DreamBliss wrote:as I understood it you can only use Max 7 for the Uru Plasma plugins.
That was only the case for the original plugin that Cyan released, but in the meantime fan developers have made it work with newer versions. You can find a binary release for Max 2012 here, for 2010 or 2011 ask Hoikas. Using Cyan’s original documentation, I have been able to export a simple age to MOUL format with that.
DreamBliss wrote: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
Either the first two or the third is sufficient. Either play with plClient (an internal client) on MOULa, preferably with a test dummy avatar to reduce the potential damage, or set up your own server and play however you like there.
DreamBliss wrote:… which I assume is also what is called a shard? Or is there a difference?
No, in simple terms there is no difference. A shard is basically one independent instance of the game. (To split hairs, the word “server” has a few different meanings, and depending on which one you choose, there is a difference. For example, a shard can be distributed over several machines.)
DreamBliss wrote: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...
This is incorrect. You can use flymode in MOULa using an internal client. But you shouldn’t in public ages because it upsets people who feel it breaks their immersion, and you should generally be careful with internal clients because you can do a lot of damage if you don’t know what you’re doing. (“Internal” originally means “used internally at Cyan”, but since the open-sourcing everyone has the possibility to build an internal client for themselves.)
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.
If you’re referring to the 1.912 and 1.906 that Annabelle mentioned, no, you can use both of them in the same installation, as long as you take care not to have them automatically overwritten by the latest version by the updater. But there is really no reason to use an older version unless you want to exploit bugs that have been fixed in the current one. “On this computer” is much too broad anyway, you can have as many different installations of various versions of Uru on the same computer as you want.
Calena wrote:Drizzle is a small program written by Dustin that enables conversion of either Max or Blender files to URU:CC.
In this terseness, this sentence may be misleading – Drizzle doesn’t convert Max or Blender files, it converts MOUL-format PRP files, generated from Max or Blender or anything else, to Uru:CC format.
Calena wrote:If you build using Max and Cyan's plug-in, it's fairly simple to convert that from URU:CC to MOUL
You mean convert from MOUL to Uru:CC. Converting from Uru:CC to MOUL is not needed for the Max/Cyan plugin workflow, as you say, and is generally much harder (which is why very few of the many available Uru:CC fan ages have made it to MOUL-type shards).
Calena wrote:The python and SDL coding needed to create interactive ages in MOUL isn't available to age writers at this time.
Can you elaborate on what exactly is missing? I’m not an expert, but to my knowledge everything you need is available.
Edit: Christopher beat me to it regarding some points.