Minkata Update Build #160 2020.04.14
Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2020 3:10 am
It has been a long time since I’ve been able to announce news about updates on Minkata!
A new build is now installed on Minkata (or as I might slip up and call it sometimes, Minkata Prime).
This build is significant in several ways. First, the “physics” engine (some of you may know it by it’s commercial name “PhysX”) has been updated. While it is a relatively small change in it’s version number (from 2.6.0 to 2.6.4), it changed the behavior of the engine in many ways. Bugs were fixed in the engine, which the MOULa client actually had code to work around. With the bugs fixed the client had to be changed to no longer expect the “wrong” behavior. And in some cases the interface between the client and engine was revised.
What this means is that almost everything in the game client now needs to be exercised. Any kind of physical interaction in the environment, from kicking cones to opening doors to bumping into walls and jumping off and onto objects needs to be checked. And changes from past behavior needs to be noted as responses to this topic, so we can collect the discrepancies and find fixes for them. This is going to take a large scale effort, and I’m asking for as many community members as have time to help in this effort.
The new client in its current form still has some fixes that we know need to be brought from the H’uru client, so it is not yet ready to be sent to MOULa in it’s current form. But it is close enough that it needs a lot of people to exercise the nooks and crannies now. I’ll be updating the client a couple more times in the next few days as I get the last of the known physics changes incorporated.
This build does not yet take any other bugs off of my TODO list, such as the Windows 10 mouse fix. But I have not forgotten those issues are important, and after I deal with changes I have to add for the physics changes, I’ll try to focus on those long wished-for bug fixes.
Now, for the exciting part. The reason for working on an update to the physics engine is that it was one of the last programming parts needed to be able to use ages built with the GoW Korman system, such as Doobes’ Guild of Messengers Pub. We have been working since last December on first attempts at age testing on the Minkata Alpha shard to get the MOULa client capable of loading those ages. With the physics engine updated, this client has shown itself able to load all of the Korman generated ages we have loaded thus far. And with continued work on fan created and upgraded ages, we are on the verge of bringing fan ages into Minkata for final testing before asking Cyan to try making them accessible on MOULa. So this is not simply an esoteric update to some obscure software feature. This is the real thing!
The new build is live on Minkata now. There are not any fan ages on Minkata yet since we need to get the software working solidly before introducing new content. Please give it a thorough test drive. We may find we need to write new instructions for using the client on some computers where the existing client works but the new one doesn’t. But we need to know! Post your feedback on this topic.
And thank you for continuing to help the advancement of fan contributions to our Uru worlds.
_R
A new build is now installed on Minkata (or as I might slip up and call it sometimes, Minkata Prime).
This build is significant in several ways. First, the “physics” engine (some of you may know it by it’s commercial name “PhysX”) has been updated. While it is a relatively small change in it’s version number (from 2.6.0 to 2.6.4), it changed the behavior of the engine in many ways. Bugs were fixed in the engine, which the MOULa client actually had code to work around. With the bugs fixed the client had to be changed to no longer expect the “wrong” behavior. And in some cases the interface between the client and engine was revised.
What this means is that almost everything in the game client now needs to be exercised. Any kind of physical interaction in the environment, from kicking cones to opening doors to bumping into walls and jumping off and onto objects needs to be checked. And changes from past behavior needs to be noted as responses to this topic, so we can collect the discrepancies and find fixes for them. This is going to take a large scale effort, and I’m asking for as many community members as have time to help in this effort.
The new client in its current form still has some fixes that we know need to be brought from the H’uru client, so it is not yet ready to be sent to MOULa in it’s current form. But it is close enough that it needs a lot of people to exercise the nooks and crannies now. I’ll be updating the client a couple more times in the next few days as I get the last of the known physics changes incorporated.
This build does not yet take any other bugs off of my TODO list, such as the Windows 10 mouse fix. But I have not forgotten those issues are important, and after I deal with changes I have to add for the physics changes, I’ll try to focus on those long wished-for bug fixes.
Now, for the exciting part. The reason for working on an update to the physics engine is that it was one of the last programming parts needed to be able to use ages built with the GoW Korman system, such as Doobes’ Guild of Messengers Pub. We have been working since last December on first attempts at age testing on the Minkata Alpha shard to get the MOULa client capable of loading those ages. With the physics engine updated, this client has shown itself able to load all of the Korman generated ages we have loaded thus far. And with continued work on fan created and upgraded ages, we are on the verge of bringing fan ages into Minkata for final testing before asking Cyan to try making them accessible on MOULa. So this is not simply an esoteric update to some obscure software feature. This is the real thing!
The new build is live on Minkata now. There are not any fan ages on Minkata yet since we need to get the software working solidly before introducing new content. Please give it a thorough test drive. We may find we need to write new instructions for using the client on some computers where the existing client works but the new one doesn’t. But we need to know! Post your feedback on this topic.
And thank you for continuing to help the advancement of fan contributions to our Uru worlds.
_R
