AlphaWorld (AW) will be offline for maintenance on Wednesday March 2nd from 12pm to 2pm VRT (9am to 11am EST).Just helping to get the word out here. Doubt this will effect too many people, but if it does you should check out some of the other building worlds in the meantime. Yellow is doing really well these days. :)
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
AWI: Alphaworld Maintenance Wednesday
From Flagg:
Decided on a class topic for Saturday
I'll be teaching a class in AWSchool on Saturday as part of the new AWUniversity effort, and the topic will be Interactive Building. This continues in the vein where Byte began last weekend while covering timers, but I think I'll be moving in a different direction with it. My feel of it as of today is that I won't be going over a specific command, but rather showing some examples of how to use multiple commands in tandem and encouraging creative uses of commands to achieve an interactive scene.
So for example, picture a scene where a man greets you upon entering a room and tells you that the door to the room beyond is locked. You can open it, but he's lost the key! If you can find the key, you can use it on the door and open it to continue forward. This is an easy interactive scene to set up, and in its simplest incarnation only requires the use of the say and visible commands to set up. You would, of course, want to use other commands to enhance the quality of the scene, but in general the creative combination of commands can provide a vivid experience in the virtual environment.
Ideally I would get to teach the class after Byte's shear/skew class, with some time for intermission. I'd like to set up some interactive examples perhaps half an hour before the class starts and let people play with them, and then we could get right into it. If you have any examples of things you would like to see just let me know, and I'll try to have that set up as well.
If I have some time to get into Active Worlds this week, I'll take some video of some existing examples of cutscenes and interactive games that I've worked on and post them up here. Stay tuned!
So for example, picture a scene where a man greets you upon entering a room and tells you that the door to the room beyond is locked. You can open it, but he's lost the key! If you can find the key, you can use it on the door and open it to continue forward. This is an easy interactive scene to set up, and in its simplest incarnation only requires the use of the say and visible commands to set up. You would, of course, want to use other commands to enhance the quality of the scene, but in general the creative combination of commands can provide a vivid experience in the virtual environment.
Ideally I would get to teach the class after Byte's shear/skew class, with some time for intermission. I'd like to set up some interactive examples perhaps half an hour before the class starts and let people play with them, and then we could get right into it. If you have any examples of things you would like to see just let me know, and I'll try to have that set up as well.
If I have some time to get into Active Worlds this week, I'll take some video of some existing examples of cutscenes and interactive games that I've worked on and post them up here. Stay tuned!
Monday, February 28, 2011
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?
What do you guys think? Cluttered or am I doing alright over there so far?
Sunday, February 27, 2011
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.
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.
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.
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 |
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.
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