Some new features...

I'm trying to build this site up to be a nice resource and I enjoy adding things to the toolbar on the right side of the page.  In particular the new chat box is exciting though I doubt it will see much use, and the 'What's new in AW' box is something I check everyday now because its proved to be a useful tool. :)

What do you guys think?  Cluttered or am I doing alright over there so far?

Browser - Screenshots in Active Worlds

Short of video, screenshots are one of the easiest ways to present your virtual project to the world.  Problem is, most people have problems setting up to take even the most simple screenshot.  Fortunately for us, the process has been streamlined since Version 4.1. Did you know that Active Worlds has a native screenshot feature?  I've spent many years taking screenshots for projects and articles, and for a long time it's been a convoluted process of taking the screenshot and cropping it in an image editor. With the use of a simple hotkey, I can take many screenshots in a short time and I don't have to edit them all right then and there.  It's very handy. :)

In order to get started using the native feature, you'll need to set a 'Screen Shot hotkey' that you use to take the screenshot while in browser.  Once you press the key, the screen will stop briefly and an image of your 3D window will be saved as a JPEG file in your Active Worlds directory.

So to begin, lets set the hotkey.  Nagivate to your 'Keyboard Controls' window by clicking Options > Configure Controls on the top menu bar.

Pick a hotkey to link the 'Screen Shot' option to; I linked mine to the . key on my number pad.

After navigating to the screenshot option, just press the key you'd like to use and apply it, then press OK.  Now you're set!  Just press that hotkey and then check your Active Worlds directory (most commonly found at C:\ActiveWorlds).  Your images will be saved as JPEGs, in the format 'imageXXX.jpg.' Your first image should be 'image000.jpg.'  Try it a few times and check it out.  Below are some images that I've uploaded using this technique.

Rising Glen Retreat, Alphaworld

Highridge Waterfall, Alphaworld

I'm using a widescreen monitor right now, and from that you can probably infer that these screenshots stick with your current resolution.  If you want to change the resolution of the image, you could do so easily by shrinking the Active Worlds Browser to the preferred size, and then take the screenshot.  This shortcut is a very helpful and easy solution to keeping records of your virtual projects in Active Worlds, and definitely saves on time when you're needing to take many pictures in a hurry!

Uploading screenshots to the internet is another matter, and I won't elaborate on that in this post.  You can use image hosting services online or upload them to the Active Worlds Forums through your control panel.

Building - Byte's Interactive Building Class, detailing the At trigger and Timer command

For anyone who missed it, Byte taught an excellent class detailing AT trigger and Timer command today.  This topic was of particular interest to me, because I love building games and characters you can interact with.  Virtual buildings and cities are great, but what's the point if they're lifeless?

Both of these new features exist to make interactive building a bit easier, and they expand upon what we could do originally with astart scripting.  For those of you who are lost, here's a rundown:

AT trigger - The at trigger will activate commands after a set amount of time, or at a scheduled time in VRT.

Byte:    The at trigger has two uses.  It is used to either trigger a set of commands at a certain point during a timer, or to trigger a set of commands in sync with the VRT clock.

TIMER command - The timer command creates a timer in memory that allows a user to activate events after a set amount of time.

Byte:    First off the timer command can be used with any trigger, even the at trigger, to create, reset, or stop a timer with a given name.
Byte:    Every timer has a duration, which is the number of milliseconds the timer will last for.
Byte:    An example of a timer called ABC with a duration of 1 second would be:  create timer ABC 1000
Byte:    Timers have multiple parameters, though.  They take the form: <trigger> timer tmName duration [loop=1] [stop | reset] [global]

Help me pick a topic!

Hey guys!  I've been asked to teach a class for the new AWUniversity project in AWSchool, and I'd be happy to... but I don't know what to teach!  I threw up a poll on the AWForums with a few things that I feel comfortable talking about, so head over there and pick what you're interested in.  Hopefully from the feedback I'll be able to structure a class, perhaps for next weekend. :)

Link: http://forums.activeworlds.com/showthread.php?t=14950

Townbuilding - The Big Board of Townbuilding

Ever wanted to know how to build virtual cities?  I've hosted a townbuilding booth at each AWExpo, and a few years ago I made a 'Big Board of Townbuilding' that offered a very nice visual of resources that you can follow up on.  This is the blog's introduction foray into Townbuilding, and hopefully I'll have some guides and tutorials up soon.

