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-- S.K.E. Manual --
*General Informations
Command Line Shell
SKE is based on a command line shell, which is de/activated pressing the
ESC key. It is possible to issue any command available in SKE by using the
shell, but for ease of usage the normal user would use the Graphical User
Interface instead. However what the GUI does is to compose a text command and
issuing it to the shell: in fact it is always possible to look to the commands
issued and to its responses in the command line shell.
Application Modes
SKE has 3 basic running mode:
1-EDITING MODE: before starting a mission, in this mode it is possible to
create the world for the mission and set the missions parameters (path,
lanmdmarks, and so forth); you will see the text "EDITING" in the bottom left
when in this mode.
2-MISSION MODE: when a mission is running; you will see either "MISSION STARTING..."
and "MISSION ENDED" resp. at the very start and at the end of the mission.
3-REPLAY_MODE: when a replay is being reviewed; you will see the "REPLAY" text in
the bottom left.
To track the current state, just look to the text that appears in the bottom-left
of the screen.
Viewing Camera States
The viewing camera has two different states:
1-FIRST PERSON VIEWING: see the world thru the subject's eyes;
2-THIRD PERSON VIEWING: the viewpoint points towards the subject;
You could move the camera using the arrow keys (or the joystick if any),
rotate it using the Ins, Home, PgUp to rotate around X, Y, Z
axis, holding down the SHIFT key to invert the rotation's versus.
To zoom in press +, to zoom out press SHIFT and +.
Using the Mouse to Edit the World
The mouse has four states identified by the mouse pointer shape:
1-ARROW is the normal state: you could use the Graphical User Interface and
place a wall in the world;
2-TARGETING is used to translate landmarks, lights or the subject: hold on
the target and move the mouse around to translate it;
3-ROTATING is used to rotate the landmark and the subject: hold pressed on
it and move the mouse up and down to rotate;
4-STICK is used when creating a path: click the mouse to put a point of
the path in the actual stick's position.
To switch the current mouse state, just click on the right mouse button: each
time you click, its shape (i.e. its state) will change accordingly.
*Graphical user interface
The Main Dialog Window: "SKE"
Press F2 bring up or to hide the dialog window whose title is "SKE". Thru
this dialog it is possible to set all the configuration settings
available in SKE. The window has six tab controls: "Player Configuration",
"SKE Configuration", "Landmark", "Level", "Mission", "Path",
"Lighting". Generally speaking, the three buttons at the bottom of the
dialog are meant to discard all changes (CANCEL), commit and dismiss the
dialog (OK), commit the changes (APPLY) but not dismiss the dialog.
An explanation for the content of each tab control follows.
"Player configuration"
It is possible to to set some properties the subject walking the virtual
world can have.
HEIGHT is the height of the eyes from the ground;
FOV ANGLE is the field of view of the player in degree angles;
FOV WIDTH is the width of the field of view measured in pixels;
MAX SPEED is the maximum speed the subject could walk (meters/seconds);
ACCEL is the acceleration the subject has (meters/(seconds*seconds));
FRICTION is a pure number: higher its value higher the friction onto
the ground.
POSITION is the position of the subject in the world, expressed only
in X and Z coordinate, since the Y is always 0 meaning his feets stands
on the ground.
ANGLE is the angle around the Y axis the subject looks towards to.
Here follows the explanation about the management (save/load/destroy) of a
position, which express a POSITION and an ANGLE. A position is loaded, saved
and deleted always by name: in fact each saved position must have an unique name.
-LOAD button: select in the listbox the position to be loaded, then press LOAD
to load the selected position;
-SAVE button: type a name in the textbox, then click it to save the current
position;
-DESTROY button: select in the listbox the position to be destroyed, then
press it;
"SKE Configuration"
These are the general settings of SKE.
"Put a light onto the head of the player" is not enabled.
Check "Draw skybox" to draw or not the skybox.
You could select "Use a skybox with landscape" to display a landscape as
the skybox, otherwise select "Use a skybox with just the sun" to have a
blue sky with the sun accordingly to the current hour defined in the textbox
labeled "SkyBox time".
Chose "Show Clouds" if you like to see some clouds moving across the sky.
Check "Use joystick" to use a joystick instead of the arrow kyes for the
subject movements.
Check "Use DynaVis culler" to use an alternative geometry culler instead of
the default one. Choose the one is faster on your hardware.
Check "Draw Terrain" to draw a terrain.
Check "Debug Mode" only if you are a developer.
Set the Red Green Blue values for the ambient static/dynamic light in the
relatives textboxes.
"Landmark"
This dialog allows the editing of the landmarks in the world.
Select on the listbox on the left side the landmark to be created, then
click on "Create Landmark". The list on the right displays all the landmark
already created in the world. To destroy a landmark, just sleect it on the
right listbox, then click the proper button.
To modify a property of a landmark, select it in the right listbox, then
modify the values displayed in the textboxes labeled as
"Position", "Size in meters" and in the listbox below showing the materials,
then click "OK" or APPLY" button.
To save the landmarks already present in the world, just type a name in the
textbox and press "Save". To load/destroy a previously saved landmarks list,
select its name in the listbox and press "Load"/"Destroy".
"Level"
This dialog permits the editing of the world. The world has a fixed size:
you could create from scratch a new world by typing a width (SIZE X) and a
length (SIZE Z) and then clicking on "Create New Map".
