Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Help bring our custom Ages to life! Share tips and tricks, as well as code samples with other developers.

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby Tsar Hoikas » Fri Feb 12, 2010 3:11 pm

Chacal wrote:How secure is MOUL's secure Python loading? I can't inject code in an already downloaded file? I can't intercept the file before it gets to the client and modify it on the fly?


The latter is very easy to do. You just need to put a man in the middle, which is very easy if you understand the encryption and how to fool the client.
Image
Tsar Hoikas
Councilor of Technical Direction
 
Posts: 2180
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:45 pm
Location: South Georgia

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby Lontahv » Sat Feb 13, 2010 10:11 pm

ZURI wrote:During my drive home today, a thought came to me that I thought I'd share with you all. Something that I think would be neat to see added would be a web-browser of sorts in to the KI


I had this same idea a while back and hacked it into an online-type KI in UruCC. It was text-only and the html-code stripper was pretty bad (nothing near as good as Lynx) but it was pretty cool. It displayed the website you named a KI journal i.e., a journal with the name "http://www.google.com" would contain google's page as its contents. This could be very powerful for RSS feeds. :D
Currently getting some ink on my hands over at the Guild Of Ink-Makers (PyPRP2).
User avatar
Lontahv
Councilor of Artistic Direction
 
Posts: 1331
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2007 2:09 pm

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby ZURI » Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:20 pm

Multimedia in-game would be very, very cool. However, as I thought about it - the ability to access web-content would have to be controlled. Otherwise, some people out there could project offensive content. However, if it could be used in an age with the consent of the GoW and GoM, that would be something to see.

I just have this image of some Stephen Spielberg type making an URU movie in URU while the Myst movie is being made. :) The debut would be nuts.....
MOULagain KI: 45001
User avatar
ZURI
 
Posts: 366
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2009 8:34 pm
Location: Cincinnati

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby GPNMilano » Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:58 am

ZURI wrote:I was thinking it would be cool to make a movie theatre in Ahra Pahts. If there was a way to stream video to a viewer, writers could even use a program like Fraps to make URU films. The avatars already have lots of animations, so we could "virtually" act out movies. If the data could be streamed directly to the Client software, negating the Server. If so, perhaps the functionality could be added (someday) without putting a huge strain on the Servers. Is this even theoretially feasible, or am I wasting time brainstorming a dumb idea?

Sorry, I know this probably sounds stupid - but it's just a thought.


Uru could always use need more brainstorming. For your idea we'd need a few additions to the client:

1. Currently the only type of movies Uru can play in game are Binks. (There was a LayerAVI type, but I never tested it so I have no clue of knowing if it was ever implemented into the client) The binks are read by the prps from the avi folder of uru. so to implement this we'd need to make a new type of dynamic layer that read from a web source rather than from the main folder of Uru. You'd also need to make additional layers for each type of different videos that could be played and make sure that the code the client so it knew how to play those files. like MPEGs,AVIs,FLVs and WMVs. It'd be massive thing to do, but not impossible to accomplish.
You can't stop the truth. IC Blog
User avatar
GPNMilano
 
Posts: 1155
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 5:50 am

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby diafero » Sun Feb 14, 2010 5:05 am

Actually, NO, it doesn't make it a total waste of resrouces. In fact it plays a vital role in ensuring that unmodified clients are synchronized to the prps and python files that the server uses.
With multiple servers going online there are bound to be a number that run different versions of specific content. If those aren't properly synchronized it will be disaster.
(Note 1: I'm not talking about a difference in plasma versions. I'm assuming that whatever will happen there will be some sort of "standardized" client/server that most people will use, just like what happens on most OSS projects)
(Note 2: I agree that the re-downloading of python files is utterly pointless. It should just be verified the same way as the prp files)
(Note 2: I don't really care if the server checks the checksums or the client. The latter would be better for server performance I guess.)
I did not mean that checking checksums is completely pointless, just doing it in the server. So I agree with the 2nd note 2 here ;-) . Which basically boils down to exactly the same dataserver as UU had it, plus whitelisting and a way for the game server to check if the user did not accidentally use the wrong dataserver for this game server.

This. There is a need for strict validation of inputs by the server.
For example, it should not be possible to crash a server by using flymode.
AFAIK the server does not crash, it just gets slow due to so many messages being sent. And actually, Alcugs has flood protection built in, so the offending client will be kicked and everything is under control.
I would do the protection directly in the game server, should be easier to maintain than a dedicated proxy.
I prefer e-mails to "diafero arcor de" (after adding the at and the dot) over PMs.

"Many people's horizon is a circle with a radius of zero. They call it their point of view."

