Content

So it's been awhile since I have updated the site but I have been working on content and storyline and code. I recently rebuild lava linux to include the lastest panda build so I can use it as a development system. It's funny that while I have been learning panda and more importantly python I have built some smaller projects like a linux terminal server gui client. The one included in ubuntu does not allow mapping printers so I rebuilt it and added the printer ability also expanded on some TS options like auto-reconnect, etc. Maybe I'll post it on launchpad or google-code.

NY

Just got back from my vacation in NY.

Went to The ED Sullivan Theater :) Very cool.
Went to Angelo's Pizzeria - David Letterman mentions it sometimes on his show.
Saw Times Square, Central Park - walked up and down broadway and had dinner in China Town and Little Italy.

All in all it was a great time.

I flew an airline that I never tried before - Jet Blue. If you haven't used them before - you should - excellent. your pick of 7 snacks - including animal cracks :) water, juices, sodas included. Direct TV on everyone's chair, XM radio and the seats are leather and lots of room to relax. Free wifi in the terminals - Loved it.

Now that I am back in Chicago - will update my lava site and obviously catch up with all my Ubuntu brethren :)

Models Models Models

Oh my - it seems it takes me about a week to do a model justice. Skinning and bones and the 15 general animations: swimming, running, sneaking, etc.

I'm going to start on the mounting models next week: horse, tanks, vans, cars, etc.

I'm getting pretty good with blender but still miss my milkshape 3d and 3dsmax.

Building a World, one model at a time

So I am beginning to put together all the sketches for the character types and races. Also building up manifests for all backgrounds. Being a GameMaster for a local group of guys here in chicago has actually helped me. Playing tons of D&D and Rifts makes it easier to envision what I would like in a game as well as making the images come to life.

I don't know if anyone else can relate. You get a group of guys together to play some RPG and before you know it they start drawing what their characters would look like. Well that was the case with me and being the artist, the guys would always ask me to draw their characters. After awhile I got pretty good at it but I never thought I would be putting it to use in making an online game. Well here is a sample of one of the characters I am in the process of building.

Landscape Test

So I generated a heightmap in gimp, then wrote some python code in panda3d to import the heightmap, wrap a texture map onto it and then project that as a landscape. I also added some keybinding so I could move around and did a quick print to screen with instructions. I grabbed some music from a freeware site and added the sound code and voila, 2 hours later have the finished landscape. This landscape is alittle different from my other test as that was much smaller. This test, loads the landscape in sections so theoretically it could be limitless. The other test was very small, this landscape is a realtime landscape with over 300,000 miles. Lots of room to build a world and it could be bigger, the engine i am writing onto of panda loads sections of the heightmap as the player moves so that it can scale without eating away too much memory and without constant pauses in the rendering or having to load one area at a time. Again I am building this on a version of Ubuntu I customized called LAVA. You can find it on the other blogs to the right. I also tested the code and it is able to run on Windows thanks to the fact that panda, python are cross platform.

Back

Well I am back from my trip from Europe. Was fantastic. Rome, I think, was the best. London, one big party, and Florence was simply beautiful. I thought venice was WAAAAAAYYYYY over rated.

So I am back online..... ohhhh I missed the internet, all my projects ;)

I know the site has been stagnant for awhile but the project is alive and I'll try to wrap up version 1 of my world editor.

It's been a little difficult actually writing the spec for the world file. I'm obviously writing it in XML and although I have built a wiki site and have been really good about documenting my changes, it seems everytime I think I have nailed down everything I need in the spec, I go and find out I need to add a field for plasma, or transparency, etc. It's really one of those things that evolves as your design level increases.

Well with version 1 of the world editor I will release the spec for the file format so others can add to the editor.

Standalone World Testing

So I built a 300 mile landscape using freeworld and exported it as a heightmap and was able to texture map and reload into panda and it runs great. Collsion detection works as well as a primitive skymap.

I also tested out building a bsp building using several tools like halflife editors hammer was able to texturemap and convert to X. It also loaded into panda with no issues.

I'm playing with all the shadow options today as well as experimenting with the particle systems in panda to see if I can create a fire pit in the building and have it illuminate the room and cast shadows on the walls. So far I am very happy with panda. Maybe in the next day or so I will upload some photos so you can all see the progress I am making.

