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Mar 12, 2003, 8:24pm

Violence is perfectly natural. Male animals kill each other constantly in
battles over females or territory.

What freaks me out is that it's gotten so impersonal... killing people by
the 1000's with long range explosives (be they US long range laser-guided
thingies, or Bin Laden's suicide jumbo jet pilots) is just too wierd... the
people who are going to die are going to have nothing to do with the source
of the problem.

Personally, I think world leaders should be put into bare-fist no-rules cage
matches to settle political issues. =P

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Mar 12, 2003, 8:27pm

Americans generalize themselves by assigning themselves to obvious social
themes which effectively force them to become stereotypes. (<--but isn't
this a generalization?)

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Mar 12, 2003, 7:12am

lol, actually you indeed do.

That was probably the coolest response I've ever gotten to one of my fun
little rants. You're obviously a conscious individual (a rare thing, it
often seems). And, more than that, your pruity of spirit and will seem
perfectly intact

Whatever your form of belief may be, you have the distinct ability to bypass
the extraneous and see to the core of, for lack of a more descriptive term,
spiritualism. I have to say that this little statement of yours is in
perfect agreement with my perspective on life, regardless of what may seem
like disagreements. If there were more people with the kind of pure,
untainted spirit you show, well let's just say this war-like discussion (not
to mention the wars! =P) wouldn't be going on.

I've gotta get your opinion on this: What's with all the people who just say
"hi" or "how ya doin?" when they pass, but if you actually say anything to
them, they ignore you? I've taken to responding to standardized greatings
with "Many happy standardized socially acceptable greeting words to you, Sir
or Maam," which I'm sure solidifies my position in their minds as a mental
patient. =D

I can't quite help feeling like this "who's crazy?" argument the world
participates in is a little lame since we're all such lovable whackos. =D

there's more stuff mixed in with quotes down there.

[View Quote] I didn't say there is no difference (and if I did, I didn't mean to)... I'm
referring to a situation where each one plays a distinct role in a cycle
which could be broken on either end. Sure, it might hurt civilizations at
first to remove police, but the first step towards healing always stings,
and it's easier than saying "just remove all the psychos," since it's often
a repressive police state which incites violence in the first place. Prisons
(um, sorry, "correctional facilities") don't reform people, they just make
them bitter. People with severe psychological problems need help, not
punishment. Shame on you, civilization! Revenge is just as bad as the crime.

I believe the only fair system is to return people to interaction on a
one-on-one basis, where no system of power rules over the masses. Granted,
this will instill chaos at first, but not making this change will eventually
lead humanity down a path it... well... doesn't want to go down (I'd say
they're already well on their way...) Either way, they'll eventually learn
this lesson, I just always hope it won't take the drastic measures that
prophets have been warning us about since biblical times and long before....



That is so very true... the concepts behind all of the world's religions are
all inherently good, it's people who use them as an excuse to further their
own agendas who are the real issue. However, these are usually the people in
power, it seems.. =P

> sense

I think a lot of people are filled with excess hate just waiting to explode
on anyone who says something they don't entirely agree with. It's too bad we
can't all realize that just because people disagree on some logistical
semantics doesn't make them mortal enemies.

surroundings
know.
that

This is my favorite part ^^^^

> only
far
> will

Mar 12, 2003, 7:21am

Secret covert operations. Tricky satellite lasers. Exploding ham (uh,
what?). It's all possible these days, theoretically, but it's against "da
law." This is where laws get us... instead of just realizing "yo, saddam's
an asshole, kill him," we have to kill all his troops (and trust me, you
can't kill him, he's the leader - he's probably nowhere near the combat
zone. Just like they couldn't kill Bin Laden, he's nowhere near where the
fighting's going on.)

How serious you take what I write is entirely up to you, thus adding a new
level of dynamics to the newsgroup interface. =D

I heard that we turned away a troop of Iraqi soldiers who tried to
surrender, anyone else catch that one?

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Mar 13, 2003, 5:30pm

True, but won't they just be killed by their own side as defectors when they
return now?

