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Mar 6, 2003, 5:51pm

Not bad... aparently made by the PNG group, and claims to have support for both lossy and lossless compression, animation, transparency, data streaming, etc. There is of course, the down side in their recommendation that the JNG subformat have a different file extension, in that it again means specifying a file extension is necessary, but if AW were to continue to treat files without an extension as signifying JPG and add in support for other extensions if specified explicitly, this could be a nice format to have support for. Looks like it's being very slowly accepted by the Internet community in general, based on what I've seen on their web page. Perhaps that's because of the fact that other file formats got their foot in the door first. :)

TechnoZeus

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Mar 4, 2003, 10:08am

The sound command was designed to act as a part of the 3D environment, fade with distance, and move left or right depending on the angle you're facing. The noise command was designed to do exactly what you're asking for the ability to do.

http://www.ActiveWorlds.com/help/noise_command.html

TechnoZeus

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Mar 5, 2003, 7:40am

Yes, the addition of a "loop=" or "repeat=" parameter to the noise command was actually suggested even before the noise command was extended to play MIDI files, and I still think it's a good suggestion. It is possible to stop a MIDI file started with the Noise command. Take a look in my Index (AW 25000n 15000w) if you want to see one way it can be done. It is also possible to use animate timers to repeat the noise command at specific intervals, but this is no more of a reasonable substitute for a good command enhancement than being able to do accomplish it with a bot is... in my opinion.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 7, 2003, 8:24am

That would be a nice option. An alternative, might be to have the water converted to a wireframe mesh while objects are selected, so that you can see where it is without it getting in the way.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 7, 2003, 10:53am

Glad you like it. :)

TZ

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Mar 9, 2003, 3:13am

In my opinion, it doesn't belong in any newsgroup. If it's a personal matter, then it should be delt with privately, and if it's a legal matter, then it should be treated as such. But... that is just my opinion.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 10, 2003, 8:52am

There are two ways I can think of right now that something of that nature could be implemented.

The first, and probably the easiest, would be to simply have a list of world name stored in a special text file that would be hidden from the worlds list.

The second, would be to set up an ini style database, with world categories in it, and allow you to place any world in any category, but only in one category at a time. For example, you could make a category named Favorites, one named Fun Worlds, one named Interesting Places, and one named Bad Places, and move all of the worlds you want to avoid into the Bad Places list, so they wouldn't show up in th uncategorized list or any of your other categories.

Alternately, I suppose it would be possible to use both the list of hidden worlds and the world categories, in which case it would make more sense to allow a world to be in any number of categories at once.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 10, 2003, 3:00pm

Probably. Of course, that would also mean having to add a "no such world" (or world not running) icon, for times when a world in one of your groups wasn't running. I still wish we could group contacts like that.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 11, 2003, 9:19am

There presently is no "not rated" as far as I know, although there probably should be. As for what's closed, those are in grey.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 11, 2003, 3:03pm

To give you an idea of how it will look when AW 3.4 is released, look at the following preliminary help page...

http://host.activeworlds.com/TechnoZeus/aw34/world_list.html

The image on that page doesn't show any closed worlds, but the closed ones are all in grey. I think probably the text of their name should be in grey also, for the sake of people who are color blind, but right now that's not the case.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 11, 2003, 3:41pm

I just went in and added an icon to the beginning of each of the first two paragraphs, so if you want to see the shade of grey used for closed worlds, look at the beginning of the second paragraph. Of course, version 3.4 worlds will still have a ratings symbol even when they are closed, but I picked a closed 3.3 world for that particular graphic image rather than having to decide which rating to put there. :)

TechnoZeus

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Mar 11, 2003, 3:57pm

Yep.. and Ctrl-Insert for copy. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V were brought over to Windows from the Macintosh, and because some developers were only aware of one set of keyboard shortcuts or the other, they have different amounts of predictability in different areas. For example, I've found that although Ctrl-Insert works in a Windows XP directory folder, it will fail when the window is busy where the copy option in that window's edit menu will not. Ctrl-Insert seems to be reliable in the Active Worlds chat history. I agree though, that those would be nice features to have in the right click menu.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 14, 2003, 1:10am

