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Nov 24, 2002, 2:41am

Ah, okay... so that's what you meant by a "grip" command. Looks like it would actually be more of a parameter than a command, but I see what you mean now. Yes, this has been asked for in many ways... including the ride command I mentioned in replies to two separate threads recently...

November 22nd, 2002
news:3ddeecd7$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com
Re: AW Command (Was Simulation Utility)

and

November 16th, 2002
news:3dd61066 at server1.Activeworlds.com
Re: MSolid On: Brilliant idea!

As far as I can recall at the moment though, I think yours is the first one I have seen that mentions the idea of having an avatar optionally be able to move with an object but not rotate with it, or rotate with the object but not move with it, or neither, or both.

TechnoZeus

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Nov 24, 2002, 2:53am

I've also asked for this... years ago... and more recently here in this newsgroup using the Set command on the object to use as the center, and the Orbit command to set up rotation around that point. The orbit command could also be used as a substitute for the rotate command by setting the object to orbit around it's own origin. Since Orbit and Rotate would be independant of each other, one of them could be used with a time limit to tilt an object so that the other one could rotate the object on a tilted axis... however I would still recommend adding a third command specifically for tilting an object so that an object could orbit while rotating on a tilted axis.

Checkout the Orbit command:
November 22nd, 2002
news:3ddeecd7$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com
Re: AW Command (Was Simulation Utility)

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Nov 24, 2002, 4:35am

Yeah, would be cool, huh? :)

Glad you like it.
One for the Feature Vote suggestion box maybe? :)

It would also allow many types of complex smooth curved paths to be followed by objects, as well as paths with arbitrary sharp angles, and various combinations.

TechnoZeus

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Nov 24, 2002, 4:40am

Cool... I thought I was the only one thinking that! :)

Was when I first glanced at ENZO's fly-over video that I started thinkig how neat it would be if we had the choice of making various frames auto-hide so that we could work with a huge 3D frame and nothing but the Object Properties dialog box to obscure it while we're building, or the chat box while we're talking... and not even that when we want to take screen-shots or capture video. :)

TechnoZeus

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Nov 25, 2002, 8:54am

I would like to address the issue of how long it has been taking to get AW 3.4 released, and attempt to answer the question of how often a new release would have to be produced to get the same number of features out "one at a time", so I've collected some information from:
Active Worlds 3.4 Beta Notes
http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw34/beta.html

Since the concept of releasing one feature at a time would be to get rid of the bugs in that one feature, I have went through the list and taken out all bug fixes. I have even removed bug fixes from the list that addressed old bugs from before the AW 3.4 beta, even though those would have had tobe addressed no matter how many features were added per release, and I have also removed from the list items like additions to the message files and other such things that I figure would have had to be included with other features in order for AW to work properly.

What's left, is just the features that have been added up to build 441, so this should give a very conservative estimate since none of the new features of the upcomming build 444 are in this list and I have heard there are a lot of them. I heard an estimate earier today of 3 more weeks until final release if all goes well, and I'll include that time in my calculations even though I am not including the features that will be added, tested, and if necessary fixed between now and then. So using 3 weeks from today as a completion time for all of the features added "so far" in AW 3.4 would place that date on December 16th of the year 2002.

At the time I am writing this paragraph, I have not yet counted the features, nor have I figured out how long version 3.4 has been in development, so I don't even know what the results will be... but I think I have a pretty good guess.

I just checked, and the current release build of AW 3.3 is build 419. The last beta build of AW 3.3 that I see mentioned in the beta newsgroup is build 417 which was released to the AW 3.3 beta team on June 12 of 2002, so obviously at that time the 3.3 beta cycle was not over yet so I think it's safe to say that the AW 3.4 beta cycle had not yet started.

From June 12th to December 16th is just over 6 months. To be exact, it's 187 days. (18 days in June + 31 days in July + 31 days in August + 30 days in September + 31 days in October + 30 days in November +16 days in December = 187 days total development time for all of the AW 3.4 features added from build 426 up to build 441)

Here's the list:

Build 426 Notes (6/28/02)
· Layered Clouds feature
· Gradient Sky feature
· new "fog color" option
· the old World Options and Lights & Fog dialogs have been merged into a new, branching dialog
· The browser now features a "head bob" when the user is walking around.
· On / off switch for the "head bob" feature under Options -> Settings -> General.
· A new world option has been added to show all avatar names.
· A world option has been added to hide all chat in the world.
· A world option has been introduced to block citizens from whispering to one another.