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Mar 18, 2003, 2:31pm

::Long applause::
Absolute agreement on my part, and that's all I have to say. =P

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Mar 20, 2003, 2:04pm

Maybe we're all just getting bored waiting for 3.4... I know I am. =D

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Mar 20, 2003, 2:10pm

IMO it's never a good idea to sink yourself to the level of your opponent.
Just because the other guy moves on to pointless insults doesn't mean you
need to. In fact, if you can avoid it, and your opponent cannot, it might
just make a more significant point.

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Mar 20, 2003, 2:26pm

As biological creatures living in synthetic environments, few if any of us
reach true psychological maturity. In fact, many people over the age of 50
are still functioning on brain circuits intended for children at about the
age of 10. We're sheltered and kept 'safe' from the real world, until one
day we're suddenly exposed to the truths of human civilization, the horrors
and the corruption. Then, everything bursts out, and it intends to take the
rest of the world down with it. We're angry because we've been forced to
become 9-5 slaves for governments that doesn't care about us aside from our
ability to fill a slot designed for a warm body, not because of our
differing opinions. The aggression is just there, under the surface, waiting
to explode at the first mention of an alternate perspective.

Cut to the real issue here: We're all slaves, our natural habbitats have
been destroyed, we all lost our childhoods to institutionalized education,
and we are seriously pissed off about it (even though most of us don't
realize it or are in deep, deep denial over it).

We're freakin' brain-monkeys! We don't want to fill out paperwork for 8
hours or program boring utilities for uninteresting companies, we want to
run around in the forests and dedicate our minds to creativity, and if
anyone disagrees with that, then get the hell off our planet you alien scum
and stop building so many hideous factories (<--- there's that anger I was
just talking about.. we're full of it, and we just can't wait to find a
target =P)

UberMonkey (dude, that's like, some kinda ... monkey. Whoa.)

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Apr 10, 2003, 11:01pm

I find these racist remarks against my people very offensive! I demand that
someone in charge around here delete this post I'm writing right now
immediately, even though I haven't posted it yet! You all should be ashamed
of yourselves for allowing things to get this bad. I mean, my culture has a
long history of violence, especially against its own people, so--
Hrrk!
Stop! Noo!
Crrk.. tphhtp ...
......
......
......


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Apr 15, 2003, 4:56am

Bah, please don't post while under the influence of decrepit social
mechanisms and a severe lack of creativity.
Thanks.

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Apr 16, 2003, 8:11am

You're a moron if you didn't notice the obvious sarcasm in my post. I don't
have to worry about being offended -- I'm easily the most offensive person
here. (example: I think all government is inherently evil and should be
abolished, ending this rediculous farce once and for all)

I was simply pointing out how rediculous everyone in here arguing sounds to
me through example.

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Apr 15, 2003, 11:00am

Personally, I think it's great. I had no trouble adjusting. Then again, I'm
used to lots of fps games.

It's been suggested before, but it would be cool to see user-controled
movement speeds in 3.5 (perhaps in the form of an addition to avatars.dat
allowing the world admins to set different movement options for different
avs)

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May 19, 2003, 6:45pm

I also thought that statement seemed a bit nonsensical.... A direct
connection of that sort without significant research seems a bit
unscientific to me.

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Jul 6, 2003, 9:20pm

I also experience this at certain angles (though never the same angles...)
GeForce 4 Ti 4400 128mb
Athlon XP 2100+, 512 mb RAM
DX9, T&L enabled

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Oct 7, 2003, 2:38pm

I'd just like to let everyone know that these issues have been dealt with,
and Proxima is once again open to the public.

For anyone who may be interested, I would like to describe the problem we
were having:
A number of "blank" objects had appeared in the world, primarily
concentrated around GZ. These objects had a 0 value for all attributes,
including owner. Loading a large number of these objects in the browser
would result in an always-fatal glitch. For the moment, I have solved the
problem by simply adding a hack to delete any object with an invalid "owner"
attribute, however I am quite curious how such data could come to exist to
begin with (my hypothesis is that aw_object_load () allows one to input any
data, even *bad* data, which can potentially crash the browser... IMO the
server should be checking for these sorts of potential bad data).

