Help decide what should Cyan release next

[I.Brattin]

In my opinion the only one who can use an updated version of the 3D max plug-in is,.... Cyan!

Not entirely true, there are some of us in the community who have 3DS Max. I have had it myself since the summer before last, Summer of 2008.

That said though I would prefer the source also, I only model in 3DS Max, I create the world in Blender which for that task as been simpler then trying it in 3DS Max. Of course there is no age creation tutorials for 3DS Max so who knows if it actually is.

So unless Cyan really wants to restrict who builds ages to those few that have 3DS Max, we definitely need the source. Only with the source can we write a new plugin for Blender.

[Aloys]

Just to clear up something: the only point of the max plugin source would be to allow us to see the differences between the PotS/MOUL file formats and adapt PyPRP accordingly, right?
And that won't enable any other progress in PyPRP as most of the PRP objects are already figured out and all the work left is fighting out Blender's internals, is that correct?

Converting Blender files to Max is doable. But it is a pain. Just the alcscripts and various properties how would we do that? I don't see how practical it would be to convert a Blender Age to Max just to be able to export it for MOUL. (I shudder at the idea of converting something as large as Ahra Pahts.. )

[GPNMilano]

Just to clear up something: the only point of the max plugin source would be to allow us to see the differences between the PotS/MOUL file formats and adapt PyPRP accordingly, right?
And that won't enable any other progress in PyPRP as most of the PRP objects are already figured out and all the work left is fighting out Blender's internals, is that correct?

Converting Blender files to Max is doable. But it is a pain. Just the alcscripts and various properties how would we do that? I don't see how practical it would be to convert a Blender Age to Max just to be able to export it for MOUL. (I shudder at the idea of converting something as large as Ahra Pahts.. )

Ah, don't think you quite understand no. The max plugin source would allow us to finish up the majority of stuff we haven't been able to do in the plugin (Clothing, Avatar animations, basically anything to do with the avatar in general) We'd get a general idea of how Cyan did it with 3dsMax. Then adapt that general idea to blenders internals.

The plugin source would also allow us to develop plugins for other 3d programs besides blender. Opening a wider array of plugins would allow more flexibility for new age writers to pick and choose which program they want to use.

[I.Brattin]

Am I correct in assuming that the plugin source would also help create a Blender MOUL export.

[GPNMilano]

Am I correct in assuming that the plugin source would also help create a Blender MOUL export.

That would be correct. Technically we could just convert a POTS age to MOUL. Robert was working on a wrapper to fix the problems with the PhysX cooked data. But there were other things besides this from MOUL that was changed that the sources would help us with in adapting the plugin for MOUL compatibility.

Ideally, we want the plugin at this point to export both POTS and MOUL (and for those...um...places...that use it UU as well). At some point if they release the client code, the more likely thing that will happen is that a MOUL client will be developed that will be both offline and online compatible and we won't need POTS or UU exporting anymore.

[Aloys]

The max plugin source would allow us to finish up the majority of stuff we haven't been able to do in the plugin (Clothing, Avatar animations, basically anything to do with the avatar in general) We'd get a general idea of how Cyan did it with 3dsMax. Then adapt that general idea to blenders internals.

Right; last time I asked about missing/upcoming PyPRP features it appears the problem was more with Blender and how to use it. But I was inquiring about the GUIs and Particles, as the avatar isn't my main area of interest.

[diafero]

Actually most of the MOUL formats are already known, including everything required in ages like the ones written so far (libPlasma and Drizzle both have a quite complete set of parsing functions). So, the 3ds MAX plugin will not really help to add MOUL compatibility to PyPRP - anyone who wanted to do it could already do so, and it would take him/her some time to get to the point where we actually need the new information.
Last time I looked, PyPRP 2 - which uses libPlasma for reading and writing - was able to import ages into the test Blender I installed. I just got the mesh though, no textures, not sure about lights. However thanks to libPlasma, it can do that for POTS, UU, MOUL and Myst V. The reason why no exporting can be done or while the importer is so limited is not the limited knowledge about the file format, but the limited set of Plasma classes mapped to Blender elements.

For these reasons - and because I am a server developer - I consider the server sources much more useful than the plugin. We can create MOUL ages with the info we have, but we have no way to test them, which is where the servers are required (and a client, of course, where MOULagain should be usable).

[Whilyam]

The source and skip fan Ages for now. We can get those after the source is released.

[D'Lanor]

Preferably the plugin binaries and the source, but if releasing the source is problematic then the binaries will do for now.

[RedSoxFan]

Release of the Source Code will lead to a deeper understand not only of what but more importantly why.

Getting a Fan Age on MoulAgain will gain exposure to a much wider audience than we have now. Choosing the correct age to go first will be VERY important as it will 'set expectations'.