Tracer Info
The tracers are the little white guys that drop down the screen. They, in
essence, "write" the code into the grid square and then move to the next one
down and keep going.
They sometimes stay the same character from block to
block, but not very often. Probably random, and the numbers are random
between 48-102 and each one represents a font character, with my particular font.
There are 54 Characters if you haven't already done the math. ;)
Also when writing a block, sometimes they don't write at all, maybe
skipping a block and leaving a space in there. That shouldn't be an option, but SHOULD be a customizable number. Percentage of No Code and the written code would be a variable, changed in the interface.
Anyway, when it's NOT writing a block, the tracer disappears completly and
reappears usually in the next block.
Tracers have fall speeds too. Maybe controlled in Milliseconds between
writing different boxes of the grid. That should be a variable so that you
can control the falling speed.
There should also be a fall speed difference too, so that different
tracers can fall at different speeds, or all at the same speed. Having that as a customizable would be a excellent option.
Tracers also don't write on green code. If it happens to run into code that's already there *because of the variable falling speeds, or because of uncleared code* then the tracer should disappear and the lines combine to make one big line. THis includes the random variable characters.
I also know that there should be a limit as to how many tracers are on the
screen at one time. Should be 15-25, but that can be a variable, because of the
density issue. More tracers=more lines of code.
Now the thing that makes the code "special" is the characters falling
behind it but I'll get to that in a sec.
The code behind it is measured in lengths... More of a 'how many
characters will this tracer write before the code starts to disappear'.
This could be another variable, for the whole density thing. It'd have to be at
LEAST 5 characters though and here's why:
The White tracer fades into green, but it takes 1 character to do it.
The first one is totally white, the two right behind it would be green, and then
the 2 behind that are the ones that fade out.
Maybe 2 darker shades of green and
then black?
If the whole color scheme were a customizable option as well,
that'd be a good thing, So people could have red text if they wanted.
Another thing that might be good, is to be able to choose how may characters are needed to fade out. Should take about 2 characters at the end of the falling code to fade out
though, but maybe someone wants the characters to just stop existing in a grid square instead for whatever reason.
The number of lengths or following characters should be a customizable option, and maybe be from 5
to 50 but you can change the higher and lower number, and everything in between is a random number.
Another unusual behavior of the white tracers are that they also seem to appear and disappear at random sometimes. Not very often, but it does happen that a tracer will start halfway down the screen.
It also happens that tracers will get halfway down the screen and then disappear. I've also seen tracers START half way down the screen as well, but that's also not very often that it happens. Unusual :)
And with a closeup:
One Special note about the code: the Characters that are written, aka tracers, actually FADE into white. Not all of them do, I guess it's just a property of the tracers though. Seems to be random however so some DO seem to fade while others are just POP there.
If you look closely you can see that characters will appear very dark JUST before a tracer reaches that spot. then it becomes REALLY bright *white* then becomes green.
Another small note after the fact: the White ones are actually bolded slightly. I don't know if this is to represent that the code is being "burnt" into the page or screen or whatnot, but by making them bold, it takes less lighting blur to make it look like it has a halo.
After watching the movie on IMAX, I watched like a HAWK these parts to see what the heck is going on and so far so good. Everything I've said is true.
As for the fading I should have explained it a little better.
You have a really dark character, that becomes white. *2 spaces* and then 2 green ones. Then the very last character is faded as well.
It DOES fade out, but it's next to non existant. If you faded out 3 characters it wouldn't look right, so it's just the one that fades out at the end.
To be REALLY technical, it doesn't even fade out, it's just a darker color then the others.
Obiously, the rest is explained above
Another update:
Something that I've noticed: When the tracers don't write, it appears to me that they ARE writing, but it's the font itself that doesn't write anything.
This is what I've done for the latest font. I've created the last 7 characters to be blank, so that the illusion that it's skipping spaces is given. It's a little easier for programmers then so that the design will write the whole line.
Yet another update:
Something else I'd like to mention about the code: When I refer to a Tick, that's when the screen does an update. These updates are like screenshots so to speak.
Anyway, the thing I wanted to point out is that the tracers that fall down from the top of the screen, they do it in cycles of 2 so that you don't have characters that are falling back to back.
It's a visual thing mostly, but you will often have characters that are falling in pairs, sometimes in groups of 3, but never more then that.
Anyway, the property of the tracer: They're totally random, so they will be released randomly but only on evenly numbered ticks.
Problem is that if this were the truth, you'd see the tracers ONLY on even or odd numbered horizontal lines, but this is ALSO not the truth. My suspusion for that is this: You'll have a random 2 tick delay instead of a 1, so that it's actually been thrown off slightly:
This is the number of spaces between tracers:
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1,
This would throw it off a little so that you don't have tracers on every 2 lines. *Remember that it's random too so there are times that it will write 3 tracers on 1 line, while other times there won't be ANY tracers being written*
Anyway, that's this update but it's a REALLY important one that I didn't notice before until I didn't see it in the screensaver :)
