So, I'm trying to sync up our e-mail newsletter and the forum updates. However, I haven't done a newsletter since August, so I still have to catch up on all of that news for the benefit of those who follow the project through e-mail rather than the forums. This means that this particular forum update will contain a lot of repeat stuff from previous months mixed in with the new stuff. Sorry for the inconvenience--it's a one time thing!
And without further ado...
About the engine... Eric edited the videos in the demo, removing unwanted black
periods at the beginnings and ends of the clips. Together, Ingo
and Eric have been working on getting the Pygame movie feature
working. Ingo has also been trying to port the demo to Linux. To
aid in joint coding, Eric set up an SVN subversion account on the
free hosting service ProjectLocker. Ingo and Paulo also drew up a
list of requirements for the engine. As for Justin and Dan,
they're now the official tech support go-to guys!
For the forum... Eric successfully tweaked the forum to prevent spammers from
registering as well as doing other fixer ups. Joël Ronvel,
by the way, has been doing the backing up.
Paulo worked on
solving the registration problem.
On the sound side of things... Dan has been slowly but surely planning out an audio rework for
the D'ni chamber demo. You can expect a more tense atmosphere in
the final version of the demo.
Wregarding writing... Robert edited a journal by removing some description that didn't
realistically fit into the style. Levannar has been doing some
design work on the main characters. Sue posted the full texts of
the journals in one place, so that they are all easily accessible.
I revamped a small paragraph of text and reworked the puzzles and
layout of an area to make them more reasonable. (I also learned
never to save in .docx format--an akita dies whenever you do that.
O.o ) Together, the team edited an old journal, improving its
readability and content. A number of us reworked a small plot
point in the game's history and redid a puzzle. Finally, I'm
proofreading and updating the Developer's Orientation Manual.
Still a long ways to go on this one.
On the modeling side of things... James created a Deadly Instrument of Destruction! O.o I daren't
say more. James also played with the colors and textures of the
rocks on the terrain of an Age. I uploaded a huge new batch of
rock prototextures (not seamless or cleaned up yet) to the server
for him to take a look at, so we're still working on this one. A
picture of the current texture:
James also implemented the demo in Pipmak, a free game engine.
Various members joined in to test the Pipmak demo, and many bugs
were fixed. In addition, James has been working on a new version
of the Dn'i Chamber scene in Bryce. Alas, I was unable to open the
.max file of the demo I mentioned in August because I don't have
the requisite plug-ins for the Brazil or V-ray renderers. If
anyone owns a copy of 3DsMax with Brazil or V-ray installed and
wants to take a crack at opening the demo's .max file, reply to
this e-mail and let me know! You'll have my eternal gratitude.
I experimented with creating a texture for the Shell Age and James
tried it out for me. It looked, uh, okay. I also picked up some
cool, free models on CGShare. I dabbled a bit in some organic
modeling for Caliben, but I didn't get very far. I did, however,
create a rather neat looking aged-stone texture out of the Spanish
translation of that little paragraph I revamped earlier. I slapped
it on a primitive cube and lit it up, and thought it looked rather
cool (she said humbly).
Lastly, James found a cool ivy
generator that may come in handy later.
On the organizational front... Sue and I found all the broken links (for each Age section of the
forum) left over from the ancient board transfer, and Paulo
attempted to restore them.
Leolie organized the Veegtara files and some of the Aqualee files.
I tidied up and renamed the Shell Age files according to our
naming protocol.
To say a word about translation... Santiago has been busy translating the demo materials (menus,
intro, etc.) into Spanish. He also translated a small paragraph of
text and is currently working on the journal we just finished
editing. Levannar, meanwhile, has translated the website into
Hungarian.
Concerning concept art... I drew overhead views of the same building that I mentioned in the
last newsletter and worked on arranging the furniture inside it. I
also did a larger and more detailed black and white picture of a
room inside this building.
Upon running into some spatial difficulties, I measured the
proportions of the building with the hope of figuring out a
mathematically accurate description.
Richard also worked on the math and architecture of this building,
drawing up plans and checking the proportions to make sure the
building actually worked. Neither of us, alas, have been able to
untangle this puzzle to the extent that it needs to be solved.
Either we need expert assistance from someone with higher
education, or we'll just have to guesstimate.
I also worked on designing some walkways and creating a new
version of the flying creature that was featured in August.
Lastly, Alex created a unique number system.
In other news... The forum and board went down and then were restored (yes, again).
What happened was that the person whose computer hosted our forum
and server (along with the Myst and Uru Obsession boards) had a
hard drive failure with the result that the forum was down for a
few days and the server for a few weeks. Everything on the server
was backed up, however, and we were able to continue work as usual
on a backup forum. As of now the server has been restored and
things are proceeding as normal with the exception of a few forum
features that no longer function.
Want to work with us?If you have strong organizational skills, we want you! We're looking
for someone with the time and desire to create a detailed walkthrough
for each Age, assess the extent to which said Age has been completed,
and then plan the work that still needs to be done on it. If you're
interested, just reply to this e-mail.
We'd also love to have another modeler (3dsMax isn't required; I use
Blender) and a second concept artist (digital or traditional). Hey,
you're not going to let me and James have all the fun, are you?
