Guild of Writers

This is an idea I've had for a while, but I was too busy to really get into it. We have some beautiful Ages here at the Guild of Writers, and honestly, I'm not sure how many people get to see them. Uru is a pretty small community already, as far as these things go, Gehn's Shard is a slightly smaller section of that community, and I don't know how many people outside of that take the time to download Drizzle and go looking through all the different Ages people have made. I know we have a Gallery here at the Guild, but that's a limited audience and honestly the gallery itself seems a little outdated.

So I thought that perhaps it might work to take pictures of the Ages and post them up on DeviantART as 3-D art, where people can more broadly appreciate them. I don't know how successful it'd be, and of course I'd have to ask for the Writer's permission (want to avoid spoilers) and provide credit links and so forth, but I think it'd be worth getting into. It'd be good publicity for the Guild, and it might attract a few new writers.

Unless this has been done before. Has it? There are a few Myst groups on DevART, but none of my searches on "Uru Age" bring up anything. I suppose my broader question here is: Would this work, would you all be cool with it, (and if so, would you let me run through your age and take pictures), and are there any legal implications I should worry about?

So, hearing no objections, I set the account up. Here is the link to the new D'ni Guild of Writers DevART webpage! http://dni-guild-of-writers.deviantart.com/

The first Age up is the Lost Stonehenge, displayed with generous permission from its creator, Karkadann. The pictures feature some hidden areas of the Age, and Karkadann's comments on certain aspects of its creation.

EDIT: I will update this post with a list of the Ages currently featured on the page

Lost Stonehenge
Serene
Vothol Gallery
Fehnir House
D'ni Temple Area One
Sholek's Temple
Tre'bivdil
Crater Concept

Hi, Afalstein, I think that it's a great idea to create a more extensive public space resp. showcase for the artworks of our dear age builders ...

Last year I too have realized how outdated the Uru fan ages page esp. the pictures presented there are ... the reason is that the person who maintained that once left the GoW a couple or three years ago ... Yeah, so I've compiled two easy to glance through simple Pdf files, A-N and O-Z, added the available texts, means walkthroughs of the ages and after visiting all of the ages again some very new fresh pictures along with them ... For the sake of simplicity and convenience I've called the topic where I've posted those 'All Fan Ages in 2 Files' ... Please have a look into that just mentioned link for the thread and the ability to download them ... I thought they might come in handy for you and your new grand project ... I've even added the Word documents they're based on in case anyone liked to edit those compilations and create new PDF files or just copy and paste the info or pictures somewhere else or whatever ...

What still needs to be updated by me are the very new versions of Karkadann's LostStonehenge and the Chess age and Backgammon cave as well as Dulcamara's very new 'Elodea' worlds resp. I'd better say universe ... Yeah, nice idea, Afalstein, but there's a lot of work (around 120 ages) ahead of you ... However, if you think it's worth it and have fun with it, go ahead and enjoy ...

I think it's at least worth a shot. We have some very beautiful Ages up, and there are a great many talented 3D artists in DevART who might be interested in this new venue for their talents.

As far as the workload goes, you're right, I hadn't realized how many Ages there were. But I can focus on the prettier ones for now, and maybe take in some of the less-stunning when I have time. It's not intended as a complete gallery so much as a way of getting our name out there. I have to ask each Writer for permission anyway, and I don't know that all the Writers will want their works up, so I can control the pace I work at. However, thanks for the comment, and I'll definitely take a look at that link you provide.

The Stonehenge images that are up now are very dim and low-contrast, as I view them. (I should note that I'm on a Mac, and MOUL screenshots that I see on the web nearly always look this way.)

Obviously it's nighttime and underground scenery, but if I go in and tweak the contrast (while keeping the dark end dark), the images seem more dramatic and presentable. Is there a known issue with gamma here, that can be adjusted to look good across web browsers?

belford wrote:The Stonehenge images that are up now are very dim and low-contrast, as I view them. (I should note that I'm on a Mac, and MOUL screenshots that I see on the web nearly always look this way.)

They looked very dark on my Win7 laptop too.

I only can tell that screenshots taken in URU should always be made with gamma cranked up in the game to the upper limit.

When you close URU, you may notice a short time from when the game has just closed and the desktop appears, that the desktop seems to turn a bit darker. This is because Plasma already turns brightness or gamma a bit higher, which makes the game scenes look lightened well, but the screenshots too dark - because they are not affected by that graphics card trickery any longer.
So crank up your gamma.

EDIT: By the way, I see 3 new members here. Maybe your DevART action worked. ^^

tachzusamm wrote:I only can tell that screenshots taken in URU should always be made with gamma cranked up in the game to the upper limit.

When you close URU, you may notice a short time from when the game has just closed and the desktop appears, that the desktop seems to turn a bit darker. This is because Plasma already turns brightness or gamma a bit higher, which makes the game scenes look lightened well, but the screenshots too dark - because they are not affected by that graphics card trickery any longer.
So crank up your gamma.

EDIT: By the way, I see 3 new members here. Maybe your DevART action worked. ^^

All good to know. I do normally have a picture editor I can use to heighten the contrast, but I'll keep the gamma stuff in mind. It looked fine on my computer beforehand, but the thumbnails do look to dark to make stuff out. The lighter Ages should be easier to do, though.


Also: Three new members yay!

tachzusamm wrote:I only can tell that screenshots taken in URU should always be made with gamma cranked up in the game to the upper limit.

Do your screenshots really turn out differently depending on your in-game gamma setting? In my experience they don’t – precisely for the reason you explain in your second paragraph (which is why your post confuses me): the gamma curves are applied in your graphics card between the frame buffer and the monitor, and screenshotting copies out the bits before that happens.

I didn't want to say sth to this as tach is quite a specialist, but as another specialist, which is Christian in this case lol, is commenting here, I'd like to mention that I never had to adjust gamma by now, it is completely down and I believe my pictures are quite beautiful and not dark at all, they only decrease considerably in quality when uploading them to Photobucket and then posting them again ...

I mean, I have a led monitor which displays everything maybe a bit more bright, but also with my last monitor I didn't have to adjust anything gamma in-game ... and as Afalstein says, if there'd be a need for improvement I'd use (a picture editor he said) IrfanView, which I need for reducing the size anyway ...