Is there any way to fly in MOULa online?

[DreamBliss]

I was just wondering if there is a way to fly while playing MOULa online, other than jumping off cliffs

Also a little confusion here... MOULa is online only, but I have seen references to playing it offline, so how does that work? Is there a way to play MOULa offline, perhaps use Drizzle or the Offline-KI, and fly around that way? Any good tutorials covering this subject?

I appreciate you satisfying my curiosity!

[Annabelle]

MOULa as the official shard is protected against cheats like flymode or usage of /jump command.

MOULa which is runs by Cyan, you must follow their advices. Cyan authorizes 2 type of clients on their shard (which is quite unusual since almost any other fan-base shard have more restrictive rules): running on the standard external client OR running on an internal client.

To sum up: MOULa, as of today, has 2 standard external clients: the normal 1.912 and the skydiving 1.906. The 2nd one cannot be distributed anymore unfortunately. We must wait for the next update. For those having it, usage of it is perfectly fine .

The internal clients must be compiled by you or you can also take what I'm calling the standard internal client also known as plClient which you will see referred on this forum as well as on MOULa's forum as The CWE client. Adam Johnson aka Tsar Hoikas on this forum provided this week the newest release of it.

You have to find how to enable the flymode by yourself. And quite frankly...MOULa has not that much out-of-reach extended areas (except maybe Er'cana). If you read at what Adam wrote, you have to follow his advice: the internal client can be really harmful so you must know how to use it properly and in ages specifically created to let you do that. Using it in your own ages (NOT the public ages, never) it is at your own risk. If you have many avatars, preferably make 1 for using internal client. If you do break something, you will save your main avatar. My Annabelle on MOULa she is rarely on plClient, I might use it for things I know it won't break anything. I'm using my own specific avatars for plClient usually.

As for "MOULa offline", there's no MOULa offline possible. MOULa has always been based on a server perspective. But what is a server privately owned with a sole & unique user? A MOULa "offline" if you want

For this, you have to be savvy on how to build yourself a server and run it. You will need the internal client, plClient, to access it. Even privately owned, you must be conform with the Open-Source rules edicted by Cyan. I don't know them much since I'm not savvy enough to run myself a server but I know at least one: you cannot modify the assets of MOULa (scene objects, python modifiers, sound regions, etc.) The code can be modified and improved though. You can participate in the general improving process started by H'uru or OpenUru.org teams, see respective repositories for that.

I hope it clears up some of your questions. Maybe some others will be able to add some specific things I forgot to mention.

[Karkadann]

Uru CC Drizzle, Offline-KI, with 3DS Max is what I use to create ages. I use fly mode every once in a while, I find it helps a great deal in the testing processes however this is always off line.......I hope

Uru CC Drizzle and Offline-KI along with 3DS Max as a whole is the best video game I ever came across
It allows you to start with a beautiful canvas and add any thing from small personal touches to full on additional ages

OK back on topic

Uru CC is a off-line version of MOULa, its a little bit different but with Drizzle and the offline-KI you have fly mode in addition to a bunch of other stuff

[DreamBliss]

Uru CC Drizzle, Offline-KI, with 3DS Max is what I use to create ages. I use fly mode every once in a while, I find it helps a great deal in the testing processes however this is always off line.......I hope

Karkadann, what version of Max do you use? Have you created a tutorial to share your age creation process? If not would you consider doing it? I got stuck trying to set that up myself, as I dislike Blender, but as I understood it you can only use Max 7 for the Uru Plasma plugins. I would greatly appreciate it if you would share your setup and age creation process in general if you haven't already done so. It would also be a great help to the community as well.

In fact a video tutorial series that details the creation of an age in 3DS Max from setup to finish on YouTube or a similar site would probably bring in a lot of people and give MOUL some fresh blood. If nobody else wants to do it I wouldn't mind doing it myself as I already have a YouTube account, but I have to understand how to get Max and Uru playing together first.

Annabelle
Thank you for your quick response and clear information. You're amazing! So it looks like I need to create some sort of "test dummy" avatar, get the pl client running, and set up my own MOUL server, which I assume is also what is called a shard? Or is there a difference? In any case the short answer is that there is no flymode in MOULa, at least as far as the community knows. We all know the folks at Cyan probably have a few secrets they use in the game...

There are also different versions of MOULa, which means I will be Googling the older one. But probably can only have one version installed at a time on this computer. Sounds like the best bet then is to create my own server/shard. So that is what I will look into next while I wait with abated breath for Karkadann's response.

For the record, in case it matters to anyone, I wasn't going to use flymode to cheat the game or anything. I prefer trying to figure stuff out the way those who made the game intended. It's just that there are a few places in the city I would like to get to. Thought maybe some of them I could fly to. But if given a choice between making my own ages in 3ds Max and using flymode, I gotta go with age creation in Max! The only thing holding me back is that I reached a dead end on that front and hadn't found any help. Everything seemed geared to Blender, which despite the new interface, I loathe with a passion. My apologies to any Blender fans I may have offended by my feelings towards the program.

OK, I'm off to download stuff...

