Tag: Linux

  • July 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    July 2023 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 159th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Mysterium
    2. Events in the Cavern
    3. MacOS MOULa client
    4. D’ni Language Classes
    5. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    6. Miscellanea

    Mysterium

    Calum opened the meeting with a recap of the annual Myst convention, this year held on June 30–July 2 in Spokane (WA). Over 300 badges were issued this year. A more detailed coverage can be read in our dedicated post.

    The Cavern Today podcast recorded a live episode at Mysterium, plus a bonus episode detailing their visit to Cyan the day after.

    Doobes held an Age building demonstration using Korman. As a finale, he showed a trailer for the first area of Descent he has been working on.

    ☛ The creative prompt for July is “Sun”; the deadline is July 31. Entries for the “Scream” prompt for June were from Calum Traveler, Talashar, and Redwoodrroad.

    Events in the Cavern

    PodHopper announced the Moula Summer Festival 2023, planned for August 7–13. Preparations are still ongoing; so far the schedule includes a Wall game, a Jalak game named Mayak, and a few music or video events. PodHopper will host a Cone Race contest, a Relaxing Session in Kalamee and a new marker game, “A brief history of Kalamee”. A schedule should be finalized in the coming weeks.

    Information about the Mayak game can be found on the Discord server MOULa Events, #summer-festival channel.

    MacOS MOULa client

    Darryl Pogue shared that several members of the H’uru team were at Mysterium, meeting in person for the first time. A few people saw an informal demo of the macOS client for Uru being developed by maccodemonkey, including Chogon from Cyan.

    They hope to be able to share it with more people in the near future, but there is a bit more work to do before beta testing, hopefully before the end of the year. Work also continues on the Linux client, but it is definitely not ready for testing.

    The work on the macOS client is leading to improvements to the Windows H’uru client too: they recently merged support for high-DPI displays.

    If you are interested in getting involved, visit the OpenUru Discord server, #code-dev channel.

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights.

    Visitors are asked to not post pellet points into the hood imager: one of his former students and a close friend, Yutiel Yoshi, who passed away in 2018, is listed there. He has refrained from posting pellets to maintain her name at the top, as a form of memorial.

    More about the D’ni Language Classes (click to expand)
    • Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 58324), or on Discord (r’Tayrtahn#1317).
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. There are daytime openings Monday to Friday, at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT, though availability is subject to change with little or no notice;
    • evening openings are on Monday to Friday, at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • Daytime availability is subject to change with little or no notice. Last-minute changes to class times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are telling the story of Riven as told in the game. After that they will begin the story from The Book of D’ni. Eventually they will cover all of the books and games. as well as the three human attempts at the restoration of D’ni.

    R’Tayrtahn records videos of the sessions (via an avatar named “I’m a bot, do not message”), that he will eventually upload to his YouTube channel. Be careful if you PM r’Tay or the bot during the events, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉

    More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
    • Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, gathering at the fountain at around 23:00 KIT, with the story starting at about 23:30 KIT.
    • For Story Nights – Europe, the gatherings are on Saturday starting at 13:30 KIT, with the story starting at about 14:00 KIT.
    • On All Guilds Meeting days, the event will begin at 14:00 KIT or 15 minutes after the meeting, whichever is later.
    • The stories are told using voice chat, so you will need to have your speakers, headphones or KI devices on. If you would like a reminder, please send r’Tayrtahn (KI# 58324) a KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.
    • Last-minute changes to Story Night times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    Miscellanea

    ☛ In July, the Fan Ages Expeditions in Deep Island will begin the Path of the Lost Ages, consisting of Palamary bay, Peridia, Myst Refuge, and concluding in Ruins of Azmar, by Melvin. This will take most of the month; after that, they will visit some Ages by Doobes.


    And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

    June ended with the CavFunding at 97% (CavCon 3.0) and the reserve at 592%, with no extra expenses. Population was at 48,397 (⇑225), with 1060 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, August 5 (Leesahn 27) at 13:00 KIT.

    Until then!

