ActiveWorlds Keyboard Shortcuts on DuckDuckGo

Hey all! Just a very brief update... I wanted to share that I created a DuckDuckGo Instant Answer recently for ActiveWorlds keyboard shortcuts. This will appear above search results when you search certain key phrases like:

• ActiveWorlds Cheat Sheet
• ActiveWorlds Help
• Alphaworld Cheat Sheet
• Active Worlds Cheat Sheet
• etc...

You can check it out here!

Anyone can contribute to this sheet of shortcuts.  You can check this cheat sheet out on DuckDuckGo's dev community here.

Reference - ActiveWorlds Keyboard Defaults

The following are the sets of default control schemes available in the AW browser as of build 6.2.0.1432:

Classic controls:

Gaming controls:

Browser controls:

Additional unlisted controls: (Thanks Bach Zhaa!)

Camera:
Camera - Scrollwheel - Camera Zoom in and out
Camera - Alt + Scrollwheel - Camera Power Zoom in and out
 
Object Properties:
Object Properties - Numpad 5 - Reset rotation on current selection
Object Properties - Ctrl + Numpad 0 - Duplicate current selection outward equivalent to objects dimensions
 

Chat:
Chat - Ctrl + Scrollwheel - Enlarge/Reduce text in chat window

Menus:
Tab - Toggle main window focus. Application must be in this focus for menu shortcuts to work. Tab + Tab is required to set this focus if current focus in the 3D window. A single tab is sufficient if focus is currently in the chat window.
Alt T (Teleport)
Alt T then F (Forward)
Alt T then B (Back)
Alt T then T (Teleport to)
Alt T then H (Home)

Alt L (Login)
Alt A (Avatar)
Alt B (Visibility) 
etc... 

MyAW - Summer PTZ Giveaway - Week 7 (Theme: Humor)

Hey, everyone!  We have been partnering with MyAW to host a PTZ Giveaway on MyAW throughout the summer!  MyAW is a new social network that opened earlier this summer, and is exclusively for ActiveWorlds! PTZ are a currency that you can use within MyAW to redeem for prizes or trade with other users.

Every week, we'll ask our readers to share some of their favorite places that match a particular theme.  You'll need to post the following to our MyAW "AWBuilder" group (must be logged in to view):

• Coordinates (i.e. AW 0n 0e. World & position at minimum)
• A screenshot of the build at that location

At the end of the week (due by Fridays at midnight VRT, or in other words 00:00 am), we'll pick one of the screenshots at random to win a voucher for 100 PTZ! We'll share all locations submitted on the next week's blog, along with a public announcement of the winner.

Last Week's Entries: 

Last week we featured Snow.  I'm a big fan of Winter and snowy builds are a refreshing and often seasonal change of pace from the green pastures of the public building worlds.

Syntax’s Morax Summit, AlphaWorld 2168S 3916E 43

AWTeen GZ circa Winter, 2006. AWTeen 831.58N 2142.99E 0.13a 1

And last week's winner (randomly selected from all entries) is... SirGreendown!

This week's theme is: Humor

Happy exploring, and good luck!

MyAW - Summer PTZ Giveaway - Week 6 (Theme: Snow)

Hey, everyone!  We have been partnering with MyAW to host a PTZ Giveaway on MyAW throughout the summer!  MyAW is a new social network that opened earlier this summer, and is exclusively for ActiveWorlds! PTZ are a currency that you can use within MyAW to redeem for prizes or trade with other users.

Every week, we'll ask our readers to share some of their favorite places that match a particular theme.  You'll need to post the following to our MyAW "AWBuilder" group (must be logged in to view):

• Coordinates (i.e. AW 0n 0e. World & position at minimum)
• A screenshot of the build at that location

At the end of the week (due by Fridays at midnight VRT, or in other words 00:00 am), we'll pick one of the screenshots at random to win a voucher for 100 PTZ! We'll share all locations submitted on the next week's blog, along with a public announcement of the winner.

Last Week's Entries: 

Last week we featured Caves.  Cave-themed builds in ActiveWorlds are a lot of fun to build and explore because there are some technical challenges to overcome to make them look believable, and seeing how different builders implement that via lighting, interactivity, and/or detailing is always really interesting and often unique to that builder.

 

AW 1692.940s 3212.472e 3.5a 90

Merlin’s Cave featuring Keshi’s potions! minutia 46.90S 29.46E 0.47a 81

Unknown Location

There 971.63N 475.36W 6.07a 144

Ilexus Caves AW 2015.79S 3863.28E 0.00a 11

Ilexus Caves AW 2015.79S 3863.28E 0.00a 11

Ilexus Caves AW 2015.79S 3863.28E 0.00a 11

Ilexus Caves AW 2015.79S 3863.28E 0.00a 11

And last week's winner (randomly selected from all entries) is... TenYearsGone!

This week's theme is: Snow

Happy exploring, and good luck!

