Reward or Takable Clothing Tutorial

[andylegate]

Just wanted to give those that are interested a heads up that I'll be publishing a tutorial on how to get Reward or Takable clothing into your Age. This tutorial is not about how to "make" the clothing (IE how to make your own clothing meshes from scratch), but is geared to setting up so that you have the ability to get whatever clothing you make, or modify existing clothing, into your Age, by using several Max files that get merged to your scene.

This is not a tutorial for the faint of heart or very casual Age Creator, as it is very long and complex. The tutorial will include a Max file for the basic bone structure and animation for both Male and Female avatars, a sample clothing mesh, and the Smoothing morph meshes that are required for both male and female, a PDF document on the subject, and some python files that were created by Chogon that helps with toggling the clothing on and off of the player.

The tutorial will not cover how to get the clothing placed in the Relto closet however (that will have to be another tutorial down the road).

Please note that this will only work for those that can test their creations on a MOUL based server, not Uru:CC standalone, nor ALCUGS servers, as the structure for the avatars are different.

I do apologize for the length of time it has taken me to get this information out to everyone in the form of a tutorial and files, but as I said, it's a long and drawn out process, the tutorial is long, and for the last several months I have had a lot on my plate either from real life or other projects that I am involved in.

So look for the tutorial in a few days (I'll be on a road trip tomorrow), and when it is ready, I'll post the link to it in this thread. I certainly hope that it helps people, and opens up new avenues for them to try in Age Creation.

[andylegate]

Whew! Just about got this done. All the pics are up. Just need to put in the file links, and then write the body of the text for it. But the pictures are up now, hehehehe.

http://dusty.homeunix.net/wiki/Reward_o ... e_Clothing

[andylegate]

Triple post..........Hoikas is going to kill me. Sorry!

However, the Reward or Takable Clothing Tutorial is now up and good to go!

http://dusty.homeunix.net/wiki/Reward_o ... e_Clothing

Any feed back is okay, I'm sure I missed something. GPN will most likely point it out to me, hehehehehe

[Branan]

Branan puts on his guild councilor hat

Firstly, you've been posting a few tutorials on Dustin's wiki here. While we do appreciate the work you've done, given Dustin's attitude towards the GoW, I'm really not comfortable having resources linked to his site. I'd really like to see this moved (or at least copied) to our wiki. I don't really see any issue with the files being hosted on the GoMa site, since I expect it will be around as long as we're around. We can certainly host them locally, though (and I know some people would prefer that)

The page name should be something like "Max:AvatarClothing", with the "{{Tutorial|AvatarClothing}}" template at the top. There's no landing page for tutorials (yet), but the main max page is "Max:Introduction" if you want to find a place to drop your tutorial links until we get a proper index.

My other issue is with those avatar files, though. I'm assuming Cyan gave you the OK to release them, but did they give you any distribution/usage guidelines? If not, then unfortunately our advice for working with avatar clothing will have to be the same as releasing CWE builds, or anything based on the Emote file... "don't until Cyan clarifies their licensing". That's not your fault, but since you got the OK to release them I'm hoping maybe you have some light to shed on it.

[andylegate]

Branan puts on his guild councilor hat

Firstly, you've been posting a few tutorials on Dustin's wiki here. While we do appreciate the work you've done, given Dustin's attitude towards the GoW, I'm really not comfortable having resources linked to his site. I'd really like to see this moved (or at least copied) to our wiki. I don't really see any issue with the files being hosted on the GoMa site, since I expect it will be around as long as we're around. We can certainly host them locally, though (and I know some people would prefer that)

I'm extremely sadden to see this posted, and unfortunately only confirms something that I have seen over the years.

