Exploration Mode (Wishlist)

Exploration Mode // Wishlist

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dion

Jul 21, 2002, 1:59am
Interesting name, isn't it? Anyway, it's a new idea I came up with while
posting a reply to Strike Rapier's "Extended Viewing Range" topic. What it
would be would be a mode in which it only searches for objects within
viewing range once. So any change in building would not be downloaded by
your client and actually make the Active Worlds Browser much faster since
it's not searching for new objects that may have been placed by people while
you are exploring. It would be very useful for when you're looking at
historical builds which won't be changed (or at least not while you're
looking at them) or just any area that you may feel like exploring and don't
need to see any objects being placed down.

Also, the Active Worlds Browser currently (I think) compares what's in it's
cache with what the world server has so the speed of your cache really isn't
as fast as it could be. It is only the cache of models and textures but not
the landscape. It would be a good feature if you could force the browser to
use what's in it's cache without comparing it to the world server. And if it
doesn't cache landscape now, it most certainly should!

Another way of making it faster for some worlds would be to download the
objects, textures, terrain, and placement of them all before going into the
world. When you're playing Quake or Unreal Tournament online and you go to a
game that is using a map you don't have, it downloads all of the information
before letting you in. It would be helpful in Gaming worlds where speed is a
must and the world is small (so that the download doesn't last for weeks!
:-P).

Now just a little thing to add to the wishlist which doesn't really have
anything to do with what I said above. It would be cool if I could get all
the information of a person just by putting my mouse over his/her name in my
contacts list or in the chat for a moment. Then a little box would open up
telling me the citizen number, coords the person is at, and any other small
bit of information that could be enetered into your settings such as age,
gender, or interests.

I did enough yapping for today. Let me know what you think.

-Dion

anduin

Jul 21, 2002, 2:53am
In a galaxy far far away, known as wishlist, an identify claiming to
be known as "dion" <Dion at digevo.net> scribed the following:
>Interesting name, isn't it? Anyway, it's a new idea I came up with while
>posting a reply to Strike Rapier's "Extended Viewing Range" topic. What it
>would be would be a mode in which it only searches for objects within
>viewing range once. So any change in building would not be downloaded by
>your client and actually make the Active Worlds Browser much faster since
>it's not searching for new objects that may have been placed by people while
>you are exploring. It would be very useful for when you're looking at
>historical builds which won't be changed (or at least not while you're
>looking at them) or just any area that you may feel like exploring and don't
>need to see any objects being placed down.

You can browse AW offline if you click on the 'SKIP' icon when AW
loads. Though this prevents you from seeing contacts and telegrams
etc. That idea does seem like a good one though.

>Another way of making it faster for some worlds would be to download the
>objects, textures, terrain, and placement of them all before going into the
>world. When you're playing Quake or Unreal Tournament online and you go to a
>game that is using a map you don't have, it downloads all of the information
>before letting you in. It would be helpful in Gaming worlds where speed is a
>must and the world is small (so that the download doesn't last for weeks!
>:-P).

I'm not waiting on a download BEFORE I can chat. I usually enter
worlds with the most users to chat with, I don't really care for
exploring personally.

,,,,,
(o o)
/--------------ooO--(_)--Ooo--------------\
| Anduin (317281) |
| o The Gorean Scribe |
| o http://www.anduin-lothario.com |
| o It wasn't me, it was the one I'm in! |
\--------------ooO-------Ooo--------------/

anduin

Jul 21, 2002, 2:57am
In a galaxy far far away, known as wishlist, an identify claiming to
be known as "dion" <Dion at digevo.net> scribed the following:
>Now just a little thing to add to the wishlist which doesn't really have
>anything to do with what I said above. It would be cool if I could get all
>the information of a person just by putting my mouse over his/her name in my
>contacts list or in the chat for a moment. Then a little box would open up
>telling me the citizen number, coords the person is at, and any other small
>bit of information that could be enetered into your settings such as age,
>gender, or interests.

Now that's a good idea, and these settings could be changed in the
'Options --> Citizen' dialogs. You can set age, gender, and such on
top of the already available URL and E-Mail. You should be able to
tick boxes in this stating which of these features you wish to be
available to the general public.

,,,,,
(o o)
/--------------ooO--(_)--Ooo--------------\
| Anduin (317281) |
| o The Gorean Scribe |
| o http://www.anduin-lothario.com |
| o It wasn't me, it was the one I'm in! |
\--------------ooO-------Ooo--------------/

dion

Jul 21, 2002, 4:05am
> I'm not waiting on a download BEFORE I can chat. I usually enter
> worlds with the most users to chat with, I don't really care for
> exploring personally.