That's not a 3.4 feature. You need a bot for that... and even if it was a version 3.4 feature, being able to set up chat zones and being able to customize the chat range are two totally different things.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 14, 2003, 5:57pm

That is true. The support for that type of bot does require a version 3.4 world. NewAW uses a modified version 3.4 world, but even there it requires more than just the 3.4 browser and world server.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 15, 2003, 6:37am

It was at one point a square vertical prism. Then a cube. If it has changed to a cylindar I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised but I haven't tested that lately. I did try to run a test of the exact shape of the current chat range, but after going through the trouble of managing to get two copies of the beta running, without it throwing me out of one of them for being a tourist, and then finding a world that allowed tourists, local teleports, and flying, I found that I still couldn't run a proper test because every time I teleport... I fall.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 15, 2003, 7:08am

I should clarify that, for those who aren't on the beta... when I said current, in that context, I meant the version of Active Worlds that I am currently testing.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 15, 2003, 9:16am

Perhaps a world option would be even better.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 14, 2003, 1:13am

I don't think they want us to be able to "join" each other in NewAW, but I agree that an option at the world level to let join requests work in spite of local teleports otherwise being disabled would be nice.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 14, 2003, 1:18am

Yes, I think it is getting close to release... I hope so anyway. I do agree with him though, that this would probably be much too invloved for 3.4, and should instead be considered for 3.5 or later. Of course, no harm in mentioning that you're wishing for it. Perhaps the development team might agree with me about that feature being too involved for 3.4 at this point, or perhaps they'll see this thread and disagree with that line of thinking completely. Anyway... it's here if they decide to look. :)

TechnoZeus

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Mar 14, 2003, 7:51am

Well, I think we're farther from release than we were in build 443, and MUCH closer to it than e were in build 445, so it's all a matter of how close you consider to be close. It's getting there though... some serious issues yet, with no end in sight, but just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's necessarily far away.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 14, 2003, 12:53am

E N Z O suggested I move this from beta to wishlist, so here it is...

I would like to see the initial 3rd person camera from AW 3.4 beta build 447 added back into the AW 3.4 beta as one of the 3rd person cameras available.

TechnoZeus

Mar 14, 2003, 5:54pm

For those who don't know what the build 447 initial 3rd person camera is, it's a camera that follows you from behind, but tracks you slowly enough that you can turn your avatar around and walk with your side to it for a while before it catches up, or even turn and walk into it. When all of the cameras tracked slowly like that, it was a problem for builders because they didn't have any way to get the camera to stay still, but this particular camera did have it's useful side though and would make a good addition to the current line-up of 3rd person cameras... or more to the point, an addition to the line-up of 3rd person cameras that were in build 465.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 15, 2003, 1:51pm

I don't know if begging helps, but I'm willing to at this point. This has been asked for so many times, and as far as I know not yet been looked into at all by the development team. We need a way to set a maximum frame rate, or a maximum filmstrip rate, or both. Both would be best, but either would be better than nothing. I was just asked to preview an 8 frame filmstrip, and on my incredibly slow computer I couldn't get my frame rate below 72 fps in Alpha World with the build 466 beta of AW 3.4 where I was trying to test the animation. Most of the time I was getting about 90 fps, so the animation was playing completely through more than 11 times per second. How is anyone supposed to see that?