MyAW - Summer PTZ Giveaway - Week 5 (Theme: Caves)

Hey, everyone!  We have been partnering with MyAW to host a PTZ Giveaway on MyAW throughout the summer!  MyAW is a new social network that opened earlier this summer, and is exclusively for ActiveWorlds! PTZ are a currency that you can use within MyAW to redeem for prizes or trade with other users.

Every week, we'll ask our readers to share some of their favorite places that match a particular theme.  You'll need to post the following to our MyAW "AWBuilder" group (must be logged in to view):

• Coordinates (i.e. AW 0n 0e. World & position at minimum)
• A screenshot of the build at that location

At the end of the week (due by Fridays at midnight VRT, or in other words 00:00 am), we'll pick one of the screenshots at random to win a voucher for 100 PTZ! We'll share all locations submitted on the next week's blog, along with a public announcement of the winner.

Last Week's Entries: 

Minutia 52.99N 20.28W 0.01a 164

mysticStar Landing Zone

Titanic by James. at AWTeen 1500.22N 3342.15W -18.38a 75

And last week's winner (randomly selected from all entries) is... Artist3D!

This week's theme is: Caves

Happy exploring, and good luck!

Southern Highlands Progress for Week of July 19, 2015

Building continues in the Southern Highlands!  Sorry, I've missed a few weeks worth of updates.  Here's a general overview: facades, facades, and more facades.  I have a few blog posts to catch up on as well, detailing new facade ideas for different types of buildings.

In the meantime, here's what I've been working on:

For the past several weeks I had been mostly concerned with filling in facades around the beachfront, but as of yesterday I've been moving back towards Cactus Jack's railroad station in an attempt to fill in all of that land.  I'd like to at least close off the river back there, I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish filling that whole area with facade work.

The row houses in the first few images are my current project.  I'd like to do a blog specifically about that facade work... I'm very happy with how it has turned out as a filler build.  It gives a lot of character to the area of town it is in, and it'll be easy for me to stylize it with posters and 'scenes' of avatars/vehicles to really give it a personality.

The curved brick building in the images above was a lot of fun.  I intended for it to just be a facade, but after playing with shear for a little bit decided to bring it's beam further out to act as an awning for the adjacent building.  I think it worked out really well... I'd like to put a theater or something there, but for now it is just hollow.

The final shot shows some buildings I haven't featured here yet -- they're not quite done!  Soon. :)

MyAW - Summer PTZ Giveaway - Week 2

Hey, everyone!  We have been partnering with MyAW to host a PTZ Giveaway on MyAW throughout the summer!  MyAW is a new social network that opened earlier this summer, and is exclusively for ActiveWorlds! PTZ are a currency that you can use within MyAW to redeem for prizes or trade with other users.

Every week, starting on Fridays at midnight VRT (00:00 am) we'll ask our readers to share some of their favorite places that match a particular theme.  You'll need to post the following to our MyAW "AWBuilder" group (must be logged in to view):

• Coordinates (i.e. AW 0n 0e. World & position at minimum)
• A screenshot of the build at that location

At the end of the week, we'll pick one of the screenshots at random to win a voucher for 100 PTZ! We'll share all locations submitted on the next week's blog, along with a public announcement of the winner.  

Last Week's Entries:

MysticStar 0n 0w

AW 629.60S 558.32E 0.15a 339

And last week's winner (randomly selected from all entries) is... SirGreendown!

This week's theme is: City

Happy exploring, and good luck!

Edit: I'm extending this another week due to a MyAW outage as they migrated to a new domain.  The new AWBuilder Group is located at http://network.myaw.us/groups/awbuilder/

Web Command - Interactive Scarabian User Terminal

The web command came along after my group of friends became inactive, so our builds are largely devoid of examples of it.  I was building a TV shop in elkins beach today and decided to give it a shot with the Scarabian User Terminal.

Here's what I came up with:

Model:
pict1.rwx

Action:
create texture tv2,scale .75,picture pics.swcity.net/kiosk1.jpg;activate web url=npc.swcity.net/sut.php sw=1000 sh=750 keys=on nonav

I'm pretty happy with the outcome, but this certainly shows how the SUT has aged compared to modern web apps! There's a lot of content on the page and I had to get really close to the TV to make good use of it.

MyAW - Summer PTZ Giveaway - Week 1

Hey, everyone!  We're partnering with MyAW to host a PTZ Giveaway on MyAW throughout the summer!  MyAW is a new social network that opened earlier this week, and is exclusively for ActiveWorlds! PTZ are a currency that you can use within MyAW to redeem for prizes or trade with other users.

Every week, starting on Fridays at midnight VRT (00:00 am) we'll ask our readers to share some of their favorite places that match a particular theme.  You'll need to post the following to our MyAW "AWBuilder" group (must be logged in to view):

• Coordinates (i.e. AW 0n 0e. World & position at minimum)
• A screenshot of the build at that location

At the end of the week, we'll pick one of the screenshots at random to win a voucher for 100 PTZ! We'll share all locations submitted on the next week's blog, along with a public announcement of the winner. 

This week's theme is: Forest

Happy exploring, and good luck!

