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Shroom Room alpha   
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777
United Kingdom  


  12/28/2018  7

I would like to maybe share the bare bones room I've started on. I dont have a website myself to host it.

I have not scripted any of the agents as of yet I am still doing the art work for intended plant life and seed bank I intend for the first room.

I'm struggling a little with the CAOS script but kinda wanted to share as this may motivate me to finish the project :-).

Being honest I'm not doing to well with the scripting side some things aren't working as intended the door animations for example so the animation isn't currently included and I'm using a slightly modded version of the simple door script off the wiki. I haven't packed the files into a .agents file yet I haven't figured that bit out.

Would anybody be interested in testing the alpha version?
Any help or suggestions would be welcome.

Screen Shots:

1


2


3

 
ylukyun
Patient Pirate

ylukyun

Manager



  12/28/2018

The graphics are amazing. :o
 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  12/28/2018

Thanks ylukyun! I really do love the creatures games and really enjoyed the work put in by other devs over the years so I wanted to give something to the community I'm no scripter but I can do some stuff with 3d :-). The scripting side is slowing me down some but I'll get there.
 
ylukyun
Patient Pirate

ylukyun

Manager



  12/28/2018  1

You might also like to visit the CAOS Coding Cave to look for testers and get development help. :)
 
Pixis

Pixis


 visit Pixis's website: Pappus Café
  12/29/2018

Wow, it looks really good!! I'll be excited to use it when it's all done [ngrin]



 
FaerieHawk

FaerieHawk



  12/29/2018

Ahh! I love mushrooms! This looks so lovely!!

Between my love of cookies, tea, and the observation of genetics in nature I'm practically a Shee.[ngrin]
 
veevveeeza

veevveeeza



  12/30/2018

Wow i can't wait!

You people are scripting and shading gods.




i love waffel! :P

 
Doringo
Lodestar

Doringo


 visit Doringo's website: Abacus & Ettinus
  12/30/2018  2

Hmm, it's a good effort, but there are numerous issues with the room design and layout:

First and foremost, the pond on the right side of the room has a very awkward design as a result of the hanging dirt (imported from the grendel jungle). It is very difficult to guess what the room layout should be compared to any other part of this metaroom:



This is a bad design choice because it makes it much harder for you as the mapper to build this area ingame. The image above uses impossible doors (vertical-diagonal) so its not a way to actually map it, and that is exactly why this pond design is an issue, it is very difficult to think of a working map for it!

It is also confusing that the walkway leads the norns behind the pool as seen from how the walkway comes out from behind the hill, but the background slopes down to form the pit required for the pool yet there are these three hanging clumps of dirt.

I think your idea of the mushroom house is a good one, as it makes up an 800x600 identifiable area for players to notice and remember. Ideally your metaroom should contain quite a few identifiable areas, an example of this is the stretch of land in C1 from the Incubator all the way to the Submarine, you have various 800x600 identifiable areas between point A and B such as the Garden, Greenhouse, Roofed garden, Temple, Jungle and then finally the Submarine Cave.

Secondly, the seed bank area has a toroidal shape, which makes it confusing as to how norns are moving through the walkway from and into the rest of the world:


Due to the way the background is set up, it envelops the walkway as well, being a tube of sorts that the creatures appear to be moving through. But not only is it a tube, it isn't exactly a straight tube from left to right, as it bends like a torus. This is highly unusual because it means the walkway isn't really connecting to the rest of the orthagonal world, it's just suddenly transitioning into it as if it was cut off.

Now, you might wonder how the Grendel seed bank avoids this problem:


The difference with the Grendel seedbank is that the background doesn't define the walkway. With the seed bank in your metaroom, the background basically implies that the walkway follows a tube and that tube is toroidal. With the Grendel Seedbank, the walkway goes straight ahead while the background has its own curvature, independent of the walkway and its direction.

As for your walkways, your metaroom has a "Layer Cake" design with 3 main layers, 2 which are underground, and a lift between them:



In my opinion, the "Layer Cake" design is rather stale and overused in metaroom development and not a lot of fun to explore when compared with more creative layouts.
Let's see what we can do...