Build 427 Notes (7/01/02)
· Increased maximum fog distance (which also controls the maximum view distance) from 400 to 1200.
· The browser should now detect when a texture needs to be clamped, and when it should be tiled.
· The "text over the heads" system has been replaced with a nicer-looking system of comic-style chat balloons.

Build 428 Notes (7/29/02)
· Added new world option "Avatar Updates per second".
· Added new world option "Disable avatar list", which will cause the avatar list to be unselectable for all non-caretakers in the world.
· Added a new option to the settings dialog (under the "chat" tab) to switch between the new "comic style" chat bubbles and the original transparent style.
· Made several cosmetic changes to comic chat bubbles: They are now slightly more transparent, and they only reveal names for users that are less than 10 meters away and near the center of the viewport.
· The Field-of-View, which had increased in the initial 3.4 beta, has been altered so that auto-adjusts based on the aspect of the viewport. A square viewport would have a FOV of 90 degrees, while rectangular viewports will have a wider FOV.
· Due to overwhelming public demand, ctrl-turning is now re-enabled.

Build 430 Notes (8/21/02)
· The browser will now allow the world server to set the user's avatar and gesture, via a bot.
· Changed the way the browser displays avatar sequences so that only the wait sequences can be interrupted by the walk sequence.

Build 431 Notes (9/16/02)
· The original behavior of old-style chat bubbles has been restored, so that if the user chooses not to use the new comic chat bubbles the text will be displayed the same way as in previous version.
· The user will be pushed up to ground level if incoming terrain data leaves them underground.
· Coronas now have a maximum size of 200. (200% of the screen size)

Build 432 Notes (9/19/02)
· A new world option, water, is now available. Water can be used to fill the world with an endless rolling ocean.
· Avatars will "float" when underwater (gravity will be lower, and reversed).

Build 433 Notes (9/24/02)
· Now the user may adjust the speed at which the waves move.
· The user may now set the top/bottom water surface textures independantly and may specify a mask (for either the top or bottom texture) to use.

Build 434 Notes (9/30/02)
· A new checkbox has been added to the water options to explicitly enable and disable water.
· It is now possible to create untextured water.
· User's gesture is now reset to 0 when the sequence is finished.

Build 435 Notes (10/10/02)
· Allowed flying underwater, even when user does not have flying rights.
· Added a new feature where users will no longer be able to move or change objects they do not own, unless they have eminent domain. This will prevent many needless building rejections on the part of the world server, and fix the situation where users could defeat obsticles in-world by moving them and moving past before the server moved the object back.
· Added a feature where, if object selection is disabled in a world, the user will only be able to select their own objects.

Build 436 Notes (10/23/02)
· The world features dialog has been changed to allow for an apply button. Also, the box no longer locks the browser, so that you may now interact with the world while the box is open.
· The browser now plays a sound when a telegram arrives.
· Telegram sounds can be disabled under options > Settings > General.
· The browser now plays sounds when selecting, deselecting, or editing property and terrain.
· Building sounds can be disabled under options > Settings > General.
· Added new world options to allow the user to apply a texture to the world light source.

Build 438 Notes (10/28/02)
· The world light source texture will now be rendered after cloud layer 1, but before layers 2 & 3. This makes it possible to have stars in the sky that will not overlap the "moon" texture.
· The coulds and light source should no longer flicker when the world options are changed.
· Re-organized many entries in the world options dialog. The "scenery" section has been replaced by the "Lighting" section. Added a "ground" section.
· Added two new world options: terrain ambient and terrain diffuse. These values control how much ambient and directional lighting the terrain surface will reflect.
· Water now fades to a low-detail mesh in the distance, avoiding the terrible "tile" effect you would see as the water texture repeated off into the horizon.
· Water now reflects the world ambient and directional lights as the waves move.

Build 439 Notes (10/31/02)
· Water now has transparent edges where it meets the terrain.
· A new world option has been added for water: Underwater view distance.
· The "user agent" and "referer" has been changed in the browser. This controls how the browser identifies itself to a web server when requesting objects for download.
· Gravity no longer waits until terrain is finished downloading in a terrain world.
· Telegram sound should only play once when multiple telegrams arrive.
· Underwater bouyancy is now slightly weaker, making movement more realistic, and making it easier to swim.

