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3.2 (General Discussion)
3.2 // General Discussionryan.Sep 28, 2001, 12:09am
3.2 is not working ood for me, signs are going funny all FUZZY! grounds are
all wired and even avatars, its been released to early!!!!! look at thease pics! www.geocities.com/k9ryan12/all www.geocities.com/k9ryan12/wrongav www.geocities.com/k9ryan12/wrong3 sw chrisSep 28, 2001, 2:45am
You need to set up Active Worlds in this version. Go to Options-->Settings.
Select the Video tab. Either Direct3D, OpenGL, or software renderer will be selected. One of these will probably make everything work correctly. The other two probably won't. If none of them work, reply here again. -- SW Chris Eagle Scout, Philosopher, Peacemaker, and... Kung Fu Master? http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html [View Quote] ruffertoSep 28, 2001, 10:43am
If you're using an old 2D card (such as my Tseng Labs ET6000 from the Dark
Ages), can you select Direct 3D or OpenGL and not bugger things up? The 3.2 browser set itself to software renderer on my comp as it was installed, and the results are bad -- backgrounds are ruined, signs blurry, I shudder to think what else is wrong. I can't afford a better card or faster CPU, let alone the bigger hard drive to handle the weird .ras files. Whatever happened to the .jpg and .bmp graphics? I designed the textures for an entire world with the old graphics files, often inspired by ones I'd downloaded from visited worlds. I can't get any of my graphics programs to recognise these so-called ".ras" files, so haven't a clue what the files in my cache are. At this point I feel like wiping AW from my system and asking for my just-renewed citizenship $ back (no small amount for us Aussies -- the "19.95 US" ends up $50 Aus, which buys as much here as 50 US does in the US). After 4 1/2 yrs as part of AW, I feel bad about this turn of events and sad to think I've got no way out of the problem this time. Someone said new objects called "skyboxes" can solve the backdrop problem -- but apart from no skyboxes being available (besides one Moff Piett has kindly made available to try), it sounds like they can be put in place only by world owners, leaving visitors to worlds where this isn't done still stuck with disgusting looking backdrops. Still, the skybox sounds like a patch on a broken version. Does anyone know if there's ANY way to get back into AW using 2.2? Thanks. Ruff sw chrisSep 28, 2001, 1:56pm
Software renderer mode is basically 2.2 with lights, move, and rotate
commands. If that's slowing your computer down, either something's wrong or you need to get a faster processor. NOTE: One thing that could be slowing 3.2 down is that you may have your visibility set to 200 meters. Turn it down to your old visibility in the Settings menu. Do not use the Visibility drop-down box. That is only for a quick change. Any changes you make to your visibility limit will not stay if you close the browser and reopen it. JPG and BMP files in the cache have been "converted" to .ras since at least 3.0. Change the extension to jpg or bmp to get it to open up in an editor. And as far as skyboxes go.. they were never meant to be set by the user, only the world owners. I think some confusion was created when someone posted here saying they wanted 3.2 to let the average user set the backdrop and not the world owner. Lastly... if you haven't read the help files, please do so. :) -- SW Chris Eagle Scout, Philosopher, Peacemaker, and... Kung Fu Master? http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html [View Quote] ruffertoSep 28, 2001, 6:55pm
Changing the .ras extension to anything else results in an invalid file
format message and failure to open. Any other suggestions? How do these ..ras files differ from the older Sun/.ras files recognised by many graphics programs (which also don't recognise these as "valid" .ras files)? Ruff sw chrisSep 30, 2001, 8:22pm
Yeah, I messed up there. Haven't a clue. AW uses a proprietary RAS format
I think... I tried opening it up and Paintshop Pro and it didn't work. Why do you want to look at the textures anyways? -- SW Chris Eagle Scout, Philosopher, Peacemaker, and... Kung Fu Master? http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html [View Quote] john viperSep 30, 2001, 11:37pm
I think they do change the format or at least encrypt jpgs and bmps for
copyright's sake and all that -JV [View Quote] > Yeah, I messed up there. Haven't a clue. AW uses a proprietary RAS format > I think... I tried opening it up and Paintshop Pro and it didn't work. Why > do you want to look at the textures anyways? > -- > SW Chris > Eagle Scout, Philosopher, Peacemaker, and... Kung Fu Master? > http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html > [View Quote] -- John Viper (#296714) jviper at jtsoft.net http://www.jtsoft.net "Life on Earth may be expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun..." -anonymous ruffertoOct 1, 2001, 6:56pm
I'm a texture creator, mainly for our world, Sirocco, and in past have used
textures from all over to develop our own exotic mixes. It still seems to be the case that you need to upload world textures as .jpg files (and bdrops are still .bmp even if everything else in the Textures folder is .ras), but I assume the changing happens on the AW end automatically. Ruff eepOct 1, 2001, 8:41pm
RAS is RenderWare's propietary texture format that's been around for as long as I can remember. I've never found a non-RW app that could read them, however. As for what happened to the JPGs and BMPs, nothing; they haven't been in AW's cache for YEARS now. AW3 started making them separate RAS files so they would "load faster" or some spiel Roland babbled on about, but I don't notice any speed increase.
