Tutorial - Simple Character Creation

We are going to create a very simple character with only one part and two decals in this topic

We are going to create a simple butterfly character. You should draw 2 pictures of a butterfly. One with wings up and one with wings down. The size of these 2 pictures must be identical and butterfly's body should be located at the same place in these pictures. You can use Inkscape to draw the pictures or any other editor which support SVG, EMF, PNG or GIF files. If you use a raster format (PNG or GIF) your editor must support transparent pixels. You can draw your own picture or just download our examples:
 

1. Save your pictures as "C:\\ButterflyCharacter\\butterfly1.svg" and "C:\ButterflyCharacter\\butterfly2.svg"
2. Determine the dimension of your pictures. The dimension of our sample pictures are (300,300).
3. Determine the origin coordinates of your pictures. Please keep in mind that origin is calculated relative to left upper corner. Some editors, including Inkscape, display the coordinates relative to left bottom corner. If you do not care about origin then you can use (0,0). We are going to use center of the butterfly's body as origin. For our example it is located at (175,145)
4. Write the following script:

   class Butterfly : public ICharacter
   {
       public:
           
           Part Body;
   
           Butterfly () : ICharacter ()
           {
               // these are dimensions of our images and the origin coordinates
               Register ( 300, 300, 175, 145 ); 
   
               // this is the coordinates of the part (zeros in our case)
               // and coordinates of the part origin (the same as character origin in our case)
               // if you do not care about origin you can use all zeros
               RegisterPart ( Body, "C:\\ButterflyCharacter\\butterfly1.svg", 0, 0, 175, 145 );
   
               // we want to register one additional decal
               Body.RegisterDecal ( "WINGS_DOWN", "C:\\ButterflyCharacter\\butterfly2.svg" );
           }
   };
   

5. Basically we are done with the character. But we may want to add a method to make our butterfly flying. Something like this:

           ...
           void FliesTo ( double dX, double dY, double dDuration, double dFlapDuration = 1 )
           {
               SetPos ( GetX (), GetY () ); // to fix initial coordinates in your movie
               double dStartTime = GetTime ();
   
               for ( int i=0; i<dDuration/dFlapDuration; i++ )
               {
                   SetTime ( dStartTime + i * dFlapDuration );
                   Body.SetDecal ( "WINGS_DOWN");                  
   
                   SetTime ( dStartTime + i * dFlapDuration + dFlapDuration / 2 );
                   Body.SetDecal ( "DEFAULT");                  
               }
   
               SetPos ( dX, dY ); // to fix ending coordinates in your movie
           }
           ...
   

6. Lets compile all together and to a test. Compile and preview the following script:

   class Butterfly : public ICharacter
   {
       public:
           
           Part Body;
   
           Butterfly () : ICharacter ()
           {
               // these are dimensions of our images and the origin coordinates
               Register ( 300, 300, 175, 145 ); 
   
               // this is the coordinates of the part (zeros in our case)
               // and coordinates of the part origin (the same as character origin in our case)
               // if you do not care about origin you can use all zeros
               RegisterPart ( Body, "C:\\ButterflyCharacter\\butterfly1.svg", 0, 0, 175, 145 );
   
               // we want to register one additional decal
               Body.RegisterDecal ( "WINGS_DOWN", "C:\\ButterflyCharacter\\butterfly2.svg" );
           }
   
           void FliesTo ( double dX, double dY, double dDuration, double dFlapDuration = 1 )
           {
               SetPos ( GetX (), GetY () ); // to fix initial coordinates in your movie
               double dStartTime = GetTime ();
   
               for ( int i=0; i<dDuration/dFlapDuration; i++ )
               {
                   SetTime ( dStartTime + i * dFlapDuration );
                   Body.SetDecal ( "WINGS_DOWN");                  
   
                   SetTime ( dStartTime + i * dFlapDuration + dFlapDuration / 2 );
                   Body.SetDecal ( "DEFAULT");                  
               }
   
               SetPos ( dX, dY ); // to fix ending coordinates in your movie
           }
   };
   
   void Scene1 ()
   {
       Image Back ( "backgrounds/landscape.svg" );
       Back.SetVisible ();
       Butterfly MyButterfly;
       MyButterfly.SetVisible ();
       MyButterfly.SetPos ( 300, 100 );
       MyButterfly.FliesTo ( -300, 100, 5 );
   }
   

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