Fan Content

Ainia · **Posted:** Fri Jul 10, 2015 5:02 pm

Karkadann wrote:

...The Gateway team is not getting anything done any time soon: although I do remember the first time I bit off more then I can chew, It was Relativity. the first one I worked on

http://dni-guild-of-writers.deviantart. ... ?catpath=/

You can down load it for Uru CC threw the GoW. If you do check out the credits in the journal it took a lot of cooperation to get it to where it is and its still not finished.

And I will add, it is an *amazing* work of art, well worth the effort of getting things downloaded and configured properly. :mrgreen:

Tweek · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 12:11 am **Posts:** 2633

HarveyMidnight wrote:

I have a different question...

What with the time-consuming nature of designing new Ages--- and, as was said, the more complex the Age the longer it takes to complete...

...is/was there any discussion of creating something SIMPLE, to be incorporated into MOULa as a kind of 'declaration of intent'?

That was part of the idea behind Sevkor... that 'doghouse' idea that was the seed of Sevkor, was meant to be a no-frills, ramshackle "clubhouse" that only the staff knew about, where newly discovered books were HIDDEN from the public. At heart, it was a 'fort', that might be fun to hang-out at.

Sevkor had no puzzles & little story--- it was just gonna be a library; EVENTUALLY it was gonna be a fan-content library-- but until then, it'd just be a place with tables to sit around. --something to add to MOULa, as proof the process could be followed thru to completion. Which I THINK is something people need to see...

Honestly.. the 'social' aspect of MOULa is pretty big... -- music nights, story nights, etc, --- I guarantee, if you add 'hangouts' and 'forts' and cool little spots, where a group can just admire a beautiful vista outside a window or off a balcony while they sit and voice-chat... people would love those Ages, and use them.

So.. is anybody thinkin' of anything simple like that, to add to MOULa sooner rather than later?

I think you misunderstand what actually goes into Age building. Even a simple "no frills" place requires a fair amount of work.

Sevkor...isn't really as simple as it first seems. Now from a layout point of view, there are a lot of areas, stairs little tunnels and stuff. All of which needs to be set up correctly to allow not only the avatar to walk through without issues (collision values) but also needs to allow the camera to move without clipping through the wall. I'm not sure how far along Matt was with making Sevkor suitable for being run in Uru but I could tell from the renders he made of the various areas that he was probably going to run into some issues in regards to collision.

Secondly, and most importantly, the Linking Books. For every single Linking Book that is added into Sevkor you need to add all the regions and triggers for the avatar (plus camera views when needed) animations. You then need to wire up the click points and what not to make them work. Then you need all the python scripting for the Linking Books to assign where they Link too, which Linking point within that Age (some ages have several) plus the instancing values for that Age (public, private, hood). Not to mention calling up the right Linking Panels for the right books.

This will give you an example of what you have to go through to set up a Linking Book or Journal.

I won't bother mentioning having to light everything correctly, assigning the light groups and stuff so they only shine light on things they're supposed to.

Fehnir's House is a simple location without much going on (and a lot smaller than Sevkor) and that too has required a lot of work and taken a lot of time. Age building is not simple...even when building something simple, that's just the way of it and has been the way of it since the start.

As for Sevkor being something you feel people need to see..well there is no ruling out it showing up later. But as mentioned previously in other posts, it's unlikely it will be the core mechanic for getting to Fan Ages. The Maintainer Nexus access point and Emor's KorTiwah are a lot further along (and handle the multiple books in a more concise/neater manner, plus both projects are handled by authors that are actually active. Sevkor has been modeled, I can't tell if collision and lighting (compatible with Uru) has been added as most of the media I've seen (screenshots and the like) have been rendered and not from in Uru. But Matt isn't around and hasn't been for a long time so progress can't really be made as a result. Which is why from the Gateway Project point of view we're looking towards the Maintainer Nexus access point or Emor's KorTiwah (although last I heard it was leaning towards the Maintainer Nexus access point).

Our project focus, isn't about making new simple Ages...it's about getting the Gateway Project done (so fan Ages can be added to MOUL) and handling the content involved in Intangibles.
The GoMe Pub, Vothol, Fehnir's House have been previously listed as possibly being the first fan content because those areas are already made and MOUL server compatible. So after beta testing it wouldn't be difficult to drop it onto the server.

