[impdev] Easter eggs (was: ImpDev meeting moved to the mailing list.)

[David Seikel]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2012 13:32:24 +0200 "Borun (a.k.a. Boroondas Gupte)"
<borun at kokuaviewer.org> wrote:

> On 04/15/2012 12:08 AM, David Seikel wrote:
> > Do we REALLY need 2MB of Easter eggs?
> > -------------------------------------
> Do we need them at all? If you feel we don't, be bold and remove them.
> Or replace them with new, better Easter eggs. :-P

I had removed them in my meta-impy fork long ago.

> > There is 2 MB worth of Easter egg images.  Being PNG files, they
> > don't compress really well, as the point of PNG is to apply image
> > specific compression, which in theory is more efficient than the
> > general purpose compressions usually applied to the download
> > packages.  Once compressed by PNG, the general purpose compressors
> > can't do any better.  I've not looked at current download sizes,
> > but from memory they are between 30 and 40 MB.  So 2 MB is a
> > considerable percentage, just for Easter eggs.
> >
> > Sure I have heard stories that Microsoft had an entire flight
> > simulator as an Easter egg in some version of Office or something
> > like that.  I don't think they are good role models for efficient
> > use of resources.
> Having seen that flight simulator back then, I suspect it might
> actually have been pretty compact, data size wise. It didn't have
> actual textures, but simple colour gradients instead.

Good to know the stories are not just rumours.  I prefer my head to be
filled with barely remembered facts instead of barely remembered
rumours. lol

I have seen the source code for a flight simulator in a C obfuscation
contest.  It's about the size of this email, and in the shape of a
plane.  So I know it can be done in a tiny space.  I just doubt
Microsoft's abilities to do "small".

> > Can we get rid of them?  Or at least use much smaller images?  ASCII
> > art?  Have the viewer download the images from the web if ever
> > anyone stumbles across them?  Not like it's a crucial feature, or
> > that any single person will try it more than once.  lol
> >
> > Those 2MBs add up fast, so I'd go with the "download from the web
> > when needed" idea.  After all, they will rarely be needed, and can
> > be cached for those that try it a second time.  Reducing our 'net
> > traffic.
> If we are to keep the Easter eggs, web download really seems like the
> way to go indeed. Unless someone puts the trigger for one of these
> eggs into a popular SL gesture, I wouldn't worry about traffic caused
> by that, be it with or without caching.

Might be wise to make sure only the viewer operator can trigger them.
lol

> I wasn't previously aware we had these Easter eggs. When looking at
> the implementation yesterday, I noticed a lot of code duplication. So
> if you want to keep them, that could deserve some refactoring. And,
> being easter eggs in an open source project, maybe tad more
> obfuscation? I can throw up a change for either, if wanted. (Sounds
> like something quick to do and fun. :-D)

Cool, I look forward to seeing your changes for all those things you
mentioned that you would like to work on.  Even make different Easter
eggs if you feel the urge.

As for obfuscation, those images stand out in more than one way in the
textures directory.  That's how I stumbled on the Easter eggs in the
first place.  Why where there these rather large PNG files mixed in
with mostly tiny TGA and J2C files?  Why do we need large images for UI?
My preferred file browser even colours them differently.   Actually
looking at them raised a WTF?  Which then prompted me to search out the
code that uses them.  Moving them to the web would help a lot for
obfuscation.

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.
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