continued_at_new_forum The Wingnut Chronicles

[Wingnut]

thx!  (Jaskar and the team FOUND the bug.. wasn't my fault.)  (yay).  Good job on the bug-find, docs team!  I think they're adding even more PG search "tweaks", too.  I think the "search in code" field is getting advanced power... by wrapping search term in double-double quotes.  (I just heard something about that... when I was hiding in the bushes, sneak-listening.) 

Yep, that's right kids.  FOUR quotes!   A search-for "".obj"" performed well at finding .obj-loading playgrounds.  Perhaps we should include some "helpful search tips" in the blank lower area of our PG searcher page.

Hey @Jaskar/team.  When you are in there hacking on the playground searcher... could you please put search term BACK INTO search field when the results return? 

This is especially important if we do a typo in the search field, and thus get no returns.  We want to easily fix the typo and try the search again.  Could you do that?  Set searchInCodeInput.value = lastSearchTerm... when ANY search-in-code ends? 

That would be cool.  Only do it if wise/plausible, and not voted-down by others.  thx.

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

On a different subject, it seems arcRotate cams have failed in the playgrounds.  Choose Version:  "stable", then they "orbit" okay.  Choose Version "latest", and they won't orbit.   Debug party!!!     There must be some "hot dev" happening... and that's exciting!  I wonder what's being invented.

[Jaskar]

Hi @Wingnut ,

 

As you say, wasn't one of your playgrounds.

I don't know why but the Playground save create some strange bugs sometimes 

 

Concerning your request, I'll take a look at it 

[Wingnut]

Thx "Jaz"!  Was it illegal chars?  Badly formatted JSON? 

A rumor I heard on "back-channel chatter" reported it was caused by https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/indexstable#295H7U#112 

I don't know who built it, but it is pretty fancy, code-wise.  ActiveX and XmlHttpRequest stuff... somebody was trying to take over the world. 

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

On another subject, @Deltakosh was able to find/fix MY MISTAKES in https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#XCPP9Y#303 ... YAY! 

(How embarrassing for me... two totally Wingnut-preventable copy/paste errors.  Sigh!!!  Sometimes I am SO STUPID!!!) 

Thanks for the help/eyes/time, Deltakosh!

The PG is a @Mezzorio-related project for displaying key/value, where the key and value can have individual fonts/colors (key and value NOT in same control's text).

It uses a master "papapanel" stackpanel, which contains two "column" stackpanels.  Papapanel has .isVertical = false, and the two contained panels (panel and panel_b)... remain in their default .isVertical = true state.  Workin' nice, now.  Thanks again, DK!   Totally tripendicular!  (What the hell is a tripendicular?) 

Hey, did ya notice that @Jaskar (and team) was able to put search term back into in-code-search field, after failed or successful playground searches?  A GREAT feature for when I make a typo in the search term, and get 0-results due to the typo.    Thanks guys!  A wonderful tweak, imho.

[Wingnut]

Hi girls.  New PG from Wingy...  https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#14S7SO#3

Radar scope v0.1.  Play and make new saves, share urls, comment about it, have fun.

I've gotten zero other work done, around the forum.  Upper Michigan got some surprise snow, and it had to be dealt-with.  ALL of our trick-or-treat Halloween kids... will be wearing snow boots under those costumes, this year.    The jack-o-lanterns are asking for TWO candles this year... just to keep warm.

It is a real wet snow, too, and my poor snowblower was grunting and bitching about being used as a Slushy dispenser.  The ground isn't frozen yet, so the skids were hooking on grass and driveway gravel... beating the hell out of poor Wingy's body and stamina.  And this was a mere TWO DAYS after raking, loading and hauling-away 18 contractor bags full of wet leafs!

And then having to do a Halloween party with the band, standing for 4 hours, with an 8 LB bass guitar around my neck!  DAMN, I'm SUCH a victim!  I'm SO abused! 

I'm a bit worried about all the BJS shadow issues.  I wish I could help with that, but, not sure how.  I wonder if there's any chance that easier/better shadows... are coming with new webGL versions.  I hope so, but... I'm not holding my breath.  There's lots of considerations that affect shadows.  I hope hardware can help us, too, in the next gen of puters.  Party on!

[GameMonetize]

Can you be more specific regarding shadow issues?

