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Jul 28, 2006, 1:58am

As crazy as it may sound for some, I believe I should have the right, as a
world owner, to set the minimum visibility to 200m.

It is my world. If I have the ability to use such objects and techniques
that viewing my world at 200m results in no lag whatsoever, I should be able
to set it to maximum visibility.

I say this because, AW should be stepping more to a game-development
environment for those with such talent, just as Second Life has.
This way, the average user has no differences - but the "developers" in AW
have more things to work with, therefore - the average user can have a more
intense experience in Active Worlds.

Now, my computer is far from the best - and I have tested the world with
many other people on 200m visibility, everyone reports no lag at all. And my
world doesn't have a low number of objects or poly count - it is a p30
filled with real gaming models - and it works great.

Due to the nature of the world and the models it contains, we need to keep
it at a minimum of 200m visibility (if we could exceed it, it would be way
better). As the world grows, we have concepts of how to keep the lag at a
minimum with such features as fog and such.

Jul 28, 2006, 3:50am

lol you shouldn't need to justify the wish so much. 200m is pretty short in
today's world. I too have built a number of environments where due to their
nature, even slower computers can run 200m there. I'd sure be nice if the
max vis could be scaled all the way up to render engine's hard limit of
1200m. Not that many people would be running in the several hundreds but its
always good to have the option there for the future.

- Com

[View Quote]

Jul 28, 2006, 4:40am

No you shouldent because the browser GUI and the likes often locks up at
that kinda distance for slower computers.

--
- Mark Randall
http://www.temporal-solutions.co.uk
http://www.awportals.com

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Jul 28, 2006, 5:47am

Being my world, I may choose to only let the users with a reasonable system
in my world.

I could start all new users in a empty area isolated from everything, and
give them a warning about how the world may not be suitable for them.

You see, it is something that really should be upto the world owner - its
not like you have these sort of limitations when making your own program or
game.

Worlds are not free, nor are they cheap - if I want to limit the world to a
handful of users, I should be able to.

[View Quote]

Jul 28, 2006, 7:23am

Mark, the truth of the matter is that something like AW needs to be pushed
to show it off. Why shouldn't suppliers be able to put higher-end limits on
the content they provide?

Its the same as for games ... each game has its own set of minimum hardware
requirements to achieve an acceptable playing experience. Each world in AW
is different, and so these requirements should be fully configurable by the
provider. If a consumer (of the content) doesn't posess the stated minimum
hardware capabilities, they get dire performance and their experience is
compromised - that's their problem.

Its like the whole grammar schools thing here - why should one section of a
community be held back because other's don't posess the same attributes? In
short, they shouldn't - those that are harder working or more gifted should
be encouraged and supported at the levels they can achieve. AWI should be
encouraging people to create more elaborate content and more cohesive
environments. Artificial limits like this have no place here - they serve no
purpose.

[View Quote]

Jul 28, 2006, 7:32am

[View Quote] Fine, then the code AWI is looking for is:

if (MessageBox(_T("This world requires high visibility that may not be
suitable for all users. Are you sure you wish to enter this world",
"Visibility", MB_ICONQUESTION | MB_YESNO) == IDNO)

- Mark Randall
http://www.temporal-solutions.co.uk
http://www.awportals.com

Jul 28, 2006, 7:44am

Agreed - a simple solution.

[View Quote]

Jul 28, 2006, 8:00am

[View Quote] > As crazy as it may sound for some, I believe I should have the right, as a
> world owner, to set the minimum visibility to 200m.
>

Using the Admin tool:
Make an attribute dump of your world, edit the atdump.txt file.
Item 72 is the min visibility - change it to 200.
Load the attribute back to your world.

--
Andras
"It's MY computer" (tm Steve Gibson)

Jul 28, 2006, 8:12am

Forgot a ) in there of course :(

--
- Mark Randall
http://www.temporal-solutions.co.uk
http://www.awportals.com

[View Quote]

Jul 28, 2006, 10:45am

Thats simple enough, thanks a lot for that.

I guess the only thing now is to have my wish changed to "increased
visibility limit". :)

[View Quote]

Jul 31, 2006, 7:57pm

I agree with you guys here. I often am frustrated by the limit imposed on
developers who have the ability to build discretely and to build
efficiently. My greatest desire though is not to simply increase the view
limit but to have a level of detail property for objects or at least a
definable draw distance. Then you could build say, a large tower with a
very long visibility, say 240m which i think is as far as the browser can
check for objects, or across a single "zone" of 9 sectors (I think it might
be able to check blocks of 5x5 or 20 sectors, but I am foggy in this area).
Either way you could save LOTS of resources by making your objects in the
tower or details render at only 30m or 20m giving you more flexibility in
world construction. It is likely that this will be the form that any change
in draw distance will take, though there has only been small experimentation
and discusion in this area. That being said, it is strange to me that the
minimum view that you can set is less than the maximum that the browser
allows you to set your view. After all, you can build your world how you
see fit within the scope of the browsers capabilities. For example, we
never prevent people from dropping in ugly 40,000 poly 3dsmax objects from
the web into their worlds if they are bent on doing so ;)

-Oleyo

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Jul 31, 2006, 9:29pm

I've not played with zones yet, so I'm talking on a subject I know little
about here (beyond what's written in the online help). The tower example
raises an interesting possibility - one of setting the *necessary*
visivisibility in a zone. For enclosed spaces, such as in a tower stair-well
with no windows, caves, etc. Why not enable the world builder to tell the
browser that there's not point in considering objects outside the zone. Is
this effectively what the far fog distance does? I don't know.

Grims


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Aug 2, 2006, 4:46am

Less than a 1% chance that they will ever use your code.
And for the record - I'm not implying its a bad code. :)

[View Quote]

Aug 2, 2006, 6:54am

[View Quote] You're right of course, they are much more likely to write:

int* pInt = (int*)0x0000004;
*pInt = 1;

--
- Mark Randall
http://www.temporal-solutions.co.uk
http://www.awportals.com

Aug 2, 2006, 10:00am

[View Quote] > Less than a 1% chance that they will ever use your code.
> And for the record - I'm not implying its a bad code. :)
>

Thanks god!
Otherwise they had to debug his code forever :)

--
Andras
"It's MY computer" (tm Steve Gibson)

Aug 2, 2006, 12:01pm

Not very nice to say about AWI's programmer-to-be. :P

[View Quote]

Aug 2, 2006, 1:44pm

[View Quote] Oh no no, lets not forget that AWI doesnt give a sh*t about the problems of
3rd party developers as AWI themself have access to everything unprotected.

One of these days I really will have to see about writing my own set of AW
like technologies and free myself from these bad descisions, until then I
guess im stuck with them (although I will bloody well complain! an everyone
else should too).

--
- Mark Randall
http://www.temporal-solutions.co.uk
http://www.awportals.com

Aug 2, 2006, 1:48pm

[View Quote] I await the standard sarcastic reply from Andras about people complaining
about me being here.

--
- Mark Randall
http://www.temporal-solutions.co.uk
http://www.awportals.com

Aug 2, 2006, 7:33pm

[View Quote] > One of these days I really will have to see about writing my own set of AW
> like technologies and free myself from these bad descisions,...
>

Waiting for "one of those days" :)


--
Andras
"It's MY computer" (tm Steve Gibson)

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