 Rell-too    revision 0.4    2009-05-10
 --------------------------------------

 Hello, and welcome the the chain letter age, which is written
by a succession of volunteers. 

 Each contributor takes a week or so, to so SOMETHING with the age.
What this "something" is doesn't matter and it's the dictatorship of
the last person to have a turn that goes; it can be a change to the 
story of the age, or just a suggestion or idea, a new object, or an
old one improved, some scripting, a sound sample, a puzzle draft;
truly whatever. You could even take out something added by an earlier
contributor, which is why you, should you choose to participate,
should keep a backup of your work, so that, if someone does this
with one of your additions, you can put it back in, when it's your
turn again, if you really want it there. (The polite way to remove
something would be to give it page number 999 and explain in one's
history entry why it doesn't work - this gives the originator a
chance to adapt his work, or remove it himself.)

 This is how we do this:

 -  Everybody who want to have a go, announce their interest in the
   "Chain letter age" thread at the Guild of writers forum.
   www.guildofwriters.com

 -  They will receive the project files, in turn, as listed. New
    contributors will be added to the end of the list.

 -  When we get to the end of the list, we start again, from the top.

 We keep going until everybody are terminally bored with the whole thing.


 When it's your turn, I (Jojon) will PM you a link to the project files.
When you are done and have outlined your changes in the history text file
(as brief as you can get, without leaving out any important details), you
return them to me (there are upload solutions that should suit anybody).
I will then export and release your new version of the age and store your
revision along with all the preceeding ones, in case something goes badly
wrong and, at some point, we have to revert.
Then I will pass the project on to the next contributor.

 I reserve the full right to cut out things deemed, for any reason, unsuitable.
You are free to challenge any such decision in the forum thread.

 You can stand a turn, if you like, but then please don't delay in saying so.



 Contributors so far are:

 - Jojon:  The spider in the web. I collect what you have done and pass the
          baton to the next relay runner.

 - Corvus:  The first visitor to this age and an agewriter with little
           experience.

 - Perlenstern: The second visitor in this age. Blendering since 3 month and
                hope to learn with you and from you. I'm more a builder than
                a scripter.

 - Robert the rebuilder:  Visitor # 3.  I'm a jack of all trades, but a
                         master of none - although I do fake it pretty well.

- Justintime9:  The fourth visitor. I've been learning blender since the
               GoW Guild pub was released in MOUL. I've been slowly learning
               all of the aspects of age creation and specialize in Modeling
               and Lightmapping. 



Rell-too Synopsis (alter as much as you want):
----------------------------------------------

 For now, the age has been given the tounge-in-cheek name "Rell-Too", 
since it blatantly rips off ye-olde ridicolously-tall-pinnacle concept.
For extra silliness, it adds a slight twist. 
There are no clouds in this age, just a homogenous fog.
Maybe a better name lurks in somebody's head.

 Currently there is no story to the age. It consists of three (within
range of sight) hollow pillars, whose top bits literally looks like screws
driven down.
There are no plans to let the players reach the ground. After travelling
far down the second tower, they wind up on a large balcony on its outside and still the towers disappear in the mist below -- idea so far is that
the age ends here, with some sort of story macguffin making that acceptable.

Jojon's notes 2009-04-24:
 Apparently there is something below: our resident mountaineer Corvus
has made the journey down to the base of the pillars. On her way, she discovered an old piece of machinery of unknown origin. It is a cablecar,
which she has  managed to renovate and install, giving us access to one of
the neighbouring pillars, where she has left a bed and some writing
material. Hopefully she will tell us more of what she saw below,
next time we meet her.
(On second thought; she said she went down into the abyss, not that she touched ground, but if she didn't, how did she get the cable streched up?
It'll be interesting to hear more...)

Jojon's notes 2009-05-03:
 Perlenstern visited and inquired about the large crystal scattered
all over the age. I can't recall seeing any crystals before... Must
be getting old... She also noticed a chute-like bridge-y walkway
structure, made from a strange wafer-thin crystalline material, that
connects tower two to the third one, from the ledge that was previously intended to be the  landing spot for the cablecar jump. It appears to be
strong enough to take the weight of a human being. The walkway just seems 
to hang there, in open air, strange. Unfortunately it is broken in a place,
just before it reaches tower 3.
Perlenstern brought a peculiar ropeladder, giving access to the walkway. 
I must ask where I can get some of those ladders - made from some strange
composite material, by the looks of it, the ropes being curled braided bands, very strong and light.
Towers 2 and 3 were originally meant to be mostly unreachable scenery, 
at least not easily reachable - now we may need to texture them properly
and either add detail to tower 3, or come up with an excuse as to why it
looks the way it does. Something related to the crystal growth, maybe,
something really strong at the core of the towers, that allow them to
support their own mass?

