michiel | 12 years ago | 18 comments | 6 likes | 8.7K views
liuyongcai, stcyhood, misterbrains and 3 others like this!
Here's how you can create solid Scrabble tiles falling onto your board.
Trick is to:
-use a scrabble font
-combining the SOLID and HOLES text styles (3rd dropdowns below the textbox)
-using the FIXED SPACE composition (1st dropdown below the textbox) for easy layout
After attaching a border to my text layer (by pressing the ATTACH BORDER TO ACTIVE LAYER... button) I have switched the styles of the 2 text layers to SOLID and INVERTED.
I have used the FLEXIBILITY property to make the tiles drop one after the other. This way I only need a single text layer.
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Hi Michiel,
Super und Klasse. sinus300
sinus300, 12 years ago
Thanks. I had that tilez font already. But somehow when I first ran your show it substituted Arial Black, which confused me for a while.
Anyway, with that now sorted, I don't see how to change the letters to my own choice. For example, if I add a new line 'ABC' below yours, everything gets displaced by HALF a row.
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
Oops, meant to add a screenshot.
terrypin, 12 years ago
You can set the position of a text layer with the POSITION property.
This property can be selected with the dropdown listbox above the 3 sliders. The 1st slider controls the horizontal, the 2nd the vertical and the 3rd slider the depth position.
You probably have to move the 2nd slider a bit.
This show is using the FLEXIBILITY propery. It works best temporarily setting the 1st slider of this property to 0 before adjusting any other property.
michiel, 12 years ago
It seems that if the number of rows is kep to an EVEN number, then the positioning is maintained correctly. But if I use an ODD number then I get that displacement. And trying to correct that with the Position property messes up all the other letters.
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
Our posts crossed. I'll see if temporarily removing Flexibility fixes the problem of odd rows.
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
Well, yes, it did fix it in principle, but I'm now finding it hard to get a good result when I add Flexibility back into the mix. In this example I've added an extra word 'OO', so that 15 rows are now being used. But as you see, my best attempt slows down at the end.
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
Why doesn't that link in my last post (which is to a .BT show file) PLAY the show, instead of displaying the file's text content?
Or, how do I insert a 'Play Show' button, as you did?
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
Your link plays your show nicely without any trouble.
You have to delete the 2nd key of layer 4 and move the last key to the position of the deleted key.
michiel, 12 years ago
"Your link plays your show nicely without any trouble.."
Not here it doesn't! I use Firefox, is that the issue? Just tried IE and that offered me option to Save or Open, and the latter worked fine. FF just immediately displays source code.
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
That is reproducible. Chrome, Safari and Opera have the same problem. Only IE offers you the option to open the file.
Not sure why. Maybe it's a server setting of dropbox that IE ignores. The PLAY SHOW button works in all browsers.
As a workaround you can copy the link and paste it into the address bar of BluffTitler. Or save the file and open it in BluffTitler.
michiel, 12 years ago
I'm outside my know-how level but I suspect this could be a problem with the BT servers not correctly configuring the MIME types. See this page on 'Properly Configuring Server MIME Types':`
developer.mozilla.org...
Also, on a Mozilla page I read:
"Unable to set an automatic action
In some cases, you may not be able to set an automatic download action. This can occur when a misconfigured web server assigns an incorrect MIME type, such as "application/octet-stream" or if the server assigns "Content-Disposition: attachment" to the file download. When this happens, the option to always perform the same action will either be "grayed-out" or, in Firefox, selecting the "Do this automatically" option will not seem to have an effect and you will again be asked what to do when you next encounter that file type (see below for related bug reports). There is little you can do in these cases because the problem is at the server end."
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
Michiel:
Returning to the main subject...
My original 2D show included the initial board arrangement and the rack of pieces to be added, with only THOSE then being animated. So I've used my version for the immediate project, an insert for my son's birthday card. That also has the advantage of using a board like those we play on, and an identical rack (it's from a photo).
But as a learning exercise (and for future similar cards!) hopfully I'll eventually be able to develop your 3D version to include those extra features.
One other outstanding point: exactly how do I upload a show and get the 'Play Show' button as in your posts please?
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Terry, East Grinstead, UK
terrypin, 12 years ago
It's enough to add a link ending on .bt so you did the right thing. The button won't say "play show", but it does exactly the same. It is probably the dropbox server that is sending the wrong MIME type (and IE ignoring this)
michiel, 12 years ago
That's a very nice effect. Though I'm confused by the presence of the "TW/TL/DL" fields.
But then I don't play scrabble :)
Per, 12 years ago
TW = Triple Word Score
TL = Triple Letter Score
DL = Double Letter Score
IBMedia, 12 years ago
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About michiel
Michiel den Outer is the founder and lead coder of Outerspace Software. He lives in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
If he isn't busy improving BluffTitler, he is playing the piano or rides the Dutch dikes on his bikes.
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