I try to add as much as I can in the doc to help

[Wingnut]

Hi.  No, I really can't get specific.  It just seems users need to tweak lots of knobs.... to get the shadows to act tolerable.

Well, we have the @CHIMAIRA issue, and the @eljuko issue

The latter is solved, I guess.  We'll see.  I get the feeling that users have to "fight with" shadows.  It feels like it lost its "easy", somehow.  *shrug*

Maybe I'm the only one who feels it... ignore me at-will. 

[GameMonetize]

Shadows are over-complicated by essence, We reduced the complexity a lot but not to a point where you could just say: turn shadow on .

We need more info to compute shadows correctly unfortunately

[Raggar]

I think shadows have the right balance between complexity and ease-of-use.

It does take a bit of tweaking to get right, but this depends on the scene, shadowmap-size, objects etc. My first approach was to let the light follow the character mesh. This allowed some very detailed and realistic shadows. Currently I've turned away from this approach to have a static light and worse shadows. I prefer this way, as the shadows are still add some depth to the scene. normally, I'd think the first approach would be preferred due to performance, at least in WebGL/BabylonJS. After all, how often do you need detailed shadows outside the camera's view.

[RaananW]

Is that you with the guitar in your picture? (Am I off topic? )

 

[Wingnut]

No concerns over topics, here, as you know. 

Yep, that's me.  I play bass with a 3 piece called Lake Effect, which I am trying to get out of.    It's too much work, especially in the winter.  The drummer (and booker) Lou... would work every darned night, but the guitar players would be happy with once-per-month. 

I'm almost 60... and my muscles and bones ache a lot.  (and look how LITTLE gear we use.  Sad, eh?  I'm getting old/lazy.)

I think if I sit during the gigs, I can keep going for a few more years.  But, hmm... gigging sort of lost its fun-levels, somehow, for me.  It turned into a part time job, and I don't really look-forward to gigging anymore.  In fact I dread it.  Our drummer "rushes" quite a bit (unintentionally tries to speed up).  It is "work" to hold him back.  (Part of the dread of gigging.)

I also play 6-string, fiddle, and some keys.  If I could change to fiddle/keys/rhythm, I could stay seated, and do something "fresher" than playing bass.  Bass playing is BORING, so I often overplay (insert 600 notes where one note would be fine) (just like I do with words and forum posts, eh?)   

But, the band can't find a bass player that can get close to replacing me  (I'm just THAT good hehe).  Plus, we have quite a bit of 3-part harmony, and that would need to be rebuilt... if replacing me.  Generally, I cover the 5th beneath the melody, a rather difficult harmony (not easy to hear self in vocal monitors).

SO, the other two members keep begging me to stay in-band and on-bass.  It's a crappy situation, in a way.  We are pretty good... and in high-demand... considering we're living in a seriously economically-depressed area.  If I quit the band, I remove money from other musicians.  Not my problem, but, they are friends, so it IS my problem.

Maybe I just need a break (or a better drummer).  We've been booked real steady for the past year... about 3 weekends per month.  (we're weekends only).  And quality drummers are difficult to find in this small-town backwoods area.  Plus, our drummer is a good harmony singer, owns the band van, owns most of the gear, and is a booking fool.  He's also a sweetheart, but he has difficulty changing ANYTHING (habits).  SO, his rushing is not easily reparable.  But, replacing him would be a bad "hit", too.

Just think if I was playing 5 nights per week, like I did for awhile in South Dakota and Alaska.  I would REALLY be hating it by now. 

Country, fifties, southern rock, classic rock.  Been playing in bands since I was 19... so... that's about 500 gigs (after calc, more like 900 gigs), I guess.  Ouch!    Nice of you to ask, R.

[Vousk-prod.]

A better drummer can give you many good breaks, if you need some

Always funny to put faces to forum peoples.

[Wingnut]

Hey, I recently hacked-together this thing... http://playground.babylonjs.com/#6FHKHC

(It began as the cool PG built-in pointer-thing demo)

I hijacked freeCamera attachControl()... (stole it from BJS source, and moved it to playground).  I added a section in lines 63-65. 

FreeCameras don't normally use mouseWheel, but... WHAT IF?  Perhaps... should we permanently install lines 63 and 65, and then do something in line 64? 

