City Hub

A community Age for Uru.

Moderator: Aloys

Postby Aloys » Mon May 01, 2006 4:59 pm

Before the FTP is back, J'anim sent me directly the Hub blend file so I can integrate it in the city. Which I did right away to see how it looked. But doing it I realized there are a couple things that needs to be clarified before it can be done.

Here is how it looks right now after a quick (and rough) integration (perspective view & top view)
Image

As a reference here is the drawing TE had done.
Image


- About the lake and the rocks around the buildings. The idea was to have this inside a lake circled by rocks, but as you can see on the top view above, it is already quite a large structure. Having a big lake and rocks around will make this even larger and we would need to remove some shells to accomodate this.
I suggest we scale it down slightly so it can fit in the current configuration. We can shorten the bridges and bring the 'secondary' buildings nearer the 'main' one (we'd need name for all those buildings). And we can scale down slightly the base of the main building at water level, it is quite big right now, as large a the tokotah building.

-How do we access the upper floor of the main building? Looking at TE's image, the bridges extend to the rocks. So ideally the rocks should be at the city's floor level and the lake should be slightly bellow.

- This brings another issue I have: IMHO this is quite high compared to the rest of the city. I know it's supposed to be the highest point of the city but the problem is that the rest of the city is very flat right now, so it is a bit strange to see this tall structure all alone. This may become less obvious latter when the shell starts to fill up. Also if we lower the whole thing slightly bellow the floor level as I suggests above this might look OK.

- What about the other buildings on TE's drawing? Someone had started working on those; what's the status on this? (Tylinol? J'anim? the thread is lost and my memory fails me). Also if they connect to the main building we'll need two shelves for those.

- What exactly is inside all those buildings? We had talked about several things: maps, books, space for art exhibits etc.. We should determine this exactly so we can start working on it. also we might need stairs in the main building to go from one floor to another


Any answers and advices on these questions would be much appreciated (and needed :o)
:)
User avatar
Aloys
 
Posts: 1968
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 7:57 pm
Location: France (GMT +1)

Postby J'anim Paedet » Mon May 01, 2006 5:40 pm

Okay, to address a few issues (or at least bring them further into the light)--

I myself realized early on into the design the need to travel from upper to lower levels of the Hub. And short of spiral stairs (which become tricky in multiplayer), the only way to get from top to bottom was to add a third pillar, and make a ramp going down to the floor level. I couldn't compress the pillars any more than I did, as it would make the ramp far too steep to walk down. I realize this isn't the most elegent of methods (plus it deviates from TE's artwork), so if anyone else has a better idea, feel free to shout it out!

The size itself isn't too much of an issue from my point of view -- just scale it down until it fits properly. Looking t the images, the top half does seem far too high--the problem as I see it is that in TE's concept art, everything was very high up and on stilts, and the actual city is on what looks like sea-level.

About the other buildings visible in the sketch: I think they are early Shell concept art; I interpreted them as being parts of the city proper. The large bridge coming off of the upper level of the Hub (not visible in the screenshots) is supposed to correspond to the arching brige in the concept art. Like I said, this changes now that the actual ground has been established. I would recommend deleting it and simply extending the existing city walkways to the lower level of the Hub.
Tylinol is working on the shell buildings, I believe.

One more thing to take into consideration: I realize that swim-mode does not work in UU, so we might want to limit the accessability of water at this point. I know we had a canal plan at one time, and I planned on players being able to jump off the Hub into the lake, but this would not work in multiplayer.
User avatar
J'anim Paedet
 
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:45 pm

Postby Robert The Rebuilder » Tue May 02, 2006 10:21 am

I kind of like having the hub be the tallest item in the city. It acts as a landmark, so that people wandering the streets could get their bearings. We don't have compasses, remember! ;-)

To get between the two levels, we could install a "link-evator": on the upper level would be a pedestal with a linking book to the lower level, and a similar pedestal/book on the lower level. It would be multiplayer friendly, and would not require major changes to the structure. This would require a script to be written, of course. But we needed a script for the nexus/map room, anyway. [BTW - who is working on the nexus/map room?]
Can we rebuild it? Yes, we can - here's how.

MOULagain KI# 1299

Myst Movie coming soon - spread the word!
User avatar
Robert The Rebuilder
 
Posts: 1383
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:24 am
Location: Virginia, US

Postby J'anim Paedet » Tue May 02, 2006 2:11 pm

[quote="Robert The Rebuilder"] [BTW - who is working on the nexus/map room?]

Do we even know how we're going to do that? I thought that we still hadn't agreed on how it would work. I had the impresion that the Nexus and Map Room would be contained within the upper level of the hub, with Linking Books to the Hub spread throughout the city, but I don't think we ever agreed on anything.
User avatar
J'anim Paedet
 
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:45 pm

Postby Robert The Rebuilder » Tue May 02, 2006 5:40 pm

I'll sign up to writing some test scripts for the map room linking mechanism. I think that clickables have progressed quite a ways since we've first discussed this - MercAngel has posted his new tutorials on the Alcugs wiki; I was going to check them out.
Can we rebuild it? Yes, we can - here's how.

MOULagain KI# 1299

Myst Movie coming soon - spread the word!
User avatar
Robert The Rebuilder
 
Posts: 1383
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:24 am
Location: Virginia, US

Postby Starfyre » Tue May 02, 2006 6:55 pm

To put the "Nexus" in the hub would require the use of Bahro Stones. Of which I am not sure what would Cyan's stance be on that. I think it would be better to use a Nexus of sorts. Till GUI is supported with Blender I think it would mean having linking books scattered about the room.
Starfyre
 

Postby J'anim Paedet » Tue May 02, 2006 8:07 pm

Still, I think it a good idea to see if we can get clickables working in a way that would benefit a mechanized Nexus. It never hurts to be prepared. (And better Robert than me, seeing as I'm completely lost when it comes to clickables)
User avatar
J'anim Paedet
 
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:45 pm

Postby Starfyre » Tue May 02, 2006 8:09 pm

For a Nexus, like Uru's Nexus, we would need GUI's working. And last I heard we were still far off before we could get GUI's working.
Starfyre
 

Postby Robert The Rebuilder » Thu May 04, 2006 10:42 am

[quote="Starfyre"] For a Nexus, like Uru's Nexus, we would need GUI's working. And last I heard we were still far off before we could get GUI's working.

That's true - Blender GUI support is a ways off.

But one possible mechanism would involve clickables and moving objects. For example: on a wall of the nexus/hub are three clickable buttons, each below a window that displays a number. The numbers 0-9 are textured onto a 10-sided shape, of which only one side is visible through the window. Each time the person clicks the button, the shape rotates to display a different number. The person clicks the buttons until the desired shell number is displayed. Then they click a (heretofore unmentioned) fourth button, which fake-links them to the linking point outside the shell. All this is controlled through a script. This is the kind of thing I'm looking into - as well as the "link-evator" concept.
Can we rebuild it? Yes, we can - here's how.

MOULagain KI# 1299

Myst Movie coming soon - spread the word!
User avatar
Robert The Rebuilder
 
Posts: 1383
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:24 am
Location: Virginia, US

Postby Starfyre » Thu May 04, 2006 11:09 am

Just don't sound like Myst to me without Books.
Starfyre
 

Next

Return to Ahra Pahts

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

cron