Spongebop Rodeo

I now have a (partly-)working prototype where Bilou can grab a Sponge bop and stay hooked while swinging, but I have to hard-code the offset between Bilou and the Sponge as arguments of the copycoords controller. Not so elegant. Plus, if I also allow to grab on Bladors (granted, that's a silly idea, but it helped for debugging :), those offsets are no longer correct and we're rather grabbing some point in the air over Blador's top-right corner >_<

Bien. Bilou peut maintenant s'accrocher aux éponges en balance. Il y a encore des soucis non résolus avec l'animation prévue à cet effet (d'où l'absence de démo jusqu'ici) et un désagrément mineur: il m'a fallu ajuster à la main et préciser dans les paramètres du comportement "accroché à X" la position relative de Bilou et de l'éponge. Au moment d'ajouter le comportement "assis dans un encrier", ça me démange un peu.

I initially had plans for making those "grabs" act on an are, and it would make sense to actually state "copycoords(a.bottom=b.top ; a.center=b.center)", but I've just said that accessing GobAreas within a controller isn't practical.
Expressions handling a collision have access to some extra-context variables (wc-wf) which were just involved in that "repel" behaviour that made inkjet "solid".

• xcontext[0] - wc -- collision flags
• xcontext[1] - wd -- unused (0)
• xcontext[2] - we -- X-axis center-to-center distance
• xcontext[3] - wf -- Y-axis center-to-center distance
• xcontext[4] -- not in GobScript - X-axis area overlap
• xcontext[5] -- not in GobScript - Y-axis area overlap

 The idea would be to use some GobScript to compute/force the desired location, possibly record it in some GOB variables and have the CopyCoords controller simply enforce that offset from the GOB variables.

Il y aurait bien des solutions techniques pour automatiser ces coordonnées relatives en "alignement vertical, centrage horizontal", à la façon des éditeurs de diagramme ... il y aurait même un "chemin de moindre résistance" pour construire ça dans le contexte actuel. Mais soyons honnête: ce n'est *pas* un élément nécessaire pour le programme. J'ai un seul objet auquel Bilou puisse s'accrocher de la sorte (l'éponge) et je dois de toutes façon utiliser une autre animation pour Bilou-dans-l'encrier (donc, autre état et autres paramètres). Ce serait donc de la généralisation intempestive et prématurée! Caramba! Ça le ferait pas!

I could thus extend the "interaction opcodes":

• A[p]: attach [with path] evaluating object to context object (works in hit and found)

D: detach evaluating object (works in any transition)

R[xy]: repels context object away from the evaluating object (works in hit and found) [only along x/y axis]

L[xy]: line up the evaluating object with context object (mirrored repel)

C[xy]: center the evaluating object with context object (wish)

Now, let's be honest. That's a "wish", not a "todo". I only have one grabbable ennemy so far, and only Bilou grabs it. "hard-coded" offset are just fine in that context, and alternative are "premature generalization". I thought about all this because I'll also need a "copycoords" when Bilou sits in an inkjet, but that will be another animation and another state, so other copycoords offset is just fine.