Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here…  I’m really not much of a talker — much more of a listener usually.  In any case, there’s a rather nice update in the world of Plasma today:  As some people out there know, I’ve been working for some time now on a Plasma library (libPlasma) for Uru and Myst 5 related code.  Along with this, I’ve also been providing documentation of sorts to others working on Plasma-related projects so they too can get more work done in the field of Uru content creation tools.  Most notably is probably Paradox’s work on HuruStudio, and the works of who knows how many other developers that use one or both of these projects as a resource for knowledge and further development.

Well, now you’re wondering what the great news is, aren’t you?  Today, I finished up some time-consuming work on a set of classes known as the plControllers, which store key frames and animation details for most of the animation-related data structures in Plasma.  This means now that LayerAnimations, Particle Engines, special cameras, and various other types of complex data can now be supported by programs like PyPRP, HuruStudio, and AgeMaker.  In fact, libPlasma has now successfully parsed and re-written plLineFollowMods, plRailCameraMods, plLayerAnimations (and derived classes) from several test PRPs, both from PotS and from Myst 5.  So hopefully, we’ll all see some nice animated stuff comig up soon :).

Now, I’m thinking I might actually start some rendering and editing code for AgeMaker, so the thing can actually be somewhat useful.  It’s actually getting close to the point where I can use it to do real work.  Well, supposedly it is — since I haven’t written this stuff yet, I still don’t know what other bugs or misunderstandings are still hiding in there ;).  In any case, it should be interesting.