goldenXcode / thelements

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atmosphere options #81

Open GoogleCodeExporter opened 9 years ago

GoogleCodeExporter commented 9 years ago
From what the wiki has on the atmosphere framework
 heat; //The temperature of the surroundings 
gravity; //-1 - 1, the multiplier for fall speed 
borderTop; //Whether elements can fall through the top 
borderLeft;// ... left borderBottom;// ... bottom 
borderRight;// ... right 
name; //The name given to the atmosphere 
red, green, blue; //The RGB color of the background, this color is then applied 
to the eraser

It appears that gravity alteration could be added as a simple slider in the 
atmosphere options tab.
A cool UI for this could be based around the planets of our solar system (or a 
galaxy far far away) 

It would be nice if the atmosphere temperatures reflected reality more closely, 
water freezes at above 32 and boils below 212 (though water does evaporate 
below that point so it is not as vital as the lower end) . A more advanced UI 
for that section would be nice as well. Perhaps a scale above the slider based 
upon water. Below 32 wouldst be a picture of ice, between 32 and 212 a picture 
of water and above 212 steam.  Perhaps above that a fire symbol that indicates 
the point at which common flammable materials (wood, c4 a d stone) melt or 
spontaniously combust.

If the atmosphere indeed has a name variable it would be nice to save 
atmosphere files as the sliders are hard to position correctly. In the same 
respect several example files could be chosen from, the standard freezing, 
cold, cool, normal, warm, hot, boiling, flaming. But also ones derived from 
planets such as Pluto, as cold as it gets and with low gravity, mercury, hot as 
it gets with low gravity, or Jupiter, moderately warm with very high gravity. 
Perhaps Hoth or yavin for Pluto and Jupiter respectively if fun is to be had.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by Dan.corrigan222@gmail.com on 22 Jul 2012 at 5:59

GoogleCodeExporter commented 9 years ago
Thanks for this detailed suggestion! To address your comments in order:
- We were planning to put in gravity alteration, but higher gravity causes 
problems with our current system (you'll notice this if you turn the fall 
velocity of a particle higher also). This is something we want to fix before 
adding in the gravity option.
- We definitely would love to add in some better skinning and UI features to 
the app, but don't really have the bandwidth or the expertise for that right 
now. If we ever do expand the team, that's something we plan to look into.
- Having a more standard temperature scale would be nice, but we did choose to 
go with 0-255 for the reason of optimization (it fits in 1 byte). If we manage 
to clean up our memory usage elsewhere (or phones get significantly better) 
changes temperature scales is something we may consider. It is a pretty low 
priority change for us right now though. Re: UI, the above comment also applies.
- We did in fact plan to have saving atmospheres be a feature in the 
application (if you browse the sdcard, you'll notice the "thelements" folder 
has three folders under it -- saves, elements, and atmospheres). Expanding out 
the entire atmosphere section of the app is something that we will probably 
focus on at some point, but not for a bit. For now we're keep our attention on 
stability and Custom Elements. Having pre-made atmospheres with relatable names 
is a cool idea, and when we do focus on atmosphere systems we'll probably work 
on creating a few like you mentioned. 

Original comment by GurtejKanwar@gmail.com on 24 Jul 2012 at 3:54