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July 17 , 2008
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Image Gallery
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Posted at 15:00 EST
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Now that the we have the site speeds back up and the subscription bugs fixed, I am turning my attention to the image galleries, which had to be taken offline for performance reasons. After the personal message boards at the homesites were rewritten, the image galleries reamin the last application in the first generation of the AW code written in 2002. All the other applications at the site, such as boards and homesites were written in 2005. In the interest of speed, the recent revamp personal message boards were written into the 2005 codebase.
Currently, for the image galleries, I am developing in Flash to allow for a more interactive and contemporary UI. This will provide for rapid browsing of the images with out "page turns" as well as drag-and-drop functionality. For example, in order to set one's avatar, one could just drag an image into a designated slot for the avatar selection. For deleting an image, one could drag it to a trash basket (or into the Cloaca Maxima!). This could be done with AJAX and javascript to avoid Flash, but these technologies are not yet at a point were they can be coded easily across browsers. Flash is commonly installed in most browsers or is easily downloaded from the adobe site. In the future, we will try to move over a non-Flash solution, but for now, the use of Flash allows us to develop new applications rapidly. Since the site has lagged new UI and feature releases, it is worth it to deliver some of these improvements sooner than later!
It has been great to get back into working on the site. Not only have maintenance needs been building up, but we also have some great things on the drawing boards that have been waiting for next-generation web technologies to arrive.
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March 9 , 2008
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Database Maintenance
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Posted at 08:00 EST
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The database needed maintenance that had the site down for the better part of the day Saturday. This was an unplanned outage. In the future we should have scheduled maintenance sessions so people can plan around it. |
August 23 , 2005
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The Carpenter's Cup
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Posted at 15:00 EST
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Almost since AW was founded I have received requests to bring the Carpenter's Cup game to AW. And who is not aware of the Carpenter's Cup Coalition and their undying campaign to hasten the cups return?
Well, I think it is indeed time to see if we can not find the old sage who gave us hints (for a small site fee!) as to it's whereabouts and see if the informant is ready to start feeding us his clues. |
December 3 , 2003
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Basic Chat Soon
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Posted at 10:00 EST
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As I was madly developing NaviChat, the demis suggested that perhaps components of it could be used to get a basic text chat online sooner. It was a brilliant idea!
For the last couple of weeks, with some time off for T-day, I have been taking the base components of NaviChat and putting them in a reusable "framework."
This framework includes the basic network communications, transcript display and room priviledges. Not only is this good news for the release of BasicChat but also will be the foundation of many possible "real time" features such as realtime Trivia and Circus Maximus races - as well as NaviChat itself.
Because room priviledges are being worked in, we will see the return of Private Gardens at AncientWorlds as a Patron feature! This also means that Groups will be able to create chat rooms and set their read/post permissions.
I am hoping to roll the HTML version of BasicChat out in the next few days with a Flash client to follow a week thereafter. It will be great having Chat back for Saturnalia activities! |
October 24 , 2003
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Roaming Rome
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Posted at 08:27 EST
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 Both avatars in the scene facing the same direction I am using a few test avatars in the NaviChat space. When one person turns, all the other people in the space can see her avatar turn. The next thing is to add the "walk cycles" to the avatars so that they appear to be walking toward or away from you.
 One of the avatars has turned around |
October 20 , 2003
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Avatars
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Posted at 18:00 EST
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 First try at Poser: A man in a sort of tunic. I have been working on animated avatars to inhabit the NaviChat space. it has taken a little while to come up to speed with the application "Poser." Although the clothing must be modeled in a separate 3D modeler (I am using Cinema4D), Poser handles the the cloth simulation, cloth dynamics, poses and walk cycle animations.
 * Bryce Yupanqui was most helpful in providing me with a couple of test figures rendered in Poser to get me going. I hope that at some point people may be able to create their own animation stills in Poser to be used in NaviChat. These stills could then be turned into "smart avatars" that will work in NaviChat. Since many people would find the learning curve a bit tough, there will most certainly be a market where people who do master NaviChat avatar creation could sell there wares. |
October 9 , 2003
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The Road to NaviChat
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Posted at 11:36 EST
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For the last month I have been developing the guts of the NaviChat server and client. Although there is not a demo that I have put online yet, the prototype is already a lot of fun to test.
There will be significant issues in accomodating members on a dial-up internet connection since NaviChat is quite graphical. I will end up spending a good deal of time optimizing the "smarts" of the engine to try to sense when to download lower-res versions of the graphics for slower connections.
I have also been doing a lot of research on massively multiplayer online games (MMOG or MMORPG). I am quite excited to develop the game "SPQR Online" which will use the NaviChat engine as its basic world environment. |
August 22 , 2003
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Contests Engine Almost Done
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Posted at 11:49 EST
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The main component to add to the site for the S.P.Q.R.Lives Festival, the "Contest Engine," is almost done.
Yesterday I finished the ability for Demis, Scribes and Group Leaders to create a contest and add the awards with site currency prizes. The hard part of this was to handle the transaction whereby a contest creator could choose what the source of the prize money would be. For example, a Group Leader who is also a scribe can create a contest using funds from either the "Scribes's Privy" or from the "Group Coffer."
Today I am adding the ability for people to sign-up for the contest and for the contest creator to award the prizes on the contests "Awards Date." The contest creator may do this by simply clicking on links they will see next to the names of the contestants.
Once an award is made, the prize money is automatically issued to the winner and the prize icon will automatically appear at the winners Homesite. |
August 17 , 2003
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SPQR Lives!
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Posted at 10:57 EST
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Although I have made great progress on NaviChat, I am taking a break to do some coding to prepare for the SPQR Lives festival that starts August 31.
The game itself is ready to go, but the "Contests" application needs to be written. I started on it last night and it seems to be going well. I will detail what Contests are in the next couple of days. |
August 1 , 2003
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Progress on NaviChat
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Posted at 07:52 EST
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 Early prototype for NaviChat  NaviChat is a navigable, graphical chat For the past week I have been developing the new chat system for the site.
I am calling the new system "NaviChat" based on a prototype we did way back in the days of AS. The chat is unique among graphical chats in that one may navigate a space and chat with people that one finds there.
NaviChat works with hyper-linked images, in much the same way as one navigates graphical adventure games such as the CD ROM of SPQR or the game MYST. The difference is that one will see the avatars of others superimposed on the perspective images to represent where in the space those other people are.
The main "client" for using NaviChat will be Flash MX (Flash 6) which according to macromedia is already installed on 86% of all internet browsers out there today. I will also make the chat accessible from HTML, but that will will be after the initial testing using Flash.
So far I have the chat functionality working, as well as displaying the avatars of the personae standing where you are. Next is to set up the navigation and the display od avatars in the distance. I hope to have a 0.1 version running for testing this weekend. |
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