Toonbots message board: DRAWING!

Brother Emsworth Mon Jan 1 18:57:30 2001 Re: DRAWING! Still filled with New Year's "cheer," I see. Very nice to see that such progess has been made with the Toon-a-Matic. This development alone might provide for an interesting storyline. I loved Dot's reaction (though I notice he looks a little squarer than usual.) And, as I mentioned elsewhere, BoxJam's dialogue was perfect, not to mention rather literal. "I can't move my eyes." Does this mean that the arrival of BoxJam and the Toon-o-Matic's drawing ability which led to that arrival could vanquish the sinister forces of Communism? (Love to see how BoxJam would react to "Hey, Fred!" or what Bot would think of BoxJam and vice versa.) Yes, this year certainly will prove interesting for the Toon-o-Matic and Toonbots. Capital, capital, capital!

Michael Tue Jan 2 00:40:11 2001 Re: DRAWING! > I loved Dot's reaction And it's true, too. > he Oops. > looks a little squarer than > usual.) It took me a while to figure this out, but Dot is (currently) implemented as a square having 1% of the height of the panel. Since the panel is 350 pixels high today, that's 3.5 pixels in height -- more than large enough to show as a square. If the panel were smaller, which it has been to date, then Dot would show as a single point. I'm going to have to think about that a little. The bounding-box idea was, of course, always intended as a stopgap. But now, I CAN DRAW. Opens up *worlds* of new possibilities! Like, the Dot could now be a filled black disk, for instance. > Does this mean that the arrival of BoxJam and the Toon-o-Matic's drawing > ability which led to that arrival could vanquish the sinister forces of > Communism? (Love to see how BoxJam would react to "Hey, Fred!" > or what Bot would think of BoxJam and vice versa.) I know about as much about what the strip plans for itself as you do, apparently. I don't write it so much as I channel it. > Yes, this year certainly will prove interesting for the Toon-o-Matic and > Toonbots. Capital, capital, capital! Hee, hee, ho, ho, hah, hah, to the *funny farm*. In case you young pups are all wondering what the hell this song is I keep quoting, it is (of course) "They're Coming to Take Me Away" by Napoleon XVI. An old Dr. Demento favorite, which I just happened to run across on Napster day before yesterday. Along with the Lumberjack Song. It's a golden age, people, a golden age.

gopher Tue Jan 2 11:48:22 2001 Re: DRAWING! > Hee, hee, ho, ho, hah, hah, to the *funny farm*. With your constant quoting of this song and Brother Emsworth's comment about "New Year's Cheer", I think that the source of inspiration for the Toons is becoming much more clear. Also, to satisfy Captain Pedantic (you never know when he might show up), the order of the maniacal laughter should be "Ho Ho, Hee Hee, Ha Ha".

Michael Tue Jan 2 13:36:47 2001 Re: DRAWING! > With your constant quoting of this song and Brother Emsworth's comment > about "New Year's Cheer", I think that the source of inspiration > for the Toons is becoming much more clear. > Also, to satisfy Captain Pedantic (you never know when he might show up), > the order of the maniacal laughter should be "Ho Ho, Hee Hee, Ha > Ha". I've been misquoting it for twenty years in my head. It'll take a few iterations through the MP3 to get that ironed out. SO whadja think of the drawing extensions, huh, huh?

gopher Tue Jan 2 13:58:09 2001 Re: DRAWING! > SO whadja think of the drawing extensions, huh, huh? Indeed, they rock. I think that when I get back at school I'll actually get around to installing the Toon-o-Matic and making some fan art.

