Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

If you feel like you're up to the challenge of building your own Ages in Blender or 3ds Max, this is the place for you!

Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby Sirius » Sun Mar 05, 2017 11:31 am

Hey everyone,

I just had an outstanding idea (or at least, something that sounds like a good idea to me), and would like some input from the community because I just can't think by myself :D


You know that I am currently working on converting some Uru locations to the Unity game engine (and optionally in VR) because... huuh, that's fun ? Anyway, the resulting image quality is just awesome, and VR make it even better. Great.
But. There are two problems with that:
- It's Cyan's assets, so I can't release it. Hence you guys can't profit from it, aside from the few screenshots I post once in a while.
- It's Cyan's quality, which means it's daaaamn loooong to make visuals on par with the original, fix bugs, rebuild all possible interactions, etc.

As long as it's raw models with a single texture on them, I can convert it to the new engine relatively fast. But advanced texture blending, decals, and all that jazz ? It's a headache to convert. Not impossible, but it takes a long time, because I'm looking for maximum fidelity to the original, while using new lightmapping and texturing techniques.


So, Cyan's Ages won't be of much interest for now. But what else do we have ? Fan ages !

Instead of working on Cyan's Ages and not be able to do much with it, I was thinking of taking on one (more probably two) Fan-Age, convert them to Unity, then release them for you to try out. The result would be a smallish game, a bit like what Cyan did for Crowthistle, that would contain both Ages with upgraded visuals (probably working puzzles too, otherwise where is the fun ?). They would be playable either with standard mouse and keyboard, or in roomscale with a VR headset if you have one ! :)
(Oh, and Unity runs just as well on Windoz, Mac and Linux. No discrimination on the OS side. Heck, if Google Cardboard is powerful enough, we could even build for that)

Now, the big advantage about this, is that fan-Ages generally use simple meshes, simple texturing and little to no lighting. Which means not only that it's easier to convert them to a new engine, but also that they can easily be upgraded with better lighting and shadowing, a new weather system, etc. Also, because they are already low poly from the start, even the improved version should be playable on a not-so-recent PC (assuming you can run most existing Ages fine).

This will require getting the authorization from the author of the Age, of course. While I won't add new content or areas, I'm definitely going to mess with the lighting and maybe weather of his/her Age. The author will have to be aware of that if he accepts :D and if that doesn't fit him/her, I won't insist - it's their work after all, I definitely understand if they don't want me messing with it :lol:


So... Now comes the hard question: which Ages should I work on ? I have a few Ages I would love to see with new graphics or in VR (or both), but have a hard time deciding for one or the other. So I might as well let you guys help me choose.
What about a vote ? :) Feel free to suggest any Age you might want (or even several), although preferably from people that are easy to contact to get their approval. If you're an Age author, you can suggest your own Age if that suits you.
(Once again, it's just a poll to know what people are thinking - there is absolutely no obligation whatsoever for authors if they feel their Age is good as it is on Plasma - and we will respect their decision)

Anyway. I think it would be best to start with only two Ages:
- one small but detailed (this kind of small and closed environment usually look good in VR)
- one bigger, preferably an outside scene with a bit of scenery (this would better showcase what modern engines are capable of)

Personally, I had these Ages in mind:
- Elodea (because it's a huge outside world and yet has nice caves, etc - although I would probably work only on the overworld for now)
- Rell-too (not sure if the author (Jojon ?) is still around, but the Age is more or less open source already)
- Relativity (imagine walking on the walls in VR, hehehe. And it's a community project as well)
- The Cathedral (might be cool in VR with a better lighting engine)

Other Ages I think would look cool (but their authors are harder to find)
- Zephyr Cove (I always loved Andy's work)
- Tehr dovah (great ambiance)
- Jonae or Jonae's hood (has an interesting design)
- Maw (small, but classy)
- Ahra Pahts (not the whole city. Just a neighborhood, probably)

(oh, and don't sue me if I did or didn't name an Age in one of these lists - I made them off the top of my head, based on what would be easy to convert, already looks good, and what I think I could make look even better on a new engine.)


