aptal karga (foolish crow)

[raft]

well, since i'm busy with lots of 'life' issues, nothing new yet.  but i just feeled i left my thread and project too lonely..

just for reference this is what 'aptal karga' (foolish crow) means:

foolish crow is the crow who resurrected for revenge after his death but forgot his reason of resurrection because of the happiness of returning life again. foolish crow is not real, just an urband legend among crows

(in turkish)
aptal karga ölümünden sonra intikam için geri dönen, tekrar yasamanın büyüsüne kapılarak varoluş amacını unutan kargadır. gercek degildir. kargalar arasında bir $ehir efsanesidir.

this should be in the first post of thread but who cares  :wink:

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[raft]

since my last post,

* tcp communications are compressed now
* added the tube: it's an old fashioned multi purpose device, used as both personal teleporter and dressing room (binded to key t for some time)
* replaced the sky-box with a better one
* added third person custom view: both camera distance and angle can be adjusted by shift and arrow keys
* regions panel does not show up anymore if there is only one region
* added server side configuration files
* camera now moves smoothly
* implemented basic paired animation mechanism: right click to a user to suggest him some action

new sky-box and the tube in action:

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[raft]

* added run mode: double tap forward key to run (1)
* improved animation load mechanism to allow using same mesh in multiple sequences: resulting in reduced load time, disk and memory usage
* seperated walk forward, backward, turn, strafe left, right and run animations
* improved footstep synchronization
* improved the way user movements sent to other clients: they are almost replicated now in an efficient way

(1) i've just noticed that run mode doesnt work on win32 platforms since Java generates different KeyEvent sequences on win32 and linux. i'll fix it soon

test tool running to show the sent user movement

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[raft]

* fixed run mode for windows & linux (hope it will run at MacOS & Solaris too)
* extended LoD mechanism to cover avatars too
* some more small improvements for sending user movements

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[raft]

* added the new girl avatar (she's from turbosquid by bogdan iliesiu)
* fixed a bug about setting default accessories
* finally implemented normal talk mode at server side :/
* improved user movement resulting in smoother movement and less stuck
* added spring period to jump

the new girl avatar

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[EgonOlsen]

Cute... :wink: She looks much better than the old avatar....except when you configure her to have no hair... :wink:

[rolz]

looks nice indeed

[raft]

thx she's really cute, in fact i may fall in love with her and she's only 470 polygons

for the old avatar, i suspect he's better than quasimodo :oops:

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[raft]

* added the new boy avatar.
* improved avatar mechanism to allow mixing texture and mesh based variations.
* changed avatar panel to use thumbnails.
* improved avatar tool to test and fine tune paired animations (can be found at demos section).
* slightly changed camera behaviour based on distance: one may feel it while adjusting camera with shift + arrow keys. i'm not quite happy with the new default angle but i have to since those avatars arent made to be viewed from above back

the new boy avatar


girl and boy kissing in test tool

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[rolz]

new models look really awesome.
And animation editor looks awesome too do you use mesh animation for your models (md2 or 3ds) or you have custom animation engine ?

[raft]

yeap, he is a really talented 3d artist. but unfortunately i couldnt attract his interest, he doesnt reply my emails  :roll:

i use mesh animation initially stored in a series of 3ds files. then they're saved using standart java serialization to reduce loading time

for the test tool, it is a player more than an animation editor indeed, one can only fine tune and test some aspects of animation (loop time, distance to pair etc)

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[raft]

re-wrote balloons:
* changed the way they are drawn (i dont know why, previous mechanism hangs a bit on windows during first popup),
* changed their appearance,
* added some smoothness to their movements,
* and they are kind of (not that much) smart now: they try to avoid overlapping each other.

still needs some improvements for a clearer view in crowd

the new balloons

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[raft]

* fixed the so called 'climbing problem': avatars were climbing over others and some terrain objects when walking through.  thx Egon for the tip
* added the LightsPanel to configure (place, move, delete, set color etc) lights in karga.
* changed the scene with a better one
* found and fixed a silly bug by chance: although one is always invisible, i was adding the same object twice for LoD purposes :/
* several other small improvements

behind lights panel world lights are displayed as cubes


a shot from new village


seems as a hot place

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[EgonOlsen]

Hey, it's looking really ace now. I guess i've to change the pics on the projects page to reflect this... :wink:

[raft]

thx  
after the scene change and adding the lights the apperance really changed. my only problem is texture aliasing but i will open a topic about it

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