[Ainia]

Shorah DreamBliss,

Another bit of information that I didn't see in Karkadann or Annabelle's posts is that you can port the MOULa-specific Ages into your offline UruCC using Drizzle. These Ages would include Minkata, Eder Delin and Eder Tsogahl, the Guild Pubs, Jalak, the MOULa version of K'veer with the Myst library, and the Pod Ages (I *think* that's all of them). In your UruCC, you can explore these Ages with flymode just as you can explore the native UruCC Ages with flymode. (And you can do the same with the MagiQuest, Crowthistle, Myst 5, and Hex Isle Ages too.)

[Karkadann]

I use 3ds Max 7.1 and some of the tutorial I have used are here

http://www.agecreationtutorials.co.nr/

http://dusty.homeunix.net/wiki/Andy%27s_Max_Tutorials

http://www.3dsmaxtutorials.net/

http://dusty.homeunix.net/wiki/3dsmax/D ... x_Cookbook

Keep in mind most of the people here are into Blender their are a few who know both Blender and Max and a few who know only Max
so we try and help when we can.
Cyan's plug-ins Max as far as the info is concerned on how to use them is kinda limited but some of the Writers here have figured out quite a bit of it, enough to make some pretty cool ages

[Karkadann]

Edit to add

their is also some cool tutorials on the GoW Wiki page for Max/plasma and a ton of tutorials on the net both video and otherwise for Max

[Calena]

As a real age writer like Karkadann, I'll chime in a bit to possibly clear up some confusion. First, MOUL stands for Myst Online URU Live. It is a different game engine than URU:CC. URU:CC was written initially for offline play. Age writers usually build using URU:CC because it is necessary to make dozens or, for large ages, hundreds and thousands of exports to check how your work looks in the actual game. Your work will look different in either Max or Blender than it will once exported to the game itself. Speed becomes our priority and it's faster to export to the offline version (URU:CC).

Drizzle is a small program written by Dustin that enables conversion of either Max or Blender files to URU:CC. The two methods of building (Max with Cyan's plugin and/or Blender with pyPRP) both have their pros and cons. I think for a beginner, Max with Cyan's plugin might be easier to learn. Irregardless of which method you choose, you will need to program certain things and you'll need python. There is no "Make Age" button. That is also why you can only build ages in a full-fledged 3d environment. There is a lot of code involved and that can't be done using something like Wings3d or Bryce.

Karkadann posted some good links to get you started. Be prepared to take your time and study. Go through ALL the tutorials one at a time. The learning curve is and always has been steep. This is not Minecraft or Second Life. You will be building from scratch, adding every single thing from a link-in point to collision meshes, to objects, texturing, lighting, coding for animations, coding for logic, etc.

If you build using Max and Cyan's plug-in, it's fairly simple to convert that from URU:CC to MOUL, since Cyan's plug-in was actually designed for MOUL, not URU:CC. Unfortunately, you will be limited to building scenes only for MOUL. The python and SDL coding needed to create interactive ages in MOUL isn't available to age writers at this time.

If you really want to learn to build ages, my suggestion would be to start with Max, Cyan's plugin, Drizzle and URU:CC, then plan to publish initially on Deep Island. Diafero keeps his shard open to any and all new age builders. It's probably the easiest way to get started. That also explains why there are so many poor quality ages on that shard. Some of those ages were built by 12 year old kids as a class project! They used Blender .

[Karkadann]

Ya down't wanna scare him away now do Ya Lass?

all I had when I started was a little experience in 3D Graphics in autocad 2000 ( I tried blueprint design but was not much good at it) I found out about the 3D program and started messing with it and it seemed a lot easer then 2D aspect of it, Heck why not the world is three dimensional not to two dimensional. then I found out about blender and age creation and with my spelling being like it is you could imaging why I was never good at coding (thank the Goodness for a Spell check) then Cyan released their pluggins I just happen to get a hold of a version of 3D Studio Max, got it working with the pluggins after a while, the interface was similar to AutoCad, and I started with something simple

a nice big platform, a few simples a ramp.

by the way something you may wanna try in your test age is scale up the size of the simple with out using any of the other options to alter the shape, then export, link in, and kick it and see what happens
its a weird glitch I have been trying to find a use for.

any way I don't consider my self a real age writer If I was they would be asking me for my ages to put on the Ghen Shard.
however I have yet to achieve the level of sophistication for that, and ya know Thats OK its perhaps a goal I will meet one day
but for know age creation for me is all about having fun, No pressure No dead line, just more challenges

My advise Give it a try find out what aspect of it your good at and enjoy the most
and personally I have met some 12 year old Kids who are working in calculus algebra and trigonometry, and as soon as the teacher turns his back they write stuff like

When ever you fall I'll always be their to catch you
Signed Floor

on the chalk board

also Not all of my ages have been published Just the good ones

[Christopher]

Unfortunately, you will be limited to building scenes only for MOUL.

Maybe I got you wrong, but AFAIK it is easier with Drizzle to convert MOULA ages to URU CC than the other way...

The python and SDL coding needed to create interactive ages in MOUL isn't available to age writers at this time.

Why shouldn't this be available? You can also use Python and SDLs in Max... Besides this if your interactions are relativly simple (like click a button and a door opens) you don't need Python.

I also don't call myself an age writer. I released a single age some years ago and at this time I just started to play with max. So it looked pretty ugly...
In the last time I made mods for ages in Uru (like adding areas to ages, designing a new StartUp age based on Tweeks concepts, create new custom avaters and so on) This way I got a great understanding of Cyan's plugin and some other tricks to increase the quality of an age.

Christopher