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Apr 24, 1998, 9:08pm

I would like to see an indication in the browser that I cannot move forward
because I'm moving to a wall. This is not always obvious and when you expect
slow frames/sec it's not always clear why you don't move.
Some parts in some worlds are also build with some errors so that on some
parts you have to 'fly' or use the shift-button to continue in the requested
direction

Ton den Hartog

Apr 24, 1998, 11:17pm

Um, moving to a wall? Like sensors? How about a proximity alert system with laden response times and neuroelectrical biofeedback? JUST LEARN HOW TO FREAKIN' NAVIGATE IN 3D BETTER, ZIPPY.

sheesh

[View Quote] > I would like to see an indication in the browser that I cannot move forward
> because I'm moving to a wall. This is not always obvious and when you expect
> slow frames/sec it's not always clear why you don't move.
> Some parts in some worlds are also build with some errors so that on some
> parts you have to 'fly' or use the shift-button to continue in the requested
> direction

Apr 24, 1998, 11:40pm

Eep, he means like a noise... like those you hear sometimes in 3D
shooters. Yes I agree, he could learn to navigate in VR better, but this
may be a nice option... but pretty far down The List (tm) :)

[View Quote] --
Dthknight - dthknight at earthlink.net - ICQ: 2603180
Dthknight Central: AW 1875N 2225W
Home Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~dthknight/
AWEC Home: http://awec.home.ml.org

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert
Einstein

Apr 25, 1998, 2:00am

Good god...a beep! How lame...<walk>...<beep>..."ow"...<beep>..."stop that"...<beep, beep>..."look, you...I've had enough of you!"...<beep, beep>...<grumble>

Um...no. I'm not THAT lame. Noise...FEH! Gimme a friggin' break. What kind of lame "3D shooter" has a noise when you hit the wall? OK, OK, now if it was actually a the sound of hitting the wall, I could accept...hey, go check out Utah if you want to hear things when run into. It takes up a lot of data to add sounds to everything, but it does increase the realism of things. Two problems though:

1. AW pauses very briefly before playing a sound so it makes walking on anything with a "bump noise" difficult...and annoying. This pause is also with "bump sound", "activate noise", and "activate sound" commands. I've told Roland about this and he tells me the whole AW sound system needs redone. :/

2. Cell data limit will fill up fast with all the text required to make objects bumpable (and I like to add "activate noise" too for extra realism). I suggested to Roland to add another tag in RWX files for a sound to be "auto embedded" into an object. The tag could make a call to a WAV file, perhaps listed in the RWX file on a single line in a comment, like:

# ping.wav

or

# tag ping.wav

or

# tag ping

With such a tag, when AW downloaded the object, and saw the tag, it would then make a call for "ping.wav" or "ping.zip". And whenever someone bumped into the object, ping.wav would play. Another tag could be used for "activate", too. These tags would greatly save cell data.

[View Quote] > Eep, he means like a noise... like those you hear sometimes in 3D
> shooters. Yes I agree, he could learn to navigate in VR better, but this
> may be a nice option... but pretty far down The List (tm) :)

Apr 25, 1998, 7:28am

Actually, although I would think it a low priority, a "path blocked"
indicator of some type would be usefull to many people, and especially in
very dense areas on a slow computer. I would hope though that it would not
be indicated by a simple beep. In fact, I think a text message in the
status bar, or even a simple dummy light would be prefferable to any sound
effect in this case. Of course, the ideal situation for the end user would
be to have the method of notification be set in the Options, but of course
if everything was given all the options we could hope for, ActiveWorlds
would have a hard time fitting on the Internet (let alone on a single
computer) and we would all get very old waiting for the next release to come
out. :·)

TechnoZeus

>...>
>...

Apr 25, 1998, 1:07pm

Never said *I* wanted sounds like that... I agree, they are lame.
They're also not in that many 3D games anymore. Again, nice option, and
your way of implementing them sounds fine, but pretty far down The
List(tm).

[View Quote] --
Dthknight - dthknight at earthlink.net - ICQ: 2603180
Dthknight Central: AW 1875N 2225W
Home Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~dthknight/
AWEC Home: http://awec.home.ml.org

"But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily
vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing..." - Kate Chopin,
"The Awakening"

Apr 30, 1998, 8:26pm

>Actually, although I would think it a low priority, a "path blocked"
>indicator of some type would be usefull to many people, and especially in
>very dense areas on a slow computer.

Thank you. My computer is relatively slow, indeed (P133, 32Mb RAM, Matrox
Mystiqe 220, in Europe) and sometimes it takes a while to know what the
computer is doing when I can't move anymore. Sometimes is just a slow
computer, sometimes moving continues after data is received over the modem
again (I live in Europe) and sometimes it is that I just can't move.
Not being able to move can usually be seen in advance but can also happen
because of bugs in the 3D world when something is not aligned properly. Also
sometimes having 1 frame/sec does not help.

I intend to upgrade later this year to get >15 fps all the time but until
that moment I would need the indicator to navigate through 3D better, thank
you.