So... Ideas ? Opinions ? Questions ? :D
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby Yali » Sun Mar 05, 2017 10:47 pm

A poll we started for AGES: Live Beyond Myst (formerly Devokan and D'ni)

Check out our Discord server: https://discord.gg/caAeuVg

... and yes... we're adding small fan Ages to a server right now. Currently getting my Darka room uploaded and we're looking into Age generation tools for Unreal. We're starting small but we have plans to build a newer and better online Myst game set in the Cavern and elsewhere with new story, new characters, exploring the themes of culture clash and society building, moving away from Yeesha and the Bahro.

I think the Uru community would benefit by working in Unreal like Cyan has been doing and creating content cooperatively. Unreal is miles better than Plasma and is quite intuitive to use. Right now our plans are to allow Ages to be uploaded to the project and we want the guilds to function as Cyan intended, Writers writing Ages and Maintainers testing them, maintaining the city, etc.

I'd suggest Fens or Maw. Also Vothol Gallery would look really nice in Unity and Unreal. Another favorite of mine is Llantern.
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby Dulcamara » Wed Mar 08, 2017 2:25 am

Sirius write:
So... Now comes the hard question: which Ages should I work on ? I have a few Ages I would love to see with new graphics or in VR (or both), but have a hard time deciding for one or the other. So I might as well let you guys help me choose.
Personally, I had these Ages in mind:
- Elodea (because it's a huge outside world and yet has nice caves, etc - although I would probably work only on the overworld for now



You know I am very open minded about such things.
I would be happy if the decision would fall on Eldoea. :)

Greetings
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby dendwaler » Wed Mar 08, 2017 10:01 am

No problem at al Sirius, if you want the complete blendfile including the texture of the cathedral i will make those available to you.
I have done some trials with the cathedral inside unreal , but its still hard to do the lightning as it should be done, i think mainly because its so big ihave to make streaming regions etc. for it.
Also the blueprints are rather complex.
I became a slow learner the last years unfortunately.
May be unity is easier, i have downloaded it to mess around a bit with it.

The idea to switch to another engine for fan ages, is a logical one to my opinion, and i wholeheartly support that.

The chance that " new writers blood" will invest in learning to handle a modern game engine are far bigger then that they are willing to learn an outdated undescribed engine, as plasma is.
Besides that ,there excist already more people familiar with unreal or unity .
Plasma users can be counted on a few "pair of hands.

So if you want to use the cathedral i will help you where i can.

Almost centain, the endresult will be worth it.
I only hope it will be possible to keep the multi user aspect.
Those wonderfull Worlds are called " Ages" , because that is what it takes to build one.



Watch my latest Video Or even better..... watch the Cathedral's Complete Walkthrough made by Suleika!
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby Sirius » Wed Mar 08, 2017 4:42 pm

You have no idea how glad that makes me :D Thank you both.
I think I'll leave the votes open for a while longer, in case someone else wants to make a suggestion/offer.
Anyway. Yes, the Blender files would be useful, as it will be more practical than using the PyPRP importer. I'll get in touch with you once I'm ready to get to work.

Dendwaler wrote:I have done some trials with the cathedral inside unreal , but its still hard to do the lightning as it should be done, i think mainly because its so big ihave to make streaming regions etc. for it.

Ah, yes, I remember that you did. Yes, lighting is a complex topic ;) I spent days and days learning how to do things in Unity.
These modern engines are so cool. While you can easily get decent looking lighting with real-time lamps, you can also bake everything to make light bounce off walls, etc. The hard part is making dynamic objects receive the same light as static ones. Also, baking still takes a long while no matter what engine you use... Speaking of which, it seems the next version of Unity will have real-time lightmap baking :shock: When you place an object in your scene, Unity will bake low resolution versions of your lightmaps in real-time, then progressively improve those lightmaps until they reach the highest quality.
Oh, and speaking of automation, Unity has built-in occlusion culling. What this means, is that you can forget everything you knew about VisRegions. Occlusion culling is completely automatic and 100x more efficient. Yay !