  • June 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    June 2022 All Guilds Meeting Summary

    Here is the summary for the 146th All Guilds Meeting, along with the raw and cleansed chatlogs!

    Contents

    1. Cavern Tours
    2. D’ni Language Classes
    3. R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights
    4. Fan Ages Touring Club
    5. Korman
    6. Development news
    7. Miscellanea

    Cavern Tours

    The Cavern Tour are back, on the fourth Saturday of the month, starting on Saturday 25 at 11:00 KIT in the Cavern Tour’s Hood.

    Larry LeDeay will reprise his role as the tour guide, r’Tayrtahn will appear as guest guide. Zeke, the original creator of the Cavern Tours, will also be back as host along Susa’n.

    The Tours will use a Twitch channel for the presentation, so you will need to keep a browser or the app open in the background. Videos will be available for two weeks after the tour. The stream will be simulcasted on Facebook and Youtube.

    The tours occasionally visit hard to reach places. Mir-o-Bot (KI# 32319) is often employed for special effects and long-distance travel (and to avoid stairs). If you arrive late, you can PM Susa’n (KI# 9122427) to join the in-progress tour – but do try to arrive in time!

    D’ni Language Classes

    R’Tayrtahn gave two updates, one for the D’ni Language Classes and one for the Story Nights. Currently there are two students taking the classes and are at various stages of completion.

    More about the D’ni Language Classes (click to expand)
    • Those who would like to attend the lessons should contact Rehn via PM or KImail (KI# 58324); be sure to include your KI number in the message!
    • The Guild of Instructors’ Hood will be open and public unless a class is in session. Daytime openings are currently on MondayFriday at 12:00, 13:00 or 14:00 KIT; evening openings on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday at 20:00, 21:00 or 22:00 KIT, depending on the student’s schedule.
    • Last-minute changes to class times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.
    • Shokhootahn Rehn (aka r’Tayrtahn) can be found on Discord as r'Tayrtahn#1317.

    R’Tayrtahn’s Story Nights

    Story Night Europe and Original Story Night are in synch, and are telling the stories of the kings of D’ni, which will go on for the next 14 weeks.

    R’Tayrtahn has restarted upload recordings of the Nights to his YouTube channel and is in the process of uploading the backlog of videos from previous sessions. Be careful if you PM r’Tay, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉

    More about the Story Nights (click to expand)
    • Story Nights are held in Tsahno’s Hood every Saturday, gathering at the fountain at around 23:00 KIT, with the story starting at about 23:30 KIT.
    • For Story Nights – Europe, the gatherings are on Saturday starting at 13:30 KIT, with the story starting at about 14:00 KIT. On All Guilds Meeting days, the event will begin at 14:00 KIT or 15 minutes after the AGM, whichever is later.
    • The stories are told using voice chat, so you will need to have your speakers, headphones or KI devices on. If you would like a reminder, please send r’Tayrtahn (KI# 58324) a KImail with your KI number included in the text, so that he can add you to his buddies list.
    • Last-minute changes to Story Night times are posted on the left-hand imager in the hood.

    Fan Ages Touring Club

    Korov’ev gave a quick update on the Fan Ages Expeditions he is hosting on the Deep Island shard, every Sunday at 11:00 KIT.

    In May, they started with a quest to recover Quilla’s piano through Elonin, the Beach house, the Cafe and Tsameti. They then visited a few Ahra Pahts shells they missed last time, including the one with the black fortress. They then visited the prison Age of Pakin, the playground of Hayal, the beaches of T’vel, the lake of Ahreeuhtahv, the castle of Chamassa and the memorial of Aquh.

    In June, they will start with the puzzles of Ahrkane, by Ekimmai. Then they will compete in a few Ages with giant board games, mostly by Karkadann; they will get lost in cubic mazes by J’Kla, and close the month with a few Ages by Justintime.

    More about the Expeditions (click to expand)
    • The expeditions are streamed (without comments), and the videos will be available for two weeks after. Be careful if you PM Korov’ev, as messages will be visible in the videos 😉
    • A gallery of fan ages with some details is available on the Writers’ wiki. Setting up a Deep Island client can be a bit tricky in some situations; a quick guide is available in our Troubleshooting section.

