So why are we going through a paradigm shift with Stomp Stomp Devastation?  Well, it's been building up for the past two days, and was discussed at the first SSD meeting, but then, y'see...this morning I had these dreams...

The dreams

Well, it all started with a dream-ette about a strange, firm plastic statuette of a white anthro rabbit.  I had it inside a house.  Something, some kind of curse that I was egging on, was causing it to grow larger and larger, and I was pressed down under its paws.  I think once it got to house-sized, it started moving around, but was still not alive...was just a large hard plastic figure still.  However, floating nearby, I saw a fox or a wolf morph inside a futuristic suit with a helmet, which was a VR control device for the figure.  That's about all there was for that dream.

The second was of...a game, that was already made.  It was some wide-screen format somewhat primitive 3D program...solid polygons with no textures or shading.  The title screen was all in vector-graphic single line fonts.  I don't recall the name of the program, but it was clearly copyright...well, let's just say it was copyrighted by The Evil Empire(tm).    I think it had four menu selections, but I only remember trying two.  One was basically just a dump of GIS data, kinda like in old-school Flight Simulator style graphics, where cities were gray areas with some darker lines for roads and highways, and otherwise the terrain was just green with some white tips on mountains.  And standing at the edge of a city was a non-shaded polygonal wolf morph, a couple miles tall.  Didn't do much and wasn't animated much...I just kinda flew around a bit.  The other selection was of a Wolfenstein-type maze game, but the graphics were full 3D and textured polygons.  In it, you were a fox I think inside a spacesuit, and smaller furry enemies would come up and you'd eat them, so it was kind of like a vore game.

In any case, I woke up and had this dread that someone was going to beat me to the punch, so I'm gonna ramp up my activities for my macro simulation. 

Simulation overview

Originally, Stomp Stomp Devastation (or SSD)  was going to be, at heart, an action game.  It was going to be a multiplayer 3D game that involved some people being battling titans and some playing helpless tiny victims in a growth and destruction contest, the winner spooging away the entire playfield.  Well, I got to thinking...the whole reason I was making SSD was because I was sick of us macrophiles having to get our jollies from tidbits that happen to be in other games.  There has never been a game designed specifically for macrophiles.

But then I got to thinking, well...the point is to spooge to it.  So doesn't the game get in the way, period?  Why not just make it more of a 3D macro role-playing simulation and forget all the bullshit about the "game" and "scoring" entirely?  What I'm going for now is...well, basically a 3D visual rendition of what goes on regularly on Faibanx MUCK.    Interactive pr0n0art, if you will.  Some people do drawings, some paint, some make 3D models and animations.  I thought I'd take it a step further by making the pr0n interactive, just in the way roleplays are an interactive, real-time version of a written story.  And what's more, I want the situations played out with this simulation to be able to be played back as well, in the same way people can read text roleplays for later "enjoyment". 

Hence, the project has been revamped into Faibanx 3D:  Macropr0n Simulator!  I'm going to start getting everything organized again, and get to work on this monstrosity.  In some ways, not having it be a game is going to make it a lot easier, which is good. 

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Dinosorceror, Administrator
Lava Dome Five Enterprises

Well what DO you think is the general idea of it all?



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Blue anthroraptor, Iconeer
Resident anthrosaur

(Linking the Faibanx muck map here hoping that helps google find it properly: http://download.lavadomefive.com/members/blue/map/main.html )

Well, here's a status update on the project.  First of all, Woulfe, you bet your butt there won't be any limits as to how big or small someone can get.    You will indeed have an eight thousand foot tall Woulfe in the same playing field as a one millimeter tall Dino.    And yes, you will be able to have directional identifiers so that you could locate me for a proper stomp. 

Anyway, I'll be working on a quick and dirty physics demo program that I want to get out by the weekend.  The physics engine is key to this simulation, but after a great discussion about the project on Saturday on Faibanx MUCK, I realized that it won't be just for having great building-crumbling effects, but for realistic movements and actions in the macros themselves.

Imagine, for instance, when Woulfe lifts his footpaw over the landscape.  With the physics engine, his toes would realistically curl down from the pull of gravity as the foot lifts.    Or when he steps down on a solid stone mountain, the toes splay around the terrain.  What I'm envisioning is almost a marionette-level control of your macro character, moving limbs around realistically in the physics engine.

Now, you might think...shit, that's going to be a shitload of work to make that happen.  But believe it or not, the beauty of the physics engine is that it does all the work.  It would be tons more work to have a 3D model and have to animate every action beforehand...stomp, grab...the list goes on and on.  But having each macro composed of individually articulated limbs which have mass and flexibility in the physics engine, it does all the realism for us.

And y'know what else this led to?  Roughy was a big proponent of saying that the average Joe User would be frustrated, not able to do everything they wanted to, and not having an avatar that represented them properly.  The first issue I think I've addressed with the physics engine by not having pre-rendered animations, and the second issue I will address with a Faibanx Body Shop.  Because the characters will be made of individual limbs that are articulated separately, I think it will put avatar customization within reach.  Having the user pick a 2 legged or 4 legged torso with 'snap-points' for attaching limbs would mean that a library of stock parts/shapes could be made, and I think re-texturing those parts is accessible to anyone who can use a Photoshop-like program and who wants to understand texturing.

Anyway, as I said, before the week is out I want to throw out a test ragdoll animation program to everyone who's interested in Faibanx 3D, and see how it runs on everyone's machine.  There are plenty that come with the physics engine...I'll just customize one a bit.    It'll also be the first demo made in the new development system...the last SSD demo I did was in a different gaming engine.

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Dinosorceror, Administrator
Lava Dome Five Enterprises

Well, Maksio, that's why we're making our own.    An engine with NO macro limits! 

Anyway, just a quick updated...I've dusted off my tools, and I am assembling just a simple physics engine demo, so I can see how it runs on everyone's machine...not just the physics, but the DBPro-compiled program as well.  Keep in mind, you will need to have DirectX 9.0 installed on your machine for it to run...but as of yet, it hasn't got any fancy features or shaders or anything, so anyone who's got a current Windows install should be good.

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Dinosorceror, Administrator
Lava Dome Five Enterprises