Facades - Transparent Windows in a Solid Wall

Today I'd like to share a very old trick -- likely a bug, honestly -- in a particular texture mask that has been used in AlphaWorld for over a decade to create windows. 

Stone1m is a very useful mask that leaves the texture unchanged except when a transparent surface is placed in front of the masked object -- the rendered area of the masked object then itself is rendered as transparent. Here's a screenshot from another angle that shows this clearly:

 As I said, this is very useful to create windows on facades that are very inexpensive users of cell space.  To demonstrate, I'll share another facade for a building I completed in Elkins Beach this week.

We start with the base selection of objects:

For this facade, we want a simple wall panel to cover the entire span of the wall. This piece will contain the stone1m masked texture, and  the windows will be placed on it.  We also want a transparent object -- winb2.rwx is a rectangular window that supports the optional texture "tag" parameter:

Texture the frame:
create texture topgrey tag=1 

Texture the pane:
create texture topgrey tag=200

Finally, we'll use p1rec0005g.rwx to add some depth and break the different levels of the facade apart. So we can arrange the facade objects in the location we want:

And then add textures, masks, and scale:

For a final result of 9 objects:

# Object          Purpose        Action

1 w1pan_1000j.rwx masked surface create texture tv4 mask=stone1m
4 winb2.rwx       windows        create texture topgrey tag=1,scale 3 1 0.1

4 p1rec0005g.rwx  depth/detail   create texture topgrey,scale 1 1 5

With this base facade completed, I replicated it out into a larger rectangular building and added some additional detailing as wall dormers and some street-level shops. The street-level shops are currently complete, but the overall structure is done:

And that's that! Feel free to share your own examples of this technique in the comments! This is a very common technique in AlphaWorld and I enjoy seeing new and creative implementations of it.

Workaround for bug introduced in Build 1430 with timer triggers that fire in the same instant

Update 3: Build 1432 has resolved all issues related to timers and things seem back to normal.

Update 2: Users are reporting that some of the issues have been fixed, but not all.  Specifically still seeing issues with timers where the total duration is less than a second.

Update: Build 1431 was just announced to revert changes related to timer limitations. A swift and appropriate response.

---

ActiveWorlds 6.2 Build 1430 was released today and introduced the following change:

• Timers now have a minimum duration of 1 second and timer-triggers have a minimum interval of 100 ms applied strictly. An attempt to help users and builders not running into heavy lag bombs in worlds.

Which introduced the following bugs:

• Existing timers that complete under a duration of 1 second are broken -- any lower value is forced by AW to 1 second.
• Existing looping timers triggers with a total duration of less than 100ms are broken.
• Triggers scheduled for the same time on the same timer are explicitly ignored. (The workaround below specifically addresses this problem)
• Remote texturing is broken in many circumstances.

Whoops! These are some really awful bugs and this whole change probably needs to be reverted. The third problem has a pretty simple workaround... simply offset one of the timer triggers.  Note that this only addresses one of the issues introduced today; these bugs have manifested in various ways and this isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to all of the problems created with 1430. This workaround specifically addresses two or more timer triggers that were set to fire at the same instant.

Take two example timers that I found broken today at Fort Masen:

at tm GK 18500, visible reg3 on, visible reg2 off

at tm GK 18500, say "Regina:    Zek'riah!"

I'm not sure how AW determines which trigger gets fired first, but the visible on/visible off one was ignored when I activated the timer to test.  I was able to work around  this very easily, by changing one of the timers to '18510':

at tm GK 18510, visible reg3 on, visible reg2 off

at tm GK 18500, say "Regina:    Zek'riah!"

This is a very small time difference. For timers, 1000 units = 1 second, or 1000 milliseconds.  So 10 units is 10 milliseconds, or 1/100 of a second.  This is probably acceptable for general animations, but I'd still prefer to see this change reverted for more precise timer sequences that need extremely granular triggers.

Interested in hearing further comments from AWI about exactly how this changed timer behavior. More interested in build 1431 reverting these changes. :)

Southern Highlands Progress for Week of April 20, 2015

So I don't have a creative name for these photo blogs/progress reports of Elkins Beach and the Southern Highlands, but the least I can do is group them by date.

Here's an update on what I've been working on this week:

• Created a transitional badlands area in the narrow, empty stretch following gutz highway (named for a user that built the highway in 2000, gutz).  This area was previously flat and empty except for groundcover and the highway.  
• On the side closest to the Southern Highlands raised terrain features, I've added some towering, rocky terrain reminiscent of the work I did at Razorspine Bluff.
• On the side closest to Elkins Beach, I've added low forests with smaller rocky features and SWI archaeology nodes.
• In Elkins Beach itself, I've added some rocky terrain features in empty lots to give the impression that the rocky terrain doesn't just abruptly and cleanly end as you enter the town.
• Capped off some incomplete areas in Rising Glen Retreat. In particular, a house I started in 2008.  It isn't completed inside, but the outside at least doesn't have any floating panels anymore.

Photos: