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A New Caligari Christmas truePlay Concept
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
A New Caligari Christmas truePlay Concept // Collaboration
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Nov 29, 2007, 12:58am
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Hi everybody.
I have been asked to take a very close look into the initial development of a low poly Christmas Scene for Caligari.
I invested the last 13 hours straight doing that and in developing a unique new alternative possibility to what appears to be a nearly impossible task, that of keeping the scene extremely low poly for online use and yet providing ample opportunity for everyone in the Community here to add objects to the scene which in all probability will be over 150K each. That adds up very fast in an overall 5 meg scene limit as you may well imagine.
In the following thread I developed a new offline scene for use with truePlay, and it just happens to have many bookshelves in it, enough in fact to contain over 500 items comfortably with room to spare. Even on my admittedly low-end computer I was in FPN in that scene on my hard drive listening to a 55 MEG Wav-format audio file of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" as I wandered around in there thinking of ways to enhance the scene some more, so I know the suggestion I'm about to make here will definitely be viable if anyone cares to support the concept in this context.
First, here's the thread with the scene for download:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=4459 (http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=4459)
There are scripted objects in it which when clicked take you to the Scriptorium or to the truePlace Meetingroom, depending on what you click. It is all described in detail in that thread. There are also related tutorials accessable inside that same scene by clicking other objects there.
Attached below in this thread, after the following two images of them, is a trueSpace RsScn format scene file inside a zipfile containing two low poly mostly-unscripted objects... they are self explanatory in the images which follow and in the Panels which automatically show when you load the scene or the objects inside truePlay.
What I am suggesting here is a new kind of approach to a Community Christmas here.... not excluding a simultaneous online event, but expanding it in an entirely new way through truePlay.
The objects as you can see from the images here are 3D Greeting Cards. They don't fold open or anything fancy because the objective here is to provide a means of having as many as 500 of them in one scene on each of our hard drives, a scene where you can place everyone else's cards, offer cards to others with the same scene, swap cards, or whatever else comes to mind!
Inside this same scene we can each click the blue sphere to enter the truePlace Meetingroom, but unlike the online Meetingroom and other portals there, inside this scene you can have a vast library of Holiday and Occasion Cards from Community Friends here which will stay with you for years to come... a place where you can always go to reminisce in the privacy and leasure of your own home computer. But the rest of us are only a click away in that room, because you can go to truePlaces from it or open the forum here inside it, and if you ever get a chance to read the tutorials it is linked to, you will also be able to use it to launch any local file or program or web page or web video, and of course to launch your favorite music player.
I can tell you right now there's no way we can have enough room for custom objects added to a new online scene at about 6 objects per meg in shared space, especially with an enormously creative and generous Community like this... we will just have to have a lot more space than an online setting will permit if we really want to offer everyone a chance to create and share Christmas Cards and Tree Ornaments... but this alternative would be definitely viable for all that and a lot more for each of us... in addition to the online Christmas Scene.
Think it over folks. We could have literally hundreds of custom objects in that scene with no problem on everyone's hard drive. We could have threads here with zips of objects from all of us ready for download and placement on the many many bookshelves in that scene. There is even an easy way to connect that scene to other scenes on your hard drive so you can walk from one to another while still inside FPN mode... I scripted a keypress-trigger recently here which does exactly that. So the potential is unlimited.
In the meantime, among many things on my plate at the moment, I will be working on modeling approaches to the online scene, but here's the 3D Card Objects with the Panels I designed to make them shared space and truePlay friendly for us to use anytime.
Hope you like the idea.... it would be nice having a few hundred Cards in your house that you never have to dust, wouldn't it?
- 3dvisuals dude
The zipfile follows the images below: |
Post by frootee // Nov 29, 2007, 2:49am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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hey that's pretty cool Mark.
Can we edit/customize the text in the cards as well?
Thanks,
Froo |
Post by butterpaw // Nov 29, 2007, 3:04am
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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What a lovely idea!! I'll try to put my part together this weekend ^_^ |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Nov 29, 2007, 9:56am
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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hey that's pretty cool Mark.
Can we edit/customize the text in the cards as well?
Thanks,
Froo
Thanks guy,
The text isn't applied to the image by the script, although that could be done, that process would have weighed down both the script objects and the 3D model quite a bit, and that's what I'm trying to avoid with all this.
You can of course create text and apply it to the image (just as I did above) inside any 2D Image Editing Program before you save the image to file.