My tutorials are on Dustin's wiki for the following reasons:

1) I started out hosting them at the GoMa forum due to ease of being able to edit, keep track of and add change forums and sub forums with the forum tools. However last winter, when Nyn's server crashed hard, a LOT of not only posts made by people but many of my tutorials vanished, and had to be completely written from scratch again. Making tutorials (at least tutorials that are easy to read and written on a level to make everyone understand the information) are very hard to make and take a LOT of work, were in peril. Prior to the crash in winter, I had asked Hoikas via a PM if I could post copies (not links) of my tutorials to the GoW Wiki. I never received a reply back. (recently, in another thread, he posted to someone that he had been very, very busy last year, so maybe that is why I never received a reply). Considering that adding a lot of tutorials would be a very large change to the wiki, I wanted to get permission first. Since it was not given, I assumed that it would not be okay, or would make people upset. However, after the GoMa crash, I realized that the tutorials that I had spent hours and hours on could be lost forever and did not want to see that happen. So I searched for a new home, and Dustin offered the use of his Wiki. Since that is were the UAM was hosted (and since I could not get a reply out of Hoikas) I decided his Wiki was the next logical choice as to where tutorials on creating Ages should be hosted.

2) The GoW Wiki (and web site) have gone through a major overhaul, and during that time, I thought about asking, but wanted to wait until this was finished. It was during that time, someone here posted that they'd had their permissions yanked, due to making too many changes to the GoW Wiki (I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what the details or whole story was on that), so my next thought was "Woah. Okay, then I doubt they would appriciate me going in and making over 79 tutorial changes, 23 Blender, and 56 Max ones." The feeling I got was one of "Hostility", so I have stayed in my area where I was welcomed and not worried about pissing someone off. My perception may not be correct, but that is how it felt to me.

3) The GoW Wiki since it's over haul is VERY hard to navigate. Sorry guys, but I had someone email me last week, asking how to import Ages into Blender. My first thought was: "Why don't people just go to the GoW Wiki where it's spelled out?", so I went to the GoW Wiki so I could email the link back to this individual. It took me over 30 minutes to find the topic! To me the main page of the wiki is not very "User Friendly", but that's just my opinion. The links were purple and with my old eyes seemed to be Black text. I found the link to the Blender tutorials because I happened to move my mouse over the word PyPRP and it changed. That's the only reason I found it. I realize this is just a subjective opinion by me.

I have had other people over the years ask if they could make copies of my tutorials and post them on the GoW Wiki. Every single time I have been asked, I have always said the following: Sure! Go right ahead!
But for what ever reasons, those people have either drifted away, or just not done it.

I did post a single Max tutorial on the GoW Wiki, prior to the over haul, and discovered that the GoW Wiki's syntax is different from the UAM Wiki, for example, the UAM Wiki allows you to make pretty posts of Python coding by using this syntax:

Code: Select all

<source lang="python">

some python coding

</source>


No idea how to do that with the GoW's Wiki. So porting my tutorials over, besides having to re-upload god knows how many pictures again, as far as I know, each tutorial would have to have the syntax edited. That is a lot of work for over 79 tutorials (it took me almost a month to port them over from the GoMa forum, and that was working everyday, including weekends on it).

My other issue is with those avatar files, though. I'm assuming Cyan gave you the OK to release them, but did they give you any distribution/usage guidelines? If not, then unfortunately our advice for working with avatar clothing will have to be the same as releasing CWE builds, or anything based on the Emote file... "don't until Cyan clarifies their licensing". That's not your fault, but since you got the OK to release them I'm hoping maybe you have some light to shed on it.

The files I posted are not the original Cyan files. Cyan uses more than one for each of the avatars, 5 for the males, and 5 for the females. The Base Smoothing files are kept separate from the actual clothing files. None of the files I posted are the original files from Cyan. Instead, I ported over the bone structure from each (Male and Female) into a new Max file, and did the same for the Smoothing Base meshes, Then I put the Dummies in, just like you would have to if they were made from scratch.
I'm aware of the licensing issue with CWE, however, I was not aware of a license issue with Max files on the other hand. I did ask Mark, many, many months ago if I could share all the Avatar files with the rest of the community, especially since they had already done so with a avatar emote file. His response at that time was "Hold off on that for now." And that was many months ago. I decided to make these Max files, and not really worry about Cyan, since all I was really giving was the bone structure used by the MOUL version, and not the actual clothing meshes (there are a LOT of them).
But the files I posted are a very stripped down version of Cyans, and do not contain the clothing meshes. Good lord no. Here's a pic of just ONE of the Male files:

Show Spoiler

The python files I posted, I modified the names of. However, as far as I know, Python is OS, so I'm not sure why anyone would have any problems with it. I mean I could have posted them, then claimed that I had made them (the only one that would have known that was not true would have been Mark himself).

