AWBuilder Turns One Year Old

One year ago today, on Feburary 2, I set up a humble blog on Tumblr in the hopes of creating a new web resource for ActiveWorlds users.  I had envisioned a place to chronicle my projects, as well as a place for tutorials and for my comments on how AW was doing.  For many months, through high times and lows, I put time and effort into this place, and I think it paid off.  Here we are, a year later, and AWBuilder is host to over 100 posts -- tutorials, downloads, commentary, even the occasional shoutout to other people's projects.  I'm pretty happy with the blog, and from the analytics I see that the AW community is as well, as this page has maintained decent traffic even while I'm not making frequent updates.

AWBuilder had some really great momentum in Spring and even through Summer, but in Fall we hit a change of pace.  I began hinting at some projects I was working on outside of AW (/r/virtualreality) and my foray into other virtual world software.  On the forums and here on the blog I had become increasingly vocal with my displeasure of AW's direction, and for the past few months things have just seemed so... stale, moreso than ever.  Coupling this with the trouble on the forums and the "all is well" attitude that you'll see from AWI and die-hard fans, I found myself in an uncomfortable place.  My citizenship expired in January, and I've taken the opportunity to dive into the great ether that is the Internet to see what else is going on in the world of virtual worlds.

Looking back on my month away, I have to say... the outlook for virtual reality in the future is VERY EXCITING.  I mentioned /r/virtualreality... I try to post a news article there once a day to keep the conversation going, and I've found some incredible things.  Research on all areas of peripherals, from contact lenses that display HUDs to pop-up books.  Worlds designed as therapies for burn victims.  The creativity of research into virtual and augmented reality projects seems unlimited.

Back here in the present, outside of the protection of academia... the outlook for the present isn't so awesome.  In my conversations, I've found that many people consider Second Life to be "yesterday's virtual world."  We seem to be at an intermediary period, where the concept of a general virtual world is accepted and fairly well-known, but it isn't big.  It isn't "the 3D internet."  Not yet -- something is still missing.  With all of this research into hardware, I'm inclined to believe that the answer will be found in a world that takes advantage of immersive technology.

As an addendum to that last though... if Second Life is yesterday's virtual world, what does that make ActiveWorlds?  Some food for thought.

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So what's next for AWBuilder?  I'm not sure, to be honest.  As a resource, it is completely functional just the way it is, and I expect that it could continue to be for many years, even if I never updated it again.  I expect that I will occasionally... I really have enjoyed working on this blog, and I'm very proud of the content here.  If ActiveWorlds can find a way out of the rut it is in right now, I may even return to regular posting.

Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Anyway, if you want to continue following my projects, I spend most of my time these days working on http://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/.  I've been moderating this reddit since August, and it has grown into a nice discussion forum.  We're starting to get at least one post a day and I'm even starting to recognize regular commentors. :p  My goal for the reddit is to be a good measure of where VR is heading, and to be a good place to discuss virtual worlds old and new.  My friends from ActiveWorlds are more than welcome to join in. :)

AD&DRPG Visual Renovations - Photo Blog

I don't really want to go into another in-depth explanation of things while I'm away on honeymoon, so I've decided to post a photoblog of my progress so far. :)  The visual renovations span over several areas, and I'm trying to work in the order which places the player would generally experience.

A redesigned town fountain in the entry town of Meriel.  The benches surrounding the fountain are movers that allow the player to lay down and relax, or perhaps take a nice AFK. ;)

The Magic Users guild.  The area in the middle of the room is an anti-gravity zone that lifts players to the next floor, and the cloths in the doorway are cloth objects.  All avatars in the building have sequences applied.

Some new landscaping in the southern part of Merinel.  The knight in the foreground is actually an enemy NPC spawn-point, and I thought it fitting to position them in what seems like an ambush.

A dense scene in Turkel forest that leads players to an important location nearby.  Since players can't fly, the felled trees make a nice transitional barrier from one area to another.

Gro Lahr mansion.  The mansion is plagued by a dark fog, and surrounded by a dying forest.  There has been extensive work on increasing area of this atmosphere outside the immediate area of the mansion, and the trees from Turkel forest now continue into this area.  A sharp gradient occurs where the trees begin to die off.

Turkel forest has been graced with a new mist, low-gravity zones (for good jumping!) and numerous firefly particles.  The low gravity zone makes jumping from trees very enjoyable!

The new appearance of the entrance to Traloria.  Notice the lowered terrain from the original entry as well as the new procession into the city proper.  A lot of detail work has been done in Traloria, though I'm trying to keep with the original vision of the build as much as possible.

A handy newsboard at the ground zero area.  If you click on the postings, they are elaborated upon via the say command in the user's chat.

Wedding Day

Hey everyone, today's the big day.  This is the first of several automatic posts I should have fired up for the week, and if I scheduled it right then I should be gettin' hitched sometime around when this gets posted. ;)  Anyway, these posts won't be anything too big, just some new content to keep the site alive while I'm away.

I want to thank everyone for supporting Crystal and I... all of the well-wishes have been wonderful.  There was even a nice forum thread started for it. :)  (Finally something that won't cause a flame-war on the forums, amirite!?)  Check out this cool announcement Sidris made up for us:

Thanks guys. :)

We'll finish out the ceremonies today and then head off on honeymoon for a week, down to Florida and the Bahamas.  Hope everyone has a good week!

Out of time!

No more new content after this post :)  I'm making final preparations for my wedding tomorrow, so I'll be out of here.  I won't be around until next Saturday, but I've gotten a few things together and will try to have blogger set up automatic posts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday concerning some of my projects from this week.

See ya everyone!

Spring Break is here!

Hey everyone, and welcome to Anthony's Spring Break 2011! ;)

I don't really have any personal plans for this upcoming week, so I guess that means that we'll be seeing a more active period here on the blog.  There are a few goals here and in the universe as well that I'd like to accomplish, and I'll list them off here:

• Arklay World:  I'm working on a game project in Arklay world, and although the game part of it may be a while yet coming, I'd like to finish the world environment for visitors.  I'll post updates of my progress as I complete it, because the world makes for a really great game map!
• Instructional Videos: I've been talking about these for a couple of weeks now, and I would have plenty of time to get this started.  I'm not quite sure how I'll get this started yet because the AW video tool only captures the 3d screen, but I'm sure I'll figure something out. :)
• Toolbar: I'd like to set up widget along the top of this blog that links directly to helpful or interesting articles I've written here.  The only reason I haven't done this yet is because I don't feel like I've written enough content to justify it yet.
• The Black Sun: I've got some prime real estate in EBTS4 world that I'd like to work on sometime soon.  The Black Sun is a virtual bar/club that is a setting in Snow Crash, and I'd like to bring a true representation of it into the virtual space.  The Black Sun as described in Snow Crash isn't very visually interesting, so I'm going to focus on very visual scenes and interactions with the user to make the build engaging and interesting.  It's an awkward project, and hopefully I can get it done. :D

That's whats up at my end.  I'll post again tomorrow, probably continuing in my line of thought regarding architecture.  If you ever want me to discuss a specific topic, feel free to leave a comment on a post or on the chat box in our side bar.

Later!

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