I would move the nursery over to the right, freeing up space that can be used for a new room for creatures to explore:



I think it would add some more detail to the metaroom if you made the pond above the salt water nursery act as a reservoir for a small waterfall. Rivers (fresh water) always end at salt water, after all:



Now that the underground is done, let's see about some new walkways:



It's worth mentioning that lift shafts should not be too tall and they shouldn't have more than 3 stops, otherwise it becomes not only harder to keep track of, but a lift with too much distance or too many stops will spend too much time travelling. This means that in higher gatherings, norns can be stuck in the lift from it being called far too many times and from too many spots, or from them being in the lift for too long before being able to depart. An excellent example of this is in the Grendel Jungle, where one lift shaft has 6 stops, and is constantly being fought over by the ettins at the bottom, grendels at the centre and runaway norns at the top.

I couldn't help but notice that the metaroom is basically the ground and lower floors of the Grendel Jungle. In order to have the final product be something more original, the design will be flipped:



If you're wondering what the orange line at the top is and why it goes sideways while the lift lines go up and down. That is there because I'm proposing that you use a mover that moves across that direction, a Cable Car to be specific. I would be willing to code the cable car for you, as well as assisting you with the 3D aspect of the metaroom, as I have been trying to think of things to do to practice my 3D modeling skills.

 
Kazooo

Kazooo



  12/30/2018

I think the room looks really good
 
SpaceShipRat

SpaceShipRat



  12/30/2018

@Doringo Easy to make a room "more interesting" if you add like three times the space and content ^^

Cool analysis though. I think the pond is meant to be just decoration and not mapped, but I agree that the seed bank is kind of a weak spot, it's obviously taken from somewhere that had a perspective view, not orthogonal, hence the vertical bits going off in different directions, and also I think the "pipes" at the top look a little odd with the way they go nowhere. Plus all the metal, I like the lift because it kinds looks like "gnomes" have stolen old tin cans and used them for it, but the seed room is just out of place.

I wouldn't go too far to redesign a first metaroom (I'd say it's better to learn and have the whole thing out than to polish it till one loses interest), but maybe there's a better background for that particular level.

 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  1/3/2019

The top pond is just decoration :-). Good points on the seed bank area though Its kinda weak I had planned an overlay but it didn't work quite as intended :-). Been going through script tutorials just picking up basics before I try anything too complex design wise. Had intended to do the inside of the mushroom houses as separate rooms but adding rooms is surprisingly not too hard its the seed bank agent that's taking the time.
 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  1/3/2019

@Doringo I like the cable car idea but for a bigger room maybe. I really only meant the first few rooms as a learning piece :-) definitely like the idea of a large room though. Ive redone the middle corridor its still quite empty hopefully less metal feeling though but Im planning on a machine or 2 in there. Im still really fresh to the coding so even getting the 2 rooms in and the lifts in place has taken me a little longer than I expected :-/. Bare bones for the 2 main rooms are done Ive still to do the mushroom interiors but was going to do them last once Ive done a few of the plants I want to make.
 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  1/6/2019

I had an error with the Google Drive alpha I thought you posted the other day when opening up a new room, seems to be a problem with the lift button's scripts:

.\Bootstrap\010 Docking Station\SW_shroomroom-00.cos
Tried to set BHVR 1 when the agent doesn't have one of the appropriate scripts ... 12 2 "lift" 2 14 50 {@}bhvr 1 attr 4 perm 10 clac 0 e ...

You might like to check out this tutorial, which covers how to make an agent file, and also how to add official agents to a metaroom, and the C3 Bootstrap V2, which has commented editions of the entire C3 CAOSing.


My TCR Norns
 
SpaceShipRat

SpaceShipRat



  1/6/2019

TBH I wouldn't even bother with elevators, I think most of us use Elevines, the instant teleport means they don't end up getting stuck for hours in an elevator cabin just because there's a bunch of other norns trying to use it simultaneously.
 
Dragoler
Wrong Banshee

Dragoler


 visit Dragoler's website: TWB Development Thread
  1/6/2019  3

SpaceShipRat wrote:
TBH I wouldn't even bother with elevators, I think most of us use Elevines, the instant teleport means they don't end up getting stuck for hours in an elevator cabin just because there's a bunch of other norns trying to use it simultaneously.


You can't speak for everyone there, and elevines aren't perfect.


