So I’m playing around with the “What Not To Wear” thing from the Inform7 manual http://inform7.com/learn/man/Rex426.html#e426, and I noticed the code doesn’t actually cover body parts - it just uses them as orientation for clothes. I tried to modify this, but I got very, very stuck. What I’m trying to make is simply some code for recognizing whether a given body part is covered by a garment or not. The original code looks like this:
Carry out wearing:
repeat with hidden item running through things worn by the player:
if the noun covers the hidden item, now the hidden item underlies the noun.
I tried to simply copy this, and made the following:
Carry out the player wearing something:
repeat with hidden item running through things worn by the player:
if the noun covers the hidden item, now the hidden item underlies the noun;
repeat with hidden body-part running through the body-parts:
if the noun covers the hidden body-part, now the hidden body-part underlies the noun.
And then checking it with a simple mirror:
The mirror is here. The description is "A nice gold-framed mirror. You see a handsome devil in it. He's wearing: [list of uppermost things worn by the player]. [if the seat is uppermost]Hey, nice ass!" The mirror is scenery.
This worked out all right, but then I got suspicious given the lack of specification, so I added another character. Sure enough - if the player takes off his pants, then the other guys’ bottom becomes visible as well. How do I solve this? Is there a way to be more specific? “the players’ body-parts” didn’t seem to work.
It seems that what you want is the way to describe ‘is body-part X part of person Y?’ You’re looking for the incorporation relation.
So you need to modify it to this:
Carry out the player wearing something:
repeat with hidden item running through things worn by the player:
if the noun covers the hidden item, now the hidden item underlies the noun;
repeat with hidden body-part running through the body-parts:
if the noun covers the hidden body-part and the player incorporates the hidden body-part, now the hidden body-part underlies the noun.
Also I think “if the seat is uppermost” checks whether any seat is uppermost. You might need “[if the player incorporates an uppermost seat]” in the description of the mirror; however, I haven’t tested this.
[Also, would you be able to see your ass in the mirror?]
Dependent on your spinal-twist flexibility, but probably yes. If you want to simulate spinal flexibility, I suspect there is no hope for you.
(Ten seconds with the bathroom mirror suggests that the required angle of twist, head to tailbone,is more than 45 and less than 90 a little over 90 degrees. intfiction.org: answering the really important questions.)
But it seems to me that if you were trying – and if you have to twist 90 degrees you’re trying – your reaction should not be “Hey, nice ass!” which suggests surprise, but “Mmm, nice ass.”
Again, dependent on flexibility. For me it’s a casual glance over the shoulder. The classical antecedent never seems to be straining, and she doesn’t even have a mirror. (Not that you should trust the ancients on plausible anatomy.)
Thank you! That seems to work splendidly; I even made a general version of it allowing other characters to dress and undress, and that seems to work fine as well. Very helpful, thanks (and lovely discussion on spinal twists, as well. This seems like a great forum.)