Happy April Fools Day!

Hey everyone, happy April Fools!  Hopefully you haven't been trolled too hard... it seems that Activeworlds has managed to dodge a bullet as far as that's concerned!  Well, unless you could the AlphaMopper. :)

I came across an interesting post today while combing through some Second Life blogs about someone who visited AW very briefly, but was immediately turned off by the camera controls and never made it out of AWGate because of that.  If you use any other 3D programs besides Activeworlds you have probably noted the frustration of AW's camera control system, as compared with 3d modeling programs, games, or even other virtual worlds like Second Life.

Anyway, you can read that post here.  I'm interested in doing a write-up on this soon, but I don't have the time for it tonight.  In it's stead, I'll leave you all with a question: What do you think about AW's camera controls?

Submissions for April Newsletter

So long as I'm blogging, I may as well contribute my articles to our monthly newsletter!  I'd like to try to submit two each month for as long as I'm keeping AWBuilder up and running -- one commentary and one tutorial.  Right now, I'm leaning towards "From an era gone by..." as the commentary and "Tutorial - Navigating the ActiveWiki" as the tutorial.  I think those are both pretty solid articles and would be good for the context of the newsletter.

If you guys have any suggestions or other articles you'd like to see go up, let me know!  Otherwise, it'll probably be these two. :)

From my Teleports List: AirSpeed

Alphaworld - SW City - AirSpeed

Builder: SW Chris

Teleport: AW 2417.74S 3444.94E 22.70a 263

Jump Point: ^jump AirSpeed

How to Play: http://www.swcity.net/users/chris/airspeed/index.html

AirSpeed debuted during AWReunion 2010 last year to tremendous reception and has since... well, what exactly happened to it, anyway? Nobody talks about it anymore.  The same goes for the GameFest games... even the hit Weir City from the GameFest doesn't garner much traffic, and it won a Cy Award!

I'm not sure what it is about games in Activeworlds that causes them to meet relative obscurity, but I'd like to do my part here to at least tell you all about AirSpeed!  AirSpeed is a wonderful presentation that uses v4 objects to maximum effect, lifting the player off their feet and into a high-flying obstacle course!  Players sail through the sky dodging objects and collecting bonuses that can remove obstacles further ahead.  The game has been masterfully divided into three 'stages' that become increasingly more difficult. Because of the game's design, the backdrop can provide as much of a challenge to deal with as the obstacles directly in front of you -- I want to catch all of the action!! :)

Anyway, upon completing AirSpeed SW City Interactive players can receive a small reward for their troubles.  The game is a fun distraction and certainly worth sharing with others.  Give it a try!

Saturday Night Project

I did a bit of idle building tonight, and I'm working on a project now that I'd like to share my progress on.  I don't think that I can actually say too much about it yet, but I can show you what I've built. :)

For this project, I wanted to set up two buildings that oppose each other across a street.  My conceptual goal is to use the structural frame of the building to imply that the buildings are actually two halves of a whole, and that they've been pulled apart.

"The Right Building"

"The Left Building"

I don't think you can see the beginnings of that concept so well in this picture, but it's there.  There's also some work I'd like to do with the ground, but this is where I'm at for tonight.

The whole shebang

This is the overview shot from above.  I think the far walls do a better job conceptually than the forward walls, but I wanted to get a draft done for the project tonight because I'm not sure that I'd have time to continue working on it with everything else that I'm doing these days.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. :)  Catch you all later!