Jojon's notes 2009-05-10
 RobertTheRebuilder added a day/night cycle. This age seems to be
rivalling Teledahn where day lenght is concerned. Disregarding the
tides that should be caused by that red giant, I suppose the strong
centripetal forces might explain how it is possible for these delicate
structures to support their own weight, but why do they not affect *my*
weight. (First one to pop a fat joke goes down the abyss. ;)

Jojon's notes 2009-05-17:
 Huh? Never noticed this cave before... What on earth did Justin do
during his stay? ..and why is this place a different kind of rock than
the rest of the towers? Maybe the minerals somehow reacts with the air, 
to produce the surface colouring? Looks like Perlenstern's crystals
have some interesting properties -- Justin has used them to illuminate
his cave.


 There is little else to the age at this stage. There are plans for a succession of three "rides":

 The pneumatic "elevator", which takes you atop the first pinnacle.
To get it running, you must first visit a lower cave and open the canvas
"iris", that throttles the airflow inside the tower. Lifting the handle on
the elevator will release its six "arms", between which sails are attached.
The updraft will lift the umbrella-like elevator, which is guided along a
steel wire. To get the elevator back down, one can either close the sail
again by pressing down on the handle (let's pretend the pressure is that
much lower at the apex (maybe a blowhole could be used to relieve
pressure near the top...?)), or close the throttle from below.

 Once at the top, there will be a minimalist cablecar thingie,
which will come to a sudden halt after just a little while of riding,
leaving you dangling. Possibly there will be a trailing rope, with which
the thing can be hoisted back up. From your precarious perch, you will
have to risk a jump to a ledge along  the side of the broken neighbouring
pillar and there we have the last ride.
(an embryo of this cablecar floats in mid-air near the top of tower1. It's
 supposed to be little more than a seat hanging by a boogie. A few wooden
 steps, should give you access to it, from where the path ends).

 The third one is a chute ride crisscrossing the interior of the second
tower. Either you fall right into it upon landing after the jump (this
would also provide a decent excuse as to why you survive the fall),
or you have to negotiate the cliff face for a while, before reaching
the opening.



History:
--------

v0.4  2009-05-10   editor: Robert the rebuilder
-----------------------------------------------
 I added time-of-day lighting and a sky dome with two cloud
layers. This uses the SDL file which is now included in the package.
The "fake background" and the fog need to change color with the day
cycle.  While it is possible to alter the fog (via Python script), we
currently do not have plLayerSDLAnimations that would change the
background material.  I also added a panic link region at the bottom
of the crevase near the entrance to the elevator cave.  I also added a
camera region above the cave entrance to signal to the visitor that's
where they need to go.  [Oh - I moved the spawn point out of the
elevator cave - too easy!]


v0.3  2009-05-03  editor: Perlenstern
-------------------------------------
 Added some small crystals. If you follow the crystals you find a new
ladder on Tower2 and a bridge to Tower3. At the moment this bridge is
broken, so that you can't reach the new hut with a big and a middle
crystal on Tower3.



v0.2  2009-04-22  editor: Corvus
--------------------------------
 I added a cablecar which allows you to ride to the second rock pillar.
There's a small cave now with a bed to rest on, and you'll find a niche
with a book where you can write down your notes.



v0.1  2009-04-13  editor: Jojon
-------------------------------
 Everything at this point is very basic and serves mostly as placeholders.
The basic screw model, made long ago from what used to be a perfectly smooth
spline object, has been butchered into probably far too few polygons and
given a single texture via a more-or-less one-piece UV-map -- this
doesn't work too well, but the screw part tiles rather well, so one might
want to think twice before ripping into it with too much gusto.
 The elevator has some basic scripting, which makes it rideable.
SDL variables and conditions will have to be added at some point.
Animation of cloth bits can not be done at this stage, because bone
animation has not been implemented in pyprp yet. There will be need for
new avatar animations, for the operation of the  lift and cablecar.
Some cameras and footstep regions have been roughly placed.
The exterior and interior of tower one has been separated into two objects,
so that you can easily select one and hide it.
(HIDE: "H" key - Alt+H to unhide all)