Chain letter age

[ddb174]

Okay, version 9 is available on UAM now!

[ametist]

Thanks Corvus, Jojon and ddb174
Great update!
Now we can have some serious research done /me rubs hands together fantastic!!

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[diafero]

Not to mention a balcony with a deliberately placed hole in the balustrade for people to commit suicide

A great age, and a great update, thanks to everyone involved

[Justintime9]

awesome addition to the cave! How did you get the glass vials to reflect so realistically?

[Jojon]

@Da DataBase:

Many thanks. :)


@diafero:

"Deliberately"? Why, I never... ;)


@Justin:

I think making sure the envmap is a reasonably good approximation of the environment is the key - having the right-ish tint and having (primarily) light sources and landmarks in more-or-less the right direction.
All the reflecting objects in the lab use one and the same static environment map, which is rendered from a position in front of the table. (if you do not load an envmap, you'll get a dynamic one, which is calculated in real time by Plasma. EDIT: ...which takes processing grunt, so don't go wild.. :9 )

The back face of the outside hull of each vial is rendered using mix blending mode, to make it a bit darker, giving definition to the whole shape, then each front face is rendered using additive blending. For smaller vials, with thin walls, the inside surfaces are not rendered, to save a few polygons.
This whole approach works decently in this particular situation, but may not in others.
Where you have a liquid in a bottle you should have no reflection, since the difference in refraction index (glass-water transition) is much less than to air. (Like pouring water over a scratched glas surface - the scratches "disappear")


On another note (if this is something that has had others than myself wondering), regarding regions:

When do you "enter" and "exit" a region? -I made a small test and it would appear that you are considered "inside" a region as long as any part of the avatar's bounding box intersects with the volume of the region. I didn't think, at the time, to try making the region really thin, to ascertain whether it's really the bounding box, or the actual geometry, or skeleton of the avatar that is tested for collision, but as an approximation, what I've got seems "good enough".
This means that an outstreched arm of your avatar's might make you "inside" a footstep region, even tough your feet are not, so it would seem regions should be a little smaller than their areas of effect.
If one of our gurus feels like to clarifying where I'm fuzzy, please do. :)

[Jojon]

Again I have kept you waiting, but have now, finally, gotten around to upload the Rell-Too update that Perlenstern submitted some time ago. If I can't improve, I may have to try to figure out a way to make myself redundant- hate to be a millstone around everybody's collective necks. For now, though, I'd like to keep my janitor position, because I feel that with the different work styles of each contributor, there is some need to pull things together into a more-or-less familiar shape, between each turn, to make things relatively easy for the next contributor to find.

Onwards, to the meat:

After Corvus' rather Atrus-y contribution last month, Perlenstern brings us a more Catherine-ian experience, that is sure to make your hearts soar.

Many thanks for your nice addition, Perlenstern! :)


Need I mention that the first post in the thread has been updated with links to the new files, which are version 0.10?

Next up is Robert the rebuilder, then Justintime.

[Jojon]

By the way: I'd like to point out that the "Do not erase" thing is not to be taken seriously. :)

[ddb174]

Okay, it's on UAM now, so everyone grab it! It looks very beautiful, I think :)

[ametist]

Thanks a lot Perle! Beatiful addition! I've always wanted to be able to walk such a path, loved it!!

@Jojon, I agree, this project needs a 'captain' Thanks for all your work.

[Jojon]

Thank you again, for your tireless efforts on making things accessible, Dustin (..and guys). :)

It's rather nice to see people's personalities coming through, with their manifestations of imagination. Like I said in the release announcement; over the two latest releases, we've seen a pattern emerging of Corvus' down-to-earth mindset (Hayal notwithstanding :D ) and Perlenstern's more dreamy, free-flying concepts -- like Atrus and Katran indeed. :) It is going to be interesting to see whether this proves consistent with these two, as well as with every other participant, although I'm sure even the most scientific mind can afford some fantasy fancies once in a while and vice versa. :)

EDIT: I have had a tendency, the last couple of months, to go silent for days, or even weeks, on end. Please don't take this as willful rudeness - I just suck, basically - trying to improve.