It would be an option. You could go in and bypass the world's settings that
recommend you download before entering and you would be able to chat while
you downloaded, you just wouldn't be able to see the world. But if you
bypassed it, you'd just be as slow as usual. :-P

eep

Jul 22, 2002, 12:10pm
[View Quote] > Interesting name, isn't it? Anyway, it's a new idea I came up with while
> posting a reply to Strike Rapier's "Extended Viewing Range" topic. What it
> would be would be a mode in which it only searches for objects within
> viewing range once. So any change in building would not be downloaded by
> your client and actually make the Active Worlds Browser much faster since
> it's not searching for new objects that may have been placed by people while
> you are exploring. It would be very useful for when you're looking at
> historical builds which won't be changed (or at least not while you're
> looking at them) or just any area that you may feel like exploring and don't
> need to see any objects being placed down.
>
> Also, the Active Worlds Browser currently (I think) compares what's in it's
> cache with what the world server has so the speed of your cache really isn't
> as fast as it could be. It is only the cache of models and textures but not
> the landscape. It would be a good feature if you could force the browser to
> use what's in it's cache without comparing it to the world server. And if it
> doesn't cache landscape now, it most certainly should!

AW already DOES cache everything and only "compares" it with the object server if the object refresh limit has been reached.

> Another way of making it faster for some worlds would be to download the
> objects, textures, terrain, and placement of them all before going into the
> world. When you're playing Quake or Unreal Tournament online and you go to a
> game that is using a map you don't have, it downloads all of the information
> before letting you in. It would be helpful in Gaming worlds where speed is a
> must and the world is small (so that the download doesn't last for weeks!
> :-P).

Been on the list for years: http://tnlc.com/eep/aw/improve.html

dion

Jul 22, 2002, 2:47pm
> AW already DOES cache everything and only "compares" it with the object
server if the object refresh limit has been reached.
>
So I assume it's the RWX Rendering that is slowing everything. AW needs to
support a new and faster 3D model format.

ananas

Jul 22, 2002, 3:00pm
The model format and the rendering speed are absolutely
independant in this case. RWX is a format that contains
only quite basic features that you will find in nearly
all other format too, it's a subset of most other formats,
except for few very old ones like nff or raw triangle.

The only thing that is affected by the file format is the
time a model needs to be added to a scenery, but as AW
caches the models already tokenized and/or interpreted,
so this plays only a minor role, except for models that
are newly added to the cache (and scene).


[View Quote]

dion

Jul 22, 2002, 3:21pm
put bluntly you are saying: RWX is fast, AW is slow?

[View Quote]

ananas

Jul 23, 2002, 3:17am
RWX is fast. As I don't know any real competitor of
AW yet, with all features that AW allows me to use,
I cannot say if AW is slow or fast, I just have
nothing to compare it to.

[View Quote]

eep

Jul 23, 2002, 9:57am
No, the constant disk access is what slows AW down the most. Sure, a complex object can completely freeze AW while it renders but all the jerking and twitching AW does while simply moving through a world, I've found, is due to disk access because AW doesn't load everything into memory, and constantly has to access the disk for the cache and cell updates. I've tried to come up with some workarounds to this on the AW improvements page at http://tnlc.com/eep/aw/improve.html#scene

[View Quote] > server if the object refresh limit has been reached.
> So I assume it's the RWX Rendering that is slowing everything. AW needs to
> support a new and faster 3D model format.

eep

Jul 23, 2002, 10:02am
You can compare AW to games easily enough. When moving through game level=
s ("worlds") you don't usually encounter pausing since most, if not all, =
of the level is completely loaded into RAM and it's just a matter of the =
far clipping plane, portal rendering, and/or LOD keeping the frame rate m=
anageable (if the game engine is designed sufficiently, of course). AW's =
frame rate is mostly quite crappy BECAUSE it lacks such optimization feat=
ures, but I have managed to get decent performance by setting visibitilit=
y to the max (now 200m) and just using the fog far clipping plane to hand=
le actual object visibility (vs. scene refresh). Unfortunately, since the=
fog far clipping plane is a per-world effect, and can't be changed in th=
e browser, it's quite useless this way (and it's annoying how the plane i=
s always facing the camera, clipping things at odd angles--a better idea =
would be to have a clipping box or sphere).

[View Quote] > RWX is fast. As I don't know any real competitor of
> AW yet, with all features that AW allows me to use,
> I cannot say if AW is slow or fast, I just have
> nothing to compare it to.
>
[View Quote]

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