I am an educational content developer converting traditional lessons and materials into online activities. I make videos showing these materials being moved around a table or board, and need a way for them to practice at home.
In the past, I've just made each card/etc on a Google Slide and set it up for kids to manipulate, but that can lead accidentally stretching or deleting something (or just playing around).
What I need:
Import images.
Set one image as background
Set other images as cards that can be clicked and dragged on background.
Ideally, set specific areas where different card can be placed.
Place starting cards in stacks (ideally, either in specific order or shuffled)
Return cards to original stacks with one click.
Ideally, cards on which users can write their own text and/or import picture.
What is the easiest way to achieve this?
Stencyl seems totally capable but can do more so the tutorials aren't focused on something so simple. Dulst is built for cards specifically, but it seems more oriented to a Pokemon-style attack-your-enemy's-cards game.
Related
Before I get shot down on this one, I realize that the 'how' answer for this question might be slightly debatable, however I'm more interested in the 'what'.
In a nut shell I want to know which methods I can use to interact with a PC video game interface. I want to create a program that can extract data from a video game market interface.
My first initial thought was that I would need to programmatically take screen shots and then use some Optical Character Recognition software to extract the text. Then run whatever operation on the extracted text to derive my incites.
Then I was thinking it might just be easier to have a bunch of mini screen shots that I just use to find matches on certain sections of the screen. When a match is found, I would then know what the text is on the screen, without having to actually 'extract' it.
For those out there whom have done this, can you point me in one direction or the other? Perhaps there is a method that I am completely unaware of.
If its the case that this question is not suitable for this forum. It would be much appreciated if you could direct me elsewhere.
Edit: I should probably add that I'm not looking to spend a fortune on this project... so any free software would be the best. Perhaps that's a tall order.
I'm starting to think Sikuli is the direction I'm going to go. Open Source image recognition software, integrates with Python, Ruby, Java, JDBC, JavaScript and more.
-- Expanding on the question --
There are basically 3 categories of tools:
Recorder while you manually work along your workflow, a recorder tracks your mouse and keyboard actions. After stopping the recording, you might playback (autorun your worflow). The recordings can usually be edited and augmented with additional features.
GUI aware the tool allows to programmatically operate on GUI elements like buttons. This is based on the knowledge of internal structures and names of the GUI elements and their features. Some of these tools also have a recording feature.
Visually the tool “sees” images (usually retangular pixel areas) on the screen and allows to act on these images using mouse and keyboard simulation. There might be some recorder feture as well with such a tool.
SikuliX belongs to the 3rd category and currently does not have a recorder feature.
Answer in progress...
In games with moddable UIs, like many MMOs, you could create a mod that streams data through a series of black and white squares that could be read with optical sensors. From there, a microcontroller could deliver the data back to the PC via USB or wifi.
My approach as a noob. First determine if OCR 100% needed, I think this plays a role in speed.
if possible:
-run game in window (allows for trouble shooting and easy troubleshooting)
-is there a high contrast option for game? Will help Sikuli find things
then you plan out your scenarios:
You have to create different functions for different situations. A lot of gaming is "do you see this?" Then "do this" until that is gone.
Start with small parts you want to automate then build on them. Making sure your parts can scale in case small change need to happen, they will. For instance you want to open the menu if you see an object, lets say a tree.
Assume you have some sort of walking algorithm.
setROI(region1) #focus here for tree
if exists(tRee):
click(loCation) #you could hit the shortcut key to opening the menu
click(iTem) #if the item moves in the menu then you may need to scroll to find it first or you can change the ROI and start seeing if sikuli can differentiate your item from one you dont want to click.
You would get that to loop into other actions and proceed. Goodluck.
I want to show some image in a flash. When I click an image, the image is up as like as image shown below.
when i click the image:
but the problem is when i click the image in that group, there is a gap between images. I want to attach them. I can not solve the problem. please anybody help me to solve the problem.
If you're using Flex, this is fairly trivial. You set the cards in an HGroup (calculating the gap will be difficult, but not impossible) and simply remove selected cards from that group and place them in another. After the card is removed, your other cards will be realigned by the layout automatically.
If you're not using Flex, I suggest extracting the code you used to layout the cards in the first place into a separate function. When a card is selected, you move the card out of the DisplayObjectContainer it is currently in and place it in another and then simply call the layout function again. This is the same method as I would use with Flex, although a little less automated due to the lack of Flex's layout engine.
A few days ago I've explored geomaps and, however, it turned out to be easy to change the properties of the elements.
But I have two questions:
I'd like to add rivers and forests on the maps. So Ive considered to set a background image instead of the geomaps figure. But I can't find a way to get this one fixed. Is there a way to set a background picture for a country or region?
How can I change the shape of the "bubbles" when you select a city e.g. "London"? I'd like to change it to a square.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Unfortunately what you're looking for is not available in geocharts in their current implementation.
Using a background image is possible in the sense that you can use CSS to make all shapes in the map transparent, and use a background image in the div to make it appear as if the little circles are being drawn on a map with forest and rivers, but you will run in to two big hurdles:
Your map will need to be identical in size/layout to the Google Maps SVG
If Google ever changes the SVG they use (or the view/projection they use) you will need to edit yours too
This isn't ideal, obviously. You could work around it by creating custom javascript to write rivers and forests on your map, but that is going to be a huge headache (especially if you are using multiple maps/views).
As for the circles, you can't change them to squares without hacking the actual SVG in the background with javascript. While this is definitely possible (if you're really good with SVG/Javascript), it again isn't using any of the fancy features of geocharts, and is more just a custom solution that will have to be updated if/when google updates their API.
