[Sophia]

Chogon has been busy! He mentioned that Cyan has started to release bits and pieces of open source, and started a few threads.

Threads to note:
MOULa released stuff list
The KI Source
Wave Emote
Submitting changes to Cyan

[Emor D'ni Lap]

Wow, that's wonderful...
...and the best part, to me at least, no matter how "lame" Chogon says it is?
The 130-page manual on using the Max plug-in!

[Dr CrisGer]

good news

[church]

Wowz!!

Yes!

[Theremin]

Emor D'ni Lap, on 14 April 2010 - 06:00 PM, said:

Wow, that's wonderful...
...and the best part, to me at least, no matter how "lame" Chogon says it is?
The 130-page manual on using the Max plug-in!

LOL, it's no wonder technical writers insist on getting paid by the hour!

Good news for sure, something to get everyone's creative juices flowing again. Does it look like something that's going to be a real boost?

[Andy Legate]

Theremin, on 17 May 2010 - 01:05 AM, said:

LOL, it's no wonder technical writers insist on getting paid by the hour!

Good news for sure, something to get everyone's creative juices flowing again. Does it look like something that's going to be a real boost?

Yes and No.

It has helped me to understand some things, and has also helped with all the tutorials that I've written about it to date: Max and Cyan Plugin Tutorials

However, this document is spotty at best. It will show a picture of the Plasma Component menus, with no explination of what does what.
Those of us that have been doing Age Creation with Blender and the GoW plugin for a while now understand most of what we are seeing. However, even we have to take guesses with somethings because they are named differently, or applied differently than we are used to.

However, we are coming along nicely on how to use the plugin with Max:



The above pic is after 2 days worth of hard work of one of my latest Ages to get it exported from Max with Cyan's plugin. The Plugin is easy to use....but you have to know WHAT to use, heh.

In any case, Chogon told me that their documents and notes have always been inadequate, and that he wished they'd had my tutorials back when they were building Uru....... [/shameless bragging]

There is one thing about Cyan's Plugin however......it's almost like a Myst game...trying to figure it out has been like trying to figure out a Myst Puzzle

"Move the slider a little to the left....." ('cause the plugin DOES have sliders, hehehehehehehehehehe)

[Theremin]

It sounds like the document is more of an "after the fact" reference then, something you refer to when reminding yourself what you already know or have been shown. Still, I guess that has its good points as well.

Andy, are you considering writing an expanded tutorial on this once you have figured it out?

[Andy Legate]

Theremin, on 19 May 2010 - 10:09 AM, said:

It sounds like the document is more of an "after the fact" reference then, something you refer to when reminding yourself what you already know or have been shown. Still, I guess that has its good points as well.

Andy, are you considering writing an expanded tutorial on this once you have figured it out?

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean combine all the tutorials (something like 28 of them so far) into one document? I guess I could try to make some sort of PDF document so all the pics are included (people like my tutorials because I use a LOT of pictures to show what to do), but I'm not sure how much time that would take.

Between making all the tutorials on Age Creation (both Blender and Max), making Ages myself, and also helping others with their Ages, I'm surprised my wife hasn't left me yet.....*quickly looks in the closet*....nope, bags are still there.

Actually I get a LOT of support from her as she plays Uru to and loves Fan Ages herself.

[Sophia]

Andy Legate, on 19 May 2010 - 04:48 AM, said:

In any case, Chogon told me that their documents and notes have always been inadequate, and that he wished they'd had my tutorials back when they were building Uru....... [/shameless bragging]

That's not shameless bragging at all, Andy, it's well deserved praise. I think your tutorials are fantastic!

[Theremin]

Andy Legate, on 19 May 2010 - 09:45 AM, said:

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean combine all the tutorials (something like 28 of them so far) into one document?

Not what I was originally thinking, although that does sound like a rather good idea. I was thinking more of a tutorial/explanation of the plugins Cyan released. (No pressure, just curious. I'd hate to see anything take away from your age creating!)

[Andy Legate]

Theremin, on 19 May 2010 - 03:28 PM, said:

Not what I was originally thinking, although that does sound like a rather good idea. I was thinking more of a tutorial/explanation of the plugins Cyan released. (No pressure, just curious. I'd hate to see anything take away from your age creating!)

Uhm....that's what my tutorials over at the GoMa forum do. They explain how to use many of the Cyan Plugin's components.

I mean I don't have it listed per component, but rather what you'd like to do. For example, I don't list the Plasma Component "Clickables" for the plugin. Instead I have a tutorial for how to make things clickable (because you have to do more than just give the object the Plasma Component "clickable" you also have to set up a Responder (what's going to happen when you click), any Avatar animation that might happen (setting up the Seek Point for the avatar, and indicating what Global Avatar Animation you want to use, like maybe DoorButtonTouch if it's a button, or a different one for a lever), then you need to have any sounds and animations the button and/or what ever the event is that is going to happen.

The major difference between the GoW Plugin and Cyan's Plugin is: GoW Plugin, to do all that I listed above, you'll have to type in a bunch of scripting (or at least copy and paste it from somewhere and change it to fit your situation). Where as the Cyan Plugin is all Point and Click. You just select the button (or lever, etc), and you click on "Clickable" in your Component Manager, and then you go in and tell the clickable component what to do, and that in turn is all point and click.

So what I'm saying is, making a tutorial on the Plasma Component "Clickables" would take forever, because there are SO MANY ways to use it. The tutorials I write are for those who know WHAT they want to do (I wanna click on a drawer and make it open), and I explain how to do that. There will be slight differences, but the "how" you go about it will be very much the same.