• Large Voidplane Craft

    BigVoidShip1

    I’ve been working on a vessel for Sharpheart – a large Voidplane craft for which I haven’t settled on a name yet. It is owned by a traveling adventurer sometimes nicknamed “The Voidplane Queen”. She lives independently of other nations and travels great distances through the Voidplane on her ship, all the while collecting, trading, and exploring. No one else travels as far, and she is responsible for many of the sparse nations being aware of each other.The vessel has a hangar bay in the middle (you can see it through the big side oval window above), two floors on each side with various rooms (14 of their balconies can be seen above), and one floor with a large single room on each side (topped with the oval roof window). The floors are accessed via an elevator, which is the gray circle to the right of the big roof window below. The back section houses the mechanical room and the two wind turbine engines.

    There are Voidskimmer craft in the pictures as a size reference.

    BigVoidShip2

    Pictured below is a partial view the front. At the bottom left is the nose of the craft which also acts as the door for the hangar room. The first balcony is where the vessel controls are located.

    BigVoidShip3

    The architectural side-view is below, where you can see how the ship is vertically symmetrical. On the Voidplane, a gravity-like force pushes things to the center of a plane (which for this vessel lies along its center line), so someone standing on one side of the ship would be upside-down in relation to someone on the other.

  • Ayra Katrin Library South Building

    I built a greenhouse in my backyard with my dad’s help this week. I also managed to build something virtually. A new site update in under a year!

    AKL South Building

    This is the south building of the Ayra Katrin Library. Previously it had a rectangular design, but while working on the underground floors I wound up changing the shape to better work with the layout of the underground and the tapering end of the ‘tail’ that it occupies. Each floor has a central room with the stairway, two side rooms, a larger room which serves as an office for a higher ranking member of the Ayra Katrin, and two small rooms in the front quarter-circle section – probably a restroom and a utility room. The top floor has a balcony room overlooking the hexagonal patio behind the main library building.

    This building is at the southern tip of Agwilcress and sits at a hilltop, making it highly visible from the south. This made me want to place some sort of sculpture to show off, and the new design includes a flat circular section of roof that was ideal to place it. I came up with a design that resembles a tree where the ‘leaves’ look similar to Agwilikan tails. These leaves hold up a large orb with a light inside.

    AKL Overhead

    Here’s an overhead view of the current library campus design, with the south building to the left.

    AKL South Building Previous

    Oh, and for reference, the previous south building design below. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a clear view of it.

  • The Veli Cliffs in Agwilcress

    It’s my birthday and I decided to do some work on Agwilcress again.

    The Veli Cliffs stretch across the region and pose a formidable barrier between the northern and southern areas. When the nations divided, the cliffs acted as a natural defense for the capital city of Cresselecapera against the Akelikans, preventing them from forming any kind of major assault. Agwilcress was in part founded to protect an access point up the cliffs near the Antalle River.

    I’ve been bothered by the size of the cliffs for a while. They were somewhat underwhelming at a height of about 64 nwen (16.4 meters/54 feet). I’ve gotten around to correct this, and now they cliffs are about 160 nwen (41 meters/134 feet) tall. Here’s pictures to visualize the change:

    Veli Cliffs - Old
    Veli Cliffs - New

    Because of the change, the stairs and ramp previously existing to get up the cliffs were no longer feasible. Instead, the travel is made possible by a major Ayra Katrin Engineers project – the Great Elevator (working title). That’s the new big structure just left of center in the second picture. It has a large cargo lift and two smaller and faster lifts for people. It closely follows the design of the city walls. You can also see that Tama Point on the right side is a much more significant structure.

  • A note about my life and CSD

    It’s been a stressful year so far, between work being very busy, working through some difficult family matters, and settling into a new house. For the free time I get, I’ve not been in the mood to put it towards my CSD projects. They tend to consume a lot of time for slow payoff and mean sitting in front of the computer a lot. Okay, so I still wind up spending a lot of time there anyways, but I tend to just surf the web and watch videos – mainly other people playing video games. I’ve done minor creative things here and there, but not really part of the CSD stuff I’d post here. It’s also summer, and I really should be spending more time outside.

    Sometimes I wonder why I keep this site going. I’m committed to an information technology career, and video game development just seems like a somewhat wasteful hobby at this point. It is almost assured that my game designs will never reach a production level, just concepts and tests. These are my stories and creative outlets though, and I do cherish them and part of me wants to see them be realized and presented to the world. I’ve wanted to make video games since 2nd grade, and in some ways I’ve partially achieved it. I’ve made some rudimentary games and virtual worlds. Just wish I had time outside regular living and maybe some extra talent to really flesh them out. Being able to walk through a living Agwilcress may be my biggest dream.

    Who knows if and when I’ll get something cooked up that I feel will be worth posting here.

  • Ayra Katrin Library – Underground

    akl-under-1-patios

    The Ayra Katrin Library was constructed with four main floors and and a small basement area in its center. However, the landscaping on top of Tail Hill ‘buried’ the lower floors, creating an illusion that the library is smaller than it actually is.

    The set of covered patios in the lower part of the picture are a new addition to the design. There was only an empty, sloping hill where these now stand.

    akl-under-4-outline

    Here’s a rough idea of the extent of the lower floors at this point, highlighted in white. Underneath the big hexagon patios are some common areas, including the library’s kitchen. The four triangles adjoining the hexagons are open down to the bottom floor and connect to sets of personal rooms (the two sets of four rooms you can see by each triangle) . Both the main building and south tower have two lower floors that connect to the rest of the underground area.

    akl-under-2-main

    A view inside the underground area under the hexagon. The pillar design was recently updated, making them thinner. This gave the area a more open feel. At the very right of the picture is where the Library’s kitchen is located.

    akl-under-3-entry

    Here is the entrance to the underground area, looking back from the hexagon. The doors on the side go into the covered patios, and the front door leads under the archway serving as the ‘official’ entrance to the library.

