Guild of Writers

Aloys wrote:Nice. I didn't know that. it's interesting, but unfortunately it won't work for all the shells. I've looked at the Age and shrinking to a single district is doable. But If we want to keep the triangular shape of the city moving the existing shells around will be problematic: I've tried all the layouts I could think of and some of the shells would have to be rotated around.. Can Drizzle rotate pages around too?

Unfortunately no, it doesn't. Rotation is much more complex than translation, so it's not easy to implement either.
Originally the translation tool was designed for Ahnonay, to fix the swim regions. Drizzle has a few hidden features like this one.

Aloys wrote:Definitely! :p In fact way back, someone (Paradox?) had started working on something like that: image.

Oh, nice !

Would it be valid just to thin out the shells remove say 1 in 3 and replace them with open blank spaces.

Or even lock down the shells give them closed doors a roof and remove all of the inner polygons.

Note I am just kicking an idea around here.

Is there a complete Blender file we could get and experiment with?

Would it be valid just to thin out the shells remove say 1 in 3 and replace them with open blank spaces.

Or even lock down the shells give them closed doors a roof and remove all of the inner polygons.

I suppose all of that could work, but I guess it would still fill rather empty.

J'Kla wrote:Is there a complete Blender file we could get and experiment with?

There is no complete scene of the Age. (at least not one that is up to date). At the time the Age was so big my computer couldn't handle it properly so I had to divide it into several different blender scenes, separating the streets, the shells and the larger courtyards..
But that was long ago, it could work now. I'll work on putting a proper blender file together.

I am just after something to experiment with.

And there is no rush for that I have my own big ages I have to fight with.

Aloys wrote:Is the current online Shells plan correct? (this one, from this page) it says it was last updated June 7, 2010. Assuming it is correct, then there are 11 opened shells to be relocated.

This map is missing shells 415 (Dot) and 336 (Luna), available in the latest version of the Age. Seems the original wiki page and the shell number page are still available too.

Aloys wrote:There is no complete scene of the Age. (at least not one that is up to date). At the time the Age was so big my computer couldn't handle it properly so I had to divide it into several different blender scenes, separating the streets, the shells and the larger courtyards..
But that was long ago, it could work now. I'll work on putting a proper blender file together.

If it's only for studying geometry, it's possible to use the PyPRP importer (or my own importer). But both will break the logic.
I just did it, and it works on a solid PC. Just expect a long importing time, as well as 5 to 10 minutes loading all textures using the GLSL rendering, depending on the importer used.

I'd be up for helping out with this if I can, not good with the coding but if you need texture updates or new textures worked I can definitely help there.

Sirius wrote:This map is missing shells 415 (Dot) and 336 (Luna), available in the latest version of the Age. Seems the original wiki page and the shell number page are still available too.

Thanks for those links.
I've got conflicting information about shell 336 though, in my files I have it registered to someone named Oktiva (registered on may 21 2009). Does any one knows what happened here? Did that person abandonned this shell?

Tweek wrote:I'd be up for helping out with this if I can, not good with the coding but if you need texture updates or new textures worked I can definitely help there.

Thanks for the offer. I'll keep that in mind.
I really want to do something with that Age again now, put together a smaller version. And it would be a nice occasion to update the textures.

I do know one one of my shells was previously owned and I was asked if I wanted to give up one there apparently was a waiting list.

This shell 336 may have been one that changed hands.

Probably what J'Kla said. One of both sources must be outdated.
I've had a look at the shell itself, but there isn't much that tell us who built it. No journal, no name... There is one note written in D'ni but it doesn't look like it means anything.

Maybe I should submit what little I have of my shell, one of these days... It really depends on a "companion" age, and the story that intertwines it and the shell, and would inform design decisions of both, but that story has never progressed past the loose concept stage, nor has the age, so I suppose by adding the partially built ground level, one could at least contribute some semblance of activity in the great city... :7