Guild of Writers

on that, if any one finds any problem with my ages, please I need to know, I cant not improve them if no one is willing to tell me what wrong with them, I know the board games still need sound, the music in the Stonehenge need to be converted to mono so it downloads faster, and the terrain on the island needs to be adjusted, also the Tardis needs an interior, my Relto I still hafta figure out how to stop the animation with the Barrel, I know I missed something so if you guys wanna let me know ...

also Matthomb volunteered to help with the graphics on the walking maze but Im kinda reluctant because, im not sure if your interested or not over at the Ghen shard
I would hate to have him do all that work on one of my ages only to find out its not something you would want on the Ghen shard, so im still kinda waiting for a yes or no

Annabelle wrote:Zephyr Cove, I went there once for about 10 secs... before crashing then it was instant crashing on each attempts

Indeed, I sometime crashed when linking there. It might be due to the wavesets and the amount of vertices in it... I remember some time ago I linked there and my screen turned multicolored ! (ha, old buggy graphic card ...)

Annabelle wrote:Neolbah, I flew to my Relto going through a "hole" in the design...

I don't remember falling under the Age, but I really don't see why you would bother inventing issues. Physics in Plasma can act weird depending of the collision geometry, especially around subworlds. In any case, a polite issue report should not be considered "insulting" the Age in my mind.

Anyway, Kaelis' Pub Office would be a very good choice too. There are other Ages with nice visual quality, but I don't remember them all.

@ Sirius: I will give you the benefit of the doubt because i'm unsure of how to interpret your sentence:

"I really don't see why you would bother inventing issues"

I translated in french and still I'm puzzled whether it's positive or negative.

Here's a picture, you can judge by yourself:


There's no trick involved here, no flymode neither. I just walked straight inside the wall. A step more, I'm flying off under the age. You might say...it's because the door is open. Not really, I can do it even with door close and the doorframe of the door just next to that one leading in the cave is completely secure. I also went on the elevator, my screen was litteraly wobbling. I decided to move away from the elevator, all the floor of the entire age became unsolid. I wasn't able to respawn to any spot, i finally let down and went back to my relto.

I don't want to go further on that subject though, it's not on-topic anyway

Annabelle wrote:

"I really don't see why you would bother inventing issues"

I translated in french and still I'm puzzled whether it's positive or negative.

Sorry, I mean "You can't accuse someone of inventing issues", since I hardly imagine normal people linking to an Age and saying "Hey, I'm going to pretend finding issues here, here and here; that's not true but it's just for fun". So definitely positive


Now, to get back to the topic... Some of the Ages I think up-to-par:
- Bimevi
- Fens
- Kaelis' Pub Office
- Maw
- Serene
- Tehr'Dovah
- Tsoidahl Prad
There are some others I enjoyed visiting, but I don't remember them all.

I am curios, what specifically is it that makes them "up to Par" Just so the rest of us can get an idea as what kind of age your looking for.

I always thought new content would be what needed to put Uru back on the map so if you can be more specific it would be a great help

Things that I look at:

• Does an age have immersive and accurate lighting and shadows, both static and for avatars? Most fan ages fail this test. I realize lighting and shading are really hard, especially in Blender (Max has better tools), but they are incredibly important to how an age looks and feels.
• Is the texturing, fog, and other effects accurate and reasonable (no clouds of toxic gas please). A few ages I've seen would fail this one
• Do the physicals (at least mostly) work as one would expect?
• Does the age story work at least somewhat reasonably in the D'ni/DRC storyline?

There are maybe a dozen ages that meet all of those criteria.

What would havta be done to the walking maze to make it "up to par"

I can make some assumptions like
In the walking maze the lighting is kinda universal, because the fog is so thick, although I can add some shadows and make some changes.
the fog I guess being blue might suggest its kinda toxic thats easy to change. as far the textures are concerned what do you think it needs I may need some help on that one?
Im pretty sure the Physicals work as expected unless I missed something
as far as the D'ni/DRC story line is concerned, I have yet to try making a journal if you think one is necessary im gonna definitively need it proof read
But in the end its up to you its your shard im just offering new content and need to know what needs to be done to make it acceptable

In other words Im submitting my ages for the Ghen shard, realizing their not "up to par" and Im asking how can I make them Up To Par.

As I have already stated, lighting is a huge issue--I immediately thumb past anything that appears shadeless. You can bake primitive lights by simply placing a 3ds Max (not Plasma) light into the scene. For more advanced lighting techniques (including baked shadows), we have a decent tutorial on light mapping available.

thank you for reminding me, I guess I get a bit temperamental sometimes

Just throwing it out there without much consideration for the potential technical challenges, I'd love to see Relativity on Gehn.

It's a great showcase of something that hasn't been done anywhere else in Uru, as well as looking good (from the screenshots I've seen anyways), and provides a place for multiplayer interactions.