Keyboard Control, 3D Manipulation & Other Secrets, All of my research released.

Introduction:

In this extremely long-awaited tutorial, I will share some of my most treasured PowerPoint knowledge. Since my time here, I have done everything I can to break boundaries and solve problems that previously defeated people en masse including the utilisation of keys pressed by a user as a means of input, manipulating 3D objects within a presentation, gathering information about a user and their computer, making an event occur every x milliseconds and more. I'd first like to thank John Wilson for all of his help in my research and for being so generous in sharing his font of all things VBA. Please note that the steps in the tutorial are aimed at PowerPoint 2010 users, there may be slight differences in 2007 and earlier so please bear that in mind! I suppose I'd better stop rambling as you're only here for the codes after all; and so with no further ado, I present to you all of my research into PowerPoint and VBA. Oh and I will be adding to this post all the time, so keep checking back!

Keyboard Control Tutorial:

What is keyboard control?
Well, in principal, it is detecting the keys a user presses on their keyboard whilst using your presentation. This is surprisingly more difficult that you might initially expect.

Does it require API(s) or other programs to be installed?
Some methods of keyboard control would require this, but my one doesn't at all luckily. Many people are hesitant to allow a presentation to use APIs considering exactly what they're capable of. For this very reason, I (like many others) chose not to use them if there is an alternative. Luckily for us, there is!

When will the tutorial actually start?
Fear not, there's only one more question.

What is the extent of compatibility with keyboard control?
As you will probably know, I have released many examples of keyboard control here, and I was surprised myself by the extent of compatibility. It seems to function correctly on Windows XP, Vista and 7, as well as Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010! Yahoo!

Step 1:
Open up PowerPoint and save your presentation as a Macro-Enabled Presentation named "Keyboard Control Test". I ask you to do this so you don't forget to save it as a macro-enabled presentation later, and lose the VBA (has happened to me many times before).



Step 2:
For my method of keyboard control to work you will need to insert an ActiveX TextBox for the user to select. Open the developer tab (if you don't have a developer tab go to PowerPoint Options -> Customize Ribbon - > Developer, or Google "Developer Tab" + your PowerPoint version for a tutorial). From the developer tab, select the icon highlighted below:



And place it along the top of the slide like so:



Step 3:
For this to work, grids are best as they ensure the character doesn't get trapped and isn't able to escape an area. You will need to border off the playing area with a shape; to do this insert a rectangle and change its size to those below so it will fit in the grid perfectly:



Then align it to the center and to the middle so it is exactly in the center of the slide:



Feel free to decorate this new shape and change the slide background so it looks a little better and the TextBox at the top of the slide is more visible, for example:



Step 4:
Now it is time to create the character. For this example, simply use a smiley face sized 2.54 by 2.54 so it fits in the grid, and place it exactly in the corner of the large rectangle we made earlier:



Feel free to decorate this character too like I did in the example.

Here is an image showing every possible place the player's character can move to on the grid that we've created:



Step 5:
Now it's time to make an area that the player can't go into; let's call this a "solid" shape. Create another rectangle (sized 2.54 by 2.54), and place it on top of the character's head, exactly in the center, like so:



Then copy the character and place it somewhere touching the other side of the playing area, and extend the new rectangle until it is touching the right character exactly, like this:



After, delete the character that you copied to the right side of the playing area as it was only used to ensure the solid shape fit correctly inside the grid. Feel free to decorate the rectangle so it matches your other shapes, like I did in the image above.

Here is an updated version of possible character positions:



And remember to keep saving!

Step 6:
Now we need a "level up" shape that will allow the player to move to the next level when their character touches it. We'll use a star; so go ahead and insert a star and resize it to 2.54 by 2.54, then place it in the top-right corner like so:



As always, feel free to decorate this new shape.

