Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

General debates and discussion about the Guild of Writers and Age creation
diafero
Deep Island Admin
Posts: 2972
Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 5:50 am
MOULa KI#: 0
Location: Germany

Re: Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

Post by diafero »

Because, honestly, that's what we all want most with our fan-created ages right now - we want them to work in multiplayer.
The problem is not not make the ages work in multiplayer - many of the ages we currently have don't have any functionality which could be critical in a mutliplayer environment, and from the 10-15 ages that have more or less complex puzzles, most work fine in a multiplayer environment.
The blocker is not multiplayer compatibility, but the MOUL format being different from the POTS one. Since Blender -> 3ds Max -> Cyan's plugin is not going to work well, the key is to add MOUL export to Blender. The best route to this goal seems to implement a plugin based on libHSPlasma since the MOUL write capability is already implemented there, and it has a Python interface. But there is no way a tutorial can be written at the current stage, it's software that needs to be created (and it might even be too early for that since Blender 2.5 is still in alpha stage).
But this is just to export an age from Blender into the MOUL format. To make it actually work in MOULagain as you are writing, we first need a procedure set up by Cyan to get a fan-created age on there. Some people managed to get a very simple and basic test age exported in MOUL format, but currently there is no way to get it online. Again, no way a tutorial can be done here before Cyan tell us how they want this to happen - or, the way I would prefer, they give us the source to run a server on our own ;-)
I prefer e-mails to "diafero arcor de" (after adding the at and the dot) over PMs.

"Many people's horizon is a circle with a radius of zero. They call it their point of view."

Deep Island Shard | Offline KI
User avatar
BAD
Posts: 832
Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:44 am

Re: Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

Post by BAD »

I just thought of something......

If you make a plugin for Blender that exports to MOUL data, and someone finds a way to get the Cyan plugin to open prp's correctly in 3d Studio....

Wouldn't that be a round about way to convert Blender to 3D Studio? :D

/me runs out of the thread!
BAD is as good as he gets
ddb174
Posts: 928
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:28 pm

Re: Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

Post by ddb174 »

The best method to get an Age into Moulagain would be to create it in Cyan's 3dsmax plugin, export and convert with Drizzle so you can test it offline (and share on UAM if you wish) and then send the exported but unconverted files to Cyan.
User avatar
GPNMilano
Posts: 1155
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 5:50 am
MOULa KI#: 24104

Re: Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

Post by GPNMilano »

ddb174 wrote:The best method to get an Age into Moulagain would be to create it in Cyan's 3dsmax plugin, export and convert with Drizzle so you can test it offline (and share on UAM if you wish) and then send the exported but unconverted files to Cyan.



To hell with that. Let's just make PyPRP MOULagain compatible. I'm done with working with "work around" tools. I want one tool, that will export my stuff and play it both in CC and MOUL, and if no one else is going to help me with it than I'll do it myself.
You can't stop the truth. IC Blog
Paradox
Posts: 1295
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:48 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

Post by Paradox »

GPNMilano wrote:
ddb174 wrote:The best method to get an Age into Moulagain would be to create it in Cyan's 3dsmax plugin, export and convert with Drizzle so you can test it offline (and share on UAM if you wish) and then send the exported but unconverted files to Cyan.



To hell with that. Let's just make PyPRP MOULagain compatible. I'm done with working with "work around" tools. I want one tool, that will export my stuff and play it both in CC and MOUL, and if no one else is going to help me with it than I'll do it myself.


At this point, it's not worth the energy to make PyPRP MOUL compatible as Blender 2.6 should be released over the summer or early fall. The current PyPRP needs to be rewritten entirely for the new API, and will use libHSPlasma to provide compatibility with multiple versions of the engine.

Unfortunately for us developers, the Blender 2.5 Python API keeps changing as well, so any development efforts are mostly on hold until there is a beta.
di gama
Posts: 41
Joined: Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:11 pm

Re: Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

Post by di gama »

Paradox wrote:At this point, it's not worth the energy to make PyPRP MOUL compatible as Blender 2.6 should be released over the summer or early fall. The current PyPRP needs to be rewritten entirely for the new API, and will use libHSPlasma to provide compatibility with multiple versions of the engine.

Unfortunately for us developers, the Blender 2.5 Python API keeps changing as well, so any development efforts are mostly on hold until there is a beta.


I'm not so sure about this. If the beta isn't out, then wouldn't development be best geared toward making PyPRP MOUL-compatible? That way, it can be more fully focused on accommodating the new API when 2.6 comes out, and not simultaneously trying to work on MOUL-compatibility, which I suspect is a completely different ballgame.
User avatar
Branan
Gehn Shard Admin
Posts: 694
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:45 pm
MOULa KI#: 66990
Location: Portland, OR

Re: Oh...yeah...we need a converter...

Post by Branan »

di gama wrote:I'm not so sure about this. If the beta isn't out, then wouldn't development be best geared toward making PyPRP MOUL-compatible? That way, it can be more fully focused on accommodating the new API when 2.6 comes out, and not simultaneously trying to work on MOUL-compatibility, which I suspect is a completely different ballgame.


As I understand it, the current PyPRP is hard-coded for CC/PotS. Making it MOUL-compatible would involve re-writing large portions of it from scratch.
Image
Your friendly neighborhood shard admin
Post Reply

Return to “General Discussion”