How to Test my Age [SOLVED - see 1st post]

[TheMagician]

This is a copy of my post from mystonline.com - however, I was asked to come here.

Hi everybody. I've got quite excited by the release of the 3D Max Plugin. So I reinstalled UruCC after a long time.
I also downloaded Drizzle24. Then I created a little test-age in 3D Max, exported it, imported it into UruCC using Drizzle. Everything seems to have worked correctly. I've also installed the Offline KI using Drizzle.

However, now with my clean install of UruCC, how can I link to my age and test it in-game? From what I've read in the tutorials about the Offline KI the new age is accessible from the Nexus. But I'm at the very beginning of Uru - standing in the desert. So do I have to play through the complete Uru storyline and "To D'ni" to be able to access it??

When I type "/link nexus" the Offline KI gives me an error stating that I have to "make a link to the age" before I can link to it - or something like that.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance,
Stefan

=== EDIT 03/30/2010 - PROBLEMS SOLVED =========================
1) When you have a fresh installation of Uru and want to test your own ages you must first play through the Desert so you arrive at your Relto. From there link to Gahreesen and get your KI. From there link to the Nexus. In the list there is a point "Restoration Links". There you should find your age. Click on it to link to it for the first time. Later on you can use the Offline-KI command: "/link your_age_name" to directly go to your age without having to visit Nexus first.
As an alternative you download a savegame from somewhere on the internet that has already got all the books in your Relto shelf so you don' have to play through everything - just go to your bookshelf and directly link to the Nexus.

2) VERY IMPORTANT: Be careful with the sequence prefix number in your .age file. Theoretically it should support large numbers. However the number "55555" made it impossible for me to load the age in Uru. Something like "5555" works, however.
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[Old Wolle]

There is no need for you to play the complete storyline, but you need to go to Garrison, get your KI from the machine and link with the Nexus book to your Nexus to get the book in your Relto shelf.
After that the command /link nexus or only /nexus is working.

When your age was exported correctly you can link to it by typing the command /link %youragename%.

[TheMagician]

Thanks for your answer

So I remember Garrison and how to get the KI.
But how do I get to Nexus for the first time? - I'm sorry, I haven't played in a long time.

Right now my bookshelf looks like this:

[Old Wolle]

The Nexus book is near the KI machine in Garrison; turn to the left and you will see it.

[TheMagician]

Duh - that was obvious It's late here in Germany ...

So in the Nexus there really is my "test-age" in the list under "Restauration Links".
However, as soon as I click on the book everything goes black and the game doesn't respond
anymore ... seems I've missed something in the age file.

I have
-a floor (set to terrain)
-a directional light
-a dummy object set as a spawn point
-all the entities are also registered under "page info" and connected to the .age file

Any beginner mistakes that you can think of?
Somehow I think my age doesn't even get loaded. The loading bar appears for a short moment and then
everything goes black - I can't even access the GUI anymore (i.e. Relto book).

[tachzusamm]

I don't know how this can be done in 3DS Max or the plugin, but you need to give your age a unique age ID, called "sequenceprefix".
This ID must not equal any of the already existing IDs, neither those of Cyan's ages, nor any of those ages you may have installed additionally.

http://alcugs.almlys.org/ListOfSequencePrefixes
http://www.guildofwriters.com/wiki/List ... e_Prefixes

[Corvus]

- Did you set your terrain to "Exact" to give it bounds? Otherwise you will fall through the ground.
- Did you put the spawn point high enough?
- A directional light is not enough I guess. Put an Omni Light in, it shines in all directions. Maybe your age is only too dark to see something.

These were the problems I had with my testage. I hope this helps. Good luck!

[TheMagician]

@tachzusamm
-Yes, I know about the sequenceprefix. I set it in the .age file (to 55555) - I haven't installed any other ages so I think there's no conflict there.

@Corvus
-I set the collision to "box" because I've read that it performs more efficiently.
-Did I put the spawn point high enough? Good question - how high is high? I don't really know how big you should build things in Max so they appear in the coorect scale in-game. Do you know how high (in feet inside 3D Max) the standard avatar is?
-I added an Omnilight.

Unfortunately it still isn't working - it loads for a very short time and then goes black and stops responding.
I can move the cursor around but no GUI control or anything appears.

Corvus, do you happen to have a simple example age that you could upload so I could have a look at the setup?

[tachzusamm]

Collision set to "box" is good for things with high poly count to protect you from walk through them from sideways.
Normally I use always triangle mesh for my plane - this should be okay even if the plane has thousands of faces.
No idea if walking on a cube works, or should.

"High enough" is at least "surely above" your plane. But I doubt you actually fall through your plane, because after some seconds the panic link should occur in this case.
I assume it must be something different.
May I ask: How complex is your first test age? Just a plane, nothing else for now?
Does it have a texture, and do the normals point upwards?
(But I doubt again this is the point, because it would not prevent the user interface to display. Or the KI. Did you try to hit F2 to open it?)

[diafero]

This sounds like an age file issue for me. Did you put the same age file into your Uru folder that you put into the one for 3DS Max? As noted somewhere, this will not work. Uru requires the age files to be encrypted (well, I'd rather call it "obfuscated" ), while 3DS Max needs them in plain text. I don't know if Drizzle does that or should do it, but you can manually do that with PlasmaShop. Just copy any existing age file, open it in PlsmaShop, paste your age file, and save it with the right name into your Uru folder.