Korman 0.01 Released!

News pertaining to the site and the forums, as well as guild discussions and events in the world of Uru.

Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby Tsar Hoikas » Sat Jul 11, 2015 12:32 pm

It is my great pleasure to announce the release of Korman 0.01. Korman is the next-generation age creation plugin for Blender 2.74 (and above). Korman aims to make the age creator's job easier by automating many tasks that the PyPRP user had to do by hand (eg lightmapping) and by removing obtuse elements, such as AlcScript, with intuitive replacements, such as Logic Nodes. Korman exports your age *much* faster than PyPRP ever did, and we're still looking into speeding it up even more. It always did annoy me to have to wait forever to test something :)

Disclaimer: Korman is currently in "beta" stage, indicated by the leading "0" in the version number. Things may change somewhat suddenly between releases (or not at all). We won't break things for no reason, however!

Current Features
  • Export to all versions of Uru! Including: Ages Beyond Myst, Path of the Shell, and Myst Online: Uru Live
  • One button-click lightmapping
  • Footstep regions
  • Sitting Modifiers
  • Collision
  • Object transform animations (position, rotation, and scale)
  • Texture transform and opacity animations
  • Arbitrary clickables with logic nodes
  • Simple region sensors with logic nodes
Check the wiki for more information!

We have provided installers for Windows versions of Blender for your convience. Please note that the installer will only work on 32-bit (x86) versions of Blender. Korman *does* support 64-bit, but currently exporting to MOUL requires PhysX, so we are limited to 32-bits if we want to support all versions of Uru in one installer. Future work will remove this requirement. If you use Mac or Linux, you will need to follow the bare-bones install instructions included in Korman's README file. These will improve over time. Check the wiki page on installing Korman for more information.

If you're a diehard PyPRP user, we have a wiki page that will help introduce you to Korman's workflow, which is designed to be a "better kind of different" from PyPRP. If you see any python tracebacks when exporting (very, very long error messages) please share them--they are bugs!

Although I'm the face you see releasing things more often than not, there's no way Korman could be what it is today if it were just me. I'd like to express thanks to Doobes for putting in many hours of banging away at Korman and showing me and single-handedly writing all of the Korman wiki pages. Also kudos go to Deledrius who continues to point out cool Blender features I hadn't noticed and who provides workflow inspiration. And last, but not least, all contributors to libHSPlasma, including (but not limited to): Branan, Diafero, Deledrius, Paradox, and Zrax.
Image
Tsar Hoikas
Councilor of Technical Direction
 
Posts: 2180
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:45 pm
Location: South Georgia

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby Sirius » Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:31 pm

Wow, outstanding job ! For a beta, it has a lot more features than PyPRP2 did ! Well, looks like all features from PyPRP1 are covered, actually :shock: Except wavesets and maybe some options to create advanced logic, but still, that's really impressive.

It pains to say I've been spending most of my afternoon yesterday working on the Blender 2.7 port of PyPRP. Ugh ! :x I had no idea Korman was that close to be released, or I wouldn't have bothered ! Still, good to know PyPRP will soon be obsolete...
And one-button-click lightmapping ? Wow. The automatic lightmapping script I was working on still messes up half of my materials. Guess it won't be of much use anymore. Ah well. Time to move on to other stuff.

Well, I'll give it a try soon, I guess. And really, you all did awesome work.
User avatar
Sirius
 
Posts: 1506
Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:46 am
Location: France

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby Tsar Hoikas » Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:37 pm

Sirius wrote:It pains to say I've been spending most of my afternoon yesterday working on the Blender 2.7 port of PyPRP. Ugh ! :x I had no idea Korman was that close to be released, or I wouldn't have bothered !.


Yikes, I thought you had seen Korman work happening on Github since there were no commits to your BL 2.7 branch.

The automatic lightmapping script I was working on still messes up half of my materials.


OH GOD YES. This was by far one of the hardest bits of code to write. If I see one more "RuntimeError: No valid image to bake to", I won't be responsible for my actions... Even after that, it was screwing with the user's selected UV texture all the way until yesterday. Hold onto your script--if it does anything at all in the realm of lightmapping, it's an impressive feat!

I look forward to seeing you contribute to Korman, Sirius. You've got some really great ideas. You and dendwaller both got a mention in the code for describing how to generate good lightmap UV Textures :)
Image
Tsar Hoikas
Councilor of Technical Direction
 
Posts: 2180
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:45 pm
Location: South Georgia

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby tachzusamm » Sat Jul 11, 2015 2:42 pm

Wow, that's interesting news!

Honestly, I'm surprised the development still goes on. I thought it had come to an end and Korman will never appear, since less people are working on Ages than years ago. My apologies, I was wrong. Good that I was. ;)

Hell, you did it!
The feature list may look short, but I think this is already a lot Age Builders can do with it. So great.

I think I will have a closer look at it soon, fiddle around with it and do some experimental Age building again.

Oh, and Sirius: I saw your work on the PyPRP1 port as well. (Yes, I'm still ghosting around here from time to time.) You did an awesome job too. Don't feel sad if your work gets outdated by Korman - in my opinion you inspired the team to proceed. Nothing happens without a reason.

