Putting It On The Map

It seems this journal has now become more than just a personal record of progress and therefore I would like to provide an update to my wider audience that the writing of Eh'ko is continuing well.

I'm sure it will be understood that although we would all like see continual visual enhancements and additions written into the Age (myself included), there is a lot of work needed behind the scenes in order to stabilise and shape the Age. Therefore, time permitting, the past couple of weeks have mostly been about developing and structuring the backstory behind Eh'ko, putting thought into puzzle design and getting to grips with what may actually lay outside the Age's immediate environs.

A word of thanks at this point to Nek'rahm for contributing some very intriguing ideas and concepts for some of the story behind Eh'ko, many of which I will endeavour to weave into my further writing of the Age.

I complete this update with two things - Firstly, for those keeping a bookmark, just a reminder that this Journal has now changed to: www.deuxbieres.com/bookofdeux/ and secondly, here's a taster of some of the sorts of notes that I'll be keeping of my visits to the Age:

Tree's Company

After what has been just short of a month, in and around 'real' work and a tough bout of the flu, I've finally managed to write a few changes into Eh'ko. And what is the meaning and significance of the tree-house 'egg'? Well you'll just have to wait and see...

    

And the proverbial teaser video:
Video: Eh'ko - Age Teaser

Statuesque

Things are progressing well with the writing of Eh'ko, but to keep the creative flame burning, I thought I'd take a break and do a little concept work:

Moving On Up

Despite being happy with the overall design of the Remote Age Viewer, I felt that it was still a little static and lifeless. So, utilising the recently added animated texture functionality of the PyPRP plugin I was able to produce a moving, simulated real-time remote view of Ages:

Video: Animated Remote Age Viewer

I'm pleased that the idea also sparked some discussion about using the technique to animate linking book panels, a concept kindly taken to the next stage by Aloys and implemented in a test Age.

Resounding Success

Motivated by the stability of the small Age I wrote in order to test the Remote Age Viewer, I have embarked on a more ambitious project - the writing of my second Age, Eh'ko. So far, I have mastered the describing of the atmosphere, landmass and even water and I believe that the fabric of the Age is robust enough now for me to make longer visits, with an eventual residence if all goes well.

  

Three Is The Magic Number

Shh, don't tell De La Soul... but they were *almost* correct. The magic number is actually 3.281. Don't believe me? Well, if you don't learn this 4 digit wonder by heart, your Plasma Ages could just look a little on the teeny side. Micro-Ages.

It Takes An Age

The Remote Age Viewer is now written into a small, but stable Age for visiting:

Age Written: Remote Age Viewer 1
Age Written: Remote Age Viewer 2
Age Written: Remote Age Viewer 3

All Dressed Up, But...

An update on the Remote Age Viewer. UV mapping, texturing and importing into Blender is now complete:

  

Next stage is to write a small Age to install the Viewer into. I'll be back when that's done with the results.

Down The Wire

I was thinking about computer networks the other day - token ring, ethernet etc. and how it seems that technology has gone full circle. With the advent of operating systems like Microsoft Windows, desktop computers took on the mantle of processing and storing data locally thus making a 'mainframe' type infrastructure almost obselete in favour of small workgroups. But in recent years, things seem to have very much reverted back, with desktop machines effectively becoming 'dumb' terminals again.

That led me to consider what, if any, type of data distribution the D'ni would have used. I'm inclined to believe it would have been based on a mainframe architecture and in line with that thinking I have come up with a concept for an terminal-style Age viewer. Along the sames lines as the Nexus, the master 'processor' would constantly monitor a library of linking books, outputting the window into each Age to a terminal such as this for remote viewing: