Tutorial and Information Requests

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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby J'Kla » Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:34 am

Please not the term disabled is used here to avoid a Gordian knot of politically correct terms.

I just had a weekend away as a volunteer helping at a place called the “Calvert Trust” this is UK based and has centres to enable people with disabilities to benefit from outdoor activities in the countryside.

The centre I visited was based at Kielder in Northumberland. Visitors do activities like Archery, Laser Clay Pigeon Shooting, Sailing, Canoeing, Zip wire, Abseiling just to name a few. They also have indoor activities to use when the Northumbrian weather prevails.

The centre has a lot of facilities that make wide use of the resource that’s provided by Kielder water.

During the day there are loads of activities but once it gets dark things get a bit limited.

I was thinking the centre could provide a place where we could have a resource that had the hardware required to allow those of limited mobility to experience an introduction to a virtual environment.

I know of Uru players who have various disabilities that you would normally not expect to participate in activities we have enjoyed as avatars. Here I am thinking of the rock push in Er’cana. One of our long term players has issues using a keyboard due to spinal issues that plays games in a group environment using Dragon Speak for typing. Meeting as an avatar gives participants the chance to meet people with their disabilities totally invisible to the people they meet.

In the past I have logged in as her and effectively levelled up her avatar so she could use all of her books. There was for example the jump in Ghereesen she could not do and this was required to complete the pillars and get the link to the Cleft.

Now I know the location at Kielder is a nightmare for connecting to the internet, mobile (cell) phone reception is just impossible they do have some wifi but it is mediocre at best. So joining Deep Island and using it up there would be impossible.

I was thinking of building an Alcugs server (Alcugs because then we could host all the fan ages and build some new ages specific to the site). The server would be run locally using cabled Ethernet.

I know we could build standalone games but I want to introduce users to the cooperative aspect door runs and the option of being guided around a virtual environment by another operating from another location on site, an avatar being used by another user who may or may not be disabled themselves.

There’s also the options of flymode and the option of building their own worlds using Blender.

I have hardware we could use to build just such a server but I do need to have a guru I can pick the brains from. I have built Linux web servers so I do know my way around most of the hardware and software. I have yet to have a successful build of a shard.

I have downloaded the instructions from the github and would plan on documenting the process to make that into an idiot guide.

Once built the equipment will probably be donated to “The Calvert Trust” with free support.

The disabled visitors already have their own computer equipment usually laptops and spend a lot of time on Facebook etc.

I am just thinking of another activity for visitors that could expand their home use of computer equipment they currently have.
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby Deledrius » Mon Oct 09, 2017 2:32 am

That sounds like a wonderful idea, J'Kla. :)
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby J'Kla » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:15 am

I am still looking for someone to pass on some one on one advice and information on building a shard that will run on a local area network.

I have a Debian (Linux) server built and I downloaded the instructions from the Github but the last two times I tried to do this it failed and without someone to ask I was left high and dry.

Just as an example one of the very first instructions tells me to run

mysql_secure_instalation

and this just won't run but as I have to provide a root password when I install the mysql server so I am presuming I already have a secure installation.

Are the Github instructions current has anyone been able to build an alcugs server recently following these instructions because I believe these instructions were written when we were still in the era of Until Uru.

I have made various assumptions like when it says I need the following tools

1.b) Required tools:
Make sure you have the standard development tools plus cmake installed, and git to download the source code. A hopefully complete list of tools you will need is:
* g++, make (Debian packet: build-essential)
* cmake (Debian packet: cmake)
* git (Debian packet: git-core)

I take it I need to run something like

sudo apt-get install g++

But I am not sure!

I have built and have an Apache PHP5 server that used postfix to email form acquired data, so I am not totally unfamiliar with Linux command line stuff like editing script files but I am also aware that Linux is a dynamic beast, and that stuff changes and by installing a recent build/distro things that once were true may have moved on since the Github install information was written.

At some point I will also need to figure out how to add new ages.
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby Deledrius » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:30 am

Sorry, I can't really help with setting up an Alcugs server (all of my experience is with UU and dirtsand). I'd be prepared for having some issues running it on a modern install without tweaking some versions. I don't see Alcugs on GitHub. Do you mean diafero's Alcugs repository on GitLab?

