Guild of Writers

I know this should probably be in the ALCUGS forum, but I'm not signed up over there, and the single largest Age-in-progress is here, after all.

I don't see why a script can't be made to help make workflow a little bit easier. Rather than having to know all the numbers for different properties, why not have a script that allows easier setting of those properties, with text descriptions and such. That's especially important with the colision types and such, where one can spend a goodly amount of time stressing over a typo (stupid ball in my stupid testage...)

Anywho, I'd be willing to work on the layout of the logic behind this, but I'm not very good at scripting, and it should probably be integrated into the PRP package anyway.

While I'm thinking about it, why not add a basic front-end for all the scripts? If we add everything through that script, instead of through Blender, we don't have to fix the quad2 setting on lights, or seperately add colision data, or all the other little things that make age work extremely tedious.

I can start the GUI layout and the menu tree (completely non-functional, of course) to give an idea of how it should all work.

Actually, there already is a script like the one you're describing for setting object properties. Granted, it should probably be updated to include the functions of the new PRP Plugin.

LINKY

nice! I'll have to grab that, but it still looks like we're entering numbers by hand, rather than just saying collision_(on|off), physics_(on|off), etc. I realize it's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea. We shouldn't have to know the numbers. We shouldn't even see them, unless we want to. Besides that, that interface, while well-organized, is hard to look at. It uses the internal names of everything, rather than human-readable versions, and the buttons at the top are pretty hard to sort through (are they one big group? many smaller groups? all individual settings). Please note that I'm not at home right now, so I haven't actually loaded the thing up, this is just from looking at the screenshots.

I'm working on my GUI ideas, and I'll probably have the first set of pictures soon (the main menu, and the first bit of work on the 'Add' menu and properties menu)

I agree a more user friendly tool for setting Uru properties would be quite welcome. Something with checkboxes/radio buttons and a simplified interface. But I'm not sure who at the moment would be available and willing to work on such a thing. It is already good we have this tool, and there are many other projects that I'm sure our beloved developers find more important right now. The author of the current script (Sjaak) isn't around often also. But if you know a bit about Python and are willing to give this a try you're more than welcome.

(BTW a new version of the script is available here )

I know enough Python to do the script, I think... It won't be the most efficient code, but it'll do the job. The export will definately just call the current export script. I'm working on the designs for the different screens in Inkscape right now. I've got the intro screen done, which should give an idea of how the rest will look. Any recommendations for where to host the images? The forum doesn't allow image uploading, and I really don't like photobucket and those places (I'm a touch web-paranoid about more or less everything but the Myst community and the Blender community. Maybe because both of those groups really are communities, not just collections of people on the Web). Is there enough space for me to store the images on the Age Builder WIKI?

Allright, I've got a WIKI page set up over on the ALCUGS WIKI. It links to this thread for discussion of the design, but I'll be posting most of the information about my ideas, plans, and general python antics over there. Here's the link to the page, with the first few images up. Questions and Comments are welcome

looks interesting. other options for "object properties" should include region types, (swim, footstep, climb, clickable) (regions are objects too) and there should be a "clickable" option as well as an accompanying "clickfile" field.
and finally, options for making a surface "swimmable". I think that covers the current functionality, but I've probably missed something.

for the plugin developers themselves, I've always wanted the plugin to somehow support changing the properties on multiple objects at once. (for instance selecting all would-be solid objects for one page and setting their col_type and page_num in one fell swoop, instead of wading through all of them and manually typing those strings in, and then testing the age and finding out that I missed that darn chair.)

I was going to give regions their own set of buttons, seperate from objects and colliders. Clickable needs to be added, though. Thanks

Sounds (and looks) interesting. If you can pull it off, that would be a great addition to our set of tools. It would especially be helpful to people who are new to Age creation. And that is a good thing

The export stuff will directly call the current export script. The settings are all I have to write, and that's pretty easy through Blender's Python API.