While I am unable to confirm this, I believe these "invisible objects"
(which did not even display a missing obj triangle) were also responsible
for severe performance degradation which has been reported near Proxima GZ
lately, and request that anyone who had been experiencing such issues
compare their previous performance with current, and report findings to me
should there prove to be any change.

On a related note, Proxima's game controller has just been converted to a
dynamic memory system, which should result in better overall performance.
World expansion is the current project goal, and as such a number of new
weapons, NPCs, turrets, shops, properties, factions, etc. will be appearing
over the next couple days. Also, look for a detailed manual quite soon.

-UberMonkey

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Dec 22, 2003, 1:33pm

This is what I do: In MAX, I always use the same scale when designing objs;
10 MAX units = 1 AW meter
This seems to work out well for me, however you could use whatever you like
(some may be more comfortable with 1 unit = 1 meter, but I find that 3dsmax
is not designed to handle objects below a certain size very well).

Then you basically just set the scale in accutrans to .01 on X/Y/Z. You can
easily figure out what to set this to should you decide to use something
other than my suggested scale by remembering that in AW 0.1 = 1m. Since
you're using 10 = 1m in 3ds, divide by 100 in this case. If you decide to
use 100 3ds units = 1m, divide by 1000, and so forth.

A note about the "3DS" format, commonly used as the exporting method: The
old 3DS file format has a lot of little glitches when exporting from a
modern format as used in MAX 5. For example, texture filenames will be
truncated after 8 characters, and any changes to pivot points of the model
elements (a very handy feature IMO) will result in a totally ruined model. I
usually export to VRML format (I knew VRML would be good for something
someday..) when I'm doing anything complex, as it keeps the texture names
and better handles some of MAX's complex modeling features.

Also, you will end up having to manually edit the resulting RWX file to get
the material properties set correctly; I have yet to find any way to
translate material details (aside from the texture assignment itself) from
MAX to RWX, however that certainly doesn't mean it's impossible.

-Monkey!

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Dec 22, 2003, 1:42pm

Forgot to mention this one:
Using any of MAX's more complex UVW mapping modes (that is, anything aside
from planar) generally tends to result in a model which contains 2x the
original verts. As far as I can tell, this is due to RWX only being able to
handle one UV coordinate per vert and Accutrans thus being forced to create
multiple verticies to maintain the original texturing.

I'd like to take this moment to petition for multle UV "layers" -- could be
easily (okay, so there's still a big change to the RWX parser and rendering
system) done by adding a third coordinate to the UV data. UV coords only
"interact" with other UV coords with the same "layer" value. Then, allow for
multiple sets of UV coords per vert, assuming each one has a different
"layer." If two layers overlap on a part of the model, use the one with the
highest layer id. It would perhaps take a bit of curious logic, but I can
see it working out in theory.

Here's a question for anyone who knows Truespace: Can you have multiple UV
coords to a vert, or does using a complex mapping mode also result in a vert
doubling?

-Monkey!

Dec 17, 2002, 8:05pm

Ahem! Don't bother wondering who I am, I've been in AW since 1996 and
reading the NGs for as long as they've been around, I just don't say much,
usually.

I think it's about time I stopped just monitoring all this and said
something. I'm sure most of you have been monitoring the beta NG since time
began like I have, so you should all be aware of the changes made to the
movement system in 3.4. I am, of course, referring to the fact that the
walk/run speeds have been significantly decreased to be more 'realistic.'
This is simply one AW user (of 6 years)'s opinion, but... while I appreciate
the attempt to create a realistic environment with 'gamelike' features (and
have, in the past, been an advocate of such features), I cannot support the
idea of FORCING users to travel slower than they are already required to in
every world!

This should be a server-side option, there is no question here! World owners
should decide how 'realistic' they want their environment to be. Some of you
may remember a time when holding ALT would allow you to travel even faster
than CTRL, and holding both would allow "warp speed." I recall being quite
upset when these options were removed (though we did receive the teleport
menu to compensate). Regardless, I believe that it is unreasonable to impose
a slower movement speed on the general populous IN THE FORM OF A BROWSER
LIMITATION (this is critical). HOWEVER.. I believe most people (<---this is
where I get in trouble) would agree that a reasonable compromise would be to
return movement speeds to their old values while allowing a SERVER-SIDE
control on the speed of walk/run/fly (independent of each other of course).
This way, realistic worlds like NewAW could have more realistic movement
speeds, while other worlds (AW Prime, which is so HuGe, for example) could
maintain the original speed settings, allowing users to explore in the same
manner they have been able to.

