Shiny White Walls

After sitting at the computer, coding something which should have already been built into the engine, I finally got the objects in each spool working. AND, I even have screen shots this time ;-)

My first test time....a little disappointing. The only visible blocks were the pink null blocks (created in code for testing) and the stone block (loaded straight from image, no processing was done).

Then after looking through the code, I found the problem. Each panel which was getting new coloring was using the wrong transparency. It was using the blue channel (which is at 0) instead of the green one (which was at 200).

But, something was still missing. Last time I ran the program, The first non-end spool was lit up. I have no clue how this happened, so I just lit up the whole spool. (so I could at least see the images better).

Closer to what I was looking for, and shows that each test is indeed generating random spools in random colors.....but the panels still don't have have transparency :-(. So, I looked through the code, did some research to make sure the generated colors were using transparency, and scratched my head a lot. Then it clicked, I need to set each object's setTransparency(x) to something. Yea, I know its weird, since the image has transparency and it's loaded into the engine with transparency.

What is happening is that although the image is transparent, the object it is on isn't. So, I have to make the object transparent. Anyway, IT WORKED.

Because the spool is now (hub sides, block backs, block sides, and block front), I have more range of control of the block images. For example, you can now see the inner sides of each block AND the block's back :-D.

Using a previous picture to show my point. Looking at the top of the lit up "B", you can see the block side, but what your actually seeing is the block above it's side. Look at the right of the lit up "B" block, and it has no white side, just goes straight through and picks up color from the next spool's side (depressing and primitive).

Now that I FINALLY have a generatable blocks.....I get to tackle that massive and massively overdue todo list. But at least I get to look at some pretty blocks while doing it :-).

= Todo (in no particular order) =

- Look for code of how to save each panel's generated bitmap on the device so the panels won't need to be generated each time (and hope that it won't hog too much space).
 - Update the xml parser to recognize when it needs to loop over the same object multiple times to include each color combination.
 - Add action data to the block (and incorporate it into the user's left/right swipe to allow/disallow movement)
 - Code up a level generator (which will also tell each block which panel it will be using)
-+ using a scheme like in Minecraft, using numbers and letters
 - Scrolling left/right will fade in new menu items and out-fade the old
-+ and add more menus 
- Fix the lighting problem on the blocks (so only the current block and it's neighbors light up, like in the previous release).
- Implement my camera idea
- Fix the spool rotation and sliding
- Make the menu item text more diverse to distinguish which item is the current item
- Add sounds effects/ music. This will be added last though, because it's the lowest priority.