Beginner's Guide to Space Chess, Part 5
Jun. 28th, 2005 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwaldPart Five, Conclusion: Improved Playability With Computer Graphic Mediation
Computer graphics allow chesslike games to finally escape the restrictions placed on them by equipment. It's frustrating that most simulations offered so far are simulations of traditional physical equipment. They carry over the limitations of inert pieces of matter!
One such limitation is that physical equipment can't automatically morph into different configurations at the touch of a button. There need not be one opening setup that players are forced to use. They should be given a menu to select the number of squares to a side, and place their own pieces in the starting arrangement of their preference. Some people think 8x8 is too much. Some people would want triagonal movers, while others would not choose it.
Visualize for a moment that the game of space chess is displayed on binocular-vision LCD glasses. The glasses superimpose images onto a transparent view of the wearer's real environment-- not virtual reality, but augmented reality. Imagine also that we have two telemetry gloves. The index finger and thumb are tracked in 3D and 'mouse click' when they touch-- the two fingertips are displayed as two cursors floating in the image. The cube should fill half the visual field, since the user's reach can be transposed on a huge scale, or the user can also change to the size of the pieces and stand inside the cube when desired. Ideally, the glasses would be tracked with telemetry so that the cube would always float in the same space in the user's real environment while the user moved around it. In this mode the whole cube should fit within easy reach, perhaps three feet to a side.
Such input/output hardware for the average non-technical user is probably outside the power of the Free Culture movement to create, but not so of software running on a normal monitor with a mouse. While writing this series I found a free open-source 3D graphics program called Blender3D. It has inspired me with what software might be created without having to wait for some big company to spend millions of dollars.
Since a computer simulation has no gravity, we do not need surfaces on which to rest pieces. Put each piece on an intersection of three translucent lines, one for each dimension. This has better visibility. Grasping and pulling any edge of the cube allows free rotation of the view of the matrix with no positions arbitrarily defined as "up" or "down." If traditionalist players want to use Staunton pieces, the pieces can stay stabilized upright at all times while the playing field rotates around.
Without gravity, there is no reason for pieces to be stable pedestals with radial symmetry along only one axis as they are in 2-D chess. The shapes that represent one-dimensional ranged movers (rook, bishop, queen) could be 3-D stars. The piece is formed of arms extending from the intersection it occupies, and dwindling to tips before reaching adjacent intersections. Each arm points out toward an intersection to which the piece could move if it weren't obstructed. So, a rook looks like a thickening of bright, bold opacity along the three translucent board-lines of its intersection. Arms of bishops and triagonal movers do not lie along the board lines; they reach across the gap toward adjacent line segments and intersections respectively. Pawns are half-spheres. Kings are large spheres. Leaper pieces (there could be four kinds like in Prince) have thinner, threadlike arms, that fork into Y's tipped with spheres.
Some traditional Chess players object when a Chess computer game gives them visual tips-- they feel it's cheating or playing for them. But a game as complex as space chess is difficult enough as it is. Computer visual analysis would merely reduce the burden and allow you to make decisions intuitively. For instance:
Only computer graphics let us finally do these things and set chess free.
Computer graphics allow chesslike games to finally escape the restrictions placed on them by equipment. It's frustrating that most simulations offered so far are simulations of traditional physical equipment. They carry over the limitations of inert pieces of matter!
One such limitation is that physical equipment can't automatically morph into different configurations at the touch of a button. There need not be one opening setup that players are forced to use. They should be given a menu to select the number of squares to a side, and place their own pieces in the starting arrangement of their preference. Some people think 8x8 is too much. Some people would want triagonal movers, while others would not choose it.
Visualize for a moment that the game of space chess is displayed on binocular-vision LCD glasses. The glasses superimpose images onto a transparent view of the wearer's real environment-- not virtual reality, but augmented reality. Imagine also that we have two telemetry gloves. The index finger and thumb are tracked in 3D and 'mouse click' when they touch-- the two fingertips are displayed as two cursors floating in the image. The cube should fill half the visual field, since the user's reach can be transposed on a huge scale, or the user can also change to the size of the pieces and stand inside the cube when desired. Ideally, the glasses would be tracked with telemetry so that the cube would always float in the same space in the user's real environment while the user moved around it. In this mode the whole cube should fit within easy reach, perhaps three feet to a side.
Such input/output hardware for the average non-technical user is probably outside the power of the Free Culture movement to create, but not so of software running on a normal monitor with a mouse. While writing this series I found a free open-source 3D graphics program called Blender3D. It has inspired me with what software might be created without having to wait for some big company to spend millions of dollars.
Since a computer simulation has no gravity, we do not need surfaces on which to rest pieces. Put each piece on an intersection of three translucent lines, one for each dimension. This has better visibility. Grasping and pulling any edge of the cube allows free rotation of the view of the matrix with no positions arbitrarily defined as "up" or "down." If traditionalist players want to use Staunton pieces, the pieces can stay stabilized upright at all times while the playing field rotates around.
Without gravity, there is no reason for pieces to be stable pedestals with radial symmetry along only one axis as they are in 2-D chess. The shapes that represent one-dimensional ranged movers (rook, bishop, queen) could be 3-D stars. The piece is formed of arms extending from the intersection it occupies, and dwindling to tips before reaching adjacent intersections. Each arm points out toward an intersection to which the piece could move if it weren't obstructed. So, a rook looks like a thickening of bright, bold opacity along the three translucent board-lines of its intersection. Arms of bishops and triagonal movers do not lie along the board lines; they reach across the gap toward adjacent line segments and intersections respectively. Pawns are half-spheres. Kings are large spheres. Leaper pieces (there could be four kinds like in Prince) have thinner, threadlike arms, that fork into Y's tipped with spheres.
Some traditional Chess players object when a Chess computer game gives them visual tips-- they feel it's cheating or playing for them. But a game as complex as space chess is difficult enough as it is. Computer visual analysis would merely reduce the burden and allow you to make decisions intuitively. For instance:
- All pieces glow when under threat.
- A large crown symbol appears outside the cube when check is given.
- When a piece is grasped and dragged, the intersections to which it can legally move light up.
- Moving the mouse onto a piece, without clicking, causes its name and animated graphic description to display in the space on the screen outside the cube. The piece on the board grows without thickening its arms: the arms stretch as far as they can without being blocked, to show all the intersections to which it can legally move.
- Also, here is an idea for the user to be able to get a quick glance at all the influence extended on the board. At the option of the user, all pieces on the board simultaneously extend their arms/spheres/surfaces as ghostly fogs of color. Since the sides are red and blue, they blend into purple where they cross. This represents threat from the red and blue sides, and varies with intensity based on how many pieces have a line of sight to the intersection.
Only computer graphics let us finally do these things and set chess free.
