Definition

Description

A Description is a short and compact form of an assignment or a tree of assignments of values or parameters. In the Union Bytes Engine you can define parameters of a Material or the structure of a ParticleEmitter. You can parse this descriptions from a string, memory buffer or a file.

Syntax

Meta characters (not usable as names or non-masked strings):

 : , ; { } ' // /* */

Values as integers, hex-integers (with $prefix) or floats separated with a semicolon or a line break:

123 ; $A0 ; 3.1415

Values strings and strings with meta characters separated with a semicolon or a line break:

Hello World ; ':Meta: {Character}'

Value with a name, separated with a semicolon or a line break:

size: 16 ; align: center

Sublists of definitions with curly brackets:

player: red { level: 36; hit points: 1200 }

Short Sublist of values only:

direction: 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 

Line comment with double slash or block comment with slash-star:

time: 1.0 // in seconds
velocity /* of ship */ : 7.8

Example

ParticleEmitter: Smoke {
  
  Emission: {
    Direction: 0.0, 1.0, 0.0
    Angle:     20.0
    Frequency: 35.0
    Velocity:  0.75 // in world units per second
  }
  
  Particle: {
    Material: {
      Texture: '..\Textures\Smoke.png'
    }
    Size:      1.25
    LifeTime:  2.0 /* in seconds */
    Intensity: 0.5 ; FadeOut:   0.25
  }
  
}