After that, well the kind of Ages that show up depends on those who build them and those Cyan allow onto the shard.

Karkadann · **Posted:** Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:50 pm

Tweek wrote:

This will give you an example of what you have to go through to set up a Linking Book or Journal "in Blender"

In Max/Plasma

Quote:

First you are going to need D'Lanor's templates. If you don't have his latest that's handy, here is a GoW Forum link: where you can read about it, and copy and paste the code from there.

In Max/Plasma made easy

its not as difficult as he makes it seem but when you start to re-purpose something as complex as the Nexus code and all you are is a jack of all trades master of none (a title I'v worn for many years) it gets a bit difficult

AdamJohnso · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 4:45 am

Life is a lot more difficult if you're using PyPRP. Cyan's plugins make things quite a bit easier.

Karkadann · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 5:14 am

AdamJohnso wrote:

Life is a lot more difficult if you're using PyPRP. Cyan's plugins make things quite a bit easier.

Life "is" full of choices :mrgreen:

AdamJohnso · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 5:23 am

Some folks choose to not spend tons of money on 3d modelling software

Tweek · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 12:11 am **Posts:** 2633

Certainly one can use Max, and certainly Cyan's plugins do make things easier.

However the fact is Blender is the dominant Age building avenue (and will continue to be so). Max is quite frankly expensive. That in itself is a large hoop to get through, of course there are people who have no problem acquiring it via other means but there are some who are not.

Plus the plugins only work for Max 6 and 7 (which are rather old and not so easy to find).

Do I have the right version of Max? Yes. Do I have the Cyan Plugins for it? Yes. Do I use it? No.

I use Blender because that is what I'm familiar with and have been using for the last 6 or 7 years. I quite frankly do not have time to learn the ins and outs of Max along with everything else going on (it sits on a pile along with zbrush, modo and the unreal engine of things I need to learn when I have 5 minutes to actually do so).

Of the builders involved in the Intangible Project only two of them use/can use Max. The others use Blender.

Working in Alcscript does make things more difficult than they need to be (I am very much looking forward to Korman to make life easier in that respect). But the point of my post was to highlight that even simple content is not as quick and simple as many think it is to make.

Karkadann · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:41 am

So now everybody knows why its taking so long, no one is to blame for the delay its just the way things work sometimes. There will be new content on MOULa its just gonna take time.

I'll try to get them to give every body an update on whats going on behind the scene from time to time but its not gonna be easy after all the team are all volunteers and as said before "their working on this in their spare time" all we need to do is keep the server open long enough for that to happen, im hoping occasional update's might help that process somewhat.

So stop by from time to time, and one day you may find yourself standing in a whole new age

Emor D'ni Lap · **Joined:** Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:15 am **Posts:** 587

What Karkadann said! Thanks for that, Kark.

Yes, we all wish Agebuilding was as easy as some people once imagined it would be.

On the other hand, it still remains true that building a simple Age is not difficult to learn or to do! Things only get tricky once you start adding a lot of interactivity, lighting effects, animation, and so on...and even then, the tricks can be learned in small steps!

The good part is that, even though all volunteer Agebuilders have intermittent free time to devote to the Art, we do have a small core group that is not going away. Each of us has had hiccups in our lives during the past year (Chloe with a new job, Tweek with a housemoving and loss of loved ones, me with new freelance work and trying to keep a parent alive).... but none of us have abandoned the cause.

We want more people to get involved in Agebuilding for URU, in learning how the Plasma engine and server code works. It's an amazing thing to be able to walk inside the places of your imagination; we hope you try it!

HarveyMidnight · **Joined:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 2:59 pm **Posts:** 432

Tweek wrote:

As for Sevkor being something you feel people need to see..well there is no ruling out it showing up later....

Correction.. what I was actually saying that people might need, is some proof that the process of adding fan content to MOULa could be followed thru to completion. I'm not STUCK on Sevkor, per se..just using it as an example.

But about that... it's an example for ME, of a fairly long period of time when there were plans, people being involved, some positive reaction from the powers that be at Cyan.. excitement... progress... and then silence.

I'm honestly not trying to be a mean person/people. But I think SOMETHING new, designed by a fan, actually to show up in MOULa is gonna get a lot more people on board, after having been thru, ahem, "a sevkor" or two of their own.

