Recently I have been mired in utilizing rusty math skills. It is frustrating knowing that you can do something in math, but not remember how. Math is all about tricks. Everything derives from some simple rules. Multiplication is just adding repeatedly. As the tricks get more complicated, they come with their own restrictions. Remembering that there is a trick is better than taking the long route. Want to leave a 15% tip? Take the amount, move the decimal place once to the left, making the number smaller. Add half that smaller number to the smaller number. Presto, 15%. Need to know what angle a solo cup rests on a flat ground at? Arc-tangent to the rescue. Need an object to spin? Matrices to the rescue. Which is bigger: 3/4" or 7/16"? Common denominators help. Want a picture to be as big as possible in a window without it being stretched? Ratios are the answer, with a little Boolean logic to help. Math for some is hard. Learn the tricks, and it becomes much easier. Sometimes it just takes one trick to make it all easy. I keep saying this, but math is taught backwards. We should teach the why first, then work your way backwards through the hows.
Below is a screen show of what I am currently working on. It is a cross between a level and a mini-game. The final result will probably look much different than this. This is only one part among many planned. The players for this part are the round robots both in the light and the dark. It is amazing both that it is this for so quickly and take being this slow. Parts that I thought would have gone easily have been slow. Those that I expected to be harder took much less time. This lighting and sizing is being my current biggest challenge. Lighting is a known issue with Unity. Not quite time to put lipstick on the pig yet.