Thanks guys. The korman project team, Age builders, server maintainers, and thanks to everybody continuously active in this forum (don't cound me in, hehe) and keeping this universe alive.
User avatar
tachzusamm
 
Posts: 575
Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 2:03 am
Location: Germany

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby Doobes » Sat Jul 11, 2015 2:58 pm

It's been a lot of fun helping to test Korman! I hope the wiki tutorials I wrote help people get started.

For comparison, here's an export of the Messengers' Pub using Korman:

Show Spoiler


Pretty damn good for a beta, IMHO. :D
KI #s: MOULa - 6302, Minkata - 35287, Gehn - 14291,
TOC - 82340, DI - 44387
Image
User avatar
Doobes
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:08 pm
Location: Savannah, GA, USA

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby tachzusamm » Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:07 pm

Did this spoiler image (indeed damn good) already make use of the automatic lightmap generation, Doobes?

(And thank you for writing those wiki entries.)
User avatar
tachzusamm
 
Posts: 575
Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 2:03 am
Location: Germany

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby Sirius » Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:16 pm

Tsar Hoikas wrote:Yikes, I thought you had seen Korman work happening on Github since there were no commits to your BL 2.7 branch.
Nah, stupid me didn't pay enough attention to Korman's Github... And I was quite busy the last weeks, which explains why I didn't commit much to the BL27 branch. But oh well ! it's no big deal.


Tsar Hoikas wrote:OH GOD YES. This was by far one of the hardest bits of code to write. If I see one more "RuntimeError: No valid image to bake to", I won't be responsible for my actions...
Hehe, Blender's context-based operators are annoying, aren't they ? ;) It seems baking requires the interface to be switched to 3D view, AND force Blender to enter and exit edit mode at least once to work (I still have no idea why). I also remember the second most annoying part was handling material's texture slots to add the lightmap, which was a real mess.


Tsar Hoikas wrote:I look forward to seeing you contribute to Korman, Sirius. You've got some really great ideas.
Thanks ! Up until now, I didn't want to get too involved with Korman for a few reasons - mainly because I wouldn't be of much use as I had no idea how the plugin worked, which means it would take a lot of time to write code that wouldn't be completely messy.
I also prefer to make sure there is an easy way to get a precompiled and compatible version of the required libraries (like HSPlasma) before actually trying to install the plugin. I still have nightmares of another project which required me to "just compile the C++ library to be able to use the plugin". Meh, just because I know Python doesn't mean I understand compiler gibberish...
But yeah, maybe I'll contribute at some point ! (today I managed to get PyPRP to export custom avatar animations, it's not perfect right now but it might be cool to have that into Korman once I find out why the avatar always ends up transforming into a shoebox 8-) )


Tsar Hoikas wrote:You and dendwaller both got a mention in the code for describing how to generate good lightmap UV Textures :)
Tach wrote:Oh, and Sirius: I saw your work on the PyPRP1 port as well. (Yes, I'm still ghosting around here from time to time.) You did an awesome job too.
I feel honored, thanks to the both of you ! :)


Tach wrote:Honestly, I'm surprised the development still goes on. I thought it had come to an end and Korman will never appear, since less people are working on Ages than years ago. My apologies, I was wrong. Good that I was. ;)
Personally I find it depressing at times, but the ol' PyPRP certainly didn't encourage people to start (or continue) building Ages ! That's why upgrading the tools is important too ;)
User avatar
Sirius
 
Posts: 1506
Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:46 am
Location: France

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby Doobes » Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:25 pm

tachzusamm wrote:Did this spoiler image (indeed damn good) already make use of the automatic lightmap generation, Doobes?


Nope, they still use the old lightmaps. Those and stencils will carry over just fine from PyPRP, so you won't have to redo them for existing Age blend files. Saves a lot of time. :)

That doesn't mean you have to do it that way. If you want to try the new lightmap method, you'd only have to uncheck the old lightmap texture and use the new method. You can even use the existing lightmap UV map too.

https://www.guildofwriters.org/wiki/Kor ... ghtmapping
KI #s: MOULa - 6302, Minkata - 35287, Gehn - 14291,
TOC - 82340, DI - 44387
Image
User avatar
Doobes
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:08 pm
Location: Savannah, GA, USA

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby tachzusamm » Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:33 pm

Sirius wrote:Personally I find it depressing at times, but the ol' PyPRP certainly didn't encourage people to start (or continue) building Ages ! That's why upgrading the tools is important too ;)

Yeah. I hope this new tookset will make Age writing with Blender what it's supposed to be: writing.
The old PyPRP was more like Age "programming" sometimes. So many talented Writers blocked in creative flow by the need of understanding the internals and writing unintuitive AlcScript. :D

Edit: Oh, yes. Thanks Doobes. I'll try this out for sure. :)
User avatar
tachzusamm
 
Posts: 575
Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 2:03 am
Location: Germany

Re: Korman 0.01 Released!

Postby Doobes » Sat Jul 11, 2015 3:45 pm

tachzusamm wrote:So many talented Writers blocked in creative flow by the need of understanding the internals and writing unintuitive AlcScript. :D


The new nodes system takes a bit of getting used to, but it's MUCH better than AlcScript. By far. ;)
Last edited by Doobes on Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:32 am, edited 2 times in total.
KI #s: MOULa - 6302, Minkata - 35287, Gehn - 14291,
TOC - 82340, DI - 44387
Image
User avatar
Doobes
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:08 pm
Location: Savannah, GA, USA

Next

Return to Guild News

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests

cron