I dunno what.

64  return (camera.onWheel ? camera.onWheel(p) : {});     // bad Wingnut-code warning

Would that afford us the option of user-adding an .onWheel(p) function... onto any freeCamera?  Thoughts?  Easier/better way?

Just Crazy Wingnut... thinkin' 'bout stuff... you know. 

[Wingnut]

Hi gang.  This is a forum software issue, so I am going to ping @rich and @Deltakosh.  (thx for time/work, guys!)

When objective is to prefix a topic as "solved"... thread-author edits the first post in thread, adding the 'solved' tag (+ perhaps a trailing comma). 

But notice that the option to set the tag as a PREFIX to thread title... does not activate until a comma is typed AFTER the first tag.

Users don't know that the "set tag as prefix" option... needs that trailing comma... to activate the "use-as-prefix" option.  Can we do something about that?

I think it would be nice to have a single-click option for "Prefix topic title with 'solved' tag."    It could happen without messing-with tags whatsoever.

Or perhaps, when user STARTS typing any tag, the "Prefix this topic-title with chosen tag" option... activates (no-need for trailing comma).

BEST idea (imho):  When viewing FIRST post in thread, and post.author == viewee,  then add "Mark as solved" choice in the author's "Options" menu.  Options menu is beside the Quote and Edit choices at bottom of posts.) 

Options menu seems to have room to grow.  Could have "Select forum CSS styles/theme", "Change this thread title", "Change your forum name"... all sorts of fun could be added in there. 

Any other ideas... welcome, of course.  Party on!

[Arte]

And user should be able to delete topic if no responses from other users.

[Wingnut]

Hi @Arte... good idea!   But we forum helpers don't allow many 0-replies to happen.  We pride ourselves in answering 0-reply threads within 1 week or less.    (in theory)

We could allow deleting topics if ONLY thread author responded, too.  (solved by self).  But that still removes a little information that other users might find helpful.  Still, author's choice is good.

Yep, yep, yep.  We could power-up the options menu.  Well, "we" couldn't, but SOME people know how.    I would be glad to donate some $$$ for needed work.

[Arte]

Yep @Wingnut.

That's what i mean "Solved by self" or created by mistake (like me) .

[adam]

I'm pretty sure you can delete your own thread by using the "hide" feature.  It might require that no one has responded to it, though.

[Wingnut]

Ok girls, today, I did a little more work on https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#PVA5YC#6

This PG is trying to "glean" or "harvest" code-lines from the playground editor.

Watch console.  I'm not doing any better than last time, but I cleaned-up the iteration code a bit.

You can use in-browser document inspectors to see how Monaco formats its HTML.  It's gruesome.  I'm "in" WAY over my head.    FUN!

Let's see... Monaco is a Microsoft property, and we have Microsoft people in "the hood".   hmm.

Wouldn't it be sweet... in PG...  $editor.getCodeLine(lineNumber) => { text: "entire line text", containerNode: html node that contains this entire line }

If THAT were possible... wellllll... wouldn't that be something, huh?    Wouldn't that be "the cat's meow"?  The Monaco hackers "portal"... an API for us demented folk. 

Need:  In creating playground-based tutorials, sometimes I need to CSS-style an entire line in the PG editor (color flash).  Also, sometimes I need the entire code-line TEXT... so I can use it in a Babylon GUI textBlock.  (and test DK's new JS pretty-print textBlock option/feature)  heh  ahem.

So, anyway, if somebody knew somebody who was somebody... then perhaps somebody could stop working-on this annoying playground project. 

PS:  I might ALSO need... $editor.scrollToLineNumber(number) 

[Wingnut]

Hi again.  Boy, I thought I'd get some bites on that one.  *sigh*

Moving-on.  There is a backroom project that I am helping-with...  where a BIG model has many single mesh parts (like a car).  The side-view mirrors (and all other parts) have a serious amount-of pivotPoint/origin offset.

The user/friend wants to "feature" and "isolate" any part on the car, including a side-view mirror.  (single part view)

Currently, we disable all car mesh, clone the side view mirror, and then... TRY to have a re-centered-on-actual-mesh pivot/origin on the clone.  We want to spin the picked/isolated mesh... and NOT wobble-around a severely-offset pivot/origin.