I needn't point out that these new speeds impede both building and,
especially, exploration. I also needn't point out that giving world
caretakers control of the speed would allow them to increase it if they so
desired, which could be helpful somehow.

My recommendation: Either a simple option in world features for walk/run/fly
speeds, or (I like this one) ... speed defs in the avatars.dat file, so that
different avs can have different speeds (bird slow on land, fast in air,
only av that can fly, and so forth).... or, both would be cool.... but I
think I'm on a tangent now.

Aaaaanyway... We must have CUSTOMIZATION! Whee!

Perhaps some feedback from someone in the beta who has an opinion after
experiencing the new system??

-UberMonkey (aka GloK, or more often, 35850)
Moo.

Dec 18, 2002, 3:00pm

Indeed, this would strike me as the ultimate solution to the issue. Complete
customization on the per-avatar level.... This way, people who like it slow
could just choose a slow av..... and it'd be great for game-stuff.

-Monkey!!

"ananas" wrote...
> [something smart]

Dec 18, 2002, 3:10pm

[View Quote]
Thus returning us to the fact that builders and world designers have little
choice but to make everything (avatars included) too large ... which is not
really compatible with slower, 'realistic' movement ... or else too simple
.... which isn't much fun.

Blah! I don't see what is so freaking difficult about setting a numerical
value in the world features or avatars.dat instead of just hard-coding it.
There must be some sort of simple acceleration variable somewhere in the
code that could be referrenced to in a menu box that would take about
(speaking from a programmer's perspective, which I have a good deal of
experience with) 2.5 minutes (+/- 1 day allowing for TiME dIsTorTioN, which
seems to come up a lot while coding) to code/test.

I assure you (general-purpose pronoun referring to ALL HUMANOID LIFE IN THE
UNIVERSE, if my knowledge of modern English serves me properly) that there
will be complaints about the new speed from more people than just crazy
nit-pickers like myself when this is released. And we will band together to
build a boat! A boat which will carry us all to freedom!

::Dramatic shot of boat going over waterfall::
Freedom!! Huzah!
::smash, break, pain, etc.::

If we're really going for realistic numerical scale, isn't it about time the
cell grid be reworked into a smaller size? HAH! I happen to <?wtf?> know
</?wtf?> how HIDEOUSLY difficult that would be, considering factors like the
size of existing world databases (AW) and the fact that absolutely
everything is built on top of this idea of 10x10 grids, and the performance
issues, and the way that those little things stick the the bottom of... oh,
uh... what?

REGARDLESS!! I agree with those who said that it is, at this point, more
critical to finally complete this beta without adding anything new! Still, I
think it's good to insert ideas into the subconscious regions of the
programmer's minds early, so they have a while to fester and cause insanity.
Yep.

-Monkey!

Mar 4, 2003, 4:32pm

You can do that... I have all the avatars in my models directory for my
world, and you can use them just fine (however you should keep in mind that
avatars are usually a lot more complicated than building objs and you can
easily kill all your low-end visitors with them)

[View Quote]

Mar 5, 2003, 6:14pm

Just a friendly reminder to the AW dev team that if the new version doesn't
come out soon, some of us might start belching fire and vomiting blood (it's
a... skin condition)! Or is it the other way around...? Well anyway, you
certainly wouldn't want to have to clean up the mess.

Brought to you by the Council of Giving Me Lots of Money (COGMLOM. Say it
with me now, "cog-m'lom!")

Apr 14, 2003, 10:48pm

I seem to remember people saying this since 1998 and even before...


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Apr 15, 2003, 3:26am

Could someone in beta pass this along to the beta NG?

