From 8 to 80v1.3

a 3DtopPlugin by BoneS @ 2001
 

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Operating Instructions
Bedienungsanleitung
Mode d’emploi
Gebruiksaanwijzing
Istructioni per l’uso
Instrucciones de manejo
Modo de emprego
Betjeningsvejledning
Bruksanvisning
Kayttoohje
Odhgiex yrhdevx

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The ones that didn't grow up with Computers or Nintendo builded there own world with wooden building blocks or plastic Lego blocks.
Now every child and grownup try's to get that same constructive feeling by means of computing till your eye's fall off.
Since Joost introduced his 3Dtop with Plugin capabilities, I saw this as a great opportunity to try get that old building feeling back into the lives of everyone in de range of 8 to 80 years.

• At Start up
• Editing Mode
• Keyboard shortcuts
• The 880 file's
• Changes Since V1.0
• Changes Since V1.1
• Changes Since V1.2

On loading the from8to80.dll PLugin, The Plugin try's to open a file named default.880in which the last scene was saved. When this file doesn't exist, it makes a few building blocks of it's own for you to start with.
Every time the plugin quits, or 3Dtop quits, it will save the scene for you in default.880, so it will start next time as you left it.
You can save the scene under a different name or directory, but default.880 will always be the one it loads at startup.
If however the Plugin is marked for Reload in the 3Dtop Plugin Menu it will startup with the last saved file ( 3Dtop is so kind to save this information in the icon3d.dat file, Isn't that nice ).
You can move the entire scene as any object in 3Dtop ,clicking with the right button on one of the blocks will popup the File Menu:

 
For accessing the 3Dtop menu ( spinning, reload etc. ) press the shift key as well as the Right Mouse Button

With Editing I mean moving, rotating and scaling the individual blocks, as well as giving it a color or material texture.
To do this we must first select a block by

Point on block and Right mouse select 'Edit'

a small cursor ball will appear on the blocks corner.
Now we can move the block around, as we move all object in the 3Dtop world:

However for easy placement, these movements occur on a grid of 1/2 the block default size.
We can do more with a block by:

Point on block and Press Right mouse Button

The Edit menu will appear with the following Items:

Edit Menu
 

 
All these actions are directly accessible through Keyboard shortcuts, however:

A block must be in Edit mode to access the keyboard shortcuts
The shortcuts refer to the selected block

Double clicking the Left mouse on another block will select that block,
on the same block will end the edit session.

As you might have noticed, all menu items have an underlined character. Normally these menu shortcuts work with an ALT or CTRL key, but since we don't edit text, the shortcuts will work directly, without ALT or CTRL.
For fast making of new blocks we added 4 Function key's, which will put a new block at the scene's locale zero point ( by which it turns around in spinning mode )

Now the handy part:
The Saved scene file is a text file in which you can enter , copy and paste, more blocks,
or change the block's origin size etc.
Here's the format:
880 //always first, its the file id !!
Then per Block:
//kind: origin[x,y,z]: size[x,y,z]: rotation[x,y,z]: color[R,G,B] texture file: density:
CUBE ORG[+0.00,+0.00,+0.00] SIZE[+2.00,+1.00,+1.00] ROT[0.00,0.00,0.00] RGB[+0.90,+0.70,+0.50] TEXTURE[ ] DENS[1.00]
First the kind of block: CUBE, TRIANGLE, CYLINDER(note 1), SPHERE (note 1)
Then the block's origin: ORG[ x, y, z ]
The block's Size: SIZE[ x, y, z ]
The rotation angle: ROT[ around x, y, z ]
The Block's color: RGB [ red, green, blue ] value's between 0.0 and 1.0
The Material Texture image file: TEXTURE[ path/filename ] ( only *.BMP or *.JPG ) ( note 2 )
The material's density: DENS[ number ] the value defines the number of times the texture is mapped, so 0.5 is see a quarter of the texture image( 0.5 by 0.5),
2.0 is see the texture twice in vertical and twice in horizontal ( 2 by 2 ).
The Skin or Bump image file: SKIN[ path/filename ] ( only *.BMP or *.JPG ) ( note 2 )
The skin's scale: SKINSCALE[ number ] the value defines offset scale calculated on the objects points.
Finally a so called SHORTCUT[ path/filename ] that makes the object a shortcut to a file or program.( note 2 )
The Translucent parameter TRANS[ 0 or 1 ].Only on = 1 and off = 0 are supported.

All item's can be separated by space or tab's, but have to be on 1 line.
Comments are on C++ style with // in front , rest of line is comment:
// this is comment
Best is to copy the default.880 file and, cut/copy/paste yourself a new building.
Note 1:

The SPHERE and CYLINDER have an extension number for choosing the number of
subdivisions of the block, so SPHERE8 has 8 subdivisions in stead of the standard 24

Note 2:

The Material Texture and Skin  Filename is a relative path , relative to the directory of the plugin
this way you can move the plugin and texture folder to an other drive or folder, as long as there relative position stays
the same.

Changes Since V1.0
 

- A few bugs solved, we can now start the dll more than once under a different name
and Exit them independently.
- Sphere and Cylinder can be made of less/more divisions ( note 1 /note 2 )

- An PLANE object is added, but you can only make it in the 880 file
- SKIN and SKINSCALE are added to make it compatible with the new 3D-Scape plugin.
- Each block can be a Shortcut to some file or program. Double click on the block will launch it.
- Since double klick on an block is now for launching the shortcut, you can only get into the edit mode thru the menu

    Very Big Change:

• Lines in 880 files can now be more then 256 characters, a lot of crashes where due to this bug.
• Every Filename in the 880 files are now relative to the From8-80.DLL directory.

The used files are therefore moveable to other drives, as long as the relative path to the From8-80 plugin stays the same.
• The path of the 880 file in ICON3D.DAT is now relative to the icon3d.dat directory.

The 880 files are therefore moveable to other drives, as long as the relative path to the ICON3D.DAT file stays the same.
When Creating a new world in 3DTop, every dll that was marked 'reload', will be opened in the new world to, and the 880 files are loaded from the previous directory, but saved in the new directory, so you get an
exact copy of the previous world. This is done only at creating, at entering the new world, the 880 file in
that world is normally loaded.
• Both Material and Skin images can now be Windows BMP's or JPEG images.
• Added a Translucent function to the menu. This is a nice effect to see through the object, so looking like glass or water. You can change the degree of translucency by changing the object's color: darker colors are more translucence.