MOULa 3ds max plugin binaries available

Robert The Rebuilder · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:05 pm

It would be fantastic if Cyan also released a 3DS Max file of a sample age - or for a small age like spyroom. But I'm sure that's a low priority task at the moment. [Don't get me wrong - I'm very grateful for the release of the plugin.]

Chogon · **Joined:** Wed Aug 02, 2006 7:13 pm **Posts:** 1071

Hi all,

The Age Description Manager that is in the PlasmaMax.gup plugin is not going to be very useful to anyone outside of Cyan, even if it did work. It tries to communicate with an internal Cyan server to make sure that Ages created don't conflict with each other. In the future for fan created content, this could be an outside utility that communicates with a central server so people can register their Ages without conflicting with each other.

In the meantime, this can be done by hand because the .age file is a text file that is in the ./dat directory that is inside the directory specified in the PlasmaMax2.ini file. But when there is a real registration, anything you do now will have to be brought forward some how.
Here are a couple of examples of what the *.age file looks like:

spyroom.age

Code:

StartDateTime=0000000000
DayLength=24
MaxCapacity=10
SequencePrefix=5
ReleaseVersion=0
Page=spyroom,0

Jalak.age

Code:

StartDateTime=0946713600
DayLength=24.000000
MaxCapacity=10
LingerTime=180
SequencePrefix=43
ReleaseVersion=0
Page=jlakArena,2
Page=jlakProto,1,1 

DO NOT USE THESE FILES WITHOUT CHANGE (especially the SequencePrefix number) or certain things will surely be "unleashed" ;-)

I'm not going to explain all of it now but the significant thing is the SequencePrefix number which has to be unique across all the ages (this is the item that needs to have a centralized registration server for fan created Ages).
The other is the Page=pagename,index,loadFlag Where the pagename is what you will use in the Location component (which it should fill out the drop down based on the *.age files). The index number can be anything from 0 to n (not sure how big this can be), I've never understood the sequencing of the index number other than they have to be unique within the Age. And if the loadFlag is '1' then don't load this page when the Age is loaded, otherwise if not specified then load page when Age loads.

Robert The Rebuilder wrote:

It would be fantastic if Cyan also released a 3DS Max file of a sample age.

I agree, I don't know when yet but we'll have something sometime. So many things that need to be done!

Thanks,
Chogon

D'Lanor · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:20 pm

Now that Chogon has brought this up I'm sure this link to a list of all sequence prefixes will be useful to new writers: http://alcugs.almlys.org/ListOfSequencePrefixes

This list contains all known ages both from Cyan and fans.

Marein · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 10:12 pm

It appears that the Page Info component is either not reading my specified directory from PlasmaMAX2.ini or is not seeing the .age files in the specified directory, as the component's Age and Page drop-down lists are empty (thus I cannot specify an Age or Page and the export fails).

These are the contents of my PlasmaMAX2.ini file:

Quote:

[Menu]
Version=10
[SceneViewer]
Directory=C:\Program Files (x86)\Uru\dat
[Export]
X=0
Y=30
Dir=

Obviously, the directory is full of .age files.

Any tips?

Chogon · **Joined:** Wed Aug 02, 2006 7:13 pm **Posts:** 1071

Marein wrote:

These are the contents of my PlasmaMAX2.ini file:

Quote:

[Menu]
Version=10
[SceneViewer]
Directory=C:\Program Files (x86)\Uru\dat
[Export]
X=0
Y=30
Dir=

In this example the *.age files should be in the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Uru\dat\dat" directory.

Thanks,
Chogon

D'Lanor · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:14 pm

Most likely the source age files should not be encrypted. Just create your age file as plain text.

Marein · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:08 am

Chogon wrote:

In this example the *.age files should be in the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Uru\dat\dat" directory.

So obvious, thanks

On export it told me some of my Uru files were outdated and it deleted them. Uru now hangs after the initial load.
Just a warning to anyone else who thought it might be a good idea to point it to that directory >.>

ddb174 · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:27 pm **Posts:** 167

I've got it working now too (thanks to those who helped me), and I've made a quick tutorial here: http://www.guildofwriters.com/wiki/Dustin%27s_Quick_Tutorial Together with the wiki page on setting up 3dsmax/plugin, there is enough info to get started.

Paradox · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:47 am

Marein wrote:

Chogon wrote:

In this example the *.age files should be in the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Uru\dat\dat" directory.

So obvious, thanks

On export it told me some of my Uru files were outdated and it deleted them. Uru now hangs after the initial load.
Just a warning to anyone else who thought it might be a good idea to point it to that directory >.>

Pointing this plugin at PotS is a good way to permanently disfigure your installation. It's meant only for MOUL and is not backwards compatible

ddb174 · **Joined:** Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:27 pm **Posts:** 167

Yeah, the 3dsmax plugin does not produce Pots files, but there's info about what to do about that on the link I posted. Well, it seems that the 3dsmax plugin also put textures on the wrong prefix, so that's another thing that will need to be fixed either by a new version of the plugin(or some config info we don't know about?), or the Moul->Pots conversion just automatically changing that.

Paradox · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:27 am

ddb174 wrote:

Well, it seems that the 3dsmax plugin also put textures on the wrong prefix, so that's another thing that will need to be fixed either by a new version of the plugin...

I haven't seen any issue with exported textures... they seem to be in the right places, with the right IDs and Keys.

Grogyan · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:11 am

Thanks Chogon.

You do know that Christmas is several months away don't you?

Now to find an online demo download of Max 7

Agenotfound · **Joined:** Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:00 pm **Posts:** 26

Chogon wrote:

Here are a couple of examples of what the *.age file looks like:

Jalak.age

Code:

StartDateTime=0946713600
DayLength=24.000000
MaxCapacity=10
LingerTime=180
SequencePrefix=43
ReleaseVersion=0
Page=jlakArena,2
Page=jlakProto,1,1

Page=jlakProto,1,1

A new page ? (or an old one perhaps)

interesting...

Zib_Redlektab · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:03 pm

I followed the tutorial to the letter, but when I get to the step wherein I have to select the Age and Page from the dropdown menus, nothing shows up. I put the plain text .age file in C:/PlasmaTest/dat, and the folder the config file is pointed at is C:/PlasmaTest.

Any idea what I might be doing wrong? :-\

Jairden · **Joined:** Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:52 pm **Posts:** 181

As an amature "writer" interested in learning some of these things, what all does this release entail? Layman's terms, please, or as close as you can? Thank you.

MOULa 3ds max plugin binaries available

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