AD&DRPG Visual Renovations - Traloria and Traloria Sewers

Hey everyone... my work continues in AD&DRPG world and has focused on the large town of Traloria.  I had started on Traloria as of the last photo blog, but really underestimated how long it would take to work on.  I'm still not quite done there, but I've completed several areas, including the popular sewer dungeon.  Take a look:

This isn't actually Traloria, but an unrelated dungeon.  Mostly untouched, I've made simple changes for lighting and effects.

The main square in Traloria has been completely redone.  A fire-lit path leads past interactive characters and shops.

A market now exists in the main square, where players can purchase items and join the Traloria Army.

A chamber within the Traloria Sewers where the various tunnels flow out.  Look out for that dragon!

A safe-haven within the sewers, where players can heal and purchase special equipment.  There are various helpful characters around as well.

Many familiar areas have received mostly cosmetic changes.  I really wanted to eliminate all paper-thin walls.

Some areas, such as this stream next to the path, exist purely for detailing to make the dungeon more interesting.

Gaming - BuildCity Now Open for 'Off-Season' Play

Hey all, I've had some people contact me recently letting me know that they were interested in playing Builder's Challenge, and the game has been inactive for some time... so the other day I cleaned off the cobwebs in BuildCity world and have opened it in a setting that I'm tentatively calling the 'off-season.'

During the off-season:

• The chief end of the off-season session is to allow players to practice for times of competition.
• The world is not in active competition. The scoreboard will continue being maintained, but prizes will not be rewarded.
• Building lots will still be judged as normal, with a score and comments given to the builder.
• The global bot is not guaranteed to be online 24/7.
• Requests will be processed slower than usual. Expect turn-around times of up to 2 days during the off-season.
• Area restrictions are DISABLED -- this means that higher tier areas do not have to be unlocked like they normally do to be built in. However, the player still does have to lock them individually -- they must begin with a plot in Verdant Valley and progress to higher tiers on an individual basis. The only difference now is that they won't have to be held up by other players.

The global bot's online time will be sporadic until I have completed the semester and returned home. This period will last for about another week, and then the bot should be up 24/7.

The off-season will end when we're ready to hold another session of Builder's Challenge, at which time existing builds in the world will be wiped. There is no time-table at present for this, as I wish to automate much of the registration and judging process before I hold another session.

I'll post further updates concerning the off-season to this thread in the AW forums. In the meantime, here are a couple of images from the first plot of the off-season: A Cattle Ranch by Conqueror

Overview of the Ranch

Front-view with completed comment card for the builder.

 I'll have some more updates on this after I complete my finals.  In the meantime, give the world a tour.  It's a P-50 world and for the most part it's completely filled out (except for builder plots!)

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]