Step 7:
Create a rectangle that covers the whole slide, right click it, select Edit Text and add a congratulations message to it, like mine:



Create another rectangle that covers the whole slide, right click it, select Edit Text and add the following message "^^ Click the Box Above to Begin ^^". Like this:



Step 8:
It is now time to rename the shapes so the VBA will be easier. Open up the selection pane from the Home tab like so:



Rename the shapes in the presentation like I have (exactly [they are case-sensitive]!), and click the eye icon to the right of the shape named "FinishMessage":



Step 9:
Now the tutorial will get slightly more complicated as we're going to start working with VBA. To start off with, right click on the TextBox at the top of the slide, and select Properties. From there, changed "Locked" to "True", like so:



You may also want to center the text too, by changing "TextAlign" to "2 - fmTextAlignCenter", like so:



The text inside of this TextBox will be added later by VBA when you test your game.

Step 10:
Close the properties menu, and double click on the TextBox, a window should open like this:



Select all of the text, and click delete on your keyboard so there is no longer any text.

Step 11:
I considered going through each part of the code and explaining it to you, but I didn't know if people would want that, and so I will simply provide the code for you.

Copy all of the code inside of the CODE box below and paste it into the window.

It should look something like this:



Now, close that window by clicking "x" in the top-right corner. Save your presentation, then test it out. If you followed every step perfectly, you will have your very own keyboard control game! Feel free to go back, and change things around a little.

The character can be a group or an image as long as it is still named "Character" in the Selection Pane and it is sized 2.54 by 2.54 exactly (you can achieve this by adding an invisible square of that size behind the character if yours is too small).

You can also add new shapes and items to the game to make it look better.

Please feel free to experiment with the code to see what you can do with it; I can't wait to see for myself!

Here is the file that I created by using this tutorial (in case you made a mistake):

http://www.mediafire.com/?d7wvz6d61ogveps

Oh...creating every possibility that the player could go to. I could see why AI would be hard :P

However can't you do the same thing with AI? I mean, make it go through a pred defined path, and every other second, the AI would move accordingly? Or is the code just really hard to debug O_O

If you do get that right, then lets say you touch the 'AI' (We'll name this AI 'Girl A' for 'live it' references :P) Let's say you touch this 'Girl A' you siad that you've already had the code to recongize if an object was touching another object, so can't you make dialogue choices appear? Or at least text pop up, then after ward press 'Enter' to close the text box?

Im also very curious about character facing, and to what extent CA (Motion paths) can be added to make the movement less...'Suddenly-teleport-1-block-infront-of-me-ness'

I want this since I want my person to be able to face right/left, and let's say after much struggle, your able to apply a simple attack button (ie a blade) when the 'Enemy' is touched by the blade, the 'Health' decreases, and a bar shows. Although hit counter's would be pretty hard to do...not to mention to let is show how much damage you did, and in real-time (._.) ...

Although I have to asy, would you have to create every possibility that the player moves right, and faces left or forward, and every different place the player could slash? I can see if this was like this, this would be really hard and time consuming to correctly make a char. face any direction, and attack a 'Enemy' O_O

Also, I've also wondered about using the mouse in-game aswell, like during combat, if you want to use range attacks, you have to click them. Howver, would this also be time-consuming, having an arrow from every possible sqaure shoot every other square there is (And that's all if you got bullets to work fine!)

The keyboard part is done, but that's just the movement and mobility, the real 'fun' starts with the game mechanics itself, which I would imagine take alot longer then anything else, even the best, most realistic game graphics to PS3/Xbox360 char.'s.

(This would mean where enemies move, what paths they have to them, how close you have to be in order for the enemy to 'see' you and if it's even possible 'follow' you until there withing attacking range, not to mention the ability to level-up in real experince systems, and mana, dex, energy, strength, stamina, endurance, constitution, also having the ability of having random itmes, weapons, and armor with random +HP fitting the level your in, etc)

(Above, YEARS!)

Thats not really AI. Thats a call and response of an NPC

Thats not really AI. Thats a call and response of an NPC

Yes, whatever you call that stuff, im not into game mechanics much at all

Well funny you should mention AI because I was thinking the other day "I should really start drafting the AI for Live It!".

As you will know, characters will need to eat and sleep to survive and so it would seem stupid to not implement AI as your character would soon be the only living one in the whole game as the others would just stand there and die.

Another type of AI I will need it route calculating. I will need a way for characters to know which way to go when you click on the toilet, and which blocks they can and can't walk through (we wouldn't walk characters infinitely walking into a wall when there is a door a few feet to the left).

