eScape - a 3D Desktop Replacement

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Mon May 02, 2005 9:25 am

Well here it is

... the first public release of my 3D desktop replacement, now titled: eScape. This installer can be obtained in the Downloads section of my site. There is loads more work to do, but the main concepts are here. There are three icon panels, which can be activated by hovering over the "hinges" at the left, top and right edges of the screen. The left icon panel should contain your system's desktop shortcuts. The top panel contains standard system icons (My Computer, Recycle Bin, etc)...

Controls are as follows:

- Hold Right-mouse-button to look around
- Arrow keys to move around
- Show panels by hovering the cursor over the hinges at screen edges
- Launch icons with usual "double-click" action

Currently implemented features include:

- 3D scene replacing desktop wallpaper
- 3D animated icons
- Full "free" movement

To quit the application, right-click the eScape tray icon and choose "Quit". Feedback welcome here or in the Forums on the Liquidream Studios site.

Vox · Post by **Vox** » Mon May 02, 2005 12:47 pm

Cool. It's allready on my desktop

Bug: if I choose Show3DBackground, after Hide3DBackground, it is not possible to move around anymore.

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Mon May 02, 2005 2:46 pm

Hmmmm... seems like it does it on Win 2000 for some reason. XP seems ok (from my testing). Will look into it. Thanks for trying the program!

.Quall · Post by **.Quall** » Mon May 02, 2005 2:49 pm

very neat. I have never seen a 3d decktop mod that wasn't related to longhorn.

Anyways, I think it would be very cool for you to create an editor. If you are ever going to retail this, create a free demo with a couple presets, then in the retail version have an editor and the ability to load several background images.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon May 02, 2005 2:57 pm

nm, didn't realise that it was a bsp. This means that I can create my own with ease

. Great app.

after-life · Post by **after-life** » Mon May 02, 2005 3:08 pm

you should place something invisible in front of the windows, so you cant jump through thme :p

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Mon May 02, 2005 4:11 pm

.Quall wrote:very neat. I have never seen a 3d decktop mod that wasn't related to longhorn.

Anyways, I think it would be very cool for you to create an editor. If you are ever going to retail this, create a free demo with a couple presets, then in the retail version have an editor and the ability to load several background images.

Thanks. In fact this is kinda simiilar to what I have in mind for the product (if I can make it good enough). Although its a long way off yet, I plan to always have a free version (probably without editor), but it will never expire and allow loading of other presets. With the retail version including the editor and more features perhaps.

Guest>> Thanks very much. As far as the BSP part goes, that's not a final decision. I may switch to .X file for levels or something else. Particularly due to the current licencing issues with BSP compiling.

after-life>> LOL

Did you manage to jump through the window!? Well done! That was the secret level!.... Honest.. *cough cough* (Note to self: add windows!)

keless · Post by **keless** » Mon May 02, 2005 5:59 pm

Awesome man, good work. I'm really excited about this project. Now, before you get too much further into coding, I'd like to see some talk on long term goals and design-- I wouldnt want to hear you coded yourself into a corner, or that you ended up creating a bunch of features that were unneccesary or something.

You'll definately need to add functionality for more user customizability. Currently you've managed to display the icons that are on the user's desktop, but how about letting them create/destroy/move them within eScape? And you've got some demos on animated program avatars, but how about letting the user create their own using an XML format that is loaded when the scene is loaded?

Also, in the system tray you give the options show/hide 3D background-- it seems if you hide then show again its deleting then recreating the scene? Personally, I'd prefer it if 'hide' merely stopped displaying without actually destroying the scene. If I move into another room, I'd want to still be in that room with things in the same state when I showed the scene again.

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Mon May 02, 2005 6:50 pm

Keless>> Thanks for the support. OK, like I said there's still tons to do, that "tons" is mostly regarding customisation

. I have to admit that there is a fair bit of hard-coding in this current version, but that was mostly coz this release was more of a "proof of concept" as well as a release to test the water and see what the reaction was.

The planned features will soon be listed on my site (there are some I wrote a while ago, but my idea has changed slightly):

The System should:

be a Desktop replacement (but retaining the taskbar - as it's quite useful!)

be moved around in, but not too much. The scene should always be primarily something to leave in the background, and just there to be played with the your mind wonders. "Free-looking" with the mouse, moving around with keys/mouse, and many objects will be clickable. This is quite important as Icons need to be able to load applications.

only use up "left over" resources. It should in no way impede usual computer use, be it games, documents, etc.

allow Interchangeable, customisable scenery (scenes), all animated 3D worlds. Trees sway, water ripples, and each scene comes with it's own ambient sounds.

have Real-time environmental change. If it's dark where you are, it'll be dark in your desktop. Maybe even weather variation using results from web weather service?

The way it currently imports desktop shortcuts was again another proof of concept. I plan for the panels to start off empty and then users either right-click or Drag & Drop from explorer to create new shortcuts (2D/3D). Seeeing as I've coded it, I'll probably also include a timesaver for importing desktop shortcuts, as a once off.

Similarly with 3D program "avatars", once I settle on a format, its intended they can be customised by allowing "Choose Model" or something simple as not everyone know XML - I'm (ideally) targetting everyone with this, pro's and PC newbies.

Yourabsolutely right about the Show/Hide. Currently it was the only way I could figure out how to actually HIDE (or destroy) the window. I could stop the rendering, but it left the window open. I'm sure it's something simple, but I couldn't figure it out at the time. Any ideas? (Hiding Irrlicht windows??)

Thanks again for everyone's feedback! The more the merrier!

keless · Post by **keless** » Mon May 02, 2005 8:21 pm

i dont know what your code looks like, but I assume to do what you're doing you're playing around with the HDC? So you'll probably need to use some win32 command to minimize the window, and another to maximize it for Show/Hide functionality.

For the avatars check this out, as I think it's a useful idea to you: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... 9293#39293

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Tue May 03, 2005 6:19 am

Thanks for the tip Keless. Will also have a look at your Avatar class, looks quite useful.

r2d2 · Post by **r2d2** » Tue May 03, 2005 7:38 pm

It really looks great... how about implementig a 3D explorer

i think it would be kinda cool browsing through your folders in 3D but i'm kinda to lazy to code something like that

All in all i think it's a cool an nice looking feature but what about the performance drop that it will produce?

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Wed May 04, 2005 12:21 pm

r2d2 >> Although a 3D explorer would be pretty cool, I think that it would deserve an application to itself. Currently I am trying to stick to the realm of the "desktop". One that's nailed, I may expand to include additional functionality. (Actually, I'm already being a bit hipocritical because I'm planning to integrate a kind of jukebox into the 3D desktop!)

Perhaps your idea could be met half-way so that elements in a 3D desktop scene could change in size depending on disk space usage? E.g. in a field scene, the size of trees could vary with space used on particular drives? I dunno

As for performance drop. Currently my PC shows approx 10-20% CPU usage when running eScape. Ideally I want that to be as close to 0% as possible (hardware depending). Once the main system's built, I will look at increasing performance/decreasing CPU usage.

jox · Post by **jox** » Wed May 04, 2005 12:30 pm

Nice work, great app!

One issue. If I move around with the cursor keys the camera rotation sometimes gets crazy. It constantly rotates in on direction until I press the right mousebutton again.

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:08 pm

Jox >> Thanks very much! Yeah I have had that happen a few times to me. Hopefully it's resolvable, I think I just gotta do more work in the keyboard/mouse events. Will look into it!