In any case, I will admit to being rather confused. I have had a LOT of people here call me a "Cyan Hugger" (that's about the nicest one I can post publicly), and wished that I would have a "To Hell With Cyan" attitude, yet when I have done this (no, I did not get permission from Cyan to post my modified Max files), I suddenly find that I'm getting "spanked" for this.

It's all rather confusing I tell you. It seems like I just can't please anyone around here.

However, since a Guild Councilor has expressed their concern over the fact that My tutorials are posted on a Wiki of a individual, who has long departed the community and no longer has anything to do with it, that this guild apparently holds a grudge against (sorry, but that is what it looks like, and that is what I have seen over the years: Uru: The Community That REALLY Knows How To Hold A Grudge), or that they are not on the GoW Wiki (but apparently TheMagician's video tutorials are okay to not be on the GoW Wiki.....at least I do not remember seeing anyone being upset about those NOT being hosted by the GoW, and are some of the best tutorials I've seen), and have expressed concerns that I have posted files that I may not have permission from Cyan to post (and that still really confuses me quite a bit since apparently I can't quite find the correct way to act around here.....is it Pro Cyan, or Anti Cyan, or is it some brownian mixture inbetween.......makes my head hurt), then I do accordingly apologize and if the Guild Councilors so wish it, I will remove my links to my tutorials, so as to not upset anyone here (both from posts and my signature).

So if the Guild Councilors could tell me their wishes, I will act as soon as possible to comply with their wishes, as I do not want to make them upset, worried, angry, etc, etc.

Edited for typos.

[diafero]

If I may share my two cents on parts of what you mentioned (I will not talk about Dustin, that'd no be good for my blood pressure and general mood )

2) The GoW Wiki (and web site) have gone through a major overhaul, and during that time, I thought about asking, but wanted to wait until this was finished. It was during that time, someone here posted that they'd had their permissions yanked, due to making too many changes to the GoW Wiki (I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what the details or whole story was on that), so my next thought was "Woah. Okay, then I doubt they would appriciate me going in and making over 79 tutorial changes, 23 Blender, and 56 Max ones." The feeling I got was one of "Hostility", so I have stayed in my area where I was welcomed and not worried about pissing someone off. My perception may not be correct, but that is how it felt to me.

The person in question is Egon, and the problem is that he did not ask anybody before doing some major changes. I think he made some great suggestions, but he made them after the fact - and then Hoikas seemed to no longer really consider what he suggested, unfortunately. Speak of which, it's a good idea to try and send him the message again if he does not respond within a month or so - it took me more than half a year to get the German subforum set up, *after* we agreed on IRC that it'd be a good idea .

3) The GoW Wiki since it's over haul is VERY hard to navigate. Sorry guys, but I had someone email me last week, asking how to import Ages into Blender. My first thought was: "Why don't people just go to the GoW Wiki where it's spelled out?", so I went to the GoW Wiki so I could email the link back to this individual. It took me over 30 minutes to find the topic! To me the main page of the wiki is not very "User Friendly", but that's just my opinion. The links were purple and with my old eyes seemed to be Black text. I found the link to the Blender tutorials because I happened to move my mouse over the word PyPRP and it changed. That's the only reason I found it. I realize this is just a subjective opinion by me.

Thanks a lot for mentioning that, I already wondered whether I am the only one thinking that the text is too small, and that the links should get a more distinguishable colour. I do like the overhaul, and if you see the links the structure is more logical now (frankly, the old main page was horrible), but this needs to be changed IMHO. I will make a separate thread for this in the general discussion section.

The python Tags are new tags that the wiki admin can add, so maybe Hoikas can configure something similar for the GoW.

[Branan]

The wiki is still, unfortunately, in a bit of a transitional period. We don't want to just see links to old wiki pages added to the new sections without somebody going through and making sure it's correct and up-to-date. What you see on the main page is basically all there is in the new wiki at the moment. Obviously not the best situation. Any suggestions for how to make that better, what sorts of information you expect to find, and so on would be appreciated. We've had almost no input on the wiki since we changed it, and nobody has stepped up to help us take care of it, so it's fairly stagnated. I've been bugging Hoikas to write some guidelines on how people can help with the wiki, but I'm about ready to do them myself at this point.

Syntax highlighting is something that needs to be enabled, as diafero says. I will start badgering Hoikas about it, as regardless of whether or not your tutorials end up here, I'd like to see us have that feature.

Our current default wiki theme is the one used by Wikipedia. It's the least terrible of the default themes. If you know somebody who feels like writing a new theme for us, we'd certainly consider it. I personally think the theme is quite clean and readable, but I realize not everyone has their monitor's color as precisely calibrated as I do, and not everyone's eyes are as young as mine.

Since you've got such a huge number of tutorials, I'd be happy to help you go through and get them organized for our wiki. Having a bunch of Max tutorials with dead links to the PyPRP versions of those pages will hopefully inspire somebody to write (or update) those tutorials as well. The wiki needs an infusion of new stuff to get the ball rolling, and a bunch of prepared data is easy(er). I can probably write up a script to help convert anything that needs converting.

Regarding the max files... They might be "your" files, but they do have Cyan's data in them. It's iffy, and I'd play it on the safe side and avoid using them until we can get an OK from Cyan. I might be critical of Cyan at times (when I feel they deserve it, mostly), but I do try to respect their IP.

And I know some people have been rather rude to you at times, Andy. I've tried to keep things a bit more professional since I've been a councilor... I don't know how much success I've had, but I try

[Nadnerb]

Considering that adding a lot of tutorials would be a very large change to the wiki, I wanted to get permission first. Since it was not given, I assumed that it would not be okay, or would make people upset.

Okay, okay.. let me get this straight.. You were waiting for permission to edit the Wiki.

Unless I've been missing something, the purpose of a Wiki is to create a space, usually an information resource, that anyone can edit. Usually when they feel it is lacking some particular information that such a knowledge repository should have. Giving the ability to any community to provide reference material to each other in a stable location. Wikis also have built in features to reduce the negative effects of unwanted tampering, such as the ability to roll back pages to a previous state, reducing the risk involved in allowing the entire community to freely edit the knowledge base. I'd really like to not sound incredibly rude right now, but I don't see any other way to put this: That is the dumbest reason for not editing a Wiki that I have ever heard.

The feeling I got was one of "Hostility", so I have stayed in my area where I was welcomed and not worried about pissing someone off.

Ahh, here we get to the real reason. You avoided posting tutorials to the GoW Wiki because you perceived that "The GoW" was "Hostile" to you.

I've seen this sentiment time and time again from a great many people who used to contribute good things to the Uru community. It's really quite distressing. Every time someone makes a post about how they feel unappreciated, a horde of posters come out of the woodwork to respond with one liners about how they do appreciate the work they do. However, these gestures are generally ineffective because the original poster has already made up their mind that the people who speak up to complain are the only ones of any consequence. Indeed, chances are that no matter what you do, you will piss someone off. I would suggest that it is best to ignore such naysayers, when ... quelling them, is out of the question. Put simply, you cannot, and will not, please everyone. It won't happen. If you try, you will fail, and if it is your goal, you will never reach it, though you may burn yourself out trying. Instead, perhaps take the hints that your work is valued from situations like this, where someone is coming out and asking you to use site resources.

expressed concerns that I have posted files that I may not have permission from Cyan to post (and that still really confuses me quite a bit since apparently I can't quite find the correct way to act around here.....is it Pro Cyan, or Anti Cyan, or is it some brownian mixture inbetween.......makes my head hurt), then I do accordingly apologize and if the Guild Councilors so wish it, I will remove my links to my tutorials, so as to not upset anyone here (both from posts and my signature).