In the meantime, click on the image below to enlarge enlarge the image.  Warning: It's pretty big.  Enjoy!

Click to enlarge!

The forums beat me to the punch!

Before I had even finished my blog post for yesterday, some activity about AWGate stirred on the forums and eventually moved to a full-blown discussion.  I tend to go where the action is, so I opted to post my thoughts there yesterday instead of here.  I'll repost them below and then post an addendum based on the current poll results.

Yesterday's Rant: Linked here

...I'm also of the persuasion that the GKs aren't an effective organization, but that doesn't mean that I have to join the organization and effect change from the inside to justify my opinion. The way new users are exposed to the technology needs to be radically examined, and I think that includes the dissolution of the gatekeepers -- or at least restructuring the constituent members into a more effective team. For example, a lot of people complain about the current gate world and it's gotten a really bad rap that I think is entirely undeserved. It's more difficult to navigate; its color scheme is bland; don't like the theme. From a design standpoint, the circular plaza with informative kiosks flanking the entry point is probably the most economic placing of information you'll get in a 3D environment. The outdoor themed gate is easier to navigate, certainly, but all of the information and teleports were scattered all over the place; which is bad for new users.

The reason I bring up this design is because I don't think that the institution that is suppose to be our face to new users has really *gotten* the point of the new design, hasn't cared to *get* the point of the new design, and has ultimately made it harder for new users to know what to do because of it. There are a number of inconsistencies between what the form of the current gate intends to do, and what the stubborn people at the gate do in practice.

The easiest example to illustrate: The current gate has two 'help desk' areas that are readily visible and accessible for new users. We're in a 3D environment, and ideally a new user should be picking up on visual cues sooner than cues that they would see in chat. Now when I'm in the gate, it's pretty hit or miss if there's anyone actually at these desks. At the very least, if there is a gatekeeper on duty (even if this is not a written rule) it would be in the best interest of new users for them to be at least standing around the desk that is out in the plaza, that is labeled for the gatekeeper. Why is that? Because if I go to AWGate, don't know anything about Gatekeepers, AND I see an empty help desk where somebody should be standing... my logical assumption is that nobody is around to help. Also, if I am a new user... I don't know the significance of bold text. I could probably infer it, but what if the GK is off getting a drink or something and there hasn't been any bold text since I arrived in the world? An idle avatar at the help desk at least implies that there is suppose to be someone around to help me, and I could perhaps wait a moment instead of getting frustrated and X'ing out of the program.

This is an example of a small, nuanced change in the Gate world since it's last design, but for an organization that makes it's home in that world I think they should have adapted to the very helpful visual cue being provided to new users. If they don't, it is a very hurtful visual cue to that new user's experience, because it portrays the image that nobody is available to help them.

I don't know the internal workings of the gatekeepers so I don't know if there is any sort of policy concerning specifically how to interact beyond the chat box, but I've been lurking in the gate quite a bit lately for a video project and my observations are concerning. Most of the time, the people there just aren't engaging the world. I mean really, what's the point if you aren't engaging the world!? What the heck are you doing??? Can we have an option to close out the 3D window? That should be an option, because some people are only looking at chat!!!

This is something that can easily be taught and corrected, but a there are a lot of ideas floating around now for what could be done for AWGate and I think the gate concept and the new users that are trying to get into AW deserve a better collaborative effort that joins the designed effort of the build world with the social effort of community volunteers. The world's got *great* visual hints right now, and I think our creative community could expand on them and really see something good through if we would stop relying on old institutions to do it for us.

I think it's time we give something else a try.

As far as the poll goes; I'm more partial to the options that are rooted in reality. :P I voted for the alternative to AWGate that seems the most readily available -- moving the entry point to AWSchool.  I'm actually partial to either the AWSchool or AWNewbie option, but AWSchool has a much larger active staff these days and if the desire was there, the staff of AWSchool could take on AWNewbie in a new effort for the new users.  I'm glad to see both of the 'tutorial-themed' options doing so well in the polls. :)

Of the alternatives discussed, I'm also very fond of JonBee's suggestion for a quest-based tutorial experience.  This wasn't a poll option, but it essentially offers a stand-alone tutorial to new users before letting them loose in our world.  This idea has been around for a while, and I think its really great because it gets your feet wet a bit before jumping in.  No more getting frustrated and quitting because you don't know how to walk!

