The future of Rell-Too: roll call. Also another matter.

[Jojon]

Hello!

Some of you may remember me - I'm the... hmm.. "organiser" of the Rell-Too age team.


First of all; I notice the age's old thread has been closed, so here goes a new one... :7

(Rell-Too is something of a sandbox, where any builder who wants to, can take a turn playing around. You can read more in the old thread: http://forum.guildofwriters.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2881)


Ok, then. This is how the land lays: The current contributor, Rize, has been incommunicado for quite some time and I have now decided that enough time has passed to move on without him, despite his mentioning, at time of taking the reins, that due to real life matters he might need a little longer than usual.

So I'm about to offer the baton to justintime9, who is next in line - just as soon as I'm done with this post.

I do, however, recall that Justin is not as active as he used to be, so I suspect he may decline his turn. This also makes me wonder how many of the rest of the contributors are still around and interested in staying on.

So, if you read this, dear Rell-Too contributors, I'd appreciate it if you would please post your position in this thread.
If there is anybody new, who wish to join, please; you post too. :)


If we still have a team, after all is said and done, I will start a new thread for the age, in the appropriate section of the forum - I may still, even if we don't.



Onto something completely different:

After the longest time of resisting the temptation, I finally broke down on the penultimate day of its kickstarter drive and signed up for an Oculus Rift Devkit (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game, despite not being any sort of developer myself.

Now, if any one of our inkmakers feel compelled and in all ways able to adapt Uru Explorer for VR, I may well give this developer's address to Luckey and his lackeys, instead of my own, when they begin shipping parcels in December.

Since Uru was never designed as a mostly first person experience and likes giving the level designer full command over cameras, down to their mobility and lenses, and the way this is used to produce the "feel" of the environments, as well as allowing some "cheating" in production, there are a number of decisions to make, for anybody who'd take on the challenge -- some should be easy, but maybe not all. :7


Yours,
/Jojon

[ametist]

/me waves to boss Jojon

I just love Rell-Too and I loved to be a part of the team. I'm sorry to have to say I'm jumping off this particular band-wagon now. I haven't touched blender in a while - Unity is what I use nowadays for making games for and with school-kids. So my 'Hunters', 'Flyers' and the other critters there have to live their own lifes now .

Big thanks to Jojon and the other in the 'team' for a great experience and a lot of fun!

Be seeing you all around I hope!

[Jojon]

Sad to see you go, ametist, but I have no doubt you and your students have a good few hoops less to jump though, with Unity.

Thanks for what has been and have a good time! :)

[I.Brattin]

I will continue to host as long as I am able.


I haven't worked on any of my ages in well over a year now. I've entirely lost interest, I might revisit and work on them sometime down the road, but right now.....

I expect that's going to be the case of most anymore, loosing interest that is. Shoot last time I was at Guild of Maintainers site it was pretty much dead. UO has long since shut down and from what I see MystOnline is declining in posts.

[Jojon]

Much obliged, IB!

It is saddening to see and hear of how everybody in the URU community are running out of steam, but it is inevitable, I suppose. We were never that many to begin with and the rest of the world zooms past in a blur, whilst a scant few hobbyists here tinker a bit now and then, when they can wrest half a free moment from existence ... :7

I'll update Rell-Too now and then, whenever inspiration strikes, even if I find myself doing it alone. :7

Got to get that Ahra Pahts shell done, too... :)


EDIT: If any departing contributors feel up to it and have microphones, I would love to add any developer commentaries of theirs, near their contributions, before they personally close the book for the last time. :)



Still no takers on my offer of a VR headset (at the prize of a potentially hefty task)? :9

[Corvus]

Hi Jojon,

It's nice to see you're still caring for Relltoo.

But it's very sad to see Ametist leaving.

Justin9 made a post last week (http://forum.guildofwriters.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5905&p=60490#p60490), perhaps he missed your call here.

What about me? Well, I don't want to say I'll never work for Relltoo again, but I haven't launched Blender for months. Last thing I did was working with Unity, which I enjoyed very much, I even found the scripting is not so very hard as Python and Alcscript is for me. But somehow I got tired of creation and started to play games again. Replayed many of old games I still like very much.

Now I'm playing Guild Wars 2 and I love it. Besides the battles there are so many beautiful landscapes to explore and much more you can do...

But this is about Relltoo, so back to the topic.

When I will feel creative again, Relltoo will be quite on top of my priority list. I just don't know right now when this will be the case.

Oh, and thank you to I.Brattin for still hosting our project.

[Jojon]

Thank you for your response, Corvus!

I will not write you off entirely, then, but I will not contact you about taking the relay pin -- You shout, if and when Blenderlust come upon you.

Great to hear that you are having a good time! :)

[Jojon]

Ok, here's another post on the other matter...

As I wrote earlier, I signed up for an "Occulus Rift" prototype VR headset, which is really only intended for developers -- the consumer model will come later and be much improved, but what a heek. :7

I also wrote that I am offering the donation of this headset to any of our latter days URU developers, who has the skill, will and time to adapt URU explorer for VR, which may be a rather involving task, depending on how ambitious you are, e.g: Do we make the avatar visible in first person?, Do we remake GUIs (books, control panels, closeups and so on - maybe even the KI! (anything which is meant to be read may be initially unsuitable, given the low resolution of the early development model of the headset)), so that they integrate into the world, rather than overlay it?, How much freedom of movement DO we give the player?, etc... and then there are the usual technical concerns and decisions that apply to any title.


Well, today I got the email, where I am asked for a recipient address for the package, when they go out in December, so:

Last chance to grab!


I'll wait a day or two before I submit my address -- if you'd rather I make it yours; Make your case now. :)

[Lyrositor]

I have the time and will, but not the skills. Can I have two-thirds of the headset?

[Jojon]

Good idea!

So... the accelerometers, then, and... do you want the left eye, or the right one? :D


I guess I'll be submitting later today, because only two days after the first email, I got another one, whose title had the word "reminder", in all upper case and accompanied by an exclamation mark. :P