I am looking for a solution to the effect used in Valve's portal games and seen in the "portalizer" unity package. I have searched almost every related question on many forums, however none seem to offer the help I need. I have tried re-working the mirror reflection script found on the wiki, however I have a lot of problems when they are out of the camera's view, and it never seems to work. I feel like I have spent hours on this, if you know anywhere which details the logic and explanation of this effect such as camera matrices and stuff it would be great, or just a working block of code for me to look through.
By the way i'm actually not hoping to explicitly use it for potals, Im attempting to make a room similar to Doctor Who's Tardis which is bigger on the inside, kind of mimicking the effect of Non-Euclidean space. Im also looking for something more advanced than a simple camera with render-to-texture. Im also using the pro version.
Thanks in advance.
I was able to find a basic implementation of CEF3 in Ogre3D -- but I was hoping there would be something similar for Unity3D.
Link
I am currently using Awesomium, however, I now need to use RTCPeerConnection (which requires Chromium 29+). Currently, Awesomium is only on Chromium 18, and its unclear how long it will take for that to be udpated (not going to hold my breath).
CEF is open source and updated very frequently.
I would do this myself, but I have no clue where to start. I am hoping:
Someone with enough Unity experience has either already created a CEF3 wrapper that they would be willing to share with the community, or
Someone knows how this could be accomplished and can (hopefully thoroughly) explain
i took a look at your link and the video and i think i have some useful resources to share.
i have a bit of experience on unity3d. i've never tried to embed webpages within it, HOWEVER i've stumbled accross and read a few conversations on the subject in my travels.
there is one discussion here on the unity site, that i think would interest you
UnityWebCore plugin
Also on the unity boards - someone has gone ahead and done some of the paving the way, provided a project with some demos and downloadable source here.
its not exactly Chromium Embedded Frames, but from best i can tell from your link this will accomplish what you need. (or at least get you started)
EDIT:
another discussion specifically relating to doing this with awesomium here
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As a developer I really don't like writing documentation but when I have to I'd like to make the process as painless as possible.
The problem with Word is that it constantly gets in my way. I worry more about the layout than about the actual content ... that's why I'd like to get rid of Word.
Ideally I'd like to write my content and then 'compile' it into a document.
I've heard of LaTeX but I don't have any experience with it whatsoever. Would this be the right technology for the job? What editor (Windows) should I use? Is it a good idea to start with LyX?
EDIT: I'm not asking about documenting code (I use Sandcastle for that).
Update 2014:
We have now switched to GFM (GitHub Flavored Markdown).
It's really easy to work with.
Write code & documentation in the same IDE!
Everything can be versioned!
Get great output either as raw txt, html or pdf!
My solution to this was to invest some time in creating a decent Word Template for myself.
The important thing to do is make sure you have a Style defined for everything you can put in the document.
Once you have all the Styles defined and all of the document content tagged with the correct Style instead of formatted in an ad hoc fashion, you'll be surprised how easy it is to produce good looking Word documents quickly every time.
The wider problem here is that everyone spends hours in Word and yet it is very rare for companies to invest in Word training. At some point you have to bite the bullet and take the time to teach yourself how to use it properly, just like you would with any other tool.
Anything you can do with LyX you can do with LaTeX. LaTeX is suitable for all sorts of things; it has been used for everything from manuals to lecture slides to novels.
I think LaTeX is probably worth looking into as an option; if you've ever wanted to "code" for your word processor, LaTeX is for you. At the simplest level you can define new commands to do things for you, but there's a lot of power there. And the output looks really neat.
In my opinion, LyX is fantastic in certain circumstances, handy in others, and occasionally just gets in your way. I think it should be seen as a productivity booster for LaTeX. In other words, learn to use LaTeX before trying LyX. Both are of course free and available for Windows, though the learning curve is quite steep compared with MS Word. For long documents, or plenty of similar documents, LaTeX/LyX is probably a worthwhile investment.
I've found that wikis can be good for this. Find a wiki you like that lets you do a bit of formatting, but nothing really heavy. Ideally it should let you format code easily too - to be honest, the markdown available on SO is probably a good start.
That way:
You have change tracking built-in (assuming a decent wiki)
You can edit from anywhere
Everyone always sees the same documentation (instant distribution)
You can concentrate on content instead of formatting
You could write your documentation using your own XML format and then transform it into any format with XSL (e.g. PDF via FOP+XSL-FO ).
See also the DocBook XML format.
