README
1The Goldberg Slicer: Versatile grid generator for the KDE puzzle game Palapeli
2
3Copyright (C) 2010 Johannes Loehnert (loehnert.kde@gmx.net)
4
5This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
6it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
7the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
8(at your option) any later version.
9
10This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
11but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
12MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
13GNU General Public License for more details.
14
15You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
16with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
1751 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
18
19
20DESCRIPTION
21===========
22
23The Goldberg slicer is a plugin for the game Palapeli, which comes with the KDE
24distribution from version 4.4 onwards. Slicers in Palapeli are responsible for
25splitting up an image into a number of puzzle pieces.
26
27The Goldberg slicer offers:
28
29 * Authentic-looking jigsaw puzzles just like from the store
30 * Distinctive, individual piece borders
31 * Plenty of nifty knobs and switches to play with.
32
33The project is to be found on http://code.google.com/p/palapeli-goldberg-slicer.
34Mailing list: palapeli-goldberg-slicer@googlegroups.com.
35
36Infos about Palapeli can be found on the author's blog,
37 http://majewsky.wordpress.com/
38
39
40USAGE
41=====
42
43Start Palapeli, click "Create puzzle". "Goldberg" should now be available as puzzle type. The options you can set are:
44
45== Tesselation type ==
46
47determines which grid is used to split up the image, or put another way, what shape the puzzle pieces will have. You have the following choices:
48
49 * *Rectangular Grid*: The ordinary jigsaw puzzle as we all know and love it.
50 * *Cairo pentagonal*: Five-sided pieces with unequal edge angles.
51 * *Hexagonal*: Six-sided pieces.
52 * *Rotrex (rhombi-trihexagonal)*: Hexagons surrounded by rectangles and triangles. Looks like many intersecting circles.
53 * *Irregular*: random pieces. The program `qvoronoi` (part of qhull) is needed to generate irregular puzzles.
54
55The Cairo tesselation is rather hard to puzzle, since the pieces fit together in an unfamiliar manner. The Rotrex tesselation is simpler than the rectangular grid and looks pretty when put together.
56
57
58== Approx. piece count ==
59
60is used to calculate the grid size. In most cases the actual piece count will be somewhat larger or smaller than what you set.
61
62
63== Flipped edge percentage ==
64
65sets the probability for each edge (plug) to be "flipped". A plug is "flipped" if it points in the opposite direction as it would in a fully regular grid. On the rect grid, this results in pieces with 3 or 4 plugs pointing inwards resp. outwards.
66
67 * 0% (slider at the left): no edges are flipped, fully regular grid
68 * 50% (slider in the middle): All edges are random.
69 * 100% (slider at the right): Fully regular grid again, but now with "alternate" rule.
70
71"Alternate" rule does _not_ simply mean reversal of all plugs. In the alternate rectangular grid, each piece has 4 inward or 4 outward-pointing plugs. For the other tesselations, just try it out.
72
73This setting has no effect when using the irregular tesselation.
74
75
76== Edge curviness ==
77
78determines how curvy the edges are, i.e. how strongly the borders "dent in" or "bulge out".
79
80 * 0%: edges are straight lines (except for the plugs)
81 * 100%: edges are very curved.
82
83
84== Plug size ==
85
86determines the size of the "plug" part of each edge. The default (middle) setting is chosen to look like a real puzzle.
87
88 * 0%: plugs are half the default size
89 * 100%: plugs are 1.5x the default size, which already looks obscenely large.
90
91Goldberg slicer tries very hard to avoid collisions between plugs. Colliding edges are reshaped multiple times and shrinked in small steps. However there still remain cases where no solution can be found, especially for large plug sizes.
92
93
94== Diversity of curviness ==
95
96determines how much the "curviness" (see above) varies between borders.
97
98 * 0%: The "dents" and "bulges" look all the same.
99 * 100%: There are very curvy and very straight borders.
100
101
102== Diversity of plug position ==
103
104determines how much the plug position varies:
105
106 * 0%: Plugs are all in the middle of their border
107 * 100%: Plugs may be anywhere between the border endpoints.
108
109
110== Diversity of plugs ==
111
112determines how individual the plugs look like.
113
114 * 0%: Plugs look all the same.
115 * 100%: Each plug will be a unique piece of art crafted especially for you.
116
117
118== Irr.: Diversity of piece size ==
119
120applies only to irregular tesselation, and determines how much the piece size varies.
121
122 * 100%: very small and large pieces
123 * 50%: (default) pieces are all roughly of same size
124 * 0%: pieces are roughly of same size, crystallite-like structures arise
125
126
127== Piece outlines ==
128
129Draw a fine black outline around each piece, so that the individual pieces remain discernible in the assembled puzzle.
130
131
132== Dump grid image ==
133
134Save an image of the grid (black edges on white background). It is saved as `~/goldber-slicer-dump.png`. If a previous dump exists, it is overwritten.
135