[View Quote] > Whatever happened to the .jpg and .bmp graphics? I designed the textures > for an entire world with the old graphics files, often inspired by ones I'd > downloaded from visited worlds. I can't get any of my graphics programs to > recognise these so-called ".ras" files, so haven't a clue what the files in > my cache are. ananasOct 1, 2001, 9:14pm
Wrong guess, RAS is Sun Rasterfile format, and Renderware used
it. IrfanView can view/convert the original Sun RAS files. This original RAS format is recognized by rwxlook/rwxmod that both worked with rwl20.dll and are contained in the renderware RWX demo (Dataman can sure confirm that). The files that AW uses now are not the original RAS format anymore, these megabytes of uncompressed RAS textures that AW3.2 uses to fill the textures cache folder are at least not recognized as RAS. An al_019.ras (128x128) that I find in my cache has about 64k, the size (about 128x128x4, 4 bytes color depth ?) seems quite bloatet, considering that AW works with 16k / 2 bytes colors. My guess : the new RAS format is just coded as size, color depth and then an uncompressed list of colors, pixel by pixel, method similar to the original RAS (that afaik did not support true color), just slightly modified - or, if you prefer, not even RLE compressed Bitmap. [View Quote] -- "_ | /\ \ / __/ /_ tony mOct 1, 2001, 9:16pm
you upload JPGs to the path, correct.
AW takes them and turns them into special RAS files that RenderWare (AW's 3D engine) recognizes. this makes it harder for someone to hop around stealing textures (though backdrops can still be stolen... duh!) if you really find a texture & fall in love with it & stuff, ask the world owner for it. simple. [View Quote] >I'm a texture creator, mainly for our world, Sirocco, and in past have used >textures from all over to develop our own exotic mixes. It still seems to >be the case that you need to upload world textures as .jpg files (and bdrops >are still .bmp even if everything else in the Textures folder is .ras), but >I assume the changing happens on the AW end automatically. > >Ruff > > -- Tony M (fldmshl2013 at hotmail.com) http://tonyhttp.s5.com eepOct 2, 2001, 3:00am
Um, no shit, Sherlock. I wasn't talking about RW's OLD integrated RAS format but AW3+'s RAS format. Duh. Pay attention, dork. The old RASes were simply inside the VERY large texture.* files--add up all the individual RAS in AW3+ and you'll get about the same amount, minus the multiple greyscale masks.
[View Quote] > Wrong guess, RAS is Sun Rasterfile format, and Renderware used > it. IrfanView can view/convert the original Sun RAS files. > This original RAS format is recognized by rwxlook/rwxmod that > both worked with rwl20.dll and are contained in the renderware > RWX demo (Dataman can sure confirm that). > > The files that AW uses now are not the original RAS format > anymore, these megabytes of uncompressed RAS textures that > AW3.2 uses to fill the textures cache folder are at least > not recognized as RAS. An al_019.ras (128x128) that I find > in my cache has about 64k, the size (about 128x128x4, 4 bytes > color depth ?) seems quite bloatet, considering that AW works > with 16k / 2 bytes colors. > > My guess : the new RAS format is just coded as size, color > depth and then an uncompressed list of colors, pixel by pixel, > method similar to the original RAS (that afaik did not support > true color), just slightly modified - or, if you prefer, not > even RLE compressed Bitmap. > [View Quote] ananasOct 2, 2001, 3:14am
Hm, must have been someone else who wrote :
"RAS is RenderWare's propietary texture format that's been around for as long as