[HN Gopher] Show HN: FoldMation - Interactive origami learning a...
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Show HN: FoldMation - Interactive origami learning and creation
Hi, I've created an application where you can follow step by step
origami fold instructions, and a Creator where you can make these
interactive folds. On comparing to video instructions, you have
the ability to quickly skip/rewind steps and replay a complicated
step many times. On the creation side, there have been one or two
attempts at this before, but those solutions rely on mouse drags as
the user interface. This greatly limited the kinds of folds
possible. The foldMation Creator uses commands, keywords and values
to compose a domain specific language/step and provides a
(relatively speaking) easy to use user interface to compose the
steps. For those interested in using the Creator, please go
through the tutorial at the top of the create page. Btw, the DSL
for foldMation uses https://github.com/mationai/mation-spec. I
created it since I couldn't find anything out there that is
similar, allowing me to specify a well structured data with
English-like readable syntax. Let me know what you think?
Author : fuzzythinker
Score : 31 points
Date : 2024-02-14 19:08 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (foldmation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (foldmation.com)
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| Oh wow, just realized looking at the footer here that
| @thunderbong posted it 2 weeks ago, thanks!
|
| I didn't get a chance to reply to some feedback to another post I
| commented on few days ago (one on Origami Simulator), so I'll
| post/reply them here.
|
| The Creator is capable to make most squash, petal, crimp, rabbit
| ear, and inside & outside reverse folds.
|
| - the step indicator has been changed from a "play" like icon to
| a circle to lessen the confusion, thank you.
|
| - I will likely add point # circles to points for the next step
| in play mode.
|
| - Not in complete agreement with showing fold arrows then
| animation of the fold is bad. Even if it is, it's difficult to
| change that, and there are more important bugs, fixes and
| features that to me have a higher priority.
|
| - Not knowing that the model can be panned. The hand cursor is a
| big hint. I also appreciate finding features and gems on my own,
| and I think many users can find this feature.
|
| ps. You can email/share the heart as an autoplay V-day "e-card"
| with http://foldmation.com/fold/m7ua3j8e6feac--heart?p=-1 . The
| p=-1 makes it autoplay, but it errors out if model has more than
| a few steps and the heart is the only model with a few steps so
| it's prefect.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I appreciate you making changes based on the previous feedback!
|
| Looking at the V-day heart you linked, the "autoplay" feature
| is more like what I expected the "play" button to do: play
| through the whole construction, start to finish.
|
| I also like the 3D folding animation for the last step; it
| would be nice if all the folding/creasing steps were fully
| animated like this. Unfortunately the last animation doesn't
| seem to work correctly when I try to replay it, I have to
| reload the page entirely for it to work again.
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| The idea for the play mode is a better tool than video, as
| mentioned in my top main text. So while autoplay to the end
| is cool (when I fix the timing issue on more than a few
| steps), I don't see how that can be more useful than a manual
| controlled one for learning purpose if I have to choose only
| one for the play button. If I can fix the timing issue, the
| autoplay will likely get its own button.
|
| Forgot to reply to "why can't click on step in steps viewer
| to skip". That's my original intention, but the effort to
| make that work well is too time consuming, so the step viewer
| is just that, a viewer.
|
| My original thought on selecting other models to view is
| something like youtube. But I like the cleanliness of the
| current layout and not clutter it with next suggestions. I
| think clicking "folds" at the top is a fairly easy thing to
| do to find the next fold.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I don't think there's anything wrong with going a different
| way than auto play. But call it something else. "Play" as
| an action has well-established conventions, and
| contradicting them will just cause confusion.
|
| Maybe just rid of the play button and use next/previous
| arrows instead? Something like that has a clear expectation
| of "one thing at a time".
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| I don't see an contradictions. It is just play all vs.
| play 1 step. There are existing previous/next buttons
| already, they skip back/forward a step. If anything, it
| is the play-all that will the odd one since it doesn't
| really fit along with all the other buttons. When it's
| ready, it will likely be placed on the rightmost and be
| clearly labeled.
| turtlebits wrote:
| This looks great, however the UI is pretty infuriating.
|
| - Clicking on a step does nothing, and using the arrows
| _sometimes_ advances steps, but sometimes gets stuck in a loop or
| takes multiple keypresses? (ie 3 >4>3>4>4>5).
|
| - Arrow key also scrolls the list so your current step moves out
| of view.
|
| - There is a long lag between keypress and diagram change.
|
| - The numbered circles don't show up in the diagram, and clicking
| them does nothing (even though they should a "link" pointer on
| hover).
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| Thank you for the feedback.
|
| - Clicking on a step does nothing -- Each click shows the
| fold/crease arrow steps followed by a fold animation if it's a
| fold or turnover. If it is really stuck, can you please provide
| the link and browser/OS you are using?
|
| - Arrow key also scrolls the list so your current step moves
| out of view. -- Yes, arrow keys are mapped to the controls. But
| I'm not sure I understand what do you mean by "current step
| moves out of view". Can you please elaborate?
|
| - There is a long lag between keypress and diagram change -- As
| mentioned above, each click display the fold/crease arrow hints
| for ~1.5 secs followed by an animation if it's a fold or
| turnover. If you want to skip around, use the fast
| forward/backwards buttons.
|
| - The numbered circles don't show up in the diagram, and
| clicking them does nothing -- Yes, as mentioned in my other
| comment, the number circles will be added to be shown in the
| model in the future. Right now, it does do something -- it
| shows a small circle indicating where that point is.
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(page generated 2024-02-14 23:00 UTC)