Tweek · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 12:11 am **Posts:** 2633

HarveyMidnight wrote:

Tweek wrote:

As for Sevkor being something you feel people need to see..well there is no ruling out it showing up later....

Correction.. what I was actually saying that people might need, is some proof that the process of adding fan content to MOULa could be followed thru to completion. I'm not STUCK on Sevkor, per se..just using it as an example.

But Sevkor doesn't demonstrate this any more than Emor's KorTiwah or the Maintainer Nexus access point. All 3 projects require more work before any of them could serve as a gateway. There is no fan content on the MOUL server without this gateway. As it stands (from my understanding) Kor'Tiwah and the Maintainer Nexus access point are both a lot further along than Sevkor is.

Being followed through to completion is irrelevant, work is still continuing (albeit behind the scenes) and the reason it's taking longer has been explained countless times on the forum and in the post I wrote for the Intangibles site.

Quote:

But about that... it's an example for ME, of a fairly long period of time when there were plans, people being involved, some positive reaction from the powers that be at Cyan.. excitement... progress... and then silence.

I'm not sure what's being addressed here as nothing has changed. People are still working on getting Fan content (and the Intangibles stuff) onto the MOUL server and Cyan have been talking to us with feedback and help (and in regards to intangibles helping us clear up lore issues). All of us on the project know exactly what goes into building content and writing code for the game engine, we knew from the get go that it would be a long process and we have tried to stress frequently to the community that it is going to be some time before things start seeing the light of day. Even once the content is finished and made it has to go through various levels of beta testing before it winds up on the Cyan MOUL server.

Quote:

I'm honestly not trying to be a mean person/people. But I think SOMETHING new, designed by a fan, actually to show up in MOULa is gonna get a lot more people on board, after having been thru, ahem, "a sevkor" or two of their own.

Again, once the Gateway project is completed and we have the mechanism in place to add fan content to the servers it will start to show up. As previously mentioned we already have Vothol Gallery (providing Rustee approves the use), Fehnir's House, and Doobes' Guild of Messengers Pub all ready and waiting to go and in the MOUL file format. Not to mention I have about 3 of my own Ages that are pretty much finished and would just need converting to the MOUL format which could be also added. If Whilyam wanted Tosholek to be added too that's 7 new Ages/areas already.

It's got to be understood that there really isn't a lot of Age builders in the community anymore. Most of them have left over the years due to various issues. So content is only really going to come from those few who build and are still around. The best way for more fan content once the gateway is completed is for more people to take up Age building (something that Korman will make a lot easier when it's all good to go with all the features needed implemented).

Nev'yn · **Posted:** Tue Jul 14, 2015 8:17 pm

@Tweek: Sorry to ask a "dumb" question...Is there any way to add small Cyan approved "story" related elements to existing parts of the cavern? Like a new table which appears in a few hoods? On some is a paper featuring the DRC age restoration list...In another, perhaps a picture of Descent? The GoMe hood would feature an invitation to recently restored GoMe tavern in Ae'gura...

...Some small elements like that are what Kark was asking about, I suspect.

Tweek · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 12:11 am **Posts:** 2633

Story elements, no that will likely only happen if Cavcon 5 is reached and Cyan return to MOUL development. Will this change in the future? I honestly couldn't say but given how the Gateway project is tiered I'm thinking it's unlikely.

Linking Books may show up in the cavern via the Gateway Project. This will only happen if the Age in question is exceptional and holds up to Cyan's work both design wise and lore wise. More information about the tiered system can be found here.

Whilyam · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 1:04 am **Posts:** 4134

Yeah, like Tweek said I want Tosholek to be in MOUL. At the moment, I'm still trying to get my head around the new tools. Once I can get it to export, I'll check functionality, make changes, and then it *should* be pretty much ready to go as well.

If I was feeling more ambitious and less pressed for free time, I would probably have something for the Gateway Project. As it is, I think it would be much less infuriating to those who actually did the work to let them finish the project.

TGMChrist. · **Posted:** Fri Jul 17, 2015 6:43 pm

I'd like that the bottom, the elevators and the doors on the great shaft in myst v will be working and Kahlo and the New Guild of Messengers ' Pub will be in Drizzle to Uru please.

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