Deep Island Shard | Offline KI
diafero
Deep Island Admin
 
Posts: 2966
Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 5:50 am
Location: Germany

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby ZURI » Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:00 pm

[quote="GPNMilano]

1. Currently the only type of movies Uru can play in game are Binks. (There was a LayerAVI type, but I never tested it so I have no clue of knowing if it was ever implemented into the client) The binks are read by the prps from the avi folder of uru. so to implement this we'd need to make a new type of dynamic layer that read from a web source rather than from the main folder of Uru. You'd also need to make additional layers for each type of different videos that could be played and make sure that the code the client so it knew how to play those files. like MPEGs,AVIs,FLVs and WMVs. It'd be massive thing to do, but not impossible to accomplish.[/quote]

If, as I understand it, the media player used in URU will have to be removed before the game goes OS. Which OS media players could be used, and is it a major departure to include abilities like this?
MOULagain KI: 45001
User avatar
ZURI
 
Posts: 366
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2009 8:34 pm
Location: Cincinnati

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby Paradox » Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:02 pm

ZURI wrote:
GPNMilano wrote:
1. Currently the only type of movies Uru can play in game are Binks. (There was a LayerAVI type, but I never tested it so I have no clue of knowing if it was ever implemented into the client) The binks are read by the prps from the avi folder of uru. so to implement this we'd need to make a new type of dynamic layer that read from a web source rather than from the main folder of Uru. You'd also need to make additional layers for each type of different videos that could be played and make sure that the code the client so it knew how to play those files. like MPEGs,AVIs,FLVs and WMVs. It'd be massive thing to do, but not impossible to accomplish.


If, as I understand it, the media player used in URU will have to be removed before the game goes OS. Which OS media players could be used, and is it a major departure to include abilities like this?


Ideally Plasma would switch from Bink video to the open-source Ogg Theora video format.
Paradox
 
Posts: 1290
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:48 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby ZURI » Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:10 pm

Interesting. I have an uncle who's a programmer. I'll have to pick his brain about this when I see him next. ;)
MOULagain KI: 45001
User avatar
ZURI
 
Posts: 366
Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2009 8:34 pm
Location: Cincinnati

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby JulyForToday » Wed May 26, 2010 9:50 pm

Kinda late jumping in this thread.

Let's see... Thing's I'd like to see in Uru:

Visual

  1. HDR support
  2. Shader materials - - Can you say specular and bump maps?
  3. Render to Texture - - (aka Myst V's 'DynamicReflectionCam')
  4. Improve the wave-sets - - using the previously mentioned features
  5. Improved shadow techniques - - Uru's sucks so badly
  6. Video / streaming textures - - I second the use of Ogg Theora

Interface

  1. KI Interface improved (plus maybe 'DniNet'
  2. Nexus Interface (seriously, how could this interface be worse?)
  3. Books (maybe make it so they can be more easily added, and act more like a physical object)

Techical

Entity Setup
I'm not much of a programmer, but it seems the very organizational scheme of Uru is somewhat.... strange. I mean, the Quab's are set up as .age's. Everything is set up as ages. And the whole way avatars are setup. Jesus what a mess. Don't the vast majority of other games use entity systems and have different types of entities, some being animals or characters, and the AI is linked up to them? Nothing (aside from the Quabs, iirc) even has AI. Say you want to add in a cool physics system where you can pick up objects like in HL2 or something, it would probably have to be an enormous hack in Uru. Not flexible at all as a real game system.

Avatar System

Where to even start with this? lol We all know it needs a boatload of improving.

Paging Geometry and LOD
I think Paging geometry and good LOD support would be a great feature for Uru to have. You could have a much better way to deal with enormous scenes, like an honest representation of D'ni.
But again, I don't know how easily you could actually add it, especially taking networking code into consideration.


Honestly, we might be better off making a new system using ogre and other good open source libraries. Leverage as much other OS stuff as possible, and cannibalize Plasma when they finally release the code. Take whatever is good, and integrate it into the new system. And then port the existing ages to work with it. And our tools would be 100% compatible with a system of our own making. Probably a much better game plan in the long term.

Best part about it is that
  1. No waiting for Cyan; you can START NOW!
  2. Fallback in case Cyan never releases the code
  3. Ogre can already do freaking awesome stuff, and will be freaking awesome in the future, with no effort of our own
  4. We can include other libraries that do awesome stuff, whenever we want (if we set up a good architecture)
  5. There is nothing really extraordinary about Plasma, other than Uru already uses it. And we all see how dated and rigid a game system it truly is.
  6. It could be an experiment to see how tenable it is. If it doesn't really work out, the original Plasma system is always there to go back to.

Although I realize how monumental a task it would be, and it's really not fair for me to say that this must be done. I wouldn't really be able to contribute to making such a system, as much as I'd like to.

But it is my general outlook on that the game systems sucks. And we only consider NOT doing a complete overhaul because it would break older ages, and because it's a huge amount of work. However, I would imagine the collective total amount of work to overhaul the system and port stuff would be less than the work needed to make hackish 'improvements' to the existing architecture, and continue using it in that form. We would pay for it in the future with the frustration everyone would experience trying to make some pretty basic stuff work in the game, and then finally decide an overhaul is necessary, after all that effort.

EDIT
Here's a good link for somewhere to start investigating for building a new system, for anyone thinking the same things I am here.
http://www.indiezen.org/
User avatar
JulyForToday
 
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 5:34 am

Re: Top 5 things you want to do when OS Uru lands.

Postby ddb174 » Thu May 27, 2010 10:21 am

Almys also had a system that integrated various things such as Ogre, ODE, etc. You can take a look at the Alcugs forum, if you like.
ddb174
 
Posts: 928
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:28 pm

PreviousNext

Return to Scripting

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests