Re: [Enigma-devel] CVS update and mouse controls

[Jeremy Sawicki]

I've found the mouse controls somewhat awkward in enigma in comparison with
oxyd, but I could never say exactly how.  I spent some time with it today,
and I now think the biggest problem is with friction.  Specifically, the
friction should be (more or less) proportional to the speed of the marble.

Try this experiment.  On a relatively open level, move the marble towards
the bottom wall as fast as possible, and see what happens after it bounces.
In enigma, the marble will bounce back and forth between the bottom and top
walls several times (I can get about 8 bounces).  In peroxyd, I can't get
the marble to bounce all the way to the top wall even once.  I have to set
the friction to about 15 to get that behavior in enigma.  On the other hand,
when making small movements it seems like there is too much friction (even
when I don't have the friction set to a high value like 15).  If you move
the marble and then watch it glide to a stop, it seems to move fast for too
long, and when it finally does slow down and come to a stop, it seems to
stop too abruptly.  All of this points to needing more friction at higher
speeds and less friction at lower speeds.

I now have these lines commented out in get_accel in world.cc:

            //if (vv > 0.01)
            //    f -= v/vv * options::FrictionFactor*floor->friction();
            //else
                f -= v * options::FrictionFactor*(floor->friction());

With that code change, I think the behavior is fairly good with the
following settings (though I haven't done much fine tuning):

        Mouse speed     : 4
        Mouse damping   : 25
        Friction        : 1.2

I'm running enigma under windows 2000.

Jeremy