Korman Door tool

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Korman Door tool

Postby J'Kla » Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:18 am

I have not added this to the Korman wish list because I wanted to run this past those that support scripted stuff like the Ladder tool before it became a Korman thing.

Here I am thinking a generic door tool with the following options.

Door type
Single Swing towards Left hinge
Single Swing towards Right hinge
Single Swing away Left hinge
Single Swing away right hinge

Double swing towards
Double Swing away

[edit]
Drawbridge bottom hinge down towards
Drawbridge bottom hinge down away
Drawbridge top hinge up away
Drawbridge top hinge up towards

Bat-wing saloon doors
Split farmhouse door
[/edit]


Slab door descend
Slab door ascend
Slab door slide Left
Slab door slide right

Slab Biform horizontal slide (Think of double door lift in Gahreesen)
Slab Biform vertical slide (Think as above but half descends half ascends)

If possible an iris door

Door activation options
Door opens on approach
Door opens when some button is clicked
Door opens dependent on some other state (power switched on somewhere)

Door persistence options
Close delay
Stay open
With or Without passage through door animation.

For now this is about all of the options I am throwing around for consideration.


Other things for consideration
On a personal note I would like the door to have a partway open option where you can see beyond but not actually pass here I am really thinking about a door that is only Slab door descend and I would like a door that had two status switches one a variable (number) and two the status of another door that was Slab descend that completes by being stomped on.

I would also like a Slab door ascend that sticks partway and can have a crawl under animation.

How about a partially open Biform horizontal slide that opens only enough to let a Female Avatar pass with the appropriate animation but not a Male but with a switch or some other state change on the far side that would allow for complete opening this would (pardon the pun) leave the door open for co-operative puzzles.

All or none of this may be possible but this should be considered as a discussion document.

I envision the door would become a named object where the options where they apply would be radio buttons. the slide or hinge distance would be some offset either in degrees for swing and some distance for a slide
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Re: Korman Door tool

Postby Deledrius » Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:14 pm

The ladder thing was my idea, and I have a list of other things I plan to implement. I had hoped to have more of them implemented by now, but last year ended up being quite busy for me dealing with family issues. Sorry about that! Anything that involves fidgety-precision (like the lamp flares) or being lined up with Cyan's avatar animations is fair game. Feel free to recommend items to add either in this thread or on that issue. However, I should explain what my current reasoning is for what's included and how I expect them to work.

Before that, I should say that a lot of what you seem to be suggesting here is an idea several of us had for an asset service waaaay back in 2004-2005 when the first Age-building tools were being written and Blender was starting to be looked at as a tool to make Ages with. The idea was, among other things, to provide a website that would host premade meshes and textures (as well as other assets) for Age builders to share with one another. I still think that would be ideal for this kind of problem.

Which brings me to the reason the ladder is a template guide in Korman rather than a complete mesh. There are many different kinds of ladders an Age builder may want to have in their Age; there are metal rungs, stone outcroppings, wooden planks, broken ladders of all kinds, etc. Just look at the variety in Uru for the easiest examples! So this presents a couple of problems: which do I make to put into Korman, and what happens if I do?

The best solution to the first question is to boil every ladder down to the barest parts, which is what I did. The real key to a good ladder in Uru is that the rungs and the starting/landing zones line up with the Cyan-provided animation, so I created a script which generates all of the modifiers and regions lined up with the animation. This allows the Writer to customize the parts which are optional or variable, and then build a mesh to match the generated guide, and doesn't put Korman in the position of pre-selecting any artistic choices.

The second question is going to be something people will feel differently about, but my thinking is that the moment I put in a full mesh model for a certain class of object (ladders, book pedestals, etc.) in the tools, it will become overused as the ladder used everywhere in Ages because it's the easy shortcut, regardless of whether it's appropriate visually. As much as I'd like to make this easy and have a huge library of prefabricated options, we don't have the resources to make a large enough variety to overcome the likelihood of laziness making Ages made with Korman all look like cookie-cutter Ages. As an old vet yourself, I'm sure you're familiar with the saying "there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution". Placeholders never remain so. ;)

This comes back to the asset service I mentioned earlier; I still think it's the better solution, because it allows the Age Builder community provide drop-in meshes of the required variety and precludes the tool dictating what should be the artistic output of the work of the Age Writers. Obviously, we don't have a website for that right now. It's not something I can work on creating right now, and I don't know of anyone else active interested. As a stop-gap, there's always the possibility of people sharing a public folder on something like Google Drive (with thumbnails) or even a well-organized category on the wiki (which should support .blend files).


All that said, if you need specific help with a particular door, I can definitely build something for you. Just don't toss a huge list on me... I can't handle that load. Also, the ones you mention at the end seem to be more a question of implementation, which is something we do need some examples of to help people like yourself. There are Global Python Scripts available for those doors, but I haven't added concrete examples yet for those entries. Some simple examples would fill the gaps there between "roll it yourself" and "here's a finished door to just drop in", and I heartily agree this is some important missing documentation at this time. Even I get lost hooking them up sometimes, so it would be great to have a quick node recipe to copy when making a new item using those scripts.
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Re: Korman Door tool

Postby J'Kla » Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:09 am

No that is all good

Lets consider this a a place holder for door stuff.

If I can figure out how to build a door I will write a Noob guide.
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