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Development Forum How about an Aquatic DS Hub? c:    The Mossy Shee Jesseth        5/26/2015  1 Hey all! With CCSF 2015 coming up in future, I'd be happy to take part in it this time, so I thought I'd throw an old idea of mine out there in case anyone feels inspired to work with me on it c: The gist: A couple of agents have been made before that make use of the bottom half of the DS hub (the blobby core, the C3 splicer in DS agent). Aka, that bit down under the doorways that kind of looks like a second floor but does nothing. ^ pictured above: The blobby core agent in action, it uses the inside area but not the side 'flooring' the splicer agent uses the flooring but not the core area so much. My proposition!: I'm not much good at coding at present, but by poking around with the idea in the suggestions thread, I've been told it wouldn't take much tweaking to add that area and make it (or a part of it) into fresh water. Elevators could be solved with elevines to allow access if people didn't want to or couldn't code elevators/teleports. There also aren't that many freshwater specific metarooms, and water is sorely lacking in an undocked DS world! Imagine if you could just have water there in it's own little space for use, without having to add completely isolated rooms or dock your game, or sacrificing any of the other rooms by flooding them. It might come in handy for those who can't run very memory/RAM heavy creatures worlds too. c: I would be super thrilled to work on artwork for it! Even going as far as graphics for injectable critters, plants ect if the person coding was ambitious enough, and maybe even a transparent pixel water overlay if that was wanted or required. Basically I'm willing to art till the cows come home! (I think you might be able to search Jesseth in the COBs downloads and in the gallery to find art of mine that's in there if you're curious) I don't mind too much about the specifics, provided that the coder can squeeze as much space out of the area down there as possible without clipping out of it, and that fresh water is used. I'm flexible. c: I'm also aware that since there's already a .blk for that area, it may end up a situation where people have to manually drop files into the right folder for it to work, similar to the blobby core or some breeds, but hey if people are cool with that, I think it can be done<3 What do you guys think? The Mossy Shee & Co   Peppery One Papriko   5/27/2015 Sounds like a neat project! And injecting the cells into an existing metaroom is super easy. If you take a look at the map (dmap 1 into the CAOS console, dmap 0 to make it go away again), you literally need just 2 lines of code to define one cell. One to create it, one to make it watery. For the blobby core you'd probably not even need the map editor Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     5/27/2015 @Papriko yaaaay! good to hear it would probably not be too bad c: I could just go with flooding the blobby core, but it would be neat to use all the possible space! I wonder, would that need 1 cell or two... something like this!: with that much water, it should be JUST enough to keep some aquatic creatures in there! so people can finally have a special space for water-needing creatures in DS<3 The Mossy Shee & Co   Peppery One Papriko   5/27/2015 Room cells can have slanted floors and ceilings, but the walls MUST be vertical. You can't even define them any differently. Additionally, norns have problems navigating very steep slopes, as the ones in the lower portion of the blobby core. You should better split it up a little more. Mind my awful drawing skills, but I'd suggest a layout going something like this: The platform in the middle is not the greatest idea ever, but it should make the least problems this way. Splitting up the rooms a bit like this should also allow nutrients and smells of stuff and what not to spread more evenly and naturally. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     5/27/2015 Oh no I quite like the idea of a platform c: I think I put a platform in there somewhere in the ideas pool version too! There should definitely be lifts in there for top and bottom of the water too for non-swimming aquatics, I like that a lot<3 this might take some tinkering to work out a neat way to squeeze as much space in- thanks for letting me know about the vertical side walls c: ^ how does this look? with the idea being that the platform matches the straight line of the 'floor' beneath the hub? (also ignore the colouring on the image behind, it's just the file I have that shows the most of the hub room that I have on me right now cx ) The Mossy Shee & Co   Peppery One Papriko   5/27/2015 Overall not bad. That's about what I had in mind. The side-cells in the lower portion look a little critical, though. First, they contain those nasty steep slopes I mentioned earlier. Norns have problems walking on them and they have a hard time distinguishing them from walls if I recall right. Additionally it cuts a lot of the wall texture, doesn't it? Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     5/27/2015 yeah working with the inside of the core is tricky- I don't want to leave out hollow-looking space that can't be used, but I'd like to have as much water as we can<3 hmmmmm... would that be useful at all? the lower edges are raised so unless a creature is a swimmer, it can't make use of it, but critters such as fish could probably still swim around in that space and give the impression of a larger useable area. (also edited so the hit boxes don't clip the walls too much) The Mossy Shee & Co   Peppery One Papriko   5/27/2015 Yeah, that should work out well. Plants and critters will probably like that area. Although.... Compared to that grendel, the upper level looks a little low. It might cause problems. On the other hand I have no idea how to expand it without looking ugly... Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     5/27/2015 yeah, luckily adult male grendels (when standing up straight like that, usually they're hunched) are pretty much the tallest that creatures get, I think? It would also depend on whether or not to just go for broke and just completely remap the whole area and edit the .blk of that part of the map! I don't know though, I quite like the idea of working with what's there to make it seem more native to DS? What do you think? The Mossy Shee & Co   Sanely Insane RisenAngel Manager     5/27/2015 Grendels with norn bodies (e.g. Maraquan Grendels) are the tallest creatures as far as I know. I know I ran into a pitfall with them with Aquanornia Revamped (it's since been addressed). Going by the picture, I imagine they're going to be the biggest problem here as well. ~ The Realm ~ Risen Angel's Creatures Blog   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     5/27/2015 It would actually be interesting to see an adult maraquan grendel held in a similar position to the grendel on the screen cap! If it looked like it was clipping significantly, then we can figure out how to work with it- maybe the cells as they are can be tweaked to allow the height just about, or it might end up with just resorting to making appropriately sized cells and then making a slightly alternate bg for the hub room area. What do you guys think? The Mossy Shee & Co   Gumbo   5/27/2015 I think a slightly-modified or even heavily-modified background would be nice actually. The hub metaroom has a ton of unused space in it and the proposed cell structures in this thread seem a bit cramped and awkward no matter what - that's the fault of the room's layout, not you guys. If you're up to the challenge, drawing out a bigger space underneath would make the space a lot more livable and useful imo! in the spring you gotta let the flowers fully blossom   Missmysterics   5/27/2015 I do not think many creatures will fit in there, as I think their "collision box" if that's the right term, is a little bigger than they are. There are problems in small areas even when creatures look like they should fit.   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     5/28/2015 Thanks! Hm, ok so before I try and make anything for this, I have a couple of questions to pose for everyone. First off here's what I have/can do from here: -At present I am on a computer that has working copies of the jagent/monk-edos programs, so I can decompile and recompile things, make s16s and c16s. -BUT I do NOT have a working copy of map builder, not even on my pc. (no matter how hard I try I've never gotten it properly working, at best I can get it to save out .blks with some tinkering but that's it.) - I don't have creatures on this machine either, I do have it on my pc laptop which I can set up but it's a pain in the buttinski to go between two machines. - I have a nice working copy of photoshop CS6 that I make all my creatures bmp/ect artwork on, that works just fine and has been used to make in-game agents and bgs before. so the questions at present are: - Is anyone actually interested in coding for the water hub? I'd be thrilled as all heck<3 I just don't wanna do a whole load of art and then get stuck because I have no coder QvQ - does anyone know if the DS hub area has it's own unique .blk that can be replaced, if I choose to edit the base of the area?whether or not it does or doesn't will make it a lot harder or easier! - would anyone be interested in play-testing or bug testing it? Possibly we could do some optional stuff like see what happens if it's combined over the C3 splicer in DS agent, because I know some folks find that agent very useful to have around~ The Mossy Shee & Co   Peppery One Papriko   5/28/2015 Oh, that question is easy to answer. If used in combination with another agent trying to create a space there, the second one injected will error out as it tries to overwrite the changes done by agent 1. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis...   