My rant from yesterday really only addressed AWGate, but since then the issue seems to have grown to a larger question: Is AWGate enough, and if it isn't, where else could we move new users to?  Reading through my discussion from yesterday, I think you would be able to infer that I have no problems with the built environment of AWGate.  I actually have nothing but praise for it; it was very well laid out, and there are some features that are incomplete but on-the-whole it does a very good job of being a gate; it gets people in and through the door. My biggest complaint is, in fact, that we aren't using it right... but that's not any fault of the design. :)

Anyway I'll be following this discussion thread and may offer up some more insight later on.  I'd like to wrap my head around all of the opinions before I continue commentary.  Very good discussions going on right now, feel free to join in!

In the meantime, I'm going to be posting up some older material and parsing through some things I'd like to host on here as I continue getting ready to develop this into a resource blog.  I'll probably not promote these posts, and may even bury them as pages -- just want them around.  Doing a bit of housekeeping.

Later!

What is your opinion of AWGate?

I won't be doing a long post tonight, but I just wanted to stop in and get some opinions on AWGate for my next one. :)

Overview of AWGate as it exists today; a central hub in a futuristic city

This is prompted by a pretty good discussion we had Sunday at the Town Hall Meeting; I'm not sure that a consensus was reached as far as the opinion, but a lot of suggestions were offered as to what could be done to improve it, including things that we do and don't have the authority to do.  The discussion touched on pretty much everything you could expect, from the built form of the world to how people actually interact with one another.

I'd like to further explore the built environment and the interpersonal interaction, as I feel those are two pretty big factors in the success or failure of the Gate.  How about you guys?

What do you think is important?

Let me know.  You can do so here, or by visiting the forum blogs page and keeping up with us there.  Whichever medium is more comfortable for you.

Later!

From 3D to 2D: How do you express a 3D product in a 2D browser?

How do you express a 3D product in a 2D browser?  I raised this concern during the flamefest regarding the update to activeworlds.com a while back, and I don't think the question has ever been resolved.

Supposing that the best place to begin is experience, perhaps we can look to how we learned in the browser.  We all know what Active Worlds is; how to use it, where to go to find people... its various nuances that we like or dislike.  Learning about that took some time -- even though I was hooked on my first day.  Building certainly took a while to understand, even if my first attempts were pretty awful.  (BTW, I know those coordinates in my memory even after all these years!) Despite a rough beginning, I did manage to learn about correctly spacing objects and I had a great time doing it!  From my first build I went on to create my first town, and as I began interacting and collaborating with other users, very early on I understood that we all had a different level of competency with the technology, and looking back on that now perhaps that has to do with how we came to experience Active Worlds and virtual technology in general. One guy came in right from AWGate.  I came to build after getting some help in AWNewbie.  A few days later I brought in a friend from class and taught him myself!  Back in 2002, there were plenty of ways for new users to learn and understand Active Worlds.

Today, this is still true.  Perhaps not to the magnitude, but AWGate is much more educational than it has been in the past, and AWSchool is more active than I've ever known it to be.  AWNewbie has seen better days, but the framework is still there and generally, if a new user wants to learn, well, they'll have plenty of options.  This is all well and good for the ones who have made it as far as AWGate, but I think our focus needs to move even further out.  Out beyond our universe -- to the 2D web browsers that are the bread and butter of the typical internet user's experience.  What does Active Worlds look like... to them?
 

Busy Day! In the meantime...

Hey everyone!  I won't be able to get a full-fledged post up for tonight but I do have enough time to drop a small blurb in and offer you some thoughts about tomorrow's post!  I want to start discussing how to really do justice to a 3D project in a 2D presentation environment (i.e. Active Worlds on a web page).  How do you do that!?   I've got a few ideas, but as far as presentation mediums go, I think people have found a very good start in utilizing video.  Below you'll see a great example: SW Chris' Active Worlds Exploration Demo.

