(no subject)

[telophase]

STILL NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME, PLZ TO NOT BE LINKING. (Not that you'd want to at this point anyway.)


You would not believe the amount of programming I've done* just to get the simple result that shows here:

http://www.magatsu.net/zanpakuto/shikai.php (Reload to get a new result) Cleaned up the directory, now at: http://www.magatsu.net/zanpakuto/

Plz to be admiring the way it knows whether to use "a" or "an" and how the adjectives are not duplicated. (This is not using the Seventh Sanctum script, BTW - I'm starting from scratch on this one. Which means that, since I'm not an elegant programmer, it's probably twice as long as it needs to be. It's for-damn-sure going to be much longer than it needs to be after I get different sentences in there. I may be needing to look harder at functions, in the near future.

Yes, I know you sometimes get "a big, tiny" weapon and similar. Stopping that happening is way beyond what I'm willing to do right now. Fixed, thanks to tprjones telling me how! :D

* for values of "programming" that programmers understand to be "staring at the screen until your forehead bleeds while trying to figure out the logic, looking like you're not doing anything, which makes people wonder why you scream invective at them when they interrupt your staring because you obviously weren't doing anything."

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

A black, graceful bullwhip.

XD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

A light, graceful set of brass knuckles.

:D

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

Actually I think you'll find starting from scratch is REALLY educational. It can be a pain in the ass, but the learning experience is worth it.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm sticking to textfiles instead of a database, which is my normal default data-storage thing. I have no real reason to, other than not having done it before and wanting to get the experience. :)

Now I get into the parts that are dependent on the weapon type - because if you've got a bullwhip, for example, you don't want it telling you that the blade is slightly wider than normal. :)

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

If you want suggestions I will - but only if asked.

Besides, I may learn a few things from you . . .

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hey, why not. :)

I'm next going to be heading into the abilities, and so far am thinking about using tprjones's "Data>Quality" structure to mark the types of zanpakuto, so I can make some of them ice-based, fire-based, animal-based, etc.

And I need to work out how the bankai form can still relate to the shikai form, maybe using the same sort of thing - if the shikai Actor has a quality of "animal", the bankai form gets chosen from those actors who also have a quality of "animal."

Mind you, as in canon, not all of them will have bankai forms. :) Probably only about 1/5th-1/8th, to roughly echo the amount of captains and others who've achieved bankai in Bleach.

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

As I know NOTHING about Bleach I can't say.

What I do in cases like this are twofold.

For something like this I assume you're using data thats tagged into categories.

The rough way I'd break this down is:
basic descriptor
size descriptor
quality descriptor - elemental
quality descriptor - animal.
actual item.

subdividing your data this way, would let you chain together basic, size, quality, actual item.

Additionally, don't put all of these in. So you may have a descriptor and a quality. Or a quality-powered actual item, etc. Sometimes absence leads to inspiration.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'll just show you what I've got - it's actually based on the meta-descriptor/descriptor/actor/meta-actor breakdown in your ... er, whatever it was in your tutorials site. It seemed a fairly easy way to do it, since the zanpakuto names in canon don't seem to follow any strict grammatical rules.*

http://magatsu.net/magatsu.net/zanpakuto/Zanpakuto2007-07-04.zip

Yeah, all the textfiles are separate right now. I haven't figured out yet how to get into them and search for just sections yet. :)



* The list of named zanpakuto from Wikipedia:

Moon Cutter
Crimson Princess
Flowing Blade like Flame
Stern Spirit
Hornet
Five-form Head
Divine Spear
Miserable Man/Apologizer
Frozen Cloud
Gourd
Mirror Flower Water Moon
Flying Plum Tree
A Thousand Cherry Blossoms
Snake Tail
Heaven's Punishment
Splitting Crow
Flower Heaven, Crazy Bone
Avalanche
Pure Insects
Ice Ring
Ash Cat
Demon Light (Viz: Winter Cherry)
Wisteria Peacock
Rainbow Haze
Killer Head
Truth of Pisces
Twisted Flower
Sleeve of White Snow
Soil Catfish

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

The file wont download, sadly.