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     8/24/2015 This reply is super duper late but I found out some more stuff relevant to the idea of the aquatic area: the !mapz.cos for the blobby core, which is the original smaller room that can be put there, has this written in: "* Addon file: deletes existing metarooms at the same place, same background name" so I'm guessing that this may cancel out anything put in place before it or after it once you install? also, attempting to use the map editor has failed once again, this time not because of registry key issues, but because the drop downs in-program come up blank, which is a shame because that way you can draw in room cells but can't give them properties. :c With this in mind, I'm guessing that WRITING the rooms becomes the only real option, unless someone with a working map editor shows up. How hard is it to write a maximum of 5 room blocks and apply the fresh water property to it? (additionally, I found the bg file I would need to graphically edit too, so that's solved at least!) The Mossy Shee & Co   Wingheart   8/24/2015 Oh hey this is starting back up again! Hmm...I wonder if this'll expand into altering the Jungle and Desert terrainiums too? Those appearently have a lot of unused space too.   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     8/24/2015 @Wingheart I'd love to work with this, and I do love the idea of playing with all the unused spaces, so so much<3 It's part of why I wanted to make a water area in DS in the first place! The thing is, I'm sure this would take 0.5 seconds if I had a working copy of the map editor, but between me and ChameleonSushi (who live together) neither of us has a copy of Map editor that can do more than shakily save out a .blk before throwing up errors, refusing to work, or having menus and screens that just... don't happen when they should. QvQ I've also been told by at least one member that writing the code (if you're familiar with it) isn't even meant to be particularly complex, but I don't believe any existing coders have any interest unfortunately. The Mossy Shee & Co   Wingheart   8/24/2015 I could check map editor on my laptop? And worst comes to worst, the coding can't be that hard to learn, surely?   Sanely Insane RisenAngel Manager     8/24/2015 To address at least one woe about the map editor: If you try creating a brand new map file, you won't be able to change the room types or other things without exporting the .cos file as an addon and editing them there. To get the ability to do that you need to open up one of the two files included with the map editor (C3RoomData and UndockedStation, I think? I don't quite remember the exact names) and edit those. Why it's like that I have no clue; maybe someone at CL got lazy. My interest on this is kind of flip-flopping. I love terraforming and I do think C3/DS needs more freshwater areas, but on the other hand I'd much prefer to see a brand new freshwater metaroom rather than trying to make that tiny space beneath the DS Hub fit the need. ~ The Realm ~ Risen Angel's Creatures Blog   CosmiSynth     8/24/2015 Hey there! Just going to jump in and let you guys know the specific technical issues we're encountering. Jesseth's copy of the program is having registry issues that need to be fixed every time the program is started, so it's pretty much kaput on her computer for the time being. It seems to run much more smoothly on my computer and allows me to do pretty much every function it's supposed to, but when I go to edit the properties (air, boggy soil, etc.) of individual rooms by right clicking with the select tool, the drop-down menu it should be giving me that lists those properties doesn't appear. It just gives me a blank, white pop-up window where a menu should be. I've tried to run it in a few different types of compatibility modes and run it as an administrator, which sadly doesn't seem to help. Does knowing this help at all or give anybody any ideas? Being able to fix this would be invaluable to working on making new metarooms on our end. The Crafty Shee & Co.   The Mossy Shee Jesseth     8/24/2015 @Grendel_Man it's true that new metarooms and such are always super exciting! <3 The thing I can't help but think about though, is that DS is sorely lacking in a lot of stuff. Obviously because it's meant to be a freebie that encouraged people to get c3 and the mall breeds... But still! Metarooms obviously solve this, but I feel like it would be really, really satisfying to have some add-ons that make ds feel more rounded off in it's own space. Also it's worthy of note that the more metarooms and content you add, the more likely the game is to crash (especially on new comps, and with 3rd party content from different developers... I've gotten pretty used to it being the norm) and the more processing power it takes! A nice, compact add on or so to DS that meant that you could have some aquatic space without having to tack on too much extra or sacrifice existing space to flooding? That would make me SO happy- If we can fix up creature genomes to fill in missing pieces, why not the capillata? c: The Mossy Shee & Co

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