  • Pi/Tri belated update

    Alas, I have not put any major work into the Pi/Tri engine and games for some time. My last big changes to the engine were in the end of 2014, and I did a little work on a game idea in June 2015. Soon after that I got a job, and I haven’t been much in a programming mood since. Some things have changed since I last posted, so I decided to talk about those.

    Pi/Tri now uses GTK (The GNU Image Manipulation Program Toolkit) as its GUI framework instead of the Windows ‘Forms’ system. This primarily affects the design of the editor:

    Pi/Tri Entity PropertiesThe Pi/Tri Editor now sports a more structured interface, with a fixed-width toolbox window on the left side and the main editing screen on the right. A montage of many of these toolboxes below:

    Pi/Tri ToolboxesThe packager as well as resource editing screens are now integrated into the main screen instead of opening in new windows. One reason why this was done was to help with the way the OpenGL rendering is accomplished in widows like image resource editing.

    Pi/Tri PackagerThe editor also now supports undo/redo. Anything that changes the contents of a map (add, move, delete, change a property) has an ‘edit action’ associated with that has enough information to put things back if undo is invoked.

    Looks like everything else was ‘under the hood’ kind of stuff, just cleaning up code and fixing bugs.

    I might post soon explaining my Pi/Tri arch-nemesis: occlusion sorting.

  • Tatyakori, Dragon of Elehura

    In the Elehura mythology, Tatyakori is the legendary Dragon that resides in the hidden holy land within the mountain of Elehura. No other Dragons exist in the world and very few have actually met her in person, yet her image can be found in most cultures in various forms. Her purpose is not entirely clear, but there is a belief that she is responsible for protecting the hidden paradise from evil.

    As said, very few have met the Dragon in all of history, but the most important were the trio of humans that found their way into the hidden land. Each was offered a holy artifact which also granted them immortality. With those gifts, the three created an empire which spanned the globe. The emperor was ultimately consumed by his power, and became so dangerous that the other two returned the artifacts in exchange for the emperor’s removal.

    Tatyakore

    This latest change to the character was the first time I applied the dark coloring to the outer eye instead of the usual white. Similar races like the Gwil/Agwilikans are going to get this look too. The previous version of the character concept:Speaking of updates, I also adjusted the information on the Elehura Main Page while I put the new picture of Tatyakori in there.

    The purpose of the orb she has resting in their horns is… undetermined.

    In 2022, I updated the spelling of the name from Tatyakore to Tatyakori.

  • Crinos Kylal and the Kylal family

    Crinos

    Crinos Kylal is the daughter of the current leader of the Seven-Star Nation, Tessalus. Though she spent most of her young life hidden from public view (often stuck in a book in the library), she has recently become engaged in public affairs, and has shown great potential for leadership during stressful political events that were beginning to overwhelm her mother. Being a Kylal, she is quite tall (over two meters if you include her upward facing horns) and has fire-like stripes, where most Agwilkans have spots.

    The Kylal family are essentially the royalty of the Agwilikans. The name comes from Ky, the leader of the Naryyd, who produced the first Agwilikan and Akelikan (Dominesa and Palades). Ky did not produce any more children, while the other six Naryyd went on to create enough descendants to get the new races to viable numbers to form a civilization. Ky’s descendants have some unique genetic traits: each of the Kylal are only able to have one child, but no matter who the other parent is, that child will be a Kylal. This has resulted in a simple direct lineage throughout time, avoiding possible disputes over who will preside over the nation. There is a widely accepted belief that the family is protected by Ky’s power to ensure their survival. However, this faith was shaken when the entire line of the Akelikan Kylals were assassinated at the outbreak of the First War.

    Side note: I am looking at giving the Agwilikans, Agwils, and Prerarts (plus similar races in other storylines) dark sclera (outer area of the eye) instead of human-like white, as you can see in this picture of Crinos. The Akelikans will continue to have white sclera, as their eyes resemble the Naryyd’s.

  • Tail Hill Complex

    Tail Hill 5

    Dominating the terraced hill leading up to the Ayra Katrin Library is the Tail Hill Complex, which is called “pog get bekonah” in the Agwil-Narryd-Prerart language.

    Up front are two office-type buildings and the entrance to underground storehouses and workshops. Above those are a patio and a park area. Behind the park’s semicircle fountain is big square opening above the underground plaza. On the next level up and new to this version are the lower Ayra Katrin dormitories. The arch roofed section in the middle is the commons area, flanked on both sides by the individual living quarters.

    Below is the last version of the Tail Hill Complex posted (almost four years ago):

    Tail Hill Complex

    Besides the building upgrades, you can see another big change. The area in which Agwilcress lies is an arid area, so much of the grassy land is being replaced with dirt, rock, and sand.

    Here is an orthographic view of the entire tail hill:

    Tail Hill 5 Ortho

    Starting from the lower left and moving clockwise, the complex is surrounded by the National Square and a collection of circular gardens, Civic Square, Civic Hill, the Ayra Katin Library, Agwilcress Grain Factory, and Military Square.

  • Ayra Katrin Library

    AKL 4-9 Front

    AKL 4-9 Main Hall
    AKL 4-9 Main Hall Side

    It’s been a long time… one big reason for the lack of updates is that I have started a career job, and it’s been keeping me pretty busy. I have managed to get in some work in on places like the library, though.