Where it says "Debian packet" that appears to be the name of the package you should install, such as "apt-get install build-essentials" which will cover g++ and make, etc. You can combine them and do it all at once:

apt-get install build-essential cmake git-core libmysqlclient15-dev zlib1g-dev

...Assuming they haven't had name changes since the instructions were written. It looks like diafero has kept it reasonably up-to-date for compiling, so that's a good sign.
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby J'Kla » Tue Oct 17, 2017 11:05 am

Yes that's the one
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby J'Kla » Thu Nov 16, 2017 4:26 am

I am getting closer and I am doing some e-mail communication with Diafero we are still doing this but in the install there is a requirement for

libmysqlclient15-dev

All attempts to do an install of this library fail

I am trying to install on a Debian 9.2.0 AMD64 xfce installed from a Live DVD installed from a bootable USB stick using a link to the UK Debian Mirror for updates during the installation.

Its had the update and upgrade run.

I have tried incrementing the number up to 21 and on Diafero's suggestion tried without the number all of which results in the following message

"This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted or is only available from another source."

Diafero says hes managed to get a version without a number to run on a test server but I have yet to ascertain which distro of Debian that is is running on.

Obviously in an ideal world it would work for all distros it may be necessary to use an old version or maybe it only works on 32bit

It may be that we don't actually require this library but at this point there is no way of getting a definitive answer.
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby J'Kla » Wed Feb 14, 2018 10:28 am

I have been in the process of migrating my Enobmort age into a Korman 0.06 iteration.

It is getting quite large so I was looking to use the page option on the World page to organize the age.

Is there any detail can it be used retroactively or does it have to be used before you add elements.

Can you have parts that overlap?
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby Deledrius » Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:13 pm

You can add pages to your Age's world at any time, and assign objects to them as you see fit.


Select an object's assigned Page in the object's Plasma Properties:

Image
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby J'Kla » Thu Feb 15, 2018 8:33 am

So we are back to the question about assigning properties to multiple objects.

Yes I can assign any object to any page at any time but I am wanting to take blocks of objects and break them into pages and we are not talking one or two objects here.

My age has about eight logical areas so it seems sensible to break them into pages once you start using pages does everything have to be in pages or is anything without an assigned page a logical page zero and I am assuming you can call the pages anything you like but that it is logical to have names with some sort of naming commonality?

From what you are saying paging is just a label for the file in which the data is going to be stored when you export the age and it does not matter where it appears within the age.
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Re: Tutorial and Information Requests

Postby Sirius » Thu Feb 15, 2018 10:18 am

Ah, so you need for instance to put all selected objects on a single page ? I can help with that. I made a small extension plugin for Korman a while ago for my own usage - maybe you will find it useful.
Old version:
korman_operators.zip
(4.21 KiB) Downloaded 310 times

New version:
korman_operators


How to use:
  • extract the zip and put the korman_operators folder (containing __init__.py and oper.py) in [Blender install folder]/2.xx/scripts/addons, restart Blender then activate the plugin from within the Addons list
  • in your scene, select all the objects you want to put on a specific page
  • in the properties window, set the page of the currently ACTIVE object to whatever you want (this will only change it for the active object)
  • in the 3D view, open Tool shelf (T key) -> Misc -> Korman Tools -> Page to Active. This will copy the "page" property from the ACTIVE (orange) object to all SELECTED (red) objects.

There are also a bunch of other options in this new panel that you might find interesting (for instance, selecting all plasma objects, making all selected objects colliders or sorting all your objects per layer). I wrote the plugin a while back, so I think one or two buttons now exist in Korman.


J'Kla wrote:My age has about eight logical areas so it seems sensible to break them into pages once you start using pages does everything have to be in pages or is anything without an assigned page a logical page zero
If an object doesn't have an assigned page, it will go to the "Default" (id 0) page (if I remember correctly), so you can leave the field empty for some objects. But yeah, breaking your Age in multiple pages can help with export time and be easier for you. It isn't absolutely required though.
Last edited by Sirius on Fri Mar 16, 2018 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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