I'm going to have to take a page from Nalates' playbook here and say this is an incredibly passive aggressive way to respond to what more or less amounts to a request to have your tutorials posted on the GoW Wiki. "Oh, you want my tutorials? But you always seem so hostile to me, maybe I'll just remove all links to them instead. That'd make you happy, right?" I won't deny that some people are hostile around here. Though not necessarily to you, (for instance, explain to me how a mistrust of Dustin by branan constitutes hostility towards you, personally) and when it is towards you, it is not necessarily because the people in question just don't like you for some inexplicable reason. I'd imagine there's a certain amount of jealousy among people who have acquired a deep knowledge of Plasma and even submitted (and had accepted) fixes to Cyan, that you seem to have casual chats with the only plasma developer remaining at Cyan on a daily basis, and that you acquire completely unlicensed game files and then release them to the public as though you owned them, when such materials, given to others, often came with a strict "do not share this" instruction.

Finally, after posting this, I was told that the situation you referred to, with a member being banned from the wiki, involved that member attempting to completely restructure and reorganize the wiki and it's navigation, without any discussion, repeatedly. While this may be necessary for usability, it is also a very drastic change and qualitatively different from adding a large number of tutorials. One involves adding a large amount of useful content to the wiki, and the other involves moving things around, not adding any content, possibly confusing people, and breaking links. Perhaps this will offer a bit of understanding and context to that situation.

I can't quite find the correct way to act around here.....is it Pro Cyan, or Anti Cyan, or is it some brownian mixture inbetween

And while I'm obsessively re-editing this post, I'll sub-quote this and add that if you want my answer to that, you could start with acting the way you actually feel, instead of trying to somehow politically appease the denizens of the particular forum you're talking to. As I've mentioned before, it will be statistically certain to piss some people off... different people, depending on what those views actually are, but at least you won't be burdened with trying to figure out the answer to an unanswerable and largely irrelevant question.

[andylegate]

Okay, okay.. let me get this straight.. You were waiting for permission to edit the Wiki.

With somewhere between 700 to 800 picture files, and now up to 79 articles, not only yes, but hell yes! It would have been a MAJOR addition and change to the Wiki. I did not feel at ease doing that without some sort of go ahead, or nod of welcome from those that host this area. No big fan fare was needed, just a nod of the head is all it would have taken. I've seen much less tick off those who run this place, and the last thing I want to do is tick of those that run this place here.

~snip~ I'd really like to not sound incredibly rude right now, but I don't see any other way to put this: That is the dumbest reason for not editing a Wiki that I have ever heard.

No offense taken. However, again, I was brought up to respect other people's property. As I really did not feel part of the GoW, I wanted to get permission for this, simply out of respect to those that host, maintain and keep the Wiki.

As for the Hostility thing (not bothering to quote): I'm not looking for pats on the back, or acknowledgement from people. I've received tons and tons of kudos from people in the community (here and else where), both public and privately. I've already gotten my "Warm Fuzzy Feeling" quite a long time ago from a large amount of people, and only a few "hostiles" that I can actually count on one hand, so those I pretty much ignore (constructive critiques on the other hand, I pay the up most attention to). So I'm not trying to seek everyone's approval (I'm well aware of the old saying: You can please some of the people some of the time, etc, etc, etc), as I know in life that would be impossible (with the Uru community, it's completely unheard of....).
I've helped so many people, I've lost track of them all. So I could die today, and I would feel that I did actually accomplished something, and I did succeed in actually contributing to the community.

The "I'm going to remove my links, so there!", is not what I am saying (please do not read it that way, or try to put it that way), what I am trying to say is this:

"I'm just this guy. I'm not a leader here, a councilor here, or anything like that. There ARE those here that are leaders and/or councilors. I was always brought up to listen to authority, and having spent 10 years in the Navy, recognize a chain of command. If I post something here, if I provide a link to something here, if I provide files for something, and the authority here (who I recognize as the GoW Councilors), do not want me to have those things here, are concerned about it, or feel that it should not be posted, then I will comply with their wishes immediatly. Not because I'm trying to act like a spoiled brat. Good god no. But because this is their House, and even if I were living in this House, they are the House Hold Management. What they say, is what happens. I do not wish to upset, anger, or irritate the Management, as I like to still come here, and still like to contribute. However, If they do not want it here, then I'll comply with that, not out of anger, or anything like that, but because they have asked me to."

So no, I'm not saying I'm going to pull my stuff because I'm threatening to take my ball and go home. I'm saying I'll pull my stuff because those in charge wish it. I fully understand that. Will it piss me off? Nah. Actually no it wouldn't. Enough people know where the tutorials are, that I've made tons and not even bothered posting about them on here already. I'll just chalk it up to Life, and move on to something else is all.

As to the files: I've emailed Tony. However, after the news I got from Mark yesterday, it could be a LONG time, if ever that I get a reply back. Cyan just laid off half their development staff this past Friday, with more lay offs this week going to happen.
I might get a reply back since I'm actually in possession of said files, but I'm not going to hold my breath on it

As for my "casual" connection with Mark: It's not "casual" it's "Business", I'm the lead developer for a project that Idoodlesoft is working with Cyan with. I'm just lucky that I get to pester Mark with questions is all, and he's good natured enough to either answer back, or completely ignore me (which he has on several occasions). 95% of the time is not spent on talking about MOUL:a, Uru, or anything like that. Most of the time is spent working on the special server for this project, Mark telling me I screwed something up, or him telling me that HE screwed something up.
And sorry: He is not the last Plasma Developer left at Cyan. Mark was laid off from Cyan back when GT dropped MOUL. He's a Freelance Contractor, that does some work for Cyan. Technically, there are NO Plasma Developers left at Cyan at all.
The other 5% of the time is when I try to throw something in about MOUL:a and see if I get a nibble, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Mark would rather I spend that other 5% talking about beer and wine making, what we've each been up to (that has nothing to do with Uru, MOUL, Max, Blender or computers at all), how are families are, etc, etc.

So my tutorials at the GoW Wiki: as far as I'm concerned, if someone or a group wants to copy all the materials, and place them on the GoW Wiki, hey, I say go for it.
Am I going to do it? Weeeelllllllll......woof, 700 to 800 pics to upload.......79 articles to copy over........I'm not exactly looking forward to having to do that. I'd need to be REALLY motivated (the reason I did it last time, was because Nyn said her sever was just about toast, and I couldn't stand the thought of them all disappearing) somehow. That's a lot of work, and I'm not exactly motivated right now. I have been thinking of doing video tutorials (IE have the same tutorials only in videos), but the truth is I'm mostly spending my days going back and forth to the hospital where my father is right now (stomach cancer, Linitus Plastica). I just felt like finishing up the 3 I posted lately as I was depressed and wanted to take my mind of off things.

But again, people here want to do it, that's fine with me.

[andylegate]

Reflection after just getting back from the hospital to see my Dad.......

I'll do the work and copy my tutorials over here. It will keep me busy and my mind off of my father. I need something to DO. I've been growling at my kids, my wife, and everyone in general lately, because being angry feels better than this effing black pit of depression that keeps trying to over take me.

I just tested copying over one of my tutorials (a short one). Didn't take too long to get set up.

If I'm armed with the following, I'm willing to get them over here, BUT! I must insist on the following:

1) I need guidence from you all: How do you want them laid out? As you mentioned, the organization before of the GoW Wiki was horrible and made things hard to find. Over at the UAM, I tried to organize it as best as possible: Materials and Textures tutorials together, Avatar tutorials together, etc, etc. I just don't want to dump them over here.

2) Mass quanities of coffee (I'll provide that).

3) Obnoxious rock music, played extremely loud during this (I'll provide that.......IF I can find the CD's that my wife hid from me......)

4) I want cookies from someone. Not some sugar free, fat free garbage that I'm forced to eat. I wanna WHOLE bag of Oreos, and a gallon of ice cold milk! Don't worry, I'll consume them after I've done the work since it will put me in a diabetic coma......