Build 441 Notes (11/04/02)
· Skybox and backdrop will no longer render when underwater.
· The old object-selection behavior has been restored, so that users must have build rights instead of Eminent Domain in order to select objects owned by others.
· Fog is now always active underwater, even when it is disabled for the world.
· The water has been changed so that the low-detail mesh will not render under OpenGL. The effect used to render this mesh is not supported in Renderware OpenGL and simply caused only the low detail mesh to render, skipping the more-important high-detail mesh.

By my "conservative" count, that's 55 features.

In order to develop, alpha test, beta test, and release new 55 features in 187 days, one deature at a time, the entire "proof of concept - initial development - internal testing - pre-beta debugging - beta testing - debugging - final testing - final debugging - release testing - product release" cycle would have to be done in less than 4 days. According to the math, 187 days / 55 features = 3.4 features per day, coincidentally... hehehe... interesting that it should come out to that particular number.

Realistically, I think we could count on that process taking at least a month even for only a single feature, so at one feature per release we would be looking at 6 features instead of 55 which is just barely over 10%, and that's not even counting the features that are likely to be in beta testing by the time you read this.

So the bottom line is... if you want new releases squeezed closer together, you'll have to put up with a lot less features being added in the same amount of time. Personally, I would suggest encouraging the developers to keep up the good work. You're gonna love this new version. :)

TechnoZeus

Nov 25, 2002, 5:38pm

Yep. That's pretty close. From what I understand also, AW 3.4 was VERY close to release, but there was a very misinformed war going on the the Community newsgroup and the ENZO was basically getting hate mail telling him to add the feature they wanted "NOW" or suffer the consequences. You might as well call it a terrorist attack, because that's just what it was. I really think they meant well, but the way they went about it... well, I'll shut up about that because I don't want to give them a reason to start it up all over again. Anyway, suffice it to say... that one feature is't going to be waiting until AW 3.5 as was originally planned, and as you can see from the math it doesn't do much good to add a single feature when you can add many features in the same time.

It wasn't the new release candidate that held up the show. The changes in build 438 were about half bug fixes and half new features. The current beta build is actually very stable for a beta. There were a few more bugs left to fix, but we have been testing build 443 for a pretty long time now while waiting for build 444 to come out, and if you look in the beta newsgroup for bugs in build 443 you won't find many even after all this "testing" time. I'm guessing if not for management being pushed into adding that one feature right away, build 445 would have been released to the public by now. Instead, build 444 isn't even released to the beta team yet. Don't blame the management. They were pushed and threatened, and there was dammage being done that they had to find a way to stop.

TechnoZeus


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Nov 26, 2002, 9:55am

So you're saying that if somebody badly dammaged your source of income and your reputation and then told you that they were going to continue causing dammage to it until you gave in to their demands, you wouldn't consider that a threat, huh? Well, to each their own. You're entitled to your opinion.

TechnoZeus

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Nov 29, 2002, 3:12am

Yes, and dish washers were around back in the stone age... and worked for very reasonable wages. :)

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 3:37am

True, but that is much more limiting than an actual command or command enhancement. I've suggested something on this line in the past, but I don't recall one of them exaclty right now so here's the basic idea behind one way this could be done...

If a "scale=" parameter was added to the texture command, or simply a "usize=" and "vsize=" parameter pair, something like the following could be used: create texture brick1 usize=4 vsize=.5

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 3:59am

I wouldn't care to keep blocked people on my list either, but I can understand why some people might, and it's not really dumb. For example, if someone blocks a lot of people (from viewing their on-line status, or from sending them telegrams, or what ever) and changes who is on that list frequently, (for what ever reasons they may have), they may want to be able to quickly glance at a list to see which people are currently blocked from sending them telegrams "at that time" or something to that effect. Anyway, I think it would be neat to be able to sort people by attributes such as on-line status, privacy options, and what ever else the browser has to work with.

TechnoZeus

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Nov 28, 2002, 10:29pm

There really isn't such a thing as a "global bot" in that sense. A bot in global mode can detect things from all over the world it is in, but that is one way, and does not effect how far away you can see the bots avatar or how far away you can hear the bot's chat. A bot with caretaker privileges can also send "console messages" that can be heard anywhere in the world, but than neither effects nor is effected by weather or not the bot is in global mode and also does not effect the bot's chat range, which is also how far away you can see it's avatar.