Rather than doing it that way, you may want to look in to the same implementation on google maps itself. That will allow you to use custom markers, draw custom shapes, etc. with a lot more flexibility (and a much more stable API).
I tried to sign up, but I was unable; perhaps a problem from my side. Hopefully I'll get an answer as anonymous.
I apologize for the grammar/syntax, but English isn't my native language.
Recently I lost my job, so I have enough spare time to try something fun. I decided to create a simple text RPG game for me and some friends. It will very close to the board games like Talisman, Dungeon Run, and HeroQuest, using dice and a simple attribute/skill system. So no 3d graphics. The only 2d element, if I decide to include it, will be a map
that will allow the hero to move between locations. Currently I'm using Windows XP SP3, for the game I use wxDev-C++, and although cross platform would be cool, I don't really care.
I have some experience in C++ (currently using wxDev-C++), but I'm far from being called an expert or even a great programmer. I was about to start writing parts of the code, but I decided to check if creating a GUI for the game is possible. In some forums, many suggested I use Qt, CEGUI or wxWidgets, but most examples I saw are grey boxes that are
indifferent at best, when I want something that fits better in a fantasy setting. I don't claim I would do better, but I want a GUI that is more fantasy related.
What I want from the GUI:
1. A "cool" Gui with decent graphics. I could even create an image to serve as a mask in Photoshop, but the GUI builder will have to support imported images.
2. A relatively large textbox in the middle (with a scrollbar) that will display die rolls, damage and options.
3. The ability to display dynamically values (like the change in the health after each action without requiring to refresh manually)
4. Display an icon or a small image of the character in the area where I display stats/abilities.
5. Open new windows created with tha same GUI builder to allocate points, buy/sell things and open a map.
About the map in the game: I decided to create a map in photoshop. When the hero decides to move to another location, a new window will open showing the map. I thought of 2 possible ways to move between locations: 1) Create hotspots on the image and select one by clicking on the name of the location.(I dare not think about the complexity of this so we
move to idea #2) and 2) Have the image as a backgroung to a grid with vertical and horizontal coordinates. When the hero selects a new area to visit, he clicks on the area, but what he really does is click on the grid, which returns the two values (x,y) of the location and informs the game about the area the hero wants to visit.
Yeah, yeah, I know it's too much, so what I'm most interested in are the 1-3. I know that even if they are possible, it will propably take forever, but as I said I have spare time, and I like learning new things. I apologize for the size of the post, but I decided to post as many info as possible so you know what I want.
If any of you has used Qt, CEGUI or wxWidgets could you tell which covers most of my criteria? I saw some great stuff build with CEGUI, but I don't know if it is too hard to learn?
Thank in advance.
I know my answer comes pretty late, I only recently started using stackoverflow fairly recently, but maybe this response will help anybody.
CEGUI fully supports skinning widgets using XML. Our CEED editor (WYSIWYG) fully supports layout editing, but the skinning editor (LNF editor) is not finished as of now (11.11.2014), the development version supports exchanging images however and changing sizes and proportions, but more advanced adjustments have to be done in XML.
CEGUI has an imageset editor, fully supported by the CEED editor. Creating imagesets (sets of named subimages, with position and dimension inside a big texture atlas) is supported there. Additionally there is a way to create imagesets from just a bunch of jpg/png/... files using a tool. You would have to ask for specifics in the forum though because it is not integrated into CEED yet.
So basically with CEGUI you are free to make whatever fantasy GUI you want. Skinning simple elements like buttons and progress bars isn't much work in XML anyways. Without the finished editor, some more advanced widgets are more work to skin, but many skins have already been created done this way and some of them are even publically available in the forum and in the CEGUI stock files.
StaticText widgets supports what you want, you can even use images in there or change fonts and colours in the text if you want. Scrollbars are supported too.
I am not sure what you mean by this. You have to specify this.
A simple "Generic/Image" widget is available in CEGUI for this purpose. You can use precreated images or even RTT textures.
You can create and destroy windows in CEGUI without issues.
Regarding the map: I m not sure what you mean, but getting the position of a click in respect to an image (representing the map) is possible in CEGUI.
CEGUI is not particularly hard to learn. There is always the forums and the chat if you got questions. For an Open Source project it is quite well documented so if you read all of the API docu, and look at the supplied samples in the sample browser, you should already get quite far. And for everything additional there is the forum (search), the IRC chat and a community wiki (mind the targeted versions of an article there though)
For a project like yours, CEGUI seems perfectly suited (this is what it was created for in the first place). Qt is not really optimal for games for numerous reasons. wxWidgets I have never used.
I would like to loop through a sequence of images. I have tried using a Pivot control, but I don't like the blank space in between image transitions. I would prefer to use something that will animate between images smoothly. I also looked at the LoopingSelector control, but I can't seem to set the orientation to horizontal.
I'm assuming you're interested in a kind of image viewer like iOS offers, swiping right or left to navigate through the photos. If that's the case, I hate to say it but i think you're looking at building your own control.
I think to implement it properly these are the essential things you need to think about and address:
For performance' sake, load all the images you have into memorystream objects and store the binary data (you can get creative with this and only store the first 10-15 images, depending on how large the images are, doing this would enable your control to support thousands of images and still perform like a champ).
Once an image is about to be on-screen set the source of the image to the saved memorystream object that has the bytes loaded into it (this will minimize the work that the UI thread does, keeping the control performant and responsive)
Use Manipulation events to track the delta x of the motion someone uses when swiping left to right in order to actually perform the moving of the items
Move the images by changing their Canvas.Left property (you can go negative I think, otherwise just make your canvas the width of all the images you have combined)
Look up some of the available libraries to support momentum so you can have a natural smooth transition between images