i changed the structure, try it out, its a bit clearer and less extended

Well IMO demihumans a bad dir name for two reasons:
[list=1]

• It assumes that  the races within are in some way descended from humans. If you read the bg story this is not so. Humans were the last race to appear. (Although the bg story itself uses the word demihuman to refer to elves and dwarves and such. Wrong IMO.
• It is too broad a category Subdirs, eg, 'knoll', 'knome', 'goblin' (which appears in the dropdown menu in the editor). Subsubdirs 'tavernkeeper', 'beggar', 'archer', etc. (which don't appear directly in the editor but are used to organise the arches).

Eg,
arch/mobs/goblin/archer/...
arch/mobs/goblin/beggar/...
arch/mobs/goblin/tavernkeeper/...
arch/mobs/knoll/archer/...
arch/mobs/knoll/beggar/...
arch/mobs/knoll/tavernkeeper/...
arch/mobs/knome/archer/...
arch/mobs/knome/beggar/...
arch/mobs/knome/tavernkeeper/...[/list:o]

Would that fit your requirements?

Smacky: that would definitely help, and i understand that the editor doesn't currently see the new file system, but i was under the impression is was going to in the near future- thus the greater organization.

If this is not the case, then i greatly agree with what you are saying that all the mobs should be on the third tier.... and the subs below that would be purely for arch conventions organization.

i guess we'd need Cher's input on this.

Right now, the editor allows choice from /arch/ (tabs) and /arch/whatever/ directories(drop-down box)  basically how smacky just listed in point 2.  The editor will be moving from tabbed to tree structure for object choosing (at some point when Cher completes the coding for it).  Maybe in the big scheme of things it doesn't matter if you have a file named a;oasijf.arc referencing gobbletygook.19281.png representing reed fmask.  Maybe all we really need is /arch with everything (except /dev which is also needed) lumped in it (that's how the server sees it, it doesn't care if the arch and images are in /arch or 2,000 levels down).  All it cares about is that the arch is valid and the images are present.  All of the organization/renaming is intended to make it easier to use.  Of course I haven't had the time to dedicate to RAI lately with B4 prep.  It's not intended for immediate release either, there is time to tweak it.

EDIT: See here for a different idea to handle it and make this whole thing moot.

@smacky: longir and i talked it out, and i think we might have reached something acceptable, please take a look at the new structure

So me and Tal don't even get a mention?
We were there too you know!

@Planes, better. But, for example arthropod is, for the game, a useless category. No-one is going to think 'hm, you know what, this map really needs an arthropod!' Rather they're going to want a specific (and recognisable) species or family within that order -- be it a spider, a general arachnid, an insect, an ant, a crab or whatever.

On top of this, the way it is organised, eg, arch/mobs/arthropod/arachnids/spider_brown/, means that, under the current way gridarta works you get arthropod in the dropdown menu. This would be better: arch/mobs/arachnid/spider/brown/ Thus arachnid in the drop down menu. Or even get Cher to change the editor so that the dropdown menu is compiled from the third and fourth level subdirs so you get:

arachnid

scorpion
spider

insect

ant
bee

etc[/list]

Or get rid of the arachnid category so there is no confusion over, eg, crabs (in a game sense listing crabs with spiders is bizarre): mobs/spider/brown/ and mobs/crab/giant/ Or keep arachnid for scorpions and spiders and such arachnids which, gamewise, are legitimately grouped together and put crabs in, say, sealife (although I'm now going against what I said about not grouping mobs by habitat last night a bit).

Why do mob arches use trans.101 for direction 0? This means there is no indication that there is anything there if you mistakenly put a dir 0 mob on your map in the editor. Surely dummy.111 (should be 101) would be a better choice. Isn't this what it's meant for?

For Tabernacle's sake, why? That just seems like busy work. What is that going to achieve? I assumed that the default value for X and Z was 1.X = 1, this is the first state for that object. Z = 1, this is the first frame for that object. Why one day change all the default X = 1 images to X = 0 (and why not change Z while your about it, if change is necessary?) What am I missing? It just seems like work and confusion (and a source of errors and bugs) for no good reason.

Well, i'm fine with it being .101, however... someone (i don't remember who, maybe longir) suggested that we just change the .101 to .001 in items, because the ending of an image that is made to be shown in the inventory (the face attribute) has  x=0. Now, this reason happens so rarely and is practically unneeded... so i am indifferent to this particular change--i certainly wouldn't loose any sleep on it whichever way it goes.

Of course, I am still adamant that people follow everything else in that statement (everything but the last set of parenthesis).

Do you agree?

Cheers,
Unislash

I agree with everything but the last set of parentheses. It is important in a community project to have a clear, agreed, standardised set of conventions which everyone sticks to.

But once you have such a set changing them without a damn good reason is entirely counterproductive. I don't see a good reason for most of RAI. Sure, there are big holes and inconsistencies in the arch conventions, but this needs people to sit down and design a strict set of simple, comprehensive standards for future additions, not to throw about some, sorry to be a bit rude, half-assed conventions that kind of work most of the time but often don't or don't make sense (an example would be the erstwhile map naming of mapb_nnnn as opposed to map_a_nnnn) or are ridiculously complicated and over-structured (such as the vast trees of taxonomically arranged mob subdirs mooted a few weeks ago), and then plan to retrospectively change everything already in the arches, thus breaking pretty much every existing map and script which references those arches. And to make matters even worse, the very people who propose these 'conventions' don't actually stick to them when committing new arches!

That's just creating a huge amount of work and confusion and likely bugs for every mapmaker out there.

I know that some changes and additions to the arches are necessary and for some things a bit of short term confusion is a necessary price for long term improvement. But basically, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Specifically on this issue, it was that y=0 meant no specific direction (for example, a standard floor or fwall) and y=9 meant inventory view/in-flight missle. At some point this was changed so y=0 was meant to cover both these situations and now you're talking about changing the x number to cover for the fact that y=0 is being used in two situations... huh?

ok just a suggestion but while i was makeing fire elemental dungeon, i notice man all the fire creatures are scattered everywhere but under elementals is just some golems (sparkel golems not lava and ice ones) would it be better to label say lava golems fire giants maybe red jelly and any other fire and cold mobs together in say elemental? and those sparkle golems maybe in summoned? cause from my understanding (which may be wrong) sparkle golems are mostly summoned golems with the summoned spell? if thats true them under summoned and elementals under elementals would make far more sense?

p.s. theres giant crabs? havent noticed them gotta check them out i got a beach with thier name on it

Yes I was a bit surprised not to find ice and lava golems under elementals, although I can see the logic of keeping all golems together under summoned.

But that's a good point about ice/fire giants being under elementals instead of giants.

During an IRC flamefest a few weeks ago I was making the point that the directory structure of the arches is only relevant to mapmakers and the editor and should therefore be arranged according to those needs.

Currently the directory structure under mobs is (sort of) arranged by race. This isn't particularly helpful. This sort of categorisation can be done with the race attribute.

From a mapmakers point of view, it would seem sensible to do as you suggest and have, say:

elemental

cold

abomination_small

giant_frost

golem_ice

[/list]

fire

demon_sfire

giant_fire

golem_lava

[/list][/list]
The directory structure is much easier to change as it won't affect maps/scripts in any way. We just need to agree on a sensible structure and then stick to it.

I would suggest maybe one more directory levell for mobs with a more defined social structure. So say you have fire imps with archers, warriors, sorcerors, etc., you could have:

elemental

fire

fire_imp

archer

sorceror

warrior

[/list][/list][/list]
But no deeper. It's a pain to have to navigate lots of dirs.

that does sound smoother *wishes we had fire imps* * wishes he knew how to draw a fire imp* *last time he drew a stick figure it was so messed up the stick figure is still pissed off at him*  sigh

ummmm  bracers_moon.101 or bracers_moon.001, arch bracers_moon.  iirc it was smacky that brought up using x = 0 (or x = 9 or whatever) for items because 1 is idle, 2 is moving, 3 is attack, so 0 (or 9) for inventory view.  y = 0 = no directional facing.