Michael Tue Jan 2 14:25:58 2001 Re: DRAWING! > Indeed, they rock. I think that when I get back at school I'll actually > get around to installing the Toon-o-Matic and making some fan art. Wow. That would certainly cement your High Priest status for all eternity. It should actually be halfway easy -- you'll need Perl, ImageMagick binaries, and Ghostscript. Integration might be tricky but not brain surgery.

gopher Tue Jan 2 17:32:14 2001 Re: DRAWING! > Wow. That would certainly cement your High Priest status for all eternity. > It should actually be halfway easy -- you'll need Perl, ImageMagick > binaries, and Ghostscript. Integration might be tricky but not brain > surgery. Um...I don't quite understand this whole "literate programming" thing. It looks like a nice idea, but I'm having trouble figuring out a way to get useable source code from the grand document without simply copying and pasting.

gopher Tue Jan 2 17:38:52 2001 Re: DRAWING! > Um...I don't quite understand this whole "literate programming" > thing. It looks like a nice idea, but I'm having trouble figuring out a > way to get useable source code from the grand document without simply > copying and pasting. Ah, never mind. It would appear that RTFM applies well here.

Michael Tue Jan 2 22:59:52 2001 Tech stuff > Ah, never mind. It would appear that RTFM applies well here. I haven't given any real thought to distribution, so I don't have the source code up for download. Not that I have any problem with it, just haven't gotten around to it. But the HTML isn't the metasource. The XML is (actually XML is a misnomer -- the code I use to parse it is *not* XML-valid, so technically it's not XML. I keep forgetting things like [br/] instead of [br] and so forth and my parser code silently accepts it, which is extremely contrary to the XML standard.) But the XMLoid source is run through LPML, which generates HTML and Perl in the same step. Then the Perl gets run by a batch file I have, along with some extra Perl files which I name things like _maketext and _xmlapi -- the _xmlapi file is a Perl adaptation of some C code I did for my workflow project and I have to say that using the same API in both Perl and C makes for much more productive programming. I need to port it to Tcl, too, so I can use it under AOLserver. So you need all that Perl, and a Perl interpreter, and ImageMagick, and Ghostscript. I'm running it all under Windows to be as contrarian as possible, so I don't know what it'll take to make it work under Linux.

Pooga Tue Jan 2 18:09:25 2001 Re: DRAWING! > I'm going to have to think about that a little. The bounding-box idea was, > of course, always intended as a stopgap. But now, I CAN DRAW. Opens up > *worlds* of new possibilities! Like, the Dot could now be a filled black > disk, for instance. Congratulations! It looks good. What new possibilities are opened up by true drawing capabilities in the Toon-o-matic? The mind wobbles! > Hee, hee, ho, ho, hah, hah, to the *funny farm*. > In case you young pups are all wondering what the hell this song is I keep > quoting, it is (of course) "They're Coming to Take Me Away" by > Napoleon XVI. An old Dr. Demento favorite, which I just happened to run > across on Napster day before yesterday. Along with the Lumberjack Song. > It's a golden age, people, a golden age. Ah, yes. I remember it well. Actually, I had a copy on 45 at one point. Though I can't prove anything, I still believe one of my college roommates disposed of it when I wasn't around. :( Here's some trivia: Does anyone know what was on the "B" side of that?

Michael Tue Jan 2 22:51:50 2001 Re: DRAWING! > Here's some trivia: Does anyone know what was on the "B" side of > that? Wasn't it something from Josephine the XVI or something? I didn't have the 45, just heard it on the radio a *lot*. I was a Dementoid -- even saw Dr. Demento and Weird Al Yankovic (and this is before anybody ever heard of Weird Al) in concert, at Miami U. in Ohio. Ah, the 80's. I've got Roly-Poly Fishheads on MP3, too. A golden age!

Pooga Wed Jan 3 13:21:58 2001 Re: DRAWING! > Wasn't it something from Josephine the XVI or something? I didn't have the > 45, just heard it on the radio a *lot*. Nope. It was "aH aH ,yawA eM ekaT ot gnimoC er'yehT". The label was printed backwards and the song played backwards. I always thought that was the coolest idea for a flipside. :)

Chris Mon Jan 1 20:30:10 2001 Re: DRAWING! Wow. I hadn't expected actual meta-drawing to be implemented this soon. I think this is great, but shameless sycophancy (is that a word?) is not my strong point so I'll bow out of this thread now.

Michael Mon Jan 1 20:58:11 2001 Re: DRAWING! > Wow. I hadn't expected actual meta-drawing to be implemented this soon. Ha! Neither did I! Boy, that infinite number of monkeys is really turning out to be a good investment!