UPlasma development - Play Plasma from the Unity engine

[Lehnah]

So, could this in theory extend out to make Uru even bigger? For example, have the tunnel Ti'ana found that leads from the surface to Decent added in and perhaps Tomanah located nearby? Maybe even incorporate stuff from the recently released early builds?

[Aloys]

In theory we already have the tools, what we lack are people to use them. Or better, people who use them and *complete* projects. (last Age I published was years ago, more than I could admit )

I'm not against visual scripting, but in most cases I wouldn't want to bother developing/integrating it (unless it's really fast and painless)

In my experience it's not. Most tools like that will advertise on their store page how easy and fast and intuitive it is, and then you spend the next two days trying to get your game to compile. (I'm exagerating a bit, but it's not always simple)

But it's always the same thing: tools that are easier to use are always welcome. It's just a matter of how much time the people developping those are whiling to invest in it.

But for various reasons, I'm not even quite sure I'll keep using Unity later on.

Aww, bummer. I understand how it is hard working with a closed source engine though. Myself quite often I've run into a couple walls, especially when it comes to customizing the editor..

[Deledrius]

So, could this in theory extend out to make Uru even bigger? For example, have the tunnel Ti'ana found that leads from the surface to Decent added in and perhaps Tomanah located nearby? Maybe even incorporate stuff from the recently released early builds?

In theory we already have the tools, what we lack are people to use them. Or better, people who use them and *complete* projects. (last Age I published was years ago, more than I could admit )

Yup, someone could publish precisely that thing today, if they had it.

There's really nothing stopping anyone from doing this in Uru as it presently exists and sharing it with others.

[Sirius]

What Aloys and Deledrius said. Now that we have both Blender and Plasma's source code open, the possibilities are theoretically infinite.

Unfortunately, we have just enough manpower to reach the moon, but not nearly enough for infinity. Oops.

For real though. UPlasma also has a lot of potential IMHO, but until it's actually usable it's even less useful than Plasma's source code. At least I find it easier to work on than Plasma itself, and once completed it could prove a much more powerful/convenient way to create Ages due to the dedicated editor and advanced graphics. And I sure as hell would love to see it completed one way or another, assuming I'm able.

Aww, bummer. I understand how it is hard working with a closed source engine though.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, because now I know what I want to keep from Unity and what I want to throw out of the window. Especially since I used it for both programming and Age development.
Switching will be work, though. But I have no need to until I've found something that really feels better.

[Deledrius]

For real though. UPlasma also has a lot of potential IMHO, but until it's actually usable it's even less useful than Plasma's source code.

No slight against your project and the topic of this thread, of course. Just wanted to be clear that those things are already possible since it so often seems to be something people aren't aware of.

Aww, bummer. I understand how it is hard working with a closed source engine though.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, because now I know what I want to keep from Unity and what I want to throw out of the window. Especially since I used it for both programming and Age development.
Switching will be work, though. But I have no need to until I've found something that really feels better.

Godot seems to be easier to use than Unity, IMO, but I haven't done anything complex in either of them, and at least it's open source. It's not as far along and advanced in features, though, so I suspect it's not sufficient for you. Sounds like you already looked into it?

[Sirius]

No slight against your project and the topic of this thread, of course.

No worries
Anyway, I also don't want people to mistake my hope and enthusiasm for the promise of a fully working product overnight.

Godot

Obviously it doesn't have all the fluff that other engines have (I don't think any open-source engine could rival the "big guys" anyway), but it's still really solid from what I can see and a really good competitor. It also shows how unoptimized Unreal is when it comes to disk space and boot time.
I'm not sure I like the lack of entity component system in favor of single-type objects though. Also, they call attaching a script to an existing object "inheritance"... weird. I guess I just hate being taken out of my comfort zone


Open-source is becoming a real concern if we want the game to be both moddable and up-to-date with the latest version of the engine. I know engines can't evolve without breaking parts of their API or their asset serializer, but should that happen I would like to at least have the option to unpack/upgrade/repack older content for which we don't have the source files anymore.

[Aloys]

[quote=Sirrius]Unreal Engine disk space[/quote]
A few years ago when I started working on my first iPad game I looked at Unreal. It was the time when they started pushing it as a viable mobile-friendly engine with their impressive game Infinity Blade. Then I run a few test and I see that the smallest size for a built you could get was around 200 mb with just an empty scene. Nope.


[quote=Sirrius]Godot[/quote]
I really hope that one will improve. I keep making the comparison with Blender, which started as this small open source thing and is now a full featured package, comparable to the big guys. I guess there's enough motivated developpers in the game community to support such an open source project. Time will tell.

[Albanvs]

I realize I've come to this conversation late but I have to say I love this idea. In fact I've been wondering about this myself for some time. I do feel that Age creation is limited by an outdated engine. I thought, "Unity or Unreal 4?" I have both on my PC. I have no clue on how this works. Would when you log on it would point to the Unity engine instead of UPlasma?

[Sirius]

I have no clue on how this works. Would when you log on it would point to the Unity engine instead of UPlasma?

Basically, you have a new executable which is a Unity game.
This new executable, when first started, will ask you where your original Uru folder is.
When you validate your choice, this Unity game relies on a plugin which will read the Complete Chronicles resource files directly from the original folder, and translate those to the format Unity natively uses. Nothing is written to disk, Unity only "gains" the ability to read Uru files.
Theoretically, this means you can load and play Uru content, but rely on Unity to handle rendering, collisions, audio playback and other stuff - which comes with the benefit of cross platform, VR, less bugs, etc.
(This is the ideal scenario - in practice Unity has a very hard time properly "emulating" Plasma because they think completely differently. I might have to completely redo the architecture at some point to rely on the original engine more, maybe switch to Unreal... Still a lot of work and I'm not always sure what I'm doing, but at least I'm having fun and learning a lot )

Age creation is limited by an outdated engine

This is true. But at the same time, Uru's current engine works, and we have some pretty good tools to go with it. It already comes with working multiplayer, an avatar system, etc - as well as an existing community, and to an extend Cyan's support.
On the other side, Unity/Unreal, while really good engines, lack that "framework" that Plasma provides and that we already know. These engines have more potential, but you would need to redo a lot of things from scratch before you could make multiplayer Uru Ages on it.
Having a Plasma/[something else] hybrid would solve a lot of these issues, assuming it's done properly.