Project Overview

Time for a quick overview of what the project will need:

1) Database server: I think MYSQL will work great for this project, quick to implement, fast, open standard, lots of interfaces, php support, cfm support, xml support and FREE!!! I am setting it up in the background on one of my servers for this project and will have it up and online shortly.

2) Web server: Obviously we need a site, artwork as well as the backend scripting support for the site. I think the user forums, user creation, etc can be setup using php on apache/windows. I have servers with both. I am thinking during this development time, I am going to implement this on the same server running the DB.

3) Database schema: We need to start to lay out what our game will need as persistent objects in the game world as well as what we need to maintain about the character states, login info, etc.

4) Artwork, Music, Voice Overs: The assessment flow has to be determined. 3dsmax to panda, x to panda, blender to panda, gimp, phototshop, etc. Music, voice overs, etc. I want to use as much free open source software for this project so that more people can participate so I am obviously leaning towards a work flow that is conducive to that.

5) Game Style and mechanics: UI, physics, etc. Would be great if we could allow for skinning, ui customizations, original story line, etc.

6) GMs and Quest makers: Need to create the tools to allow users to create content on servers.

7) Game Server: Responsible for connecting the client to all other services on the backend as well as managing the list of publicly attached servers.

8) Game Server toolset: Tools to govern the game server: Seeing who is on, booting people. I am thinking of implementing this in the client like WOW so GMS can login to the game world and admin it. I still think that maybe there should be a GOD tool so we could admin the servers from 'above'

9) I would like to be able to provide a server so others can download and host servers on their own but link them back to a public list so clients could browse within the software to a global list of servers. Each server could have its own maps, game play, etc.

Theres alot of work, please message me if you are interested in helping out on any of these pieces. I am going to start up an irc server so we can begin talking about these items but for now, email me and I'll start up a list of contributors.

PANDA3D

Hi All,

Well I decided on Pand3d, I was able to write several small programs in Panda in about 4 hours.

I spent all friday and Sat trying to build just a simple room in Crystal, Irrlicht and Raydium. Although each game engine has strengths and weaknesses, Panda was the simplest in getting your development environment setup. Within 5 minutes I was coding and making some impressive programs. Since Python has literally countless add-on modules for both Linux, MAC and Windows it gives me alot of room to grow. Since it is free, anyone can download and help out. It has solid networking built in for MMORPGS. I can build great UIs within and outside the game. This is important as I obviously will need to build a server to manage client connections and build a toolset to create the game. Since I can compile on both my LAVA Linux desktop and XP work desktop, it means I can program wherever I am at. Also Panda has built is support for alot of the files I want to integrate, 3dsmax, X, mp3, AVIs.

Since Panda is built on python and is free, I can distribute the final client as a self-contained binary using tools such as py2exe or pyinstaller. This is important as I don't want fellow gamers to have to manually setup a python install just to play my game. With py2exe and pyinstaller I can literally make my game install a standard EXE on windows and a standard binary install on Linux. Simple double click to play.

Re-Formated my PC

So I just reformated my development pc with my new build of LAVA Linux Dev.

Loaded it with all the engines, crystal space, panda3d, etc.

I played with panda3d a bit and found it was easy, freely available, interfaces with blender a great free 3d modeler and was easy to setup an environment on both the pc and linux.

Crystal space took a little more effort but also has a huge support force online. I also thought that if I invested time in crystalspace it may be more beneficial as Crystal space has spurred off many interesting projects such as CEL.

Irrlicht is also a contender as I like the tutorials - the forums are helpful and it also has a great list of links and add-on projects.

I'm still reviewing the engines and in the next week I want to work on the following simple engine test.

My simple hello world will be - to build a simple room, texture mapped with dynamic lighting and have collision detection so i cannot walk outside the room. Total 3d, look up, down, sides as well as move slow and run. This is a simple task and it is a test to see which engine does it the best and which does it the quickest.

I'm back

It's been awhile - the last couple months I have been working and fixing up my new house. Check back in the next week or so and I'll post new content on. I'm going to start dedicating the next couple months on this project. I've received alot of emails with people interested in producing a MMORPG and will be sending out feelers to all. If you haven't emailed me, please do, I can use all the help I can get.