LaTeX is an extremely powerful tool and might well be overkill here as it is designed for scientific/mathematical literature. It has a (relatively) steep learning curve and can be tricky to coax to do exactly as you want if you're new to it. I LOVE LaTeX, but it is not really a general purpose word processor.
Have you considered OpenOffice instead?
LaTeX is really a very powerful language if you need to write documents.
Perhaps you can try texmaker, a cross-platform LaTeX editor:
Texmaker is a clean, highly
configurable LaTeX editor with good
hot key support and extensive Latex
documentation. Texmaker integrates
many tools needed to develop
documents with LaTeX, in just one
application. It has some nice
features such as syntax highlighting,
insertion of 370 mathematical symbols
with only one click, and "structure
view" of the document for easier
navigation.
What about using HTML? This way you could then publish the documentation if there will be need for many people to access it from many places.
Despite all efforts and reasonable expectation I don't think Word Processing has been "solved" yet.
My response to what I also personally find a deeply frustrating experience with MS Word is to avoid it altogether and use an auto-documenting tool like GhostDoc to generate XML from what I've already written in the code (DRY!) and deal with the XML from an XSLT based intranet site or similar later.
Are you talking about documenting your actual code? If so, I recommend Doxygen for unmanaged code and Sandcastle for managed code. Both will compile your help or build it as a website for you.
Both applications will read special tags above functions / classes / variables and compile that into the help.
Well I've never found anything wrong with MS-Word in the first place. (i.e if you take the time to know how to use it effectively). OpenOffice indeed is an amazing & credible free alternative - but then if you hate MS Word for layout related problems, the same problem is gonna occur with OpenOffice too.
Never tried the Latex system myself, but have heard its good for scientific work. I think using some HTML WYSIWYG editor would be best for you, if you want to just focus on the content.
I considered a wiki, but I decided to go with a modified Markdown notation, for the simple reason, that a wiki's content isn't easily exported and distributed outside of the wiki itself, while the Markdown can be rendered into HTML.
Answer to chris' question about my workflow: I write the documentation with a Notepad-like application (TextWrangler, only because of its word-wrapping feature) in its raw Markdown format. Then I have a small localhost documentation website with my modified Markdown parser (extended for a few features and a bit more HTML-oriented functionality) that checks for the timestamps for the documentation files - if a file has been updated, it parses that file into HTML, and stores the file in a cache.
This way I'm able to edit the source documentation on my desktop, and just press F5 in my browser to see the results immediately.
I haven't got around to trying it yet, but I've always thought AsciiDoc would be good for this kind of thing.
If you want something simpler than LaTeX, you can have a look at ReStructured Text
Read this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pragmatic_Programmer . There is some idee fixe inside, so that documentation should be built automatically. Think about using your IDE for this, or look for some additional tools. Most modern languages support generating documentation as you write the code. This can simply maintain your doc in touch with latest changes in the code.
I prefer to use a RTF editor which is a lot less clunkier than words. This way the formatting and all the headers/footers nonsense will not take up half your time. Wordpad has worked for me on several occasions. I'm stuck with Word for now though :(
there are a lot of possible ways:
embedded documentation, e.g. javadoc: good for describing APIs, not so good for the "big picture"
plain html: can be checked in under version control, a definite plus
a wiki, e.g. confluence -- great for collaboration, but has version control different from your source
LaTeX or somesuch: better suited for books or papers than typical documentation; support for graphics is cumbersome
an Office clone, e.g. OpenOffice: mostly the same as Word+Visio, but open source, with a nicer document format
I usually document the software structure (the "metaphors" of a project, component interrelations, external systems) up front, using Visio, in "freeform" UML. These are then embedded in confluence, which can be converted to PDF if someone wants a printout.
LyX
LyX is a WYSIWYM front end to LaTeX: You get the convenience of a document processor (somewhat similar to Word) with the consistency and power of LaTeX: It doesn't get in your way and can do a lot of things that professional writers need.
Note: The correct answer for you really depends on your way of thinking --- we can't decide this for you. This answer simply shows an excellent choice if you think of documentations as documents and want something similar to Word (where Word is good) that doesn't suck as Word (where Word is bad for programmers).
But many programmers think of documentation differently and hence prefer different metaphors. I myself had the same problem years ago, worked with LaTeX (as I am a mathematician), found LyX and finally settled on a Wiki/Source system that I wrote myself.
Vim is the solution for anything that means writing plain text in the most efficient possible way. If you need formatting, then use XML, Latex or something similar (in Vim).