    Korman

    Darryl Pogue announced the release of the Guild of Writers’ Age building tool Korman 0.13a, fixing a couple of crashes.

    In other H’uru news, they are continuing their work on engine improvements, including many quality-of-life fixes by Zaroth and content fixes by Hazado. Work on Linux and macOS ports also continues.

    To learn more about development news, you can join the OpenUru Discord server (channels #hood or #dev).

    Development news

    Argo gave a quick update on the MOULa update plans for the coming months. Work on the lake lighting is going on: the final coding is being worked on, while animations are ready but need a model for automatically switching between states.

    They are also nearing the finalization dates for this next quarters release. The goal is to get the update in-game before August for the Mysterium decorations for the Ae’gura Guild of Messengers Pub.

    A few activities for Mysterium are planned for the Cavern, including possibly a marker game, assuming a fix to prevent them breaking will be implemented by then. No major in-Cavern events to go alongside the missions are planned, however.

    Miscellanea

    • Two VR games published by Cyan Ventures were released in May: Area Man Lives and The Last Clockwinder.
    • Mysterium’s COVID-19 policy has been updated, requiring full vaccination and N95 (or equivalent) masks.
    • Along with the convention registration, you can book an optional excursion to the Meow Wolf: Convergence Station art exhibit for a discounted price until June 30.
    • Mysterium Writing & Artwork submissions are still open until July 31.
    • The Mysterium prompt for June is “Resilience”; the deadline is June 30 at 21:00 KIT.
    • The Lost Art episode 14 is coming out on June 18 at 13:00 KIT, on MystiTech YouTube’s channel.

    And that was it for this month. Please consider donating to keep the Cavern open!

    May ended with the CavFunding at 148% (CavCon 4.5) and the reserve at 541%, with 4% extra expenses. Population was at 44,747 (⇑250), with 1228 unique visits.

    The next All Guilds Meeting is planned for Saturday, July 2 (Leebro 29) at 13:00 KIT.

    The role of Moderator is currently vacant, with Calum Traveler filling in for the time being; if anyone would like to take the role, it is your chance to step up 😉

    Until then!

  • Reflecting on 10 Years of Open-Source Uru

    It was 10 years ago today that Cyan unexpectedly released the source code for the Uru game engine client and related development tools. I recall thinking it was inconvenient timing, because I was less than a month away from being finished with school, but right in the middle of final projects and exams when the source was released. It’s funny looking back at all the excitement – and politics – and seeing where it led to.

    A lot changes over the course of 10 years. Sometimes a lot stays the same too. Our group of developers has seen people come and go over the years, and I’m incredibly grateful to get to work alongside many of these people — in some cases for over 15 years developing tools and Uru-related projects long before the engine codebase itself was released. It’s not an understatement to say that Uru is directly responsible for my becoming a software developer, and I owe a lot to these folks who patiently explained concepts and patterns to self-taught younger me.

    A lot changes in a codebase over the course of 10 years too, and that’s what I want to focus on today.

    There have been almost 700 pull requests merged to the Plasma project since we mirrored the original source code on GitHub. Some of the highlights include:

    • Replacing the Visual Studio 2003 project files with the CMake build system, which allows building on multiple platforms with various compilers and IDEs.
    • Updating the physics engine to PhysX 4.1 which is open-source and cross-platform.
    • Updating the scripting library to Python 3.9.
    • Simplifying management of library dependencies, and writing new user-friendly build instructions.
    • Significant code modernization by adopting features of new C++ standards in favour of custom implementations.
    • Various performance improvements and gameplay enhancements, such as clipboard functionality and widescreen support.
    • Lots of code cleanup to allow for 64-bit and (in future) native macOS and Linux clients

    This work has been a group effort, with lots of contributions from the core H’uru team as well as numerous community contributions. A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to Uru over the years, whether through code changes, bug reports, tutorials and documentation, or gameplay testing.