Help decide what should Cyan release next

[Aloys]

It sure feels good to hear Mark talk again about a kind of roadmap; he sound like he is pretty confident about the whole project. At least that gives us something to ponder on while waiting for more news.

Chloe is right on one thing though, Blender and 3DS Max won't mesh. You can export from 3DS Max to Blender. But going back the other way exporting from Blender to 3DS Max is impossible. I have tried exporting as 3DS, OBJ, NIF, FBX, DAE... Some for whatever reason won't export, and the ones that will 3DS Max won't import.

It's definitely possible to properly export geometry and UV mapping from Blender to Max; thank god. I haven't done it in a while, but in 3DS Max 7 (?) importing .OBJ files from Blender would corrrectly import both the mesh and the UV maps. There were a couple geometry quirks (inversed normals, scale issues etc) but nothing impossible to fix. A number of other formats would correctly import geometry as well. And there are a number of Blender plugins to deal with a variety of formats, so I'm sure we'll find something that can fit us.
I don't know about properly exporting other things (animations, lights, object properties, materials, grouping, etc); somehow I don't think that'll be too successful. But if we can at least correctly export geometry and mapping that's a good basis to start with. That would still mean a lot of manual work to convert an existing Blender Age but at least we won't have to start an Age from scratch.

How should we, or how will Cyan, decide which fan-created age(s) would be released in MOULa first?

That's something that should definitely be cleared up, because that will mean quite a bit of work for us to prepare at least one Age in Max. While we might not need at first to make a *top quality* Age, we might as well get familliar with Max in the proceess and prepare more great Ages for whenever Cyan is ready to include them..

[I.Brattin]

Well Aloys I can't get an object file to import, all it gives me is polygon-index error when I try and import Chamassa into Max. I will try a different age and see what happens.

Edit: Tried Aquh and Yaeviev. The both of them are also giving me the polygon-index error. I did some research and there have been other people on the internet that tried importing an obj file into 2009 with the same results and no solution. I may have to find me a copy of v.7 and see what it does.

[Robert The Rebuilder]

Chacal and diafero: you're right in that I purposely tried to limit the discussion to just the plugin. As he said in his original message, that is Mark's current focus, but because he initially said there was a possibility to go in a different direction, that potentially meant more items could be on the table for discussion, such as the server binaries or source. I could have gone one of two ways: open up the discussion entirely for any suggestion, or limit it to just the plug-in. Both approaches have their pros and cons, and I chose the second approach to better the chances of getting a consensus, at the risk of seeming like I'm ignoring your opinions. It's moot now; they've decided on the plugin binaries anyway - but I owed you an explanation. I apologize for any hard feelings I've caused by this decision.

FWIW, here's the reply I sent to Mark - I think I captured the major issues people brought up in this discussion, but I'm sure I didn't get everything.

Hi, Mark:

It makes perfect sense to align these small steps with paying work whenever possible - that's certainly a better navigator for your ship than the multi-opinionated fan base!

We would love to have the version 7 plugin binaries as-is, whenever you're ready to release them. We'll work out a way to convert our Blender ages to Max and get them into MOUL format.

Once we have some test ages ready, we should discuss how you'd like us to submit them and how you plan on adding links to them on the MOULagain servers. I'm nervous about us providing Cyan an age that would potentially have adverse affects to the other players' gaming experience. I may be severely underestimating what's involved in this, but perhaps the fan community could set up a test server using your game/file server binaries? If not, we will be more than happy to work with your designated 'fan age manager' to upload ages to your servers in the short term.

I better let you get to overseeing the final MQO release. But one final note: if there's anyway the fan developer community can help with the process of preparing the source code for release - through NDAs, unpaid internships, etc. - just let us know. As you can tell, we're quite eager to jump to the completed MOULa/OSMOUL as you are!

I'll let you know if I hear back, but I'm thinking I used up all my luck for the year.

[Chacal]

Thanks Robert, I think this is good enough.
Any form of communication to and from Cyan is a welcomed surprise.
Keep the channel open!

[Aloys]

I'll let you know if I hear back, but I'm thinking I used up all my luck for the year.

Careful there, we're only in february; you might to same some for the rest of the year.
Mark has always been pretty open and pretty responsive. RAWA is pretty open too, in his own ways; just sometimes a little slower to reply.

[Jamey]

Thanks Robert, I think this is good enough.
Any form of communication to and from Cyan is a welcomed surprise.
Keep the channel open!

Agreed!

[Trylon]

Just be sure to ask for the debug build

[diafero]

We already got one, not enough for you?

The reply is fine for me, Robert. Thanks for being our communication channel to Cyan

[teedyo]

I have to agree with Chacal that what is most needed is a test server/environment that doesn't require Cyan's involvement for every test. Plug-in binaries or source are totally insufficient if the creator doesn't get to see/test what's being exported. Hopefully, Mark will carefully consider Robert's last correspondence.