TechnoZeus

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Nov 28, 2002, 7:37pm

I'm not sure how people will feel about this, but I was just thinking it would be neat so I'm posting it here and hoping to get a few comments... negative ones are welcome as well as positive ones, but that's not an invitation to start a flame war. :)

It occurred to me that we have multiple 3rd person view modes, and a single 1st person view mode, but no 2nd person view mode, so I thought about how one could be implemented.

If the world you're in is set to "Allow second person view" then here's how it would work:
When you right click on someone's avatar, the menu that comes up could include a 2nd person view mode which you could click to make it as if you were seeing through their eyes. This would be perfect for the times when someone wants to show you something, because all they would have to do is look at it and say "click my avatar and choose 2nd person view". It would also be a neat way to take screen shots, as you could quickly change to the viewing positions of various people in the room. If the person who's avatar's position you are viewing through moves out of your chat range, your view camera would be left in the last position where they were in your chat range until you change it. If you right click on another avatar while in 2nd person view mode, it would only show the option for 2nd person view if that avatar is within your chat range. That way it couldn't be used as a spying tool, because the view wouldn't go anywhere outside of your chat range. I think this would be really handy to have, but should also be switchable at the world level so that world owners who may object to it can disable it in their world and so that puzzle and game worlds can turn it off to avoid cheating. Also, I think there should be a personal privacy settings to block 2nd person view, in case someone chooses to do that.

Any thoughts on this idea?

TechnoZeus

Dec 2, 2002, 7:22am

Could be, but I don't think so. From a program logic standpoint, it would basically be an extra 3rd person mode with a few minor modifications:

* You could initiate it from the context menu after right clicking on an avatar.

* The camera would track the 2nd person and veiw from their location.

* The 2nd person's avatar wouldn't be rendered.

* The camera would be restrained not to go out any farther than your chat range, which would probably happen naturally anyway since when the person leaves your chat range their avatar wouldn't be there to track anymore.

TechnoZeus

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Nov 28, 2002, 10:31pm

I thought that was how it works now. would you elaborate, please?

TechnoZeus

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Dec 2, 2002, 12:06am

Hehe. Cute. :)

TechnoZeus

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Dec 5, 2002, 3:41am

I'm calm. :)

TZ

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Nov 29, 2002, 5:51am

If you look again at your quoted material, you may notice that it mentions cotings used to reduce reflections on the inside of the lense. The lense in the human eye also reflects and refracts light, and although these effects are sufficiently minimal as to keep any normal scene from having a visably noticable lense flare, it is never eleminated "completely" and a bright enough light source does make it noticeable. Anyone who has ever tried to drive a car while facing the sun should be able to tell you that with or without dark sunglasses to help reduce the effect, the sunlight very noticeably glares over parts of the overal scene which are well outside of the actual image of the sun. This is a lense flare, even though it looks quite different from the lense flares captured on film through cameras of various designs and complexities. The brightness of the lense flare is roughly the same at a distance of x units as the inverse square of x times the brightness of a lense flare from the same source at 1 unit. In other words... the sun is very bright. :)

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 4:20am

That "feature" was fixed. :)

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 4:25am

One of the things I've been meaning to post to the wishlist as soon as I get caught up is a "envelope" idea, which among other benefits would make shaping an existing object to fit an angled hole in the terrain pretty easy. I'm almost caught up now, so I'll be doing that soon. :)

TechnoZeus

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Dec 1, 2002, 11:57pm

It would apear to me that you are the one who wishes to be considered the master of the newsgroup, since you have taken it upon yourself not only to decide what other people should or should not reply to, but also what topics are dead and what topics are not. I'm not trying to do any such thing, and you can take your personal attack and stick it where ever like, but this is the last time I am bothering to answer you on this redundant topic. As far as I'm concerned "THIS" is a dead topic.

TechnoZeus

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Dec 2, 2002, 7:29am

To comment is one thing. We all have opinions. To attack me or anyone else personally is another story entirely.

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 4:43am

Okay, since you can't see it. I will point it out to you carefully:

You said "I understand that TZ just wants to be active in the community but this is completly and utterly rediculous."

Okay, that could be taken more than one way, so even though it looks like an attack to me I'll concede that it may not have been one.

You said "My list is FULL of all his posts to age old topics that are long dead."

