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VXTool

Workflow tool for rendering text-based, animated grid.

Based on PyGame. Recording uses system call ffmpeg for stitching frames into video, but it's not needed for rendering .png images.

Windows | Use source code in a virtual environment

py -m venv venv
venv/Scripts/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
py -m VXTool examples/color

Build a package

To build the package make sure you also have build installed. Config is written in pyproject.toml.

pip install build
py -m build

Install the wheel

Building the package with build tool creates a dist directory containing files VXTool-0.1.tar.gz, VXTool-0.1-py3-none-any.whl. Install using pip specyfing .whl file.

Template

Template directory presents minimal project structure. Its settings file contains all settings needed for launch. Callback file is your sandbox.
To create a new project from this template use:

py -m VXTool ./path/to_the_new/project/ --create

A font file UniVGA16.ttf is provided in the template project.
You may add your *.ttf font into the project directory and specify its information in settings.py.

UniVGA16 font

Template project and examples contain UniVGA16.ttf font file. The file originally can be accessed here under attached license. Originally created by Dmitry Bolkhovityanov. The font is also a part of reactOS.

Guide

Shortcuts

  • CTRL + Q - quit
  • CTRL + S - screenshot, saves into out/*.png files

Follow examples

Not all examples aren't basic or concise. Some of them act as a documentation :)

  • colors - Use text with colors to draw a static picture.
  • animation - Simple animated dot.Letter changing, moving.
  • stress - Primitive system level benchmark.

General notes

  • Main spawns App and Callback

What is sent through render queue

  • Callback doesn't send whole buffer, only pos and hash list
  • Hash to Dot dict being held by TextRender.
  • Callback holds its own hash to dot and sends updates

Diff idea

  • Slow.
  • TextRender has internal Buffer.
  • Callback submits a diff to the queue, TextRender blits needed dots.

Sync

  • App gathers events every window frame, while displaying last available TextRender surface.

Dot

  • TextRender font lookup by fontname and size.

Animation

  • Dots do not need to be immutable
  • Changing dot's position requires removing from the buffer and putting again after change
  • variant / creation, duplication of animated dots is important
  • reminder: this doesn't need to be turing complete
  • how to spawn the falling star

System

Entities

  • Main process
    • App
    • TextRender
  • Callback (process)

Startup

App TextRender Callback
Create window, font preload
Create TextRender object
Create render queue
Create event queue
Spawn and start Callback
Gives Callback access to TextRender's render queue Has access to render queue
Start Callback Loop

Main Loop

App TextRender
Capture events from pygame
Execute any shortcuts pressed
Put events on event queue
Get entry from render queue
Process entry

TODO:

  • screenshot with renderer setup
  • handle window attribute in mouseevents properly
  • backcolor transparency isn't transparent
  • implement properly, document and test sync variants
  • a difference between clear and backcolor
  • Loading png tilesets
  • Position as (pygame.math.Vector2)
  • cleaning up util ( constistency, remember about pygame Vector and Rect)

Sync

  • (didnt try not waiting) Callback chooses to wait or not for new InputFrame.
  • widget discards callback frames up to the last one if their counters don't match
  • Moving the window causes to crash because of some blocking timeout?

Ideas

  • Interface:
    • pause/play/reload
  • Live music performance:
    • spectral analysis
    • midi input