Ton den Hartog

Apr 30, 1998, 10:36pm

[View Quote] > Thank you. My computer is relatively slow, indeed (P133, 32Mb RAM, Matrox
> Mystiqe 220, in Europe) and sometimes it takes a while to know what the
> computer is doing when I can't move anymore. Sometimes is just a slow
> computer, sometimes moving continues after data is received over the modem
> again (I live in Europe) and sometimes it is that I just can't move.
> Not being able to move can usually be seen in advance but can also happen
> because of bugs in the 3D world when something is not aligned properly. Also
> sometimes having 1 frame/sec does not help.

The trick is to decrease the visibility setting and reduce the 3D window. I have an AMD K5-PR133 which runs at only 100MHz (33MHz less than yours) and with the Direct3D driver, AW is even slower as the object/avatar density increases. I also have the 3D window at about quarter resolution of an 800x600 screen. As for living in Europe, many Europeans use AW without the problems you seem to have all the time. Try running traceroutes to auth.activeworlds.com (the AW authorization server) and whatever world server you're in at the time of the "slowdown". Note the longest pauses and contact the appropriate domains and tell 'em to work on it. If it's your ISP's servers, bug 'em.

> I intend to upgrade later this year to get >15 fps all the time but until
> that moment I would need the indicator to navigate through 3D better, thank
> you.

Heh, good luck. You'll be lucky to even get 10fps all the time. The more objects (including avatars) in view, the slower AW gets.

May 1, 1998, 12:17am

Something else that would be nice is to have AW adjust your movement when
you are walking into a wall at an angle, either by turning your avatar
toward facing perpendicular to the wall, or by sliding to one side a bit in
much the same way your avatar is raised up a bit when you run into a slight
change in floor level such as a step on a stairway.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

May 1, 1998, 5:04pm

thank
>
>Heh, good luck. You'll be lucky to even get 10fps all the time. The more
objects (including avatars) in view, the slower AW gets.


I already upgraded to 64 Mb and that meant less swapping. In Q3 3dfx (from
the Voodoo chipset) will bring out 'Banshee' a 2d/3d chipset that will give
Voodoo2 or more 3D speed. I will take that opportunity to upgrade to a
Pentium II (at the most Mhz my money can pay at that moment) with AGP and
start with 1 SIMM of 128 Mb, to start with. My main use of AW is not so mucg
chatting as walking around in the beatifull 3D worlds and that needs a lot
of memory

The Banshee should get me high framerates even in comlplex scenes at at
1280x1024 resolution. This is something to look forward to !!

Ton den Hartog

May 18, 1998, 7:59pm

[View Quote] How about making the screen flash red, like when you get shot in Doom!

On second hand COF, you fix the rendering and clipping problems. We'll
all do our part and throw out those old computers and get 400MHz P-2s
(dual processor... when will you add multithreading?).

Here is a REAL suggestion: Make it so that when we hit a smooth surface
at some kind of reasonable angle, we can slide along it instead of being
stuck. Sheeesss. Speaking of Doom, if you strike the wall at an
angle, you CAN slide along it (not very fast though).

ScottyDM

--
Please send all SPAMS, FLAMES, and CONSPIRACY THEORIES to
scottydm at cwia.com
Send all other IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENCE to scottydm at codenet.net
___
/////\\ Digitally Enhanced Portrait of:
{|-0-0-|} Scott D. Miller,
| % | Silicon Mercenary
\===/ Freelance Chip Designer

always #5 FOO = ~FOO; // the sound of a beating heart

May 20, 1998, 2:11pm

True Scott, that would be helpful. As a matter of fact, I've sent that one
in a long time ago. Sorry if I've neglected to post it in here as well.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Jun 18, 1998, 1:17am

When we first got gravity I spent time building a slide from high
altitude before I discovered gravity would not let me fall down a slope,
only up a slope!

:)

zer0

[View Quote]

Jun 18, 1998, 4:14am

Good point. Perhaps you should start a new thread about sliding sown, or
along objects. It would be nice to see such abilities added... perhaps
switchable at the world level.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Jun 30, 1998, 7:28pm

So, we cannot bump into and then slide along a wall. Nor can we build a
slide or ski slope without using bump-warps.

I have an idea:

an atribute like friction. As in "create friction .25" (1/4 of normal).
This command could be used for climbing steep slopes (setting friction
higher than 1.0) or sliding down slopes (setting it lower than 1.0). An
ice rink could be created by setting friction very low (ie .05) so that
"a body in motion would tend to remain in motion, etc." (try turing 90
deg to your motion and then run to change direction). To make a roller
coaster use bump-warps to take someone to the top, then set the friction
very low for the rest of the track. This would also necessatate modeling
momentum as well. Normal friction (ie. 1.0) would allow some one to
*walk* up or down a 45 deg slope, but not a 46 deg slope (about the same
a hiking boots on clean stone).

The biggest problem that I can see is than COF can only implement what
is available in Renderware. And COF does not have the programming
resources to create their own rendering engine to replace Renderware.

Scott

--
Scott D. Miller
General Manager & Principal Consultant
Arête, Ltd.

Please use the return e-mail address of: scottydm at codenet.net

Jul 2, 1998, 4:19am

Actually, this idea could be done, and does not rely on the rendering
engine... however, since it requires contact with an object, it would only
work while gravity is on. Presonally, I could live with that. :)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

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