So, after the cloning, I call clone.makeGeometryUnique()... to sever all transform-ties to the master of the clone (make cloning == copying).  Without doing this, re-centering the clone's pivot/origin... will also affect the master's pivot/origin.  We can't allow this.  The original part must maintain its pivot/origin offset.

https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#RGZPJH#3

Can anyone get the red clone box/pivot... all centered-up and spinning symmetrically around a centered pivot point?  (Might be some kind of vertices-bake involved.)

Important note:  Although I manually-moved the master green box pivot/origin 4 units in line 21, within the project... I never know the distance/orientation of pivot/origin offset... that the part will have. 

SO... in line 21, the '4' could be ANY number (and in any axes).  I never know what values/axes are involved.  IF I DID know... then I could position the clone in the opposite transform, do a clone vert-bake, re-position to front'n'center of camera, and we have a good isolated clone-mesh.  That procedure would re-center its pivot/origin. 

IF I had a clone.getPivotMatrix()... then... hmm...

clone.position = clone.getPivotMatrix().getTranslation(clone.getPivotMatrix()).invert(); // I wish
clone.bakeCurrentTransformIntoVertices();
clone.position = nicely in front of camera
clone.spin(.01, .01, .01);

:)

We dispose() the clone after returning to full view.

Hey, thanks for any hints, help, solutions, hugs.  Quite a noob-like task, eh?  Yep, I'm getting stupider. 

[JCPalmer]

I must admit I do not understand how to use the pivot matrix.  Baking wise, if you were good with using the bounding box center, then:

1. getVerticeData of positions
2. add a for loop which subtracts the x, y, z from the value of center, incrementing by 3
3. updateVerticeData with the result

 

[adam]

Set the Pivot Matrix to Matrix.Identity.

https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#RGZPJH#5

 

[Wingnut]

HAHA... you ROCK, Adam.  Thanks... bunchezzz.

I just figged another way... using absolutePosition()...

https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#RGZPJH#6

But your way is niiiiice.  Phew.  Well done!

[Wingnut]

hmm... i still have some problems when doing that in-project, on the imported-from-max mesh.  hmm.  Testing.

I decided to take-on @Ridge Batty's animation blending issue... but first, I needed to learn about animation blending... so I went to the #2 demo listed at the Animation Blending section of the docs. 

Well I can't get the FPS label onclick to work very well, or at all.  I saved 171 more playgrounds, and still no luck.  (Just kidding.  I didn't make that many playgrounds before begging for ideas from fellow forumers.  I saved 2-3 versions).   

I thought, at first, that the FPS label was given a lower CSS z-Index than the "This PG has no meta data" line... and thus the FPS label was being blocked.  Nope.

I think I forgot how to code.  I don't think either of these animation blend demos... are working. (#2 or #174).  hmm.  That fps label is being SO unclickable, today (in FF).

Assistance welcome.  After I learn about Ani-blending, then maybe I can give RB some tolerable advice. 

[GameMonetize]

No worry this is my fault.

I removed the "clickability" of the FPS label as it was adding problems in specific configurations (like ios)

I set the "pointer-events" to none so if you need to click on it just reverse it like that:

https://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2BLI9T#174

 

I also fixed the PG as I changed the animation model a bit (introducing the runtimeAnimation) 

 

 

[Wingnut]

Thankya DK!

-----------

Ok, back to the latest lunar lander landing gear... http://playground.babylonjs.com/index.html#RLKVFF#63

Very messy PG, and about as exciting as watching old people eat.

Because of the initial position/rotation of the blue landing legs, and because the springs need some time to "unfold" those legs... I am attempting some "delayed gravity".

Work is happening in lines 74-86.  Assorted gravity killers are in lines 74/75.  Line 83 gravity killer is making scene.executeWhenReady... "hang".

Lines 77-79 should activate gravity after 20 seconds... but I see gravity active on my 1.0-mass green "handle"... well-before 20 seconds.  hmm.

Studying.  Wingnut mistake likely.    It just doesn't get much more exciting than this stuff!  (snore).

[ Wingnut proudly shows-off his new Forum Moderator certificate & shoulder patch. ]  I'm SOMEBODY!  YAY!  Now, whose user-name should we change for fun, first?