Yeah. I think it's a hardware thing. I've had errors about the "light buffer out of range" or something. This sounds like a physical limitation.

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Some of the art assets probably need to be fixed to reduce lag as well. In Complete Chronicles it appears that the book ring in the Nexus is made up of a ton of separate book "gears" and the main ring. That's a lot of models to transform every frame. The problem is that the ring and books are never separated, so they should be one model. (A "toothed" gear with the book/gear material over it.) The arm that presents the book has a different book model with it that it reuses no matter which book you select from the terminal.

This is not a problem in the Nexus as it is a tiny scene and can only have one avatar in it at a time, but if similar approaches were taken in other ages then all the minute models could slow rendering considerably.

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The nexus gear was broken in MO:UL. The book gear never engaged with the larger gear behind it. (If you get the chance again, turn round and look behind you in the nexus to see what I mean).

SCGreyWolf wrote:

Some of the art assets probably need to be fixed to reduce lag as well. In Complete Chronicles it appears that the book ring in the Nexus is made up of a ton of separate book "gears" and the main ring. That's a lot of models to transform every frame. The problem is that the ring and books are never separated, so they should be one model. (A "toothed" gear with the book/gear material over it.) The arm that presents the book has a different book model with it that it reuses no matter which book you select from the terminal.

This is not a problem in the Nexus as it is a tiny scene and can only have one avatar in it at a time, but if similar approaches were taken in other ages then all the minute models could slow rendering considerably.

Heh yeah. At least they use parenting.

But that's a little odd that it's not one model. At least the terminals in the city are one piece.

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From the new "developer" forum tab:

Quote:

The 3D models and textures that were used to create Myst Online: Uru Live will not be part of the open source license. We will probably release some of these models and textures, but under a different license than the code source.

No fixing art assets I guess. This cripples the Uru OSS a bit to me.

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SCGreyWolf wrote:

From the new "developer" forum tab:

Quote:

The 3D models and textures that were used to create Myst Online: Uru Live will not be part of the open source license. We will probably release some of these models and textures, but under a different license than the code source.

No fixing art assets I guess. This cripples the Uru OSS a bit to me.

Well it might still be possible to get Cyan's permission for this (or perhaps the license will not be as restrictive as you think).

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Not everything in the client files is 3D models or textures. One could change the way an age behaves without touching those (for example change instancing by modifying the linking rule of a link out responder).

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D'Lanor wrote:

Not everything in the client files is 3D models or textures. One could change the way an age behaves without touching those (for example change instancing by modifying the linking rule of a link out responder).

I understand, but there are obviously problems with some of the age scenes as well as their respective Python scripts.

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As I noted otherwise, we need more details, again. We don't have the liscence for model/texture stuff. Can their tools modify the compiled stuff by decompilation? If so, will we be able to? Not open-source doesn't nescessarily mean untouchable.

Offhand I'm wondering myself.. if we say extend the lighting design, we may still be able to make existing ages utilize it to better effect. It again matters what Cyan tells we can do.

(personally I'm more miffed that new clothing/animations may be impossible as that'd involve the avatar rigging/models which we're not getting in the same open liscence, even if it's a core component. And don't get me started on relto additions... )

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MOULa KI: #00027582
Welcome back all!

Gondar wrote:

(personally I'm more miffed that new clothing/animations may be impossible as that'd involve the avatar rigging/models which we're not getting in the same open liscence, even if it's a core component. And don't get me started on relto additions... )

As I asked in another thread, where did you get that idea? I haven't seen Cyan saying that the avatar isn't going to be part of the open source part. "3D models and textures" seems more like the ages and such... why would they have any reason to keep us from adding animations or textures to something as basic as a avatar?

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Nothing to see here, move along.

Because it's Cyan IP and made by a paid modeller (well, a few of them over the course of the game likely) to do character models, clothing, and animations.

It'd probably all fit under a bulk agreement, with the ages and other "3d models and textures". It's the fact that they are, indeed, 3d models and textures, that makes me wonder.

Besides, unless the toolset includes the rigging designs and so on that the modellers need to make clothing/animations/etc it won';t matter if it's theoretically open-sourced. It'll wait until it's reverse-engineered.


But we don't know the liscence agreement for both. It's possible I admit we'll get modifying rights assuming it stays in the game and isn't distributed outside of the game environment. I hope so.. because as I commented in another thread it's one thing not to be able to expand areas and add relto additions, but what if we found we had to rework all the Cyan ages to reduce lag by minimizing client load for physics and drawing? And if Cyan said no modifying the original content.. and the result was listen to them and have a load lag limit on Ae'gura.. or instead ignore them, modify it, and get our cones back AND 100+ people?


I'm being theoretical here.. none of us have seen the source, know what's involved, and know what the liscences involve.. but it's very likely we'll be able to find out tricks Cyan missed because they just didn't have the free time/money to strip down and rebuild parts of the engine, not while they had to get it running one way and as such because they had to have the ages work stable and anyways didn't have the luxury to have a build line sitting not-fully-done while it's in a beta, since there's another month's update to design/program/etc. And of course there's that we'll have far more programmers whacking away at it than Cyan could afford to hire even at their heyday.

Makes me wish I knew programming better than the little bit I can (and that's not even OOP). Instead I content myself to theorize from the sidelines and plot up stories and ages to try and convince others to help with one day

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That's right, a canon canen cannon!

MOULa KI: #00027582
Welcome back all!

I do recall a meeting with Chogon (might have been a Town Hall meeting?) where he said that Cyan would probably be releasing the armature rig files so that new animations could be created from the bones. This was back before MOUL though IIRC.

Gondar wrote:

Besides, unless the toolset includes the rigging designs and so on that the modellers need to make clothing/animations/etc it won';t matter if it's theoretically open-sourced. It'll wait until it's reverse-engineered.

The point to get Cyan to open-source Uru is *precisely* to avoir waiting until it all get reverse-engineered.. Of course given enough time everything can be reversed engineered... But time is not an infinite ressource. Uru has been out for 5 years. 5 years. That's half a freaking decade. And even with all that time we still haven't reversed engineered everything. (although obviously those efforts didn't start on day 1). If we had all those tools back then where we would be now?..

I know back then it wasn't possible to O-S Uru, even during the Gametap days, but the point is: if Uru is about to get open-sourced it might as well be done right and have the avatar models rigged and ready to be animated so that we don't lose another year reverse-engeenering stuff.. We're not getting any younger.

Last edited by aloys on Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:15 am; edited 1 time in total

Once we have the source any 'reverse engineering' would be far easier.
Why hex-view ages and see what data structures form, when you can look at the plugin, see how it exports, and figure out how it forms from there? It'd be much harder if we don't get rigging info, but it'd probably be a lot easier seeing how the engine interprets it as is.

However, yes, it does help speed up everyone, getting it open sourced. It'd be far easier too to have the stuff, but my point is that even if they don't give us the stuff it'll be cracked... progress builds and having the source will help (they already can peek at clothing/models/etc remember)


Me I do hope we get the fun stuff, because you're perfectly right about it taking time otherwise.. I guess it comes down to what Cyan means by that update, and we have no news on that, and probably won't until we get it.

_________________
You know, I wish we would learn Atrus loved the 1812 overture, and in turn we had a copy for our relto.
That's right, a canon canen cannon!

MOULa KI: #00027582
Welcome back all!

Gondar wrote:

I guess it comes down to what Cyan means by that update

I love that quote.

Last edited by Rusty_Russell on Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:46 pm; edited 1 time in total