Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

• 2016 Yule Stockings
• Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 35 Post Mortem

2016 Yule Stockings

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]

Awhile back, when I was working on the fireplace sets, we had a discussion pertaining to the possibility of Yuletide Season stockings that could be hung from the mantels… I know this wasn’t the first time this subject had come up, but until that moment we hadn’t really had the chance to dig into the tech enough to attempt to create this kind of container for the sake of “hanging” from small surfaces and other deco objects… The folks here seemed to like the idea, and many of you seemed excited by it too, so guess what I had the chance to work on this week! Here’s the four initial stockings in Max… On the far right is the basic, rustic craft-able Yuletide stocking (at least for this year) based on the crochet stocking actually made for me by my mother long ago, and to its left you can see the Yule 2016 Large, Medium, and Small versions, which are all a part of the same visual “family” of stockings that will be available in the Add-On Store for this year’s Yule… I’ve already found a number of other “looks” that have inspired me for later types, and which I’ve set aside for years to come,…but these you see here will be the exclusive set for 2016!

Once I finished modeling them in Max, it was time to take them into the Unity Engine and get their materials working nicely! The hardest (and most important) part was the spec map, and massaging it in Photoshop just right until all the little bells shined like polished brass, certain surfaces glistened like candy, while others had the comforting softness of spun wool…

Of course, this test scene was lit up like a photo-shoot set, so as much as it allowed me to test the bump map and the specular highlights, it lacked a certain “Yuletide cheer” that would convince me that I had achieved the magical holiday feel I was really going for… And so,…on to my outdoor test map, where I had set up a few cottages in which to play with all these fun things I’m making! Below you can see all four of this year’s stockings lined up in a neat row on the larger ornate wood and stone fireplace.

I moved about the chamber a bit so you could get a slightly closer look inside them, to be teased by little treats that might also be appearing on this year’s Yule tree as fun decorations! Of course, these stockings will be set up not only as decorations that can be placed on (hung from) a variety of horizontal (upward facing) surfaces in the game (such as mantels, tall-enough tables, the tops of cabinets and dressers, etc.), but ALSO they will be set up as containers in which you can stuff all sorts of items (as you would a sack or chest) so that the whole thing can be given away as gifts for others! The items they are visibly stuffed with in the image below are, of course, merely representative of the fact that it’s meant to be full of treats which you can provide…

The basic rustic version (seen on the lower left in the image above) will be the one you will be able to craft in-game this year (perhaps we’ll do another craft-able version next year)… Rick has already taken one of them I’ve made and hooked it up in the game to test as decos, and they seem to be working as planned! Once I get back from this weekend, I’ll fully test them all, make tweaks as necessary for the sake of functionality, and finally create the “GUMP” to be used for its interface once the container code begins working for it… I’ll post more images of these in use as actual decos on a variety of test object next week. Look for these to appear soon for the holidays!!!

Happy All Hallow’s Eve! And here’s looking forward to the Harvest Feast and Yuletide Seasons soon to be on their way!

Scottie ^_^

Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 35 Post Mortem

Join the dev team Thursday, November 10th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 UTC) for our monthly Hangout of the Avatar! The team will be chatting about Release 35 and looking ahead to the Fall into Winter telethon later in the month!

Watch live video from shroudoftheavatar on www.twitch.tvThe YouTube stream isn’t happening for a reason that I am extremely suspect about. They claim it is due to “too many connection problems with the past few livestreams to warrant streaming both to Twitch and YouTube simultaneously”.  Personally, with my internet connection I can even do dual streams to both Twitch and YouTube at the same time. Same with Youtube and Beam.pro.  At least Portalarium is still going to put the final recording on YouTube after the event.