Again, not necessarily an attack. You see them as dead, and I do not. We simply disagree.

You said "I ask that you stop replying to age old posts from this point forwards, as it is neither beneficial to you, nor I, nor anyone else."

Again, not really an attack. You made a request, and a judgement about the potential benefits, or lack thereof, that may come from my actions. Personal, yes, but not necessarily an attack.

You then said "I understand your wanting to be seen as a Newsgroup master so to speak, but replying to every single post is not really required."

That was, in my opinion, a personal attack. You have implied, although not directly said, that I am in the habit of replying to "every single post" and have also stated that you understand "my" wanting to be seen as something that I have never wanted to be seen as. If it was not meant as an attack, say so and I will take your word for it... but it definately "looks like" one to me. In the future, please refrain from stating for me what "my" wants are without checking the accuracy of your information. I'm perfectly capable of stating my own intentions and would be happy to do so if asked.

Now you've replied to a topic that I considered dead. Thanks for proving my point... we each make our own decisions about such things.

TechnoZeus


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Dec 4, 2002, 4:49am

They had it in PowWow back in 1997, when I first tried Active Worlds. I don't know how old the feature was in there by then, but I know it was very popular. Of course, that was only with web browsing, not 3D worlds.

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 5:07am

If they released any of the builds 420 through 446 to the public, they would probably have more complaints through e-mail in a day than they could possibly read in a month. Some new versions will naturally have more new features than others. I'm sure they would not want to be expected to put anywhere near as many new features into most new versions as they have added into the one we are currently beta testing. This one has an unusually large number of new features, and weather they release it too soon or at the right time is likely to make all the difference in the world between it ending up being the most hated new version ever and the most loved new version ever.

Fact is, if they sent out a new build to the beta testers that turned out to be liked by all the alpha testers and all the beta testers, as is, and no bugs were found within a reasonable period of time, they would probably slap a new splash screen on it, and send it out as a release version. That's not likely to happen, but it is theoretically possible... and a nice wish. :)

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 5:12am

I should clarify what I just said, because I just realized I didn't word it as I had intended. The way I worded it, actually "does" happen, but generally with a "release candidate" build. What I actually "meant" was, that it's not likely that an early beta build which is "not" a release candidate would be so well liked and so bug free that they would just put in a new splash screen to make it no longer say "beta" when you start it, and release it to everyone... but it is still a nice wish. :)

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 9:56am

I also think the Corona command sould have more options, including an option to make it shrink on your screen as it gets farther away even though this would look more like a sprite and less like a corona, but I think if we really want better sprites, a facer command should be added...

For ZOrientY...
Create Facer Y
would cause the object to rotate around the Y axis to keep it's Z axis facing you.

For ZOrientX...
Create FacerX
would cause the object to rotate around it's X axis to keep the Z axis facing you.

For OrientXYZ...
Create Facer
would cause the object to always apear to face your screen directly with it's Z axis.

Alternatively, the object's orientation could be used so that the object could be pre-rotated, and the rotate command would still have an effect on it, but your avatar's orientation would also be added to the object's aparent facing direction... or this could be switchable with one or more additional parameters.

TechnoZeus

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Dec 12, 2002, 6:51am

If it's an "option" it wouldn't hurt anything. The default would still be as it is now. I think there are several things that could be made optional, to allow the corona command to be used for many different effects rather than "only" for lense flare and corona effects.

TechnoZeus

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Dec 17, 2002, 2:30am

Facer objects (Sprites) have only the fact that they turn to face you in common with coronas. When RenderWare stopped supporting them directly, Roland had to write a routine for AW to handle them, and he kept it very simple and quite different from how they used to be handled. For example, a flat panel facer pretty much vanishes when viewed from above. Also, facer objects are not displayed overlapping objects that would otherwise partially obscure them, and technically a corona "should" fade with distance, while such an effect is currently not possible with sprites OR coronas in AW.

TechnoZeus

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Dec 4, 2002, 10:10am

Going back to October 31st, 2002, I see 9 posts in the Wishlist newsgroup from you, 5 in the beta newsgroup, 4 in the bots newsgroup, and 1 in the community newsgroup. I don't have all of them downloaded on this computer, so I checked with my other computer. I hope that info helps somehow.

??????????

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Dec 4, 2002, 10:12am

oops... Keyboard switched into Greek.

TechnoZeus

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