First Age Release: Spiro

[Jman]

Hey Guys,

I've released Version 1 of my first Age, which I've named Spiro (pronouced Speero). It is available on UAM and for direct download from my personal server.

Server Info:
ftp: MonkeyStable.dyndns.org
Port: 420
User: UruAges
Pass: atrus

Included with each release I plan to provide a "Distribution Blend" which will be a Blender file complete with Python Scripts to allow for exploration of the Age in Blender as well as Uru. The Distribution Blend will be used to show the end goal for the Uru Age, since Blender's Engine easily supports many more advanced rendering techniques. The controls in the Distribution Blend are standard WASD for movement & Mouse movement to change the Camera Direction. While Blender has very good rendering techniques, its physics & collisions aren't quite as great. If you stand on a slope in the Distribution Blend, you will slowly slide down it and you can accumulate speed by sliding & jumping. These are all known bugs and are not likely to be fixed, since the Distribution Blend is not meant as a Final Deliverable. (its still fun though)

The next step I plan to work on is attempting to get Normal Mapping to work in the Plasma Engine. There are a couple of Cyan Ages that use Normal Mapping in small areas of their Age. I'm not sure if this is due to performance issues with how the engine itself handles the Normal Mapping procedure, which may make Spiro a dead end since it's entire terrain is Normal Mapped. But 'Nothing ventured, Nothing gained'. I've made a first attempt at getting the Normal Mapping to work with no success (crashed Uru as a matter of fact). Anyone who has any advise for me will be warmly welcomed.

Please give me as much feedback as possible. I want to know every little detail that I screwed up and everything I did right. I hope you all enjoy Spiro, it has been quite a journey for me.

Jman

[Tweek]

Could you post some screenies?

[BAD]

Cool beans! Yes some screen shots would be nice. XD

[tachzusamm]

I tried to download it from your personal server, but with no luck.

FTP connection worked (got a connection), user and password was accepted, but I did not get a directory listing (FTP LIST command), so I was not able to see any content.
I tried passive mode (PASV) too.

Connecting with a browser (ftp://UruAges@monkeystable.dyndns.org:420/) did not work as well; it asks me for user and password, but then nothing.

Any idea what is wrong?

[ametist]

Sky:

Show Spoiler

View from the shore:

Show Spoiler

Very nice little island here J'man! I could not see the sea though, all black out there, no water in sight

Good work with the textures, smooth blending with each other! There is a path of grass leading to the
top of that cliff too. Only thing I would like to ask you to do is take away the specularity, it's a bit to much
on the ground textures.

Thanks for sharing!

[Jman]

I tried to download it from your personal server, but with no luck.

Any idea what is wrong?

hhhhmmmm..... Very strange. I can see the Uru Ages folder on my server just fine from my end, both inside & outside my network. If you are still having problems I have a web-interface into the FTP running on the server as well. A bit more complicated to login though, but here we go.

Navigate to http://MonkeyStable.dyndns.org/ and Click the little House in the top right corner. On the new page find the 'Web File Manager' and click on it's image to login (use the above information). You should now see the contents of the FTP Server.

Very nice little island here J'man! I could not see the sea though, all black out there, no water in sight

Thanks ametist. In fact, there is no sea yet. I took a stab at getting the waveform water to work, but failed on my first attempt and went back to focusing on texturing. I plan on pushing through the textures before I dive into the AlcScript stuff. (Which also explains why there are no interactive objects yet.)

Only thing I would like to ask you to do is take away the specularity, it's a bit to much
on the ground textures.

I noticed this too and actually added darked specular maps to the model to try to clamp it down on the sand and grass while still maintaining the reflective feel of the rock & cliff. I'm going to do a little experimenting with my lighting settings and darkening the sand & grass specular maps even more.

Thanks for the feedback guys (and I hope you can get on the server soon tachzusamm). I'm hoping to tweak the speculars and have a version 2 by tomorrow.

[Jman]

Hey Guys,

I just tweaked my lighting & specular maps a bit and released Version 2. The rock & cliff should still be nice & reflective, but the grass & sand should be significantly less reflective. There will still be patches of grass & sand which seem shiny, due to direct sunlight, but I think they both look much better now. I am very pleased with how the model looks in the Distribution Blend; so I am very eager to get Normal Maps working in Uru, since most of the terrain detail is in the Normal Map.

Anyway, keep the feedback coming!

Jman

[Old Wolle]

I had no problems to download the versions from your FTP, Jman. Works nice here in germany.

The new version of Spiro is on the UAM now.

[diafero]

Very nice little island here J'man! I could not see the sea though, all black out there, no water in sight

I have the same issue...

[tachzusamm]

hhhhmmmm..... Very strange.

Ya, this is indeed very strange.
I tried again now, with the same effect. And I tried it from a different computer, with a different client; nothing.
One would guess it's something with my firewall settings, but I get access to other FTP servers without problems.

But I would say, nothing to worry about - your second suggestion with the web interface worked - and I already got the age via UAM/Drizzle.

Nice age. Oh, and the water is black here too. Should it be blue? (I was under the assumption there is no water around).