+(xgoal-_x)*ygravity*yweight*ythrust; _x += yspeed;

QUOTE (crobar @ Jan 8 2004, 01:19 PM)

i have some tweening scripts i worked on in flash...im not sure if you could use those or not... QUOTE yspeed = .2; yfriction = .1; ygravity = .8; yweight = .10; ythrust = 1.4; ygoal = 130; xgoal = 23; yspeed = yspeed*yfriction+(ygoal-_y)*ygravity*yweight*ythrust; _y += yspeed; yspeed = yspeed*yfriction+(xgoal-_x)*ygravity*yweight*ythrust; _x += yspeed;

I appreciate it... but that's awfully complicated (as if the underlying stuff isn't alreayd complicated ).

I'm just looking for a function that takes a value form 0.0 to 1.0 and spits outa value from 0.0 to 1.0, with the "ease" factor built in. Nothing specific really required on the "ease factor" - any arbitrary value should do there.

Oh... and the text changing size is an expected result, due to the scaling/proportional modes defaulted to.

Try doing a scale in "Y" and proportional, which should force a specific size on the text element's image texture. This should probably be the default when using ZPoints... The pos tag is still used, BTW, just for size purposes, though.

I am also looking at relative operations on a set of ZPoints... so you can use one set, for example, and translate them or rotate them for different elements. So you'd put the ZPoints in an element like so:

<ZPoints XYRot="30.0" RCX="100" RCY="100">SomeSet</ZPoints>

That would rotate the points around the X,Y plane with 100,100 being the "center" to rotate around.

No, I don't have it in yet... I have to work out the math (rattling around in my head somewhere). Translate will be in there tonight, though.

These operations are a one-time thing; they create a copy of the named set, then perform the operation on them. I might expand the capability in the future, though.

Also, remember, you can create rather complex object using ZPoint sets... just declare "primitivetype" in the set followed by however many points (or more correctly, vertices) make up your object.

primitivetype values:

QuadStrip

QuadList (Default, sets of 4 vertices for each quad)

PointList (Not terribly useful for textured elements)

LineList (See previous)

LineLoop (Ditto)

LineStrip (Seeing a pattern here?)

TriangleList (OK, back to goodies... 3 vertices per triangle)

TriangleStrip

TriangleFan (No, not TriangleMan, who beat up Particle Man)

Polygon (To be honest, I don't know where this works, since the XDK doco is very dense about it, other than to say it can't be used anywhere)

You can also put in Opacity into the ZPoint... I'm going to play with that tonight.

The Tweener will tween opacity and colors, as well. Color only affects the font's main text color, and color modifiers will work as well (Before tweening).


For my fanned menu item example above, I might create one set of ZPoints, and when I name them in the elements, I give the rotation values to make them splay out like they do.

I will also look at ZPointing and tweening the box and line elements.

If I allow dynamic rotation and transformation, I will have modifiers to handle that. Perhaps we'll have a spinning orb or cube? It's real close, at any rate.

I may even consider importing 3-D models, but not in this release.

Phew... hopefully, work on the eye candy will be mostly done by tomorrow night, and I can get the UI hammered out (swing by the Actionscripting forum to check out the white papers on the other two things I'll complete for the next public release as part of the FileManager enhancements)

CODE

float CalculateEasedTween( float fValue, int iStyle ) {  if(iStyle == 0)    return fValue;  else if(iStyle == 1)    return pow(fValue, 2);  else if(iStyle == 2)    return 1 - (pow (1 - fValue, 2));  else if(iStyle == 3)    if(fValue<0.5)      return 2 * pow(fValue,2);    else      return 1 - (2 * pow(1 - fValue, 2));  else    return 0; }

They do plot right, tell me if they work right as well

Cool. When I get home tonight I'll give it all a shot.

Tweener modifier options:

<Modifier Type="Tweener">
<Prev>SomeZPoint</Prev>
<Next>SomeOtherZPoint</Next>
<NextColor>0x00000000</NextColor> (Fade into black oblivion?)
<PrevColor>0xFFFFFFFFF</PrevColor> (Fade into burning whiteness?)
<Source>MenuScroll</Source>
<Period>1000</Period> (This will be the same as setting MenuScroll in <Periods> of skin)
<Ease>both</Ease>
</Modifier>

Of course, the comments would not be in your skin file....

Options for "Ease":

None (Default)

In

Out

Both

Options for "Source":

MenuScroll
Attached to menu up/down

Periodic
Moves between source and Next ZPoint set on cyclical period 0 -> 1

ReversePeriodic
Moves between Next and source ZPoint set on cyclical period 1 -> 0

CylonEye
Moves back and forth between Next and source ZPoint set on cyclical period 0 -> 1 -> 0 -> 1 and so forth.

One interesting idea I had was to create a simulation of the NYC Times Square "Zipper" - having the newsfeed zip around a corner of a building....

Modified version with specifiable 'ease' (damping) factor (0-1)

CODE

float CalculateEasedTween( float fValue, int iStyle, float fFactor ) {  float fFactor2 = fFactor * 3 + 1;    if(iStyle == 0)    return fValue;  else if(iStyle == 1)    return pow(fValue, fFactor2);  else if(iStyle == 2)    return 1 - (pow (1 - fValue, fFactor2));  else if(iStyle == 3)  {    float fMultiplier = 0.5 / pow(0.5, fFactor2);    if(fValue<0.5)      return fMultiplier * pow(fValue, fFactor2);    else      return 1 - (fMultiplier * pow(1 - fValue, fFactor2));  }  else    return 0; }

Little test:



EDIT: The styles actually are 0,1,2,3 but I don't feel like changing it

And the other function was the equivalent of a 0.33 factor

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Jan 8 2004, 06:27 PM)

CylonEye Moves back and forth between Next and source ZPoint set on cyclical period 0 -> 1 -> 0 -> 1 and so forth.

, couldn't you just call it cycle or something?

QUOTE (geniusalz @ Jan 8 2004, 06:07 PM)

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Jan 8 2004, 06:27 PM) CylonEye   Moves back and forth between Next and source ZPoint set on cyclical period 0 -> 1 -> 0 -> 1 and so forth. , couldn't you just call it cycle or something?

By your command! I'll change it to K.I.T.T.




I'll add the ease factor when I get home. Just got off my conference call, but I need to wait for some files to be e-mailed here at work (I'll be at another location in the morning)

:::sigh:::

Well, didn't fix the text resizing issue, but give the latest "WIP" a whirl, as I've posted it.

Opacity isn't functional yet, but color should be working (so for text, you could use that to alter the opacity)