I think the names are easily analyzable - but to be fair, unless you want to get REALLY complex, you may want to make names separate from powers.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I managed to double the "magatsu.net" portion. :)

http://www.magatsu.net/zanpakuto/Zanpakuto2007-07-04.zip

If all else fails, I'll leave the names separate, but it's still worth poking at, at least. :)

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

First - wow. This is complex. I'm impressed at how its evolving.

The tact you took, I noticed, is to do a breakdown into generator components to make sure you mantained control and the ability to refer back to the names. That works pretty well.

Pretty much you're on your way to making this work - its far more specific than I'd suspected, but I see how you're fleshing it out. Frankly, I think you're on the way - I don't see much I can contribute, but I will make one suggestion:

It seems that you're trying to make it all "cohere" with the names, etc. So a thought on that:
Maybe you should have powers and types of weapons associated with additional namefiles - figure out the type and power FIRST, then that would guide the files you load to generate names.

So there might be a "Fire File" and a "Sword file" that'd get uploaded so you get "Firey Edge" or "Cutting Nova" for some sword with fire powers.

It'd be complex, but hey you're aiming HIGH and have already done some pretty impressive stuff as is.


The only disadvantage is that you're coding this to be very, very specific. So you may not be able to recycle the code as easily - but you have found a way to really keep control and focus.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're right. XD I did something like that with weapon type - backtracked and picked the weapon type before I picked the weapon. That ought to work. Requires more rearranging, but hey, it's good practice. :)

I do have a tendency to code really specifically, which leads me to having to rip apart and recode things when I end up coding myself into a corner. I think I've hit that point in the calendar program for the library's intranet - people want to be able to do things like add a meeting every second Wednesday of the month for the next full school year with little extra work. Aarg.

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

A cute, black flail.

*want*

[cyancat.livejournal.com]

A graceful, massive warhammer.

How can a warhammer be graceful yet massive? Made out of plastic?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hey, whales can be graceful and they're definitely massive. And not, on the whole, made out of plastic. :D

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

If I may suggest, the easy way to stop the "big, tiny" problem would be to use the bit where it checks to make sure it doesn't use the same one twice and tweak it slightly. Make each adjective a two-piece bit of data, with the word itself and it's meaning family, then compare the family part to make sure you aren't duplicating. For example, using this data set - "enormous>size", "big>size", "miniscual>size", "tiny>size" - compare the part after the > to make sure you don't have two size elements, then output the part before the > once you've got two that work.

Sorry, if I see a problem I can't help but try to solve it. :)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm using the array_unique() function and just counting to see how many elements are in the array after I invoke it - if one, then go through the loop again, if two, exit. :D

But I can see what you're saying and might implement it. XD (I'm busy attempting to come up with adjective phrases to describe various weapon classes at the moment.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaaand, I had to go ahead and do it, instead of working on the adjective phrases. XD Thank you!

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

Sorry. :(

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I ended up using the same thing to put links to the Wikipedia pages where I found the various weapons, too. :)

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that will be handy! After all it's hard to work with something if you have no idea what it is. :)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D Especially since I went looking for unusual weapons or variants. XD

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

My favorite so far was a "mighty, cute warhammer." I bet it would be huge and have a smiling hello kitty on the business end. (Or, since this is Bleach, a Chappy.)

At least it's shiny, I guess.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

A gleaming, deformed manriki.

D:

[helen-keeble.livejournal.com]

Apparently, mine is Random number: 1. :-D

...and then, on reload, an "ordinary, short bo". Well, at least this proves I'm not a Mary Sue!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D Yeah, I've got it spitting various things out to the screen to test that it's doing OK as I code. XD At the moment it's now spitting out the weapon type! (because I have phrases to go after the weapon description that depend on the weapon type. :D)

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

Unseal this zanpakuto with the command "Shield, Sapphire Mistress!" It resembles a transparent, big eku as tall as the wielder.

FEAR MAY TRANSPARENT DEATH OAR!

*LOVE* the link idea you used. That's brilliant.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I read the description of the eku and knew I had to use it. XD

Thanks! It was sparked by chomiji wishing for pictures; this was easier. XD

[dragonscholar.livejournal.com]

I had debating including some colored and specially formatted text in some of my generators, but wasn't sure it'd work out - but this shows the "enhanced" idea really does work!