Vim changed my life!
Simple answer: LaTeX sounds like just what you are looking for.
I use it for writing documentation myself. I will never go back to Word if I have the option.
At phc, we started with latex, then moved to docbook, and have settled (permanently I hope) on Restructured Text/Sphinx.
Latex was chosen because we are academics, and latex is the tool of choice. I believe it didn't generate good enough HTML.
Docbook was chosen for power, but it was very unwieldy. It put us off writing any documentation: code had to be manually formatted, we kept forgetting the syntax, and it was difficult to read. The learning curve was also steep.
Finally, we moved to reST, using sphinx, and that was a great decision. Documentation is now very easy to write, and both PDF and HTML versions look beautiful (though the PDF could do with some customization). Its very easy to customize too.
The best bit about reST though, is that its human readable in source form. That is a wonderful advantage. I've switched to using reST for all my stuff now, especially anything over the web (except of course academic papers, where one would be foolish to use anything but latex).
You may want to look into doxygen at http://www.doxygen.nl/, see their nice examples. In this case, the documentation is presented by tags in comments in the source.
Another option would be to use an online system like trac from http://trac.edgewall.org/ which is a wiki/doc/issuetracking system that lives on top of subversion.
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I am looking for a program to make mockup screenshots with. I first found out I could do it with Visual Basic (uglier names I have yet to hear a programming language being called) from joelonsoftware.com. I don't want to start learning VB now, especially since I am still in the process of learning Java. I then found mockupscreens.com, with the searchstring "how to make mockup screenshots". But seeing as I am going to use this program quite infrequently, I don't think paying $80 for it is worth it.
The mockups I'd like to do would be mainly for Windows XP (perhaps also for GNOME, KDE and Mac OSX, but these are not top-priority).
Edit: Balsamiq is suggested, but this is also a non-free program.
Balsamiq
Visio works well, if you have it.
Personally, I like paper and a pen. Then I can't get bogged down in the LOOK of it, and go more for the usability and function. Same with websites.
Once you have the form infront of a customer, you have zero room to move - it you dont deliver it pixel-perfect, they get..... angry. :)
You don't have to learn the language to use the visual forms designer from Visual Studio to create mockups. Furthermore, the Express Edition of Visual Studio is freely available in several languages, namely VB, C# and C++. Take your pick. All ship with the same forms designer that generates backend code in one of the languages. But if you only need the designer, the code might not be relevant for you.
Microsoft Visio used to come with a template containing common Windows UI elements for this purpose. I don't know if it still does.
Jeff Attwood posted about this on CodingHorror - where he mentions Powerpoint prototyping
pen and paper, or if possible, whiteboard. Once you have something you personally think could work I'd go for as rough a computerized model as you can so you don't spend time agreeing font size before the workflow etc is done. The tool I have used here is my visual designer of Visual Studio (it doesn't look too good with screenshots, only good enough to convey what you'd like to build).
Pencil (runs within firefox)
As suggested, C# Express would be well for this, as like VB, it has a GUI designer, but it is also syntactically similar to Java, so - given what you are trying to learn and do with this, it might be a nice fit.
There is a pretty exhaustive list here:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GuiPrototypingTools
Important point is whether the tool has "black&white" (or "hand-drawn") skin for your mockups, as already commented by others. Many of the tools (including my own, MockupScreens) do.
wxGlade would work as well, plus it's free software.
http://balsamiq.com/ was already mentioned, but I want to explain why I like it.
It will allow you to sketch up a screenshot, and it still looks like a pen and paper version, or a whiteboard discussion.
If you get to detailed on your screenshot, then the customer thinks you are "done" and does not understand whats taking you so long to finish the project. So this "sketchyness" serves as another layer of abstraction.
MockupUI is another one, but its mockups don't look like hand-drawn. They look like the real thing and with real data. It lets you draw wireframes as well as native widgets inheriting their appearance from your OS configuration (aka Windows visual style).
About high-fidelity mockups: The risk that a customer thinks that it's "already done" is minimal as long as you do your mockups during the design specification phase of your project (that's before starting to code). On the contrary, a sketch may be too abstract for the customer to digest, unless he is a software designer too. Sketches are for developers not customers.
Wireframes (or sketches) and mockups are not the same thing and they have different uses. One is to explain functionality, the other is a representation of what the product will look like. Check out Yisela's post about the difference between wireframes and mockups.
Your question was about mockup screenshot software, but you ended-up buying a pretty powerful wireframing software.