Building Venalem

[dendwaler]

I consider to build Venalem.
I know others have been starting to do the same in the past, but that seems not vivid any more.

You all know I already have build the Harvester and the Submarine which is a nice start.
The Harvester will be newly textured, more in line with the concept art and with more animation.

It will be a long term project, because first my two other ages have to be finished.

There is one thing i am concerned about.
The age is partly under the water line.
That implies that, to explore it, the avatar will be inside the submarine or harvester .

Once your inside the submarine, the avatar will sit down behind the " steering wheel"
Would it be possible to consider the whole submarine as " clothing" instead of a subworld ?
When the avatar sits, there will always be a first person view and you will move as usual with the common keys.
How will this be seen by others in the same age?

Do you tech Savy's know wether or not this is possible?
And if so , is there someone willing to do the coding?
I have to know that before i start building , because otherwise i will not be able to finish this task.
Complex coding is beyond my knowledge.

[janaba]

What a mighty and ambitious project, dendwaler ... I'm crossing my fingers that you'll
find the equally ambitious and inspired coders to join you in completing the required tasks ...

[Wamduskasapa]

This sounds very exciting, and quite ambitious - I wish you good luck

[Jojon]

I consider to build Venalem.
..
Once your inside the submarine, the avatar will sit down behind the " steering wheel"
Would it be possible to consider the whole submarine as " clothing" instead of a subworld ?
When the avatar sits, there will always be a first person view and you will move as usual with the common keys.
How will this be seen by others in the same age?
...

Hmm, there is code in there for vehicles, given that we can drive Zandi's RV, but how to use it... Probably involves tons of physics properties and behaviour algorithms - maybe coded on case-by-case basis. Let's see whether the binary divers know... :7

I don't suppose you'd be content with slightly clunkier controls? (Like URU's track-bound rides, but with free movement and non-blocking controls)

[D'Lanor]

The Zandoni is not multiplayer compatible. You cannot even see another player driving it.

Free drivable objects, let alone free floating ones, were never properly implemented in Uru. Rumor has it that Cyan dropped Kahlo because they failed to make that work.
Perhaps someone clever will be able to implement this into MOULa but for the "old" Uru CC engine you can forget about it.

Sure, you could use a slew of workarounds and make something like my parade float concept. And then maybe combine that with fly mode, but I don't think it will produce anything stable enough for your purpose.

[Jojon]

Sorry for interrupting, but how was it you did that parade float thing, again, D'Lanor?
Was its position updated using Python, or was it "properly" attached to the avatar (...and suitable for e.g. skybox use)?

[Sirius]

Free drivable objects, let alone free floating ones, were never properly implemented in Uru. Rumor has it that Cyan dropped Kahlo because they failed to make that work.

Indeed, that's what said Thom Shillinger, IIRC (hope I didn't misspell his name). It makes me mad they modelled a whole Age and in the end we only have a few pictures of it...


And you probably have both of these links, but to anyone who don't have them...
Chiso
3D Conceptual Designer ← make sure you check old articles. Lots of Uru stuff hidden down there...


About the submarine, yeah, it might be better doing something like Ahnonay's Vogondola, or the submarine in the lake in Riven... Something that is composed of many animations, and you can choose which one to play by choosing the direction you want to go to.
Other solutions like D'Lanor's parade float could work, but would feel unnatural, IMHO.


About the Vehicle Modifier... I experimented a lot with it offline, I built a small jeep, made a small script that would put the avatar in it, toggle cameras, etc. The jeep was working (and it was real fun, I had a small playground to play in), but there are a LOT of bugs in it:
- you are supposed to do cars with four wheels. You can't make a bicycle, a luge or anything like this. It needs to be on top of wheels
- mass settings, acceleration, deceleration, wheel elasticity, etc is ALL BUILT IN. You can't change these params
- AFAIK, no possible way to exit the car (maybe a responder triggering a second time the plVehicleModifier ?..)
- physics are totally buggy: hitting a wall (even at low speed) can result in sink-in-the-ground, or nuclear explosions (at least that's what it seems, the car is projected very far very quick). It is also the case when driving on too complex meshes.




I always wondered... can you animate an object to make it go forward 1 unit, then repeat this animation while keeping the actual position ? This would be the best solution here, but I doubt this is possible...

Sorry for interrupting, but how was it you did that parade float thing, again, D'Lanor?
Was its position updated using Python, or was it "properly" attached to the avatar (...and suitable for e.g. skybox use)?

I guess he warped the box to the avatar's position, then attached it to it ? You can use some function, plAttachObject(child, parent) in Python... I used it to have a ride on the Bahro in the city some time ago (wasn't my idea, I saw this in a Youtube video, probably in the Hood of Illusions).


Anyways, best of luck, DenDwaler ! Can't wait to see it !

[dendwaler]

Thx all for your quick replies!

Its clear to me that i have to forget the original plan.
Still i hope that i can do something with all that unused concept art.
However it is possible to make the submarine , harvester and the " Riven" submarine on Rails and give them some animation.
Then i could make a tunnel inside the icemasses that connects several viewpoints , as in the podages.
And a linking book to a big labatory on the ocean bottom with lots of transparent glass.
That could give the feeling of being there.
Anyway, i will think about it and leave out to complicated things.

[D'Lanor]

Sorry for interrupting, but how was it you did that parade float thing, again, D'Lanor?
Was its position updated using Python, or was it "properly" attached to the avatar (...and suitable for e.g. skybox use)?

I guess he warped the box to the avatar's position, then attached it to it ? You can use some function, plAttachObject(child, parent) in Python... I used it to have a ride on the Bahro in the city some time ago (wasn't my idea, I saw this in a Youtube video, probably in the Hood of Illusions).

Yes, that's what I did. This only works in multiplayer mode if each client has the Python file that takes care of the attaching, since plAttachObject cannot be netforced. However, if the avatar carrying the object links out the whole prp which contains it goes invisible for the remaining players. So the attachable object(s) must be in a separate prp which must be reloaded upon detecting such a link out. Did I mention a slew of workarounds?

[Christopher]

If you are building this age for MOULa, you could make the submarine as a new custom avatar. If you enter the submarine you switch the avatar from your normal male or female to this submarine. That could solve the problems. I also implemented Swim3D in Uru some time ago, so you could dive in the water, but again this would only work in MOULa and you would need Max to export this.

Christopher