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Worldbuilder's Guild Proposal (version 3)

Regarding Creation of New Homes for Cybertown, 
or the permitting of citizenry to upload their own homes.

Whereas many of the members of the Worldbuilder's Guild have been approached concerning the creation and use of new homes for the citizen's of Cybertown.

Whereas there is currently no approved method for citizens to utilize houses but those available either in standard house form or by purchase from the Homebuilders store, we the members of the Worldbuilder's Guild propose the following:

That a method be created for Worldbuilders to upload house world creations and that these be available for the use of the author and other citizens.

To attain this goal we propose the following:

Guidelines for uploading our own homes

1. File sizes:

   1. Total combined size (the VRML & textures) to be 300kb or less.
   2. All house WRL files to be gzipped. This will allow the world to download faster.
      (gzip is available as freeware, most modeling tools will automatically gzip the  VRML if export settings are proper).
   1. http://www.gzip.org (the line command method)
   2. http://philliphansel.org/tools/wingz.zip  or
   3. http://vrmlworks.crispen.org/ (the windows GUI method)
      

2. House criteria:

   1. All content to be acceptable within the current City Constitution and other rules and regulations as published within Cybertown. (Remember this is still a family oriented chat place).
   2. While not recommended, it is possible for the world builder to include objects within his or her house. Many citizens would prefer to furnish their own homes.
   3. As in all world building, the style of the home is up to the individual creating it. It is possible to create a house that is not a house, rather an open terrain or forest, etc.
   4. The house uploaded must be the builder's original work, no previously copyrighted structures are allowed.
      

3. Optimization:

   1. The houses should be optimized and performant*, i.e.
   2. Houses created shall use standard methods of optimization currently available.
      (either hand-coded or through the use of Chisel, WebChisel or VRMLpad optimization options).
   3. Proper utilization of Universal Media textures is highly encouraged, if not preferred, and needs absolute URL or the URN in URL concept. Universal Media when used properly is downloaded and cached just once, though it may be used in many worlds. A texture can not just be used from the UM collection and then said to be UM; it must use the caching mechanisms involved with UM.
   4. DEF/USE or references are encouraged. Massive use of DEF/USE is discouraged. As an example 1,000 instances of DEF/USE would be unacceptable. This is for performance reasons. The user's machine has to do a lot of work to calculate where all those parts go.
   5. Maximum polygon count for the house should be under 65,000 polygons, determined by using the F7 key while in the world. This is a good method for the house checker(s) to use also. Again, we are concerned about the performance of the world on the end users machine. Not everyone has a high end graphics card and we wish everyone to be able to enjoy your creation. Common sense use of polygons encouraged (too many unneeded polygons should be avoided).
      

      

4. Homebuilders:

   Staff pay and experience to be the same as current Mall staff in all regards.

   An addendum to this proposal outlining specific qualifications for the homebuilder manager and checker(s) is currently being drawn up and will be submitted upon acceptance of the proposal to assist city leaders in hiring properly qualified personnel for the positions.
   

   1. Homebuilders Store should be converted to an operation  similar  to the Shopping Mall.
   2. Staffing of the Homebuilders Upload Area:
   3. Homebuilders Manager - Perform duties similar in nature to Mall Manager, with comesurate  pay and experience points.
   4. Homebuilders House Checker - Perform duties similar in nature to Mall Object Checker including:
   5. Verify houses meet established criteria.
   6. Advise house creator/s if house is denied and why.
   7. Assist creators by recommending fixes for any issues in rejection notices. May also be assisted in this by Homebuilder Deputies.
      

5. Homebuilder Deputy - Perform duties similar in nature to Mall Deputies, including:

   1. Drop houses in appropriate house showrooms.
   2. Assist buyers and creators of houses as needed.
   3. Maintain Homebuilder message board.
      

6. Showrooms:

   1. Castleworks
   2. Fantasy
   3. Fae
   4. Futuristic
   5. Ancient/Historical
   6. Aquatic
   7. Alien
   8. HiTech/Space
   9. Business/Commercial/Industrial
   10. Landscapes
   11. Starter Homes
   12. * others that may be determined later
       

7. Home pricing:

   1. To be established by creator as in current Mall.
   2. Upload costs similar to mall upload costs.
   3. Classes - similar in structure to current Mall object classes.
   4. Limitation of pricing to a ceiling of the same as Mall Objects is unacceptable.
      

Whereas the Worldbuilder's Guild has a history of discussion of this concept, herewith is a link to a prior proposal/concept from 1998  - Gortzvision (note: the links within this page did not work for me when tested, the material is still valid)

This proposal has been seen by all members currently subscribed to the Worldbuilder's Guild email group. Modifications have been (or will be) made to it before it's submission. A poll was created and Worldbuilder's Guild Members have voted on the proposal as written.

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