You could place a wall selecting the shape of the wall and then clicking in
the map where you want to place it. Each time you click again the wall will
be rotated by 90 degree. Once the world has been constructed, you could
"Save" it typing its name in the textbox. To load or destroy an old saved
world, just select it and click the proper button.
"Mission"
This dialog represents the core features of this application. A mission
is a task a subject have to accomplish to. There are four types of
missions:
1-Free walking: this mission allow the subject to walk freely in the world.
This type of mission has an optional parameter: the amount of time, which
when passed the mission expires. The time parameter is provided in the
"Minutes" textbox. If the time is not provided there is not a time limit.
2-Not free walking: this is a passive navigation: in fact the subject is
dragged along a path, which is a mandatory parameter of this mission. The
path used is the one currently shown in the world.
3-Find the target: in this mission the task of the subject is to reach a
target. There could be two ties: a maximum allowed time (textbox
called "Minutes") after which the mission terminates, and a path to be
follow (if the subject gets the wrong way, the mission terminates).
The mandatory parameter is obviously the landmark defined as the mission's
target: it is defined selecting the name of the landmark in the listbox.
4-Pointing: in this mission the subject must orient its face towards a
target object; the subject cannot walk in any direction, but could rotate
around himself only. The mandatory parameter is the target, to be selected
in the listbox.
To save the data collected during the mission, uncheck the checkbox called
"Discard Mission Data", otherwise the data is not saved. Notice that all the
data collected is saved into an XML file, whose name is composed in this way:
[name_typed_into_the_textbox]_[starting_mission_date]_[starting_time].xml
The directory that contains all the missions saved is "/SKE/data/SKE/mission/".
After having set up a mission and its parameters, it is possible to start the
mission clicking on the button "Start Mission". You could terminate the
mission at any time clicking on the "End Mission": in this case all the datas
are immediately saved into the file name specified by the textbox.
When a mission terminates, the data is automatically saved into the file.
"Path"
This dialog allow the creation/saving/loading of a path: it is defined to be
the spline interpolation of a set of ordered points. To start the path
creation just press the "Start Creating Path" button. Then click with the
mouse on the map where you want the path starting is. After the mouse-click
a small sphere appears on that point. Construct the path placing others small
spheres in the world, till you want the end of the path: then click on the
button called "Stop Path Creation". To delete the currently present path in
the world, just click on "Delete Current Path".
As usually, the path could be saved/loaded/destroyed on the disk. use the
listbox and the textbox to manage the paths saved on the disk.
The "Tolerance" text box permits you to declare how many meters is the walker
allowed to execute in the wrong direction before SKE decides to stop the current
mission issuing the error wrong way.
"Lighting"
This dialog allows the creation of lights in the world. The listbox shows the
list of the light names present in the world. To create a light, set its
properties:
-dynamic, static or pseudodynamic (usually "static" is ok);
-its position in the "X","Y","Z" texboxes;
-the influence radius in the "Radius" textbox;
-the attenuation mode: NONE, LINEAR, INVERSE, REALISTIC, CLQ;
-its color RED, GREEN and BLUE.
Then click "Create Light" to add the light to the world. To modify any
property of a light, select the light in the listbox, then change the
property you want, and finally click on the "Apply" button.
To destroy a light simply select in the listbox and click "Destroy Light".
The "Relight!" button triggers the computation of the lighting on the actual
world, based upon the lights and the static/dynamic ambient light. Usually
this requires long time.
The Secondary Dialog Window: "REPLAY"
The F3 key brings up the "Replay" dialog. Its listbox
display all the files that contains a previously saved mission. To
view the "replay" of a mission already saved onto the disk, just select
its name in the listbox, then press the "Start Replay" button. Press the
"Stop Mission" when you want to ditch its replay viewing. Whenever you
select a item of the listbox, the label in the dialog get filled with the
values relative to the mission selected:
-"Mission Type" is one of the four mission type described above;
-"Landmark List Name" is the name of the landmark list which the mission
run with;
-"Time" is the time parameter;
-"Level Name" is the name of the level which the mission run with;
-"Path Name" is the name of the path which the mission run with;
-"Target Name" is the name of the landmark target;
After a mission has been loaded, appears three lines of text overlayed
with the 3D graphics in the bottom of the screen: the first line display the
mission name, the second one shows the mission type, and the last one
show the starting time (always 0.00!), the current time which the drawn scene
refers to, and the time the mission lasted. Pressing the key from F5 to F8 it
is possible to go back in time, go back halfspeed, go forward halfspeed, go
forward.
*Tutorial
Running a Mission
Before running a mission, you have to build a world. Just select the size in meters
of the ground where you put wall onto. Then click on "Resize map". Now you could put
the walls on the ground selecting its shape in the dialog and then putting it. A wall
could be rotated by 90 degree by putting the same block in the same cell: each time
the 90 degree rotation will happen.
Once the walls are built, you could use the "Landmarks" page to create some landmarks
and then place by dragging them in the desired position with the mouse. You could change
any attributes of every landmarks as stated above.
If you need, you could create a path with the "Path" page.
As you created the walls and positioned the landmarks (and the optional path), you could
use the "Mission" page to select the mission you want to execute, and then run it clicking
onto "START MISSION!". Press the SPACE BAR key to actually start it. When it is finished for
any reason, you could press SPACE BAR again to go in editing mode, or just wait 10 seconds,
and it will happen automatically.
To review the mission, press F3, seelect the name and press "START REPLAY" to start it.
When the review is over, just press F3 again and press the "STOP MISSION" button to return
back to EDITING mode.
-end
See more files for this project here