This generic file dialog I used above will allow you to place any trueSpace-recognized image file format (JPG/PNG/TGA/BMP/GIF/Etc.) onto both the Card Preview Window and through it on the 3D Card itself, but to keep the filesize down on the finished product I emphasized the use of GIF Format Images... they are a lot smaller than the alternatives. Those same images I used above, for instance, would be anywhere from 10 times to 200 times larger saved in a different format than GIF.
Being a Scriptor, there are dozens of ways to improve on this idea for offline use, such as making the Cards fold and offering additional UV Mapped image planes on the inside and back of the cards, having the cards launch a customizable (via panel) text to speech Greeting for the recipient, and many other possible enhancements. All of them increase filesize though.
Hope you like it.
I should have also mentioned above, in case it wasn't obvious to anyone, that the scene I created there can be RADICALLY MODIFIED by anyone as they like! Hahaha!
You could even turn it into a ski lodge with a fireplace and scripted snow if you have the inclination, and the scene as mentioned above can be connected to other scenes on your computer as well as online scenes of your choosing.
I wasn't thinking about using this for a holiday solution when I first created it at all, but with the impending filesizes crunch down the road a bit here as folks each wish to add their personalized Christmas Items (Ornaments, Lights, Stars, Cards, Reindeer?!?) it suddenly appeared to be the only viable alternative to creating 20 new online server ports just to house them all.
There is one other vital aspect to doing it this way... Artists would not be limited at all in the creation of their offerings as to filesize given that the destination of the items is offline. Want to make a 50 MEG Christmas Scene to pass around here? No problem... you can add it to this and connect it with the scene loading trigger so you can walk from that to this or vice versa in FPN Mode. Or just use yours to replace mine, whatever floats your boat!
- 3dvisuals dude |
Post by frootee // Nov 29, 2007, 10:03am
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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Ah I see. Thanks!
Yeah, file size can be a bit of a challenge eh? But that's a good thing. It helps us to build good modelling skills.
Hm... That gives me an idea. Since this is an issue, no one has offered a set of 'rules of thumb' to reduce file sizes that I am aware of. I am sure there are a few tips here and there, but they are scattered everywhere. I will start a thread then.
Nice!
Froo |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Nov 29, 2007, 10:07am
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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What a lovely idea!! I'll try to put my part together this weekend ^_^
Thank you Butterpaw.:)
If you have any questions on anything just holler.
There's something I'd like to help you personally to develop by the way, I could walk you through the process online but it would be entirely your design and creation. A new Scripted and Animated Musicbox.:) Let me know.
It might be nice to have a few on the bookshelves in this scene too.
- Mark / 3dvisuals dude |
Post by butterpaw // Nov 29, 2007, 11:25am
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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Ah! how cool! sure... I'd love that ^_^ ideas are jumbling around already! ^_^ |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Nov 29, 2007, 11:32am
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Cool! Let's do it some Tuesday Night together in the Scriptorium then!
Not a difficult thing to do at all really. Here's what you will need to have handy:
1) A Music Box Model of your own design.
You can have modeled features of course, but to make it more flexible for future gifts to various people on various occasions I would suggest a planar mapped image area on top and inside on the underside of the top.
2) A Wav Format Music File which loops well. Best to have it be 100K to 800K in size, with 150K being realistic for online uses.
3) A Statue to rotate. Assuming you would like to do that.
Should be fun!
- Mark / 3dvisuals dude |
Post by butterpaw // Nov 29, 2007, 1:11pm
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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LOL! you must think I now how to model :D
You just threw out a bunch of terminology that sailed right past me..
however... I don't plan to let that stop me.. but I will be asking you some questions.. :p
We can make another thread for that ... or pm me...also I'm available on most chat clients too - or we meet another time in trueplace room
^_^ |
Post by frootee // Nov 29, 2007, 1:14pm
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frootee
Total Posts: 2667
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heck you know what I do Butter?
I reach into my 'junk' drawer and use whatever I can find!
Basically just find parts from elsewhere and stick 'em together. Hey! it works! :D
bye,
Jason |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Nov 29, 2007, 1:28pm
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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LOL! you must think I now how to model :D
You just threw out a bunch of terminology that sailed right past me..
however... I don't plan to let that stop me.. but I will be asking you some questions.. :p
We can make another thread for that ... or pm me...also I'm available on most chat clients too - or we meet another time in trueplace room
^_^
hahaha!
Sorry, no problem though.
I will whip up a couple of generic freebie boxes with the appropriate uv maps already applied. Then you can just modify one of those.
A little statue model of some kind which you made yourself would give it a personal touch, but I can whip up a few of those as generic freebies to pick from as well.
Just bring a sound loop in wav format and a big smile.:D
- Mark |
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