I'm relatively certain this is a bug. Setting water opacity to 255 does not
make it opaque anywhere EXCEPT outside the "high detail" square around the
user. The central square is ~50% opaque, but the low detail areas seem to
function properly. Very infrequently (and seemingly randomly) the opacity
becomes correct, but then returns. I have not tried this using a "full
opacity" mask yet, but I will.
[update: tried other video modes, d3d without T+L always renders the water
is 100% opaque, color does not affect, same with opengl. Above symptoms are
for d3d with T+L and software]

Also: Setting the water color does not alter the color of the surface of the
water, only the fog color while underwater. I don't know if this is
intentional.

Aside from that, so far everything works great.

Athlon XP 2100+
512 mb PC2700 RAM
128mb GeForce4 using latest reference drivers
SBAudigy2
WindowsXP
DirectX 9a

Apr 15, 2003, 11:22am

(Thanks Bowen. Maybe you or someone else on beta could pass this one along
as well?)
I've noticed that sliding causes a massive drop in framerate that was not
present in 3.3. This suggests that the sliding mechanism is somehow wasting
system resources in large quantities. Also, the sliding behavior is much
less 'smooth' than in 3.3 (bouncing back and forth much like pre-3.4 uphill
slants did)

This performance drop might be in the collision detection itself? Regular,
non-sliding collisions also seem to be a large performance drop.

Impressions are from AW at 80m vis ~30fps while not sliding/colliding.

> Athlon XP 2100+
> 512 mb PC2700 RAM
> 128mb GeForce4 using latest reference drivers
> SBAudigy2
> WindowsXP
> DirectX 9a

Apr 26, 2003, 10:26pm

Recent experimentation has shown that a massive performance drop related to
collision detection/sliding ONLY takes place (on my system) while in D3D
(T&L or no).

Tests with D3D indicate that colliding with an object, even if no movement
is being made (face a flat surface at a 90 degree angle), FPS can often be
cut in half (60 drops to 30)
The same test with OpenGL and software indicate that no more than 1 FPS is
ever lost while colliding. I also noticed that sliding is generally much
smoother in OpenGL, even though OGL is mostly useless as far as speed and
accuracy of rendering.

This seems to indicate that the glitch which causes the FPS to plummet is
not actually in the collision code but (somehow?) related to the rendering.
Anyone able to confirm or deny these results?

UberMonkey

Apr 27, 2003, 5:45am

[View Quote] I'll tell you exactly how. I teleported myself directly in front of a flat
object (in this case table2.rwx) facing at an exact 90 degree angle. I then
proceeded to walk directly towards the table until colliding with it. I then
stopped holding the forward key and waited for the FPS meter to stabilize.
standing FPS: 60
I then held the move forward key, which resulted in absolutely no movement
since I was at a 90 degree angle to the object, and waited for the FPS meter
to stabilize.
standing FPS while holding move forward: 30
Then I tried it with other objects. Always similar results.

I then repeated the test in all other video modes.
I found that it occurs more severely in D3D (regardless of T&L). While in
OpenGL, colliding with an object does not appear to affect FPS to as severe
a degree (often losing no more than 20% of fps) (though the overall FPS is
lower and there are a number of horrible z-buffering problems). The same
appears true in software, though an accurate determination here is difficult
considering the low FPS (6). I'm not necessarily implying that the rendering
has caused this glitch, however there must be some reason why the OpenGL
engine does not display this issue, yes? Or else the percent lost decreases
as the FPS decreases, due to the program taking less samples per second and
therefore doing less collision calculations overall. ... confirmed, D3D also
loses less at lower FPS. However testing 60fps in OpenGL drops to 45, while
D3D still drops to 30.

I dunno.


Monkey

Apr 27, 2003, 5:49am

Oi!
Here's an interesting one.
In D3D, starting at 93FPS, still drops directly to 30 and sits there.
Tried others between 60 and 100, still goes to exactly 30 fps.

Apr 27, 2003, 3:27pm

However I was under the impression that this setting only affects the
visibility, which in all tests I have locked to 100m.

I just now tried setting it to 10 fps, however the browser's FPS still drops
to exactly 30 as long as it's over 30 to begin with (otherwise, it displays
similar behaviour to OpenGL, losing about 25% fps on collision)

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