TechnoZeus

Mar 15, 2003, 10:52pm

Yep. It does require a bot though, but at least with the help of a bot designed for it you can simulate changing the chat text color in AW 3.4.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 15, 2003, 11:00pm

You and I have both suggested that repeating terrain idea before. I think Shamus actually liked the idea, but he did mention a certain complication with it. As for the water, I thinkit would make more sense to just make the water editable like terrain is, allowing you to put holes in it, and to raise or lower it, but with an elasticity to the changes which would make them effect a larger area with a gradual increase or decrease in height. Not sure what you mean about the walk object setting.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 16, 2003, 4:15am

Theoretically possible, yes... but the basic idea would be to have it set up to that you could raise or lower large sections of water into extremely shallow slopes... so they wouldn't "look like" hills. This could be particularly useful for raising the "water table" under terrain, so that ponds or lakes could be made "above sea level".

TechnoZeus

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Mar 20, 2003, 12:50pm

Yep... two versions of that I suggested to Roland, before terrain existed, were... setting gravity by cell, and adding command that would allow objects to control the gravity in their area.. for example, so that you could float in a pool. A similar idea that I also had sent in was to make a command that alters your momentum, so that you could set up situations where a person could float downstream. (For those who don't know this, AW 3.4 has support for water that you can float in, but it's at the same altitude throughout the entire world if it's turned on at all, and there is only a single place to set the gravity for it. You can't just build a pool and float in it.)

TechnoZeus

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Mar 16, 2003, 9:58pm

Actually, making a sign object with backward text is easy... and doesn't require any modifications to AW at all.

As for adding mirrors, that's a different story. I would be "extremely" surprised if that were to end up in 3.4 and probably somewhat surprised if it even ends up in any pre-4.0 version.

TechnoZeus

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Mar 17, 2003, 4:24am

Yep.. you left out the spaces (ie.e 0 0, 0 1, 1 1, 1 0) but yes I know what you mean... and that's exactly how you would do it for a mirror image sign or picture object, or to reverse a texture's left-right orientation.

There is now one other way in a simple case like that of only showing a single copy of the image, but it will not work in AW 3.3, because of an old bug. In AW 3.4 beta build 467 that bug apears to no longer exists, so you could instead seth the TextureAddressMode to mirror, and change UV values of 0 0, 0 1, 1 1, 1 0 to values of 1 0, 1 1, 2 1, 2 0, which would flip it left to right, or 0 1, 0 2, 1 2, 1 1 which would flip it top to bottom, or even 1 1, 1 2, 2 2, 2 1 which would flip it both ways, essentially rotating the image 180 degrees.

For those who have no idea what all this means, here is an example segment of RWX script:

ModelBegin
ClumpBegin
#! TextureAddressMode Mirror
Vertex .05 .1 0 UV 1 0
Vertex -.05 .1 0 UV 0 0
Vertex -.05 0 0 UV 0 1
Vertex .05 0 0 UV 1 1
Vertex .05 .1 0 UV 1 2
Vertex -.05 .1 0 UV 0 2
Texture flame1 mask flame1m
Quad 1 2 3 4
Quad 6 5 4 3
#! TextureAddressMode Wrap
ClumpEnd
ModelEnd

Note that an identical looking object could have been made with only 4 vertices, but I made this one with 6 to demonstrate the effects of the "TextureAddressMode Mirror" command. With that line in it, this object will have a left-right mirror image on it's front side of what's on it's back. Remove that one line, and both sides will apear identical to each other. Unfortunately, if you want to test this in build 467, first off you need to be on the beta test team, and second off, you will have to clear your cache before the removal of that command will have any effect at all, or replace the command with "TextureAddressMode Wrap" and save it with a different name (which has not been cached) which will effect not only the new object, but all objects with th same texture.


TechnoZeus

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Mar 17, 2003, 4:40am

A futher note to anyone wishing to test this: I just noticed that the "TextureAddressMode Mirror" command is ignored completely on my system in OpenGL mode and in Software Render mode, in build 467, as well as in Direct3D mode with hardware T&L support switched off (even though my graphics card doesn't have any hardware T&L support) so perhaps it will work on some systems in AW 3.3 depending on what graphics mode they're in at the time. I doubt it, but it might. :)

TechnoZeus

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