Escher's Relativity is doable

[Calena]

You're right, he does give the community permission to continue working on the age. It's in the file. That was the easy part . Now, I have to see if I can match his lighting and shading method. Fortunately, being tach, he has specified in detail every thing required to match what he did. I'm studying his method and when I think I have a good handle on it, I'll try adding something to the age and see how it looks.

LOL - this is not Lighting 101 for beginers . Fortunately, he's just taking me one step further than I already was, so it isn't that big of a leap. If anyone is interested in getting superb insight into how to light and shade in Blender, I suggest you download tach's file and study it. It's a lesson in best practices.

No promises yet - there won't be a point in adding anything if it winds up looking like garbage. But at least it's a step.

Tach was a great friend to this community and if he wanted the age to be completed by others, I'm happy to oblige him. If I can, that is .

Karkadann, if you have a specific model you want me to use, you can PM me a link to the Max file. It might be easier if I convert it myself. Cross your fingers .

[Sirius]

I can add the music and thunder if needed. I won't mess up with visuals since I don't want to bother with light-AO-maps, but adding the music is pretty simple. The thunder needs a bit more work on the AlcScript side, but I believe I can figure it out.

I wanted to do this a bit earlier, but didn't have time to convert the textures (since it's CPU-demanding, I needed to let my computer run without being able to do much on it).
I finally managed converting them in approximately 3h, so now I can try and work on it.

[Karkadann]

I have had the tables and chairs for a while and I just got done rescaling one of the planters, I have the other planter someplace, the music is a bit quiet, perhaps we can make it a bit louder if thats ok with Fabioguar. I have a age description if you wanna check it out

Show Spoiler

Inspired by a drawing from a well known 1900 Century Dutch artist. \nWelcome to our version of M.C. Escher's Relativity. Come and explore this world and ponder the mysterious inspiration that lead to its creation.

and a pic of the table, chairs and planter

Show Spoiler

of coarse this is all stuffed into a prp so with Max I set the system units on decimal feet to match the /location feature in the offline KI, not being into programing much im not sure which would be better a prp file or adding it threw blender into the age file

what would be nice to see is the two tree's, a bamboo plant, some kind of flower that looks like a daisy and a what looks like a succulent for the two planters, a plaque or book with the names of all the contributors and what they contributed, a linking image I was thinking if we can get enough people together we may be able to get a linking image with all the people in it similar to the original drawing. I have not gotten to those yet. I was gonna put the plaque or book someplace in the house, Iv got 4 or 5 book stands to choose from if needed also somewhere somebody came up with a real wild sofa that might fit nicely as an addition to the house. Perhaps a forest or jungle someone can get lost in on one or more of the planes might also be an interesting addition

these are just some of the ideas I have had or have been working on, I am definitely looking forward to seeing this age closer to completion but at the same time leaving room for possible expansion, is nice to see a renewed interest in this.

Not sure but at this point I think it may be a bit complex to convert for open source but it would be nice

[Calena]

Can you send me the objects you want placed in the house with some kind of map showing where you'd like them? Even in the screen print, the objects are much, much brighter than the rest of the scene. It might be best to put the finishing touches on the objects in Blender so that the lighting and shading can be matched. Tach left extremely detailed instructions on how to match the lighting, along with a special scene with the lights already placed to bake the lightmaps. The lightmaps need to include entire scenes to get the shadows correct.

I've got a little tree I can put in that hole in the ground . I always wondered why that was there. I finally studied Escher's original art today.

We need to think through exactly what all is going into the scene close to the house and get it all in place before I can make the new lightmaps. If we could somehow come up with a feasible idea of how to enclose the house scene with maybe a stone wall or something, it would make it easier for others to contribute bigger areas with more detail later. They could go through gates or doors into new worlds. A sky sphere would be a big help.

What about framing some prints of Escher's drawings and hanging them in the house? That might add a nice touch and it's simple to do. I can do that if you'd like.

[Sirius]

Ok, I put in both the music and the thunder sound. Looks like it's working fine.

I had to convert the two MP3 files to OGG for Uru to read them. However, doing so degraded the sound quality. Plus it seems the output file is corrupted, at the end of each song, the game crashes.

Fabioguar, if you're reading this, could you provide a link to an OGG version of your two sounds ? Thanks.

@Karkadann: nice chairs, tables, etc. But I think asking Calena to put them in the Blender file will make the textures, etc look a lot better, and it will allow them to cast shadows on the ground below.

A sky sphere would be a big help. [...] What about framing some prints of Escher's drawings and hanging them in the house?

+1

[dendwaler]

Sirius,
Did you you use this program to convert or edit the soundfiles?
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
I have never had a wrong result with it.

[Sirius]

No, I used VLC (though it is obviously not the best program to do this). I used Audacity some time ago, but didn't reinstall it on my newest pc since I usually don't need to edit sound files.

Anyway, I reinstalled it, and now the audio quality is much better (I was told converting from MP3 to OGG was usually a bad idea, but the difference is not noticeable). And the game stopped crashing.

So, here is the new version. I'll post the updated source files once we're sure it fits fine.

Enjoy !

[janaba]

Works and sounds great so far, Sirius ...

The thunder sound you get to hear first when everything turns blue/red, is that intended? ... I was walking around for quite some time and wondered why I couldn't succeed to everything turn colored, while listeneing to the music which fits great into the environment and special design of the age, but when I finally got to that 'arch' with three colors at the top and went through, in that moment I've heard the thunder for the first time and everything turned blue and red ... However, great job and addition ...

Calena's proposals and ideas to breath life into this world sound awesome btw ...

[Sirius]

The thunder sound you get to hear first when everything turns blue/red, is that intended? ...

Yes, see:

This is the song: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4qlwo8uc0fbd6za/Sylster.wav

Given that the colors change in the way Diafero said, I think the best thing to do is a background inside the song like that: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9mvw1lvw18ghi ... 20back.mp3

... and when the colors are changing: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qyp65rbqxkhi6 ... hunder.mp3

Actually, the thunder sound is also played when you disable the colors.

Anyway, I like the Age better with a good music and the sound of the wind in the background !

[janaba]

Yes, indeed, and I find it awesome that it works, haha ... I wonder how the music recognizes the moment I'm walking through that arch which triggers the coloring ...