Creator of the TWB/TCB genome base.

 
ylukyun
Patient Pirate

ylukyun

Manager



  1/6/2019  1

It would be ideal if elevators-as-separate-agent became the standard. People who wanted them could inject them, and people who preferred elevines could leave them out. Of course, a room released without any elevators is better than no room being released at all, and people can always make do.
 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  1/10/2019

Sorry I got lost few days lol. I wast sure how stable the alpha was to be honest its why i pulled the link but I;m glad some people managed to grab it anyway :-).
Ive been wrapped up in environment modelling had to take a break from looking at scripts :-). thanks for the feed back though.
Ive been looking through the C3 Bootstrap V2 much easier to read.
ylukyun, Is it preferable to keep scripts separated then? And does that make packaging the file more complicated? I do need to just sit down and do the how to make an agent tutorials.

 
ylukyun
Patient Pirate

ylukyun

Manager



  1/10/2019

In general, no. Unless you have a very large room, you'd typically inject everything at once. I'm just thinking about elevines and how many people prefer to use them over standard elevators. If elevators were an optional addition to rooms, people who didn't want them wouldn't have to go to the trouble of kill hotsing them. Not a big deal, just something to think about.

I wouldn't worry too much about packaging the room at this stage. Once you've done the hard work of creating and testing it, packaging will no doubt be a breeze. If you do run into issues, I'm sure someone will help you. If you don't want to be overwhelmed you can practice by packaging smaller agents (like tutorial vendors and stuff) before you package the metaroom.

 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  1/11/2019

Pilla's had great success on her Githubs making metarooms with each agent in a separate .cos file, using the Jagent/CAOS2Pray/LINK trick she discusses in her how to make an agent file tutorial, if that'd help you visualise/manage the code better.

Once I figured out that the alpha would probably work better with a docked world (I was trying it in a standalone world), it worked a lot better. :)


My TCR Norns
 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  1/12/2019

Ive been playing about with it some :-) yes the link trick does help me get my head around it easier, I think ill find it easier to organise things :-).
I forgot to mention the dependency issue Id like to look at a way around that but still finding my feet. Linking cos files does seem like an easier option though Ive not had a chance to try it yet Id planed on trying it with the plant animations im playing with once Ive got a few more done.

 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  1/14/2019

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Dvpsiptt42PNloqqNTv4Otz_aLOsO_oF

Alpha v0.1
Current files they're still rough no changes to shroom room backdrop but some to the woodland room. Also a few test plants (just Figuring stuff out). Lifts separated into separate agents file as suggested :-). Also it should work in an undocked world now Ive done some testing and plan a few room changes. just thought Id share an update :-)

 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  1/14/2019

Looks awesome! What's the suggested order of injection?

My TCR Norns
 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  1/15/2019

thanks Malkin :-), I usually inject the meta room then lifts. The plants any order at all they're just to break up the foreground till I finish the rest of the deco overlays. may have an agent update with decoration later today probably as an extra agent file probably, Variations always nice :-).

"edit"
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1C2elMsDJEgL291Oy0mz6PCF3zllFW_gL

this is the decoration overlay agent.

I also noticed that there may be an extra lift file I think a temp agent ended up in the zip I don't think sw_sv_temp_lifts is a a required file.

 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  1/19/2019  1

You might need to look more closely at the fave places tutorials, they don't seem to transport me to the room when I click them. The doors work great, though, and I love the SHEIF. :D

My TCR Norns
 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  1/22/2019

Thanks for the feedback Malkin :-). I decided to do a bit of a redesign on the first room so have been remaking the environment as I wasnt happy with the result when I did some extended play testing, render times have slowed me down a little. Ill look into the fav place icons I did notice that they weren't working as intended I'm hoping to have some spare time to look into the issues I had with the code though and generally just clean it up some.
 
Kazooo

Kazooo



  2/26/2019

Any updates on this?
 
shadowwalker777

shadowwalker777



  4/3/2019  2

Ive been a little busy for the past month.
I do have another version it making a few changes. I will upload when Ive had a chance to make sure it works I havnt had chance to play foe a month or so :-(.

 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  4/26/2019  2

Could you please consider uploading the source files to Github or to the google drive folder? I'd like to be able to look at them and help bugfix/add comments.

My TCR Norns
 
Scatty

Scatty



  8/29/2019

I feel a bit odd about the unusable pond on the right, I think it's better off having some sort of space in it maybe where plants or dragonflies could grow, I think saltwater is a little unfitting for the lower space too. I really do like that design of the highest level though, the mushroom house is super cute.
 
Vespidazed

Vespidazed



  1/25/2022  1

This look like a fun room, poked around a bit. You ever thinking of continuing this room?
 


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