Dendwaler wrote:May be unity is easier, i have downloaded it to mess around a bit with it.

It's hard to say one is "easier" than the other. I like to say that Unity is cleaner and less cluttered than Unreal (especially around the interface), which makes things more intuitive to use. Also, the way it imports models is a bit better.
However, Unity doesn't have visual scripting, and its material editor is limited to 1 main texture if you don't know how to write shaders. This is rather problematic for most people. Personally I'm fine with that since I already know programming.
This is why artists generally prefer Unreal over Unity. Also, Unreal's rendering seems slightly more powerful than Unity's (but both are already some of the best engines available anyway).
In the end it's the same old saying, "the best tool is the one you know how to use best".

Dendwaler wrote:I only hope it will be possible to keep the multi user aspect.

That's the main problem. Multiplayer makes everything more complex to handle. You must ensure "clients" never lose synchronization, while also providing interactions between players, such as chat, puzzles, the possibility to see other people, etc (that's going to be even harder when dealing with optional room-scale VR). In truth, when working with Uru we are lucky Plasma already handles most of the networking on its own (while it has its flaws, it's still pretty good at it all things considered).
Oh, and you also need to have a server running 24h/24 and make sure it can handle the load, is protected, etc.
Honestly I'm probably not going to bother with networking anytime soon. Maybe if/when more people start working with Unity, or at least show an interest in it...
In my opinion, the best thing that could happen to Uru would be to have some sort of Deep Island clone that would run on a new engine. Even if it did not include Cyan's Ages, this would be a place where people could easily share new content, get together, etc... Which is why Yali's idea is probably a good one.
But that's just too far away for me for now. I'll be content with a proof-of-concept of Fan-Ages working on another engine and in VR.
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby Christian Walther » Thu Mar 09, 2017 11:54 am

Nice idea! I would love to visit Relativity in VR. (Even though half the fun of the age is being there together with others.)

On that last topic – I have always wondered about how all the people advocating moving fan age creation to a more modern game engine never seem bothered by the fact that, despite all its flaws, we get a lot of things for free by having our fan ages in Uru/Plasma that would have to be recreated from scratch in a different engine (or ported, if Cyan were to change its mind and allow their use, which probably wouldn't be much less work): the avatar, the KI, multiplayer… Is this not important to them? Are they not aware of it? Is their estimate of the required work more optimistic than mine?

(Not to deter from your idea, Sirius – you seem to be fully aware that the result of your work will not be anything like Uru, but simply places to visit, alone, in first-person perpective, and for that I applaud the idea.)
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby Sirius » Fri Mar 10, 2017 12:38 am

Christian Walther wrote:On that last topic – I have always wondered about how all the people advocating moving fan age creation to a more modern game engine never seem bothered by the fact that, despite all its flaws, we get a lot of things for free by having our fan ages in Uru/Plasma that would have to be recreated from scratch in a different engine (or ported, if Cyan were to change its mind and allow their use, which probably wouldn't be much less work): the avatar, the KI, multiplayer… Is this not important to them? Are they not aware of it? Is their estimate of the required work more optimistic than mine?

That's a fair question, and I agree with some of that. Networking is just one of the things we get from Plasma.
Recreating all this in a different engine is indeed an incredible amount of work (also, because these engines are more flexible also often means you have to code from scratch even the simplest thing - like the first person character controller, for instance).