If you don't know Chris very well he's really great with video and puts a lot of consideration into his projects; I think his video is a good case study for the "do's and dont's" of discussing the Active Worlds Browser in this medium and we'll talk a bit more about that tomorrow.

In the meantime... what do you think?  Does video do AW justice outside of our little universe, and do you know of any other good examples where it does?  Feel free to share! :)

A Closer Look at Advertising: What should activeworlds.com represent?

For all of the points I hit on yesterday concerning advertising, it completely slipped my mind to mention the recent changes to activeworlds.com -- the first impression of Active Worlds to most new users.  After years of a stagnant and static front page, activeworlds.com finally received a face lift several weeks ago. Surely the community would be esctatic!  An update, finally!  Well, it certainly got a lot of feedback... most of it was pretty negative.  For the forum community, at least, no failure was too minimal to drag out and beat to death... and then some. There are spots to improve on, certainly, but yeesh! I'm still not sure who is responsible for the updates, but I'll take this time to commend them for continuing to apply minor tweaks since the initial update.  The flaming forum barrage surely would have driven off a lesser person.

At any rate, I'm not going to use this as a sounding board to pass judgment on the site as is -- I think we've covered that well enough.  Rather, I'm more interested in the potential of what Active Worlds' homepage should be; what it should do, and what it should represent.

Is grassroots advertising the answer for Active Worlds?

Of the things I would say that I am not, a social builder would be one of them.  This is probably perplexing if given any thought, because I enjoy building towns and even the occasional collaboration -- but that isn't my preference.  To be honest, I feel that I've come to a compromise with townbuilding because the projects I like to build are so massive -- mountain ranges, neighborhoods, cities -- that it would be impractical to have a single builder on the project.

This may explain some of my more recent projects, such as incentive neighborhoods in the Southern Highlands and Builder's Challenge. I tend to set up a context as a larger, pre-existing environment that builders come in and fill.  Still social in a way, but I'm never building alongside others -- I'm a before and after thought.

Either way, the challenge and experience gained by working with other builders in this way has been invaluable to me personally, so I'm always glad to see new builders coming through.  New builders have new ideas, and that can inspire all sorts of things in a project.  This sort of truth is behind my approval of a trend that citizen Urbane Chaos has taken to lately -- writing articles about Active Worlds around the web.  And what an article! Most everything I'd want to tell someone about Alphaworld is nicely formatted and ready to go on that page.  This should bring in new builders by the truckload, right?

Well, maybe.  I've dabbled in a bit of this myself -- with limited success.  If you follow the forums you may remember that we made FARK.com last year during the There fiasco, which drew a few older members out of the woodworks.  I'll occasionally spread links on social networks and have taught others how to use them effectively, and personally I feel that this as a method of advertising has a lot of potential.  If you'll notice, Flagg has picked up on it in the past few months... utilizing re-tweeting to spread his message and starting a Facebook Fan Page to get the userbase mobilized in advertising.

Twitter / Flagg: AWI's ONE-DAY SALE Announc ... via kwout

Active Worlds hasn't really had any sort of advertising for years, and I think this may as well have been their un-official policy all along.  Word of mouth; if it's a good product, you'll tell your friends about it.  Before social networking, this was unreasonable... and the Active Worlds Universe has really suffered because of it.

These days... I don't know, is it?

I feel like a lot of us have given up on that route some time ago, but it may be worth it to revisit the idea.  In Urbane Chaos' example, I had never heard of hubpages before visiting... but they seem to have it all right there.  The method here is to write and article, and use their tools to add some pictures and make it visually interesting.  There are numerous feedback options -- including facebook integration -- that then allows readers to take the article and share it how they will.  In this particular case, some AW citizens have done so by sharing it on their facebook feed.

Other avenues have also seen success -- Flagg's retweet contest drew 12 retweets (about 7 more than I had anticipated), and reached at least a few hundred additional people because of it.  He threw in a prize for incentive, but I really see potential there.  A good number of tweets can get passed over before something really sticks, and it only takes one to get the attention of hundreds.

As social networking outlets gain in popularity, it seems that this idea that was once asinine and destructive may actually be viable now.  Given the current situation, I'd say it is worth a shot.  At least with these few anecdotes, I see the potential for a successful advertising campaign.

What do you think?

Utilities - Editing the User Guide...

