Nyx Tutorial?

[Incubo]

I'm wondering if it might be helpful to make sort of a Flash tease walk through for beginners.
I know there's a quick run down in a thread on the Art of Webteasing forum, but I'm thinking along the lines of some sort of "manual" (for lack of a better word) that would be easier to find.

The basics of Nyx really are pretty easy to figure out on your own, but things like random selection, range, sound, looping, etc. are probably more than the average user would know how to do. Heck, I'm a CS major and I have trouble reading some of the code. Just not that familiar with scripting languages yet, so I can image how a non-programmer must feel when they read that stuff. They probably have some great ideas, but don't know how to do them or they're scared off by the prospect of having to write code. An easy reference guide of some sort might encourage them to try it out.

It's still in Beta and I'm sure things are still changing, so maybe not an immediate thing to do, but at some point in the future when things start to settle down a bit.

I can hear Seraph0x already......."Like that'll ever happen!"

[green]

Hey Incubo.

That's quite what I did here: http://www.milovana.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4355 .

Sounds seem to be often troublesome for some ;). I'll add a short description for that feature.

-green-

[Incubo]

Hey! I hadn't seen that one. That's great.
That's basically what I had in mind, but a single thread, from start to finish, to walk them through making a flash tease.
Some of you guys have done a lot of it already, just in parts scattered here and there.

[seraph0x]

It's still in Beta and I'm sure things are still changing

I've ultimately decided that
- a truly interactive teasing system needs a fully featured scripting language
- creating such a scripting language takes more time than we have.

So development on Nyx has stopped for the time being and we are working on a new system that allows tease writers to use the well-known JavaScript language to create fully dynamic teases. Some of the highlights include video support and the fact that you will have an even greater flexibility regarding the look and layout of your tease.

The toughest part of the development was sandboxing JS to make the teases safe for viewing. The second toughest part is the layout engine that renders the tease's interface in HTML which is about 50% done.

The biggest question mark right now is the editor. We could either modify Nyx to support the new JS based scripts or create a new HTML-based editor. In the interest of saving time I'm seriously considering the first option. The preview function would require some clever layering of an iframe on top of the main Nyx Flash window (because Mia isn't based on Flash anymore), but it should work just fine.

Cheers,

Seraph0x

[Incubo]

JavaScript is pretty widely spread on the net these days. Should be easy enough to find reference information for anything the author might need, so I like that idea. The added functionality would make for some interesting stuff too.

I've been mostly exposed to C++ at the moment, but I understand that Java isn't too much different, so should be relatively easy to pick up on. Not sure how much different JavaScript is from regular Java though.

[seraph0x]

JavaScript is pretty widely spread on the net these days. Should be easy enough to find reference information for anything the author might need, so I like that idea. The added functionality would make for some interesting stuff too.

I've been mostly exposed to C++ at the moment, but I understand that Java isn't too much different, so should be relatively easy to pick up on. Not sure how much different JavaScript is from regular Java though.

I'd say JavaScript is just as close to C++ as to Java. It doesn't have any classes. It's all just objects. This is called prototypal inheritance and turns out to be extremely powerful.

But really for teases, you probably don't even need any of that expressive power. Even just having if, for, while and *gosh* variables will be a big step up from Nyx.

[freaau]

.

[cumhardy]

Hiya Seraph0x,

would there be any chance to persist variables in a cookie?

This way it would be possible to do really cool stuff in teases such as note the date / time that a person finished one tease and then force them to wait before doing another tease in the series.

Or if the tease has multiple outcomes it keeps a record of your outcome, so that if there's another tease in the series it knows if you failed / passed / who you picked from the girls etc...

Cheers and thanks for all the hard work!
freaau

that would be awesome. i would love to see something like this. another thing that would be cool would be something that asks for your name at the beginning then the mistress calls you by name throughout the tease

[green]

Hey I thought about the same thing once (Java Script as "Engine" for the teases).

It's great that you're implementing it :). Sandboxing may not be that easy, you will need to cut out quite alot of commands/functions.

For the editor issue(Idea with that Iframe). I guess I'd rather reprogramme the editor to work without flash. Maybe flash has a component to load web-pages, but even if it had, the teases themselves will be non-flash again. Plus, having to work with a flash-tease editor would be quite .. weird, for doing non-flash teases.

Keep it up :)

-green-

[Incubo]

I don't know about saving info from tease to tease.
I know with PCM it works with a data file saved on your computer, but not sure how (or if) that could work through the internet. It obviously would have to save that information somewhere and if it's on the server, that's going to eventually start sucking up a lot of space. Just rolling it around in my brain though, maybe the tease could save a data file on your machine and the next tease could open it, load the required info, and then continue......I'm almost sure it's possible, but that might lead to some security issues. Not sure I'd trust an author I don't know with the ability to mine information off my computer. No way to guarentee they're only getting what you want them to get.

I don't know crap about cookies, so can't really say if that would work or not.

[seraph0x]

would there be any chance to persist variables in a cookie?

Persistence is a two-edged sword. It gives the author a lot of options to do some pretty cool stuff, but exactly the example you mention is what makes me a bit apprehensive about it: You could use it to add complicated hoops and barriers to something that is supposed to be fun. Maybe I wanna check out the second tease of the series because it's got that cute model that I love in there and I really don't wanna go through the first part.

As I said - a two edged sword. But that's why we have the separation between regular teases and interactive teases. So yes, there will be some form of persistence. Probably not right away, but it's a feature we'll definitely add at some point.

another thing that would be cool would be something that asks for your name at the beginning then the mistress calls you by name throughout the tease

Yes, that'll be possible. We'll actually go a bit beyond that, but since it's still a long way to go, I don't wanna give everything away just yet.

It obviously would have to save that information somewhere and if it's on the server, that's going to eventually start sucking up a lot of space.

Not at all. We're talking tiny bits of information here, like a name, or a date, maybe a number of "rounds completed" or whatever. The space is going to be negligible.

Cookies aren't really an option because they are way too flaky and some users probably don't want that sort of information stored on their computers anyway. So it makes more sense to simply associate the data with a certain Milovana account. You'll need to be logged in, but after the tease is over you can delete your cookies and your data will all still be there once you log back in.

[Incubo]

Well, Seraph0x, you certainly know more about it than I do, so if you say it's not a problem, then it must not be.

As far as the teases are concerned, persistence would add some very interesting ways for the author to control what you can and can't do. Personally, I like that idea which is why I write exclusively in Nyx now. You can't skip through the pages looking at pictures if I don't want you to. I especially like the name saving. I struggle with that now when I write. I can't call the reader by name so I have to keep coming up with pet names or somewhat neutral names like "worm" or something. Sometimes that just doesn't fit the personality I'm trying to create.

Like you said though, double edged sword. I've spoken with a few readers who don't like flash just for that reason. They can't skip ahead if they want to. Can't make everyone happy all the time, so it's a good thing you're keeping the regular ones for those folks who prefer it that way.

You got me all excited for the addition of loops and variables though. The possibilities with that alone are enormous.