I can't speak for others, but personally I was convinced after asking myself these two questions:
  • How much time have you guys been working on fixing bugs for Plasma ? On coding PyPRP, then Korman ? How much time did people spend setting up and maintaining Gehn or Deep Island ? How much time to make a converter for Myst V Ages to Uru ? On LibHSPlasma ? (I was actually part of some of it)
  • Is all this time worth it ? Well, it sure was, since it basically maintained Uru alive for all this time. But at the same time, does the game look better ? Not by much. Do we have VR ? Nope. Can I write custom shaders for Plasma ? No. Do we have a realtime particle editor ? No. Can I have automatic occlusion and forget about VisRegions ? Can I create GUIs for my Ages ? Do we have physically based rendering ? Dynamic shadows ? Per-pixel lighting ? Efficient dynamic ambient GI ? Normalmapping ? Parallax occlusion mapping ? Tessellation ? Sound reverb ? Volumetric lighting ?
It's all a matter of point of view. Some people choose to see what already exists in Plasma. What is missing in new engines. I prefer to see what is missing in Plasma. How recreating some Plasma features in new engines is actually doable. What already exists in new game engines.
Some people choose to see the uglyness in this world, I prefer wait, wrong line

Anyway. Not to say Plasma is worthless, but just that I'm not interested in doing anything for it. I'm sick of hacking my way through PRPs and Python scripting - it's long, boring and rarely works as you'd expect. Building in Unity, on the other hand ? It's fun.
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby dendwaler » Fri Mar 10, 2017 5:08 am

When i look to URU and Myst and analyze it in a non technical way.
And I ask myself what appeals me the most.
Then i will answer that it is in the first place a number of exceptional emotions that are so well balanced in these worlds or ages.

1)......The overwhelming Graphics. Eyecandies.
2)..... The wonderfull sound experience fitting into the ages on every place.
3)...... The possibility to wander around out there in an mostly, at least for the player, harmless environment.
4)...Non destructive gaming pleasure. No shooting, no killing, mindbuilding instead.
5)...Its the opposite , its about socializing, making friends, feeling at home.
6) ... special tools are needed to support all these points and glueing it together in consistency. KI, Chat , Multiplayer, solving puzzles togeteher, markerquests etc.
7) .. the storyline, an intruiging quest which feeds fantasy.

Unfortunately some off above mentioned emotions tend to become weaker after time flies by.
They have to be revived or refreshed to the standards of today.

How can we do that? What is needed?
What is needed to get my emotions back?

Strange enough my answer to this is not "Build URU again!"

The answer is : "Get me back those 7 points of emotions."
When i follow those 7 points:

1) a new game engine is necesary to bring back overwhelming views to todays standards.
2) We need soundscapers that make especially designed customized sounds for every single detail.
3) We need to build environments that are worth to explore ,offer you puzzles, tickling you r mind.
4) Worlds that take you away from reality, Peacefull, without wars and without violence
5) VR Worlds that invite you to come back to socialize and make friends.
6) tools that change the common "first and third person " running and destoying behaviour, as found in the unreal engine, to a complete new character. A charactor that can use hands and feet, That has a mouth to eat and drink and talk., and can build inside the game with blocks , alone or together.
7)... Finally we need a goodstoryline.


But hey! does that need to be D'ni story?
No this can be anything
From Wonderland To Poeh.
But better.. your own story.

My conclusion is.

I don't need URU to give me that feeling back.
Those wonderfull Worlds are called " Ages" , because that is what it takes to build one.



Watch my latest Video Or even better..... watch the Cathedral's Complete Walkthrough made by Suleika!
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby Christian Walther » Fri Mar 10, 2017 5:17 am

Well said, both of you.

And I would even answer this question
Sirius wrote:Is all this time worth it ?

by “Yes, because we had fun doing it.” That’s all that matters.
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Re: Poll: Fan Ages on another engine

Postby dendwaler » Fri Mar 10, 2017 5:39 am

“Yes, because we had fun doing it.” That’s all that matters.


Also agreed.

I have only build for my own fun, and a new engine gives me more fun., because it has more features which Challenges me again .
To achive the same in Plasma, is not a challenge but becomes a torture.

I will always need others to or make concept drawings or program some facilities i need,
but they can undoubtedly be found easier in other communities when it matters another engine.
Those wonderfull Worlds are called " Ages" , because that is what it takes to build one.



Watch my latest Video Or even better..... watch the Cathedral's Complete Walkthrough made by Suleika!
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