Planet Postmoderna Blog

I did not get to do too much project work this weekend as I was at a church retreat with my daughter. It was a really great break. I volunteered along with many others from church to work the camp’s kitchen and serve the 200 or so Jr HS and Sr HS Students. It was exhausting but fun at the same time and I know the students had a blast. It was a really nice break from the stresses of life and a nice distraction from this project. I also made some new friends and that in itself is a reward on top of the reward of just being able to serve these kids and help make their retreat memorable.

Now, let’s recap on some of the work that we did the previous week.

Ion created some new textures for the toolshed, a structure in-world created from pod parts and resources gathered from the surrounding area. We modified some of the shaded texture areas which created a little more realism. Notice the brightness under the roof of the first image below. We both agreed; that needed to be fixed.

Original Toolshed Textures

Now look at the following image and take note of the differences. Notice the interior roof and some of the other shaded areas.

Toolshed Texture Revamp

We updated the textures for the grain and fertilizer bags. Ion created an alternate texture for the grain and a lighter version of the fertilizer sack. The original was a darker green. The newer version was a tad bright so I toned it down with a trick Ion taught me. In Photoshop, I made a copy of the image and used a special blend option called satin. I played around a little with the transparency settings to get the texture to just the right tone. The final image is what your see below. I also kept the original texture for use in shaded areas.

New Sack Textures

Last but not least, we put in some foliage using the built-in SpeedTree demo that comes with the Mutiverse World Editor. To use it, I created a zone for a forest within the Multiverse World Editor and populated it with trees, grass and roses (those came with the demo). If we want to create more custom foilage (which we will someday), we will need to get a license from SpeedTree. That initially will be around $1600. After the project goes live, we pay the additional $7-10,000. I know it is steep but for it does, I think it is worth it. Right now, the demo objects will work just fine for the purposes of the Planet Postmoderna demo.

Farm Construction Zone with Trees

What excites me about this is the difference the trees and grass make to the scene. It adds a new dimension to what was a seemly flat landscape. Oh, okay, I lied. It is more than a few trees.

Work continues on the demo and prototype of Planet Postmoderna within Multiverse.

Today we added a fertilizer sack. This sack is used to contain fertilizer that is used with the farming modules that will produce food near Base Camp. This small model object was created by our own “Ion.” I think it came out pretty good.

Fertilizer Sacks

Additionally, Ion helped create a replacement to our original Comm Tower which just did not have enough excitement to it. In its place we planted the new packaged communications set. The set comes in two models. One is the collapsed version as seen below. The other is the fully deployed version which follows.

These models were designed using Blender and the textures were done with Photoshop.

Communications Tower Set in Collapsed Mode

Communications Set Deployed at Base Camp

Story Usage: These sets are transported to the planet through the space tear onboard the pods. They are then unpacked and deployed where they are needed for site-to-site communications. Unfortunately, just like all offworld electronic technology, eventually these are rendered useless by the effect of the planet’s crystals. This is the case until they are eventually refitted to use the crystals as a power source.

I am proud of that very fact. We have, and have had, a lot of really talented people on this project (from teens and students through professionals) and from all over the world too. It is neat to see all of their contributions. No matter how big or small these contributions have been, these people are all appreciated. I have been inspired by a lot of this talent. It really humbles me and sets me in my place.

That being said, and no matter what degree of appreciation I may try to give back, I realize you can’t make everyone happy. There are always those individuals that take things the wrong way–crippled by pride, those dissatisfied with how slow things take, or what they feel is a lack of organization or leadership or what they feel something should be. It is a shame really but that is the case in life.

Truth be told, those people exist everywhere, in every project, at every job and in every social setting; in life in general they exist. You can’t make everyone happy no matter what. There are always the doomsayers, the complainers, those never satisfied (for the wrong reasons). You can only do what you can do to make your project, your job, your marriage, your friendships, the best they can be and control what you can. You are only responsible for what you own. You own what you can fess up to being responsible for. Outside of that, you can only pray for the rest and I do that a lot it seems.

All in all, complaints aside, with regard to this project, I am proud of all the accomplishments and contributions of every last soul on this project and those yet to come onboard. I am glad they are and have been and will be, part of this team. Everyone else, just zip it. Find your own project. Kidding, I am not that harsh though many tell me I am too nice and should be more harsh.

This project truly is a community effort, where everyone has a say and contributes and builds upon the efforts of those that came before them. Just like in real life. Everyone has a place in the construction of this world. If you think planning this project is a world in the making, wait until you see the way the world develops at launch.

Cheers.

Well today was a monumental day for model testing. We have a complexed two-sided model called the Foreman’s Shed. This workman’s shed is found in many places on the planet where construction is being planned and is usually surrounded by crates, tools and other objects. An avatar could walk into it but would find it rather cramped. Besides, the structure is designed to be as its name, a shed.

Foreman's Shed

The shed is constructed from various parts and resources from the pods and the surrounding area. The ribs are metal and the canvas is from pod parachute material. The doors and the handle are from pod equipment and the wood is from the nearby area.

Foreman's Shed Other Side

Although the pictures don’t reflect the trees and shrubs in the zone right now, they do exist.

The original model concept was done by one of our early team members, Matic Mirnic, a teen Blender artist from Slovenia. He had a part in many of the models and concept used in Base Camp. He was the original artist for the domes.

Jitse “Ion” Akse, our artist from Holland, is also a very talented Blender user as well as master of many other 3D and digital tools. He created the texture that is now the final for the shed model and even added its missing internal mesh. I didn’t realize it was missing until I ran my initial tests only to find that the interior was invisible.

After taking the model and creating the needed collision volumes, I made the specular texture from the Ion’s base texture and layered his normal maps for added depth.

Now when you look at the model in the Multiverse World Browser, you can see the shine on the door and bumpiness of the raised surfaces of the paint, canvas, etc. I can only imagine what this will look like using CryEngine2 within Entropia.

We have been plugging away and now producing some new additions to Postmoderna’s Base Camp.

One of our newest team members Jitse “Ion” Akse, created a few new models for the Base Camp POI in our Entropia Partner Planet Demo of Planet Postmoderna. We decided too to have a little fun with the screenshots from the Multiverse Prototype and dressed up the images using ComicLife. Testee-bub is my testing avatar.

Ion created the new models using Blender and I took the diffuse texture and made the spec and normal maps from it. Being that the model was made in Blender the units of measurement are pretty small. I had to scale up the model before I could create the collision volumes for it. After that exported the model to Collada format and converted it into a Multiverse mesh.

After playing around with it a bit more, we got this.

We also worked on a portable reactor model. This one was a little tricky with the color balance and normals but I think we got it where it needs to be. The neat thing about a project like this is, you are always bound to get feedback and that is a good thing. We then can always make changes based on that feedback.

The reactor is a portable power source for the field.

Up and coming is the foreman’s shed. This structure will be placed in areas where construction is planned. It is built from parts from the equipment pods, pod parachute material and resources from the nearby land.

One of Jitse’s Poser Models, is showcasing the concept for us in this shot. Maybe we should name her.