Next comes the economy, other characters will be earning money from their jobs and they also need to buy food, so I need to ensure they know when the fridge is empty and they need to go shopping. This also applies to furnishing their homes; if a character earns a bonus, why not let them buy a new television with the money?

Also, to ensure that money doesn't run out, the owners of shops will have to spend the money they earn too. Money spent paying for furniture bought from the edit-mode catalogue will go into the bank where it will be used to pay characters for work. This 'pool' of cash in the bank will slowly increase in size over time to compensate for progression in the game and promotions; meaning characters need to be paid more.

I've merely outlined a few of the branches of AI that I'll need to create for "Live It!". The AI will probably be a large part of the drafting process as it will require an awful lot of thinking so characters don't act strangely.

As for combat, I thought I'd spend a few minutes seeing what I could come up with.

It's simple, but it was only a quick test:
http://www.mediafire.com/?92ft8hv192fj96w

As a video game programmer, I have to understand this code;
Okay... here goes...
  Private Sub Status_KeyDown(ByVal KeyCode As MSForms.ReturnInteger, ByVal Shift As Integer)
 
      Dim objChar As Shape
      Dim objStatus As Shape
      Dim objWall As Shape
      Dim strMaxTop As String
      Dim strMaxLeft As String
      Dim strMaxBottom As String
      Dim strMaxRight As String
      Dim strLefTemp As String
      Dim strTopTemp As String
      Dim strMove As Integer
      Dim objLevelUp As Shape
      Dim objPlayArea As Shape
      Dim objMsgFnsh As Shape //blah blah defining stuff
     
      Set objChar = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes("Character")
      Set objStatus = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes("Status")
      Set objWall = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes("Wall")
      Set objLevelUp = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes("Star")
      Set objPlayArea = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes("Border")
      Set objMsgFnsh = ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes("FinishMessage") //Sets and assigns the names to the objects on the first slide
     
      strMaxTop = "90" //Not sure why these numbers were chosen for the interger values, but I'm guessing its the size of the boundary.
      strMaxBottom = "378"
      strMaxLeft = "36"
      strMaxRight = "612"
      strMove = objChar.Width //This makes sense. The object will only move its width.
     
      If KeyCode = vbKeyLeft Then
          objChar.Rotation = "270" //Rotate 270 degrees, obviously
              strLefTemp = objChar.Left//This has something to do with the text box, but I'm not sure what.
              strTopTemp = objChar.Top

             
              If objChar.Left - strMove <= strMaxLeft Then
                  objChar.Left = strMaxLeft
//strMove is how far it moves, therefore, the character will not move past the set border.
              Else
                  objChar.Left = objChar.Left - strMove
//Move if it won't go past the border.
              End If
             
              If objChar.Left < objWall.Left + objWall.Width And objWall.Left < objChar.Left + objChar.Width Then //The ball will not travel into the space the wall occupies?
                  If objChar.Top < objWall.Top + objWall.Height And objWall.Top < objChar.Top + objChar.Height Then
                      objChar.Left = strLefTemp
                      objChar.Top = strTopTemp
//Another reference to the text box, I believe. Not sure what these strings have to do with the entire code. Am I missing something?
                  End If
              End If
//Rest of code is a huge line of else ifs and the "you win" macro

Well done; you were very close!

I hope this helps you understand the code:

---

...And why isn't this pinned?

This helps a lot. Hopefully I'll be able to implement this in some future works!

Thank you very much,

I'm glad my work could be of some use to you!

I'll post a far better version of the Keyboard Control engine later this month if all goes well - the current one in this post is very messy and can be simplified hugely.

I also never actually truly explained how you go about making objects solid and how to make objects react to a character's touch. All will come soon!

Wow!! Finally, we know how do keyboard imput in VBA!

I want to update this, but out of interest, who would actually use an updated code in a project and post it here?

So far nobody has actually used this, much to my surprise!

No one truly understand it...

No one truly understand it...

Hum. Do you think I should redo the tutorial, with a much lower-brow approach?

No one truly understand it...

Hum. Do you think I should redo the tutorial, with a much lower-brow approach?

Maybe. By the way, maybe people dont need to use it yet.