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Croquet Balls, sortof (a croquet game called Q)

You don't have to read all this. If you know Croquet, skip to the bottom and download the .st file. It makes a project called "Croquet-Q", and adds an icon "QPot" to the Croquet objects pallete.

The following is historical brainstorming -- It does not describe exactly what was built...

A few years ago in the basement of the Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg) in Paris (a modern art museum) there was an art exhibit with a computer screen in which a stream of incoming shapes could be deflected, reflected, twirled, tweaked, or frobulated in other ways by various objects that you instantiated by dragging them from a palette on the edge. It was fun to play with. Figuring out what each object did took a bit of experimenting, but the display quickly builds to a frenetic jumble of moving shapes as you try stuff out. This was all 2D. (I wish i had a reference to this. I know I wrote down the artist's name, but that was too long ago, during a vacation):

I'd like to do something similar to this in 3D using Croquet. <-- ( if that download is disabled, use this cache of the download --> http://yak.net/croquet/ )

Current limitations (Croquet0.3 a.k.a. Jasmine) are that TObjects must exist in the virtual images before multiple players connect to each other. [Wrong -- see Schwas's reply below] This can be arranged by pre-allocating all TObjects we might use, even if they are unmapped.

The state of the world is easy to describe, with the motion of all objects being described by a position at a starting TeaTime and a velocity.

Whatever change is made to a ball in motion when it passes through a frobbing object should be idempotent -- it doesn't matter many nodes change the moving ball's state to the new state, and any other nodes can receive the updated state from others without having to recalculate it.

The Croquet Avatar moves in 2D, but may manipulate objects in 3D. However the vision of the avatar is somewhat constrained, so most action should occur somewhat near the ground. There could be gravity, or the ceiling and walls could reflect, or wrap like a torus. Reflection off the ground and (if there is no gravity) probably the ceiling seems a good choice.

Of course we should try do to this with only subclassing existing classes.

(14:37:15) poet: they frobulated?
(14:37:37) poet: can you find out the artist
(14:37:40) poet: that made the display?
(14:37:48) frob: i have no idea how
(14:38:06) frob: search would be hard
(14:38:12) poet: yeah
(14:38:15) poet: you'd have to call them up
(14:38:16) poet: and ask
(14:38:18) frob: it was a minor exhibit -- a single computer or two, in the basement
(14:38:23) poet: ah

(14:40:13) gpig: what do i have to do to see this thing
(14:41:01) frob: download Croquet0.3 (a.k.a. Jasmine) for mac, win, or linux
(14:41:22) frob: read tutorials about how to use mouse
(14:42:23) frob: don't expect everything to work -- it's a "developer only release", so you have to learn a bit
(14:44:14) gpig: i'm not exactly sure what any of this is but it sounds interesting
(14:45:35) frob: please try it!
(14:46:51) frob: You must choose the "Croquet0.3.image" when you run the binary.  On linux, edit the last line of Croquet.sh to make it 0.3.
(14:48:13) frob: Then choose the "First Steps" tile, then the "Croquet" bubble, and DRAG the TeaTest or Teapot icon to the MIDDLE of your window.

Strick summarises Schwa's replies:


More:


Screenshots:

[Window width:   400   640   *800*   1024   1200   1600   ]
[Image size:   XS   *Small*   Medium   Large   ]

Try A Snapshot:

HOWTO download and run a snapshot:

Important Hints

More Hints for LINUX

OpenAL (3D Audio Library) To run the "OpenAL" Croquet demo (a toy helicopter buzzing around in circles), you need openAL driver and squeak plugins:

Snapshots of my "Q game":

In the Croquet part of the Objects palette, run QPot. See class comment (the [?] button) in class QPot for bugs & hints.

Bug Fix for Unix

CDROM Released by Strick at PhreakNIC9 Conference

Ryan's fix. Apply this to Strick's Q-game and the collisions will be recalculated when you change a carpet's possition.


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    This page is referenced by the following pages:
    Croquet Screenshots