Guild of Writers

I was over at Teledhan and noticed that as well as its orbiting sun it had moving clouds and it started me thinking about a generic basic age.

This age could consist of a Sky sphere with a Sun a Sky Sphere with a Moon and two Sky Spheres with cloud layers and one with a Star scape. a set of say eight planes set for images depicting the horizon As well as an aquatic plane set for swimming all with an associated script awaiting rotation values for the spheres with the Sun and Moon Spheres Synchronised to the system clock of the Server governed by some multiplier that could be set by the age maker. This sort of raw age would sit like Ahra Phats awaiting a set of values.

You import the age as a blender file and add your Sequence Prefix number obtained in the usual way and save the age as a new name to make it your own.

Lets say we have an age with these 14 basic objects if you don't want water you select the aquatic layer and delete it. The same goes for any of the other objects.

A set tutorial would enable the insertion of images for views of the distant horizon. I have picked 8 as an arbitrary figure it may work better with a different number.

Inserting values would set the rotation of the cloud star sun and moon spheres as required.

Our budding age designers still have control over land and the objects and buildings on it but we would have significantly shortened the learning curve for the new age builder.

That sounds like a wonderful idea, J'kla. Something like that would give folks a leg up. I know I have had troubles with the skydome, I had Yaeviev's turned on it's side. And moons, I have yet to actually get a moon or sun added to any of my ages.

To be honest I don't know if this is possible but if we don't kick around ideas like this stuff just wont get thought about. I know we are able to have quite big ages modified by a number of writers the Chain Letter age proves this. It might be worth doing this age with a subversion client method that way if we think of new things or methods they can be added.

How about Generica for a name this might kind of suggest generic age.

Possibly adding a simple flat land mass with common objects like a book pedestal a linking book a simple bookcase and a journal.

I know there will be issues adding objects to move that animate but I know that in creating Enobmort I made one ladder and just copied it to all of the locations. If anyone has explored Enobmort they will have experienced a lot of ladders.

I don't know if this is possible but I think it is a great idea, if only because having something that works to begin with is more motivating than starting from scratch.

And yeah, I painfully remember your ladders.

I think its a Good idea. If I had something like that to start with I think I would be much further along with my first age. lol.

Offering examples of some common pieces of Ages (as J'Kla said, animated skyboxes or sample water planes) as Blender files, as opposed to distributing those pieces as Ages and expecting people to convert them, would be more useful.

Phew! I have a great sense of relief that I am not alone in thinking this is a suitable idea.

Even if we start simply with a simple blue sky as a sphere and a water plane. does anyone have that already built?

There's no point in us re-inventing the wheel.

An excellent ide, I think!
Such a template could cut the amount of repetetive effort (albeit this not being all that much to begin with), in initializing a new age, a good bit.

If it is to be aimed at newcomers, however, there is going to have to be an extensive introduction tutorial, explaining how everything is structured and fits together,without becoming boring -- otherwise it'll be all to easy to either get lost among the premade content, or to accept it as a "magic box", that "just works" and never needs looking into.

Setting up the .blend file, should be little effort, I think.
If one has an initialisation script, which lets you insert custom values at setup (names, sequence prefix, pick images, etc), that would no doubt be coffebreak work for an experienced blender scripter, too.
It is the writing of the tutorial that would require much work and skill.

...or so I reckon.</disclaimer> :7

I would have no problem doing the tutorial provided I have the file to work from and a couple of novice testers to find the holes in the resultant script and the attention of the age writer to so arising questions can be resolved.

I have had an overnight to think on this.

Relto is a sort of generic age where you use pages in your Relto book to switch features on and off.

And what about size do we work on something large like Mintaka something halfway like Ahonnay or Relto or The Cleft? Maybe even 3 different sizes.

We know the horizon flats work for the Desert and Ahonnay but somewhere big like Mintaka will give any budding age builder more space to build a new age.

OK I am going to make a wish list in the Wiki as Generic Age Project.

http://www.guildofwriters.com/wiki/Generic_Age_Project