Call to coders Tim McSweeny, NickyNick, etc. Is it possible?

[McGinge]

Hey everyone!! I dont know if anyone else gets this problem but I was wondering whether its possible to produce a fast forward and rewind function for AR. On the latest A contest by Overlord, the whole solution takes about 30 seconds, so trying to tweak a catcher is a nightmare. I was just wondering whether its possible to code and intergrate a media player style interface for AR, or if its way too complicated...

Thanks for any help!!!

[Ikerous]

I don't code much but that definitely sounds impossible :P

[McGinge]

Really? Damn thats a shame... Anyone else reckon its do-able??

[NickyNick]

It is not that unreal because it is possible to create AR Speedup version. Anyway, I would never do it because I'm way bad in assembler and it looks like very hard work.
It might be possible to do with source code of AR on the hands

[McGinge]

Hint hint Peter Stock

[gamma57]

It seems that this would be impossible on the physics grounds alone.
There are many levels that are perfectly tweaked, but when you change the level boundaries, it changes the dynamics of the whole system.

So you really couldnt use a "save state", because anything you might tweak at the end of your solution will affect the beginning in some small way. Chaos Thoery/Butterfly effect

Here is the fast foreward tool though.
http://armadillo.metaclassofnil.com/for ... light=fast

[McGinge]

no gamma i dont mean to alter stuff during the solution!! i mean fast forward the simulation so that you could watch it any point like you would a film.

[JustcallmeDrago]

i can't imagine why this would be impossible. judging by the way AR plays, it could be pretty easy. this is hard for me to explain in paragraph form, so here are bullets

some processing power is spent on rendering. cut that out, the physics engine can process each "frame" quicker.

just because it can process quicker doesn't mean the simulation will go faster. it will just go smoother on slow comps. if it AR is run on a fast comp like this, it will run the same speed (fps) but the comp will have more time it's not working.

this means you have to increase the fps proportionally to the veloctiy of everything. for example, if AR usually runs 60 fps and at the beginning dillo is going 5 feet per 1/60th second, you would have to make him go 10 feet per 1/60 second at 120 fps

why double the speed when the fps is doubled? if you didn't, AR would check dillos position at double the frequency, so dillo's position would be checked twice every 1/60th of a second, so dillo would really be checked every 2.5 feet at each frame. that means that if in 1/60 of a second, dillo moved from one side to another of a metal piece the physics wouldn't catch any contact, but if it ran at 1/120th, dillo would be caught and the original physics would be broken. double all velocities and the problem would be fixed.
the |'s are points in time where physics would be done (1 frame)
the X's are armadillos position at that point.
the ^ is the metal bar

|-----| <<< at 1/60 contact isn't caught.
X.....X
. ^

|--|--| at 1/120, contact is caught and physics are changed
X X X
. ^

|--|--| at 1/120th & 2x velocity, contact is not caught (normal) and physics is unchanged
X.....X.....X
. ^

[McGinge]

wow drago; you know your stuff!!! would it be possible for YOU to do it?

[JustcallmeDrago]

maybe. if i had the source code.

then i would:


wow i tried to explain it but its a pain! lol i think it could actually be easier done than explained


but really, i'm not all that experienced. i can understand the flow of a game, a little physics, and i can multiply and divide by 2.

I'm just lucky i was the first one who posted it.

[McGinge]

ha! well you know more than i do!! i've said this before; nearly everyone here has some kind of knowledge to do with programming or coding except me!! Was AR adveritised in Coders Weekly or something???

[NickyNick]

Yeah that's all correct Drago, you've got the point
We need person who is good with assembler to provide all these things in life. I don't think it that it is impossible to switch off rendering; and then we can use the same way as in AR Speedup.

[JustcallmeDrago]

Coders Monthly.

JK. I have no idea but I learned of it when my friend learned about it when HIS friend bought it, etc...

but, heh, you should check out AutoHotKey. It's a really nice scripting engine. You can write simple scripts then run them straight off and AHK will semi-compile it and debug it at runtime!

For example, you can make a script to open AR when you press Win+q:

-------code starts here

#persistent ; comment
#q::Run C:/[your filepath here]/ArmadilloRun.exe

-----end of code

the semicolon denotes a comment and #persistent keeps the script running until you tell it to stop (via its system tray icon)

the # denotes the windows key as a modifier and "#q::" is a hotkey that when pressed, will do whatever is on the right side of it. you can still use "q" normally.

easy, huh? 2 lines of code!

[McGinge]

Thats just garble to a retard to me!!

[Ikerous]

When I said impossible I assumed no one had the source code
If you had the source code it'd actually be quite simple.