For those of you who read my previous blog concerning the Ultimate AW User Guide, I'd like to provide just some quick tips on how to get in there and edit it for your own needs.

• First, find the file.  It should be in C:/ > Active Worlds > Help unless your local directory isn't C:/.  Navigate to that folder and then open default.awh in a text editor such as notepad.
• You'll notice that the User Guide is organized by a very basic syntax:  topics and content
• Topics are collapsable folders that make it easier to organize content in your user guide.  They should be formatted like this:

topic <topicname>

endtopic

• Content is what you actually want to direct users to.  It is bound by quotations and typically has a link after the name.  Content is formatted like so:

"4:30 P.M. - Teleport - SWCity - SWChris" http://objects.activeworlds.com/cgi-bin/teleport.cgi?aw_2217.397s_3609.8e_-0.2a_180

• You may have noticed in the example above that the link I used looks a bit weird.  That is actually an example of what AW will read as a teleport link, and it can be used for any world.  Just change the variables to what you need, and it will teleport you to where you need to go!

The User Guide is a powerful and very helpful tool, especially for teleport lists.  It provides the collapsable folders we've wanted in the legitimate teleport list for many years now, and its versatility allows for a wide range of users... and thus I think that every user should know how to work their way around this!

If you've got any questions on how to work with the user guide, feel free to leave a comment!

Utilities - Ultimate AW User Guide

Utilities and add-ons can be tricky; what am I downloading? Do I trust the source? Will this help me be a better builder? And perhaps the most common question... How the heck do I even use this crazy thing!?

No worries, we've got your back.

For your first add-on, the Ultimate AW User Guide is about as simple to use as they come. It is essentially a modification to Active World's default user guide, which is found in the tabs window. If you've ever dealt with the default user guide before, you would understand the need for an update -- an update which this utility far exceeds by becoming more of a charming, personable handbook instead of a technical guide. The guide offers intuitive tutorials and direction for building, bots, teleports, worlds, and even finding things to do! As a utility, it is resilient against aging as much of its content links directly to the ActiveWiki, which is frequently updated.

I should know, after all. I crafted it myself. :)

Comparison of new and old user guides -- click to enlarge

The genesis of the User Guide project actually came out of my ongoing work with the ActiveWiki. I wanted a solution to integrate the knowledgebase we had established on the wiki since 2006 into the Active Worlds Browser, while at the same time exposing the specific resources to a larger audience. In SW City we had tooled around with the user guide as a solution for a tabbed teleports list, but the idea never really took. After some drafts, I decided to pick up on the usefulness of the tabbed folders to create instructional guides that were intuitive to follow by opening and closing folders.

With the goal in mind and some hard elbow-grease, I spent a good few hours compiling every resource I could find that was relevant to the topics I wanted the user guide to hit on, teleports, events listings... I even included the default user guide for kicks! No stone was left unturned... even the basic design of how content lists was considered! Unfortunately for me, upon the first launch most people didn't know what the user guide was for -- some were even suspicious of my motives! Since that time in October 2009, the guide has picked up steadily in popularity and I'm proud to say that it even earned a Cy Award last year! Not bad for a glorified list, huh?

At any rate, enough backstory. This utility is basically your Hitchhiker's Guide to the Active Worlds Universe. Installation is very simple -- just unzip the install folder and follow the instructions in the readme. You only have to replace the one default.awh file, start up Active Worlds -- and you're good to go! The guide is typically patched at least once every 3 months, though I've been known to update more frequently to accommodate large events, such as the Cy Awards and last year's AWReunion.

You can find a full list of features and information on the download page at the SW City Builders Academy. You can also follow the thread in the Activeworlds Forums, as I update that thread with the latest build information after I complete a new version.

TL;DR: The default User Guide is awful, download this one because it'll love you forever and ever. And ever.

• SW City Builders Academy - Ultimate AW User Guide
• Activeworlds Forums - Ultimate AW User Guide

Trying this again...

Hey everyone! I started a blog called AWBuilder on tumblr a few weeks ago... but as I've learned to use it I see that it's not really the tool I'm looking for at the moment, as I really just want to make lengthy blog posts. :) So I'll keep doing that here until I'm around with the frequency that would justify micro-blogging.

In the meantime, I'll port my larger posts over.

- Anthony