Activeworlds 16th Birthday - Community Photograph Part 4

Happy Saturday everyone!  Activeworlds turns 16 on June 28, and we've opened up a week full of festivities with an annual event... the community photograph!  Over 115 users were in AWGate Saturday for the photo.  I was able to take a ton of screenshots before and after the arrival time, and I'm just gonna dump them all into a few posts.  Each post will only contain 10 shots so the loading time for the page isn't miserable.

Activeworlds 16 Birthday Photograph (Part 4)

Photos within this post should have names removed.  I also increased my total avatars visible, but some errors occurred on some where they wouldn't load.  Click on each image to zoom-in to a wide format (1600 px) image.

Activeworlds 16th Birthday - Community Photograph Part 3

Happy Saturday everyone!  Activeworlds turns 16 on June 28, and we've opened up a week full of festivities with an annual event... the community photograph!  Over 115 users were in AWGate Saturday for the photo.  I was able to take a ton of screenshots before and after the arrival time, and I'm just gonna dump them all into a few posts.  Each post will only contain 10 shots so the loading time for the page isn't miserable.

Activeworlds 16 Birthday Photograph (Part 3)

Photos starting with this post should have names removed.  I also increased my total avatars visible, but some errors occurred on some where they wouldn't load.  Click on each image to zoom-in to a wide format (1600 px) image.

Activeworlds 16th Birthday - Community Photograph Part 1

Happy Saturday everyone!  Activeworlds turns 16 on June 28, and we've opened up a week full of festivities with an annual event... the community photograph!  Over 115 users were in AWGate Saturday for the photo.  I was able to take a ton of screenshots before and after the arrival time, and I'm just gonna dump them all into a few posts.  Each post will only contain 10 shots so the loading time for the page isn't miserable.

Activeworlds 16 Birthday Photograph (Part 1)

These photos were taken before the stated arrival time and before I disabled usernames.  Some avatars may not have loaded in some photos because I had the settings reduced when I first arrived.  Click on each image to zoom-in to a wide format (1600 px) image.

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.

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.