Message #1678

From: Matthew Galla <mgalla@trinity.edu>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: MPUlt v0.2 is ready
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 02:22:12 -0500

Andrey,

This is quite an amazing program! I have not had enough time to do a serious
attempt of any of the puzzles but all the 4D ones look great! I’m a little
confused by your rendering of the 5D and 6D puzzles but I will get to those
later :)

As I have previously indicated, I am most excited by the cell-turning
24Cell! I already have my solve order and algorithms figured out for the
whole puzzle and I will hopefully be able to attempt a solve by this coming
weekend. I have a few comments:

-There are multiple pieces in the 24 Cell that are not unique. This is GOOD
(and arguably more correct than not) and I am happy to have this version,
but my concern is that the program may not recognize a state as solved if
two identical pieces are flipped. Have you accounted for this? (I don’t want
to finish a solve only to have the program say I’m not done ;) )

-Would it be possible to add a piece/location finding feature? I see you
have the shift-right click "highlighting" feature and that is certainly a
good way to identify pieces but it’s a little awkward to use. A suggestion
to improve it a little is to allow shift-right click on a color that is
already white to undo the white coloring. (This way, you could hover over a
single spot and quickly flash back and forth as you look over the rest of
the puzzle, allowing you to very easily see which pieces belong in that face
by spotting the flashing)

-Is there a way to zoom in and out? I notice that the "View Angle" slider
bar seems to achieve this, but it is a little awkward to constantly go to
the slider bar. Could this be assigned to either a Ctrl-click+drag or
perhaps the mouse wheel?

-Could you add a feature that allows for an automatic view orientation to
put a selected cell in the center (like Magic120Cell). I wouldn’t even mind
if there was no animation for this, but I find it very awkward to manipulate
the puzzle with right-click+drag.

-the deepcut 24 Cell puzzle isn’t deepcut ;)

-you have a puzzle under CubeBased called 4D_RT: This puzzle is actually
quite neat, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Congratulations
on not letting this puzzle slip by unnoticed as I did. Two questions: 1.What
does the ‘R’ in 4D_RT mean? (assuming the ‘T’ means turning) 2.Could you
make the 24 and 16 cell equivalents? :D I can draw a picture of a cell if
you need it, but you seem to be quite good at figuring them out yourself so
I won’t insult your intelligence with that :) (they would have a pretty
crowded view wouldn’t they? Perhaps it is too much… :( )

• (idea/suggestion) It is actually possible to make a subgroup puzzle of the
  cell-turning 24cell puzzle BY ONLY ALLOWING 120 DEGREE FACE TURNS AND 180
  DEGREE CORNER TURNS. No 90 degree corner turns and no edge turns of any
  kind. Among other things, this will divide the 96 2C central face pieces
  into 3 orbits of 32 each. This puzzle would be completely different from and
  most likely significantly harder than the standard cell-turning 24Cell. It
  occurred to me that it would probably pretty easy to implement if you
  already have a working cell-turning 24Cell so you can add one more puzzle to
  the list :) I think you can also do a similar thing with cell turning 8cells
  (rotations around corners and 180 degree rotations around faces ONLY) and
  cell turning 16-cells (edge turns ONLY). In fact, you could probably even
  make one of these "subgroup" puzzles from that interesting 4D_RT puzzle
  (which thinking about it really should be called face-turning while all the
  other puzzle should be called cell-turning). If you picture the moving parts
  of the puzzle as flattened rectangular prisms, only 180 degree rotations
  about any axis perpendicular to a face are allowed (as is 2 axes are already
  restricted to 180 degrees, but to make this subgroup puzzle you would have
  to restrict the third as well)

The complaints/concerns/(suggestions) listed here are only minor, and I
believe the functionality of it is good enough to support a solve as is.
This weekend! :)

Overall a very nice program!!!!!! I agree with schuma, the version number
definitely deserves to be higher

Ed: The "save as" and "open" features are working my fine but you have to
play with the camera controls after opening a file. Use "open" and then
adjust the "Face Shrink" bar and your saved puzzle will magically appear
from nowhere! ;)

-Matt Galla

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Eduard <baumann@mcnet.ch> wrote:

>
>
> Wow!
> All is perfect!
> Even "save" and "save as" are working.
> Restarting the program opens the "saved" puzzle.
> How do I reach a "saved as" puzzle? I tried without succes with "open".
> Ed
>
>
> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, "Andrey" <andreyastrelin@…> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> > Next version of "MPUltimate" is uploaded to
> http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/4D_Cubing/files/MC7D/MPUlt.zip .
> > What is new:
> > 1) bug with click to the mirrored face is fixed;
> > 2) couple of search features is there:
> > 2a) Shift-Left click in the sticker highlights all stickers of the same
> piece (now it doesn’t work for stickers of the puzzle core and for stickers
> that are connected "inside" the puzzle). Highligting is moving with the
> sticker during twists and macro applications (only in cell-turn 4D puzzles
> :( ) and I’ve found it very useful for macros design.
> > 2b) Shift-Right click in the sticker temporary (till next
> Shift-Right)changes color of this sticker and all stickers from its cell to
> white. Shift-Right in empty space restores colors of all cells.
> > 3) Single-click macros for 4D are ready. To create macro you should
> Ctrl-Alt-Left click a point in some cell. Better to select a point close to
> the vertex - cell, face and vertex will be used as reference for macro
> application. To finish macro definition press Ctrl-M and enter macro name.
> > To perform macro select it in the listbox, and then Alt-Left Click or
> Alt-Right Click a point in some cell (cell should be of the same kind as in
> macro definition). Program finds the best match to the reference point and
> perfroms macro (left click for the straight order and right click for
> reverse).
> > 4) All puzzle definitions are collected in one file MPUlt_puzzles.txt.
> There is also some puzzles grouping in this file that is reflected in the
> Puzzle menu.
> >
> > Known bugs and missing features:
> > - Twist counter doesn’t work;
> > - Track bar position for view angle is not synchronized with the actual
> value in start
> > - Check boxes for selection of visible stickers don’t work
> > - No macros for 5D and more
> > - Highlighting of the piece is vanishing after multiclick twist
> (not-cell-twist or 5D and more).
> > - Help text doesn’t fit actual functioning
> >
> > For the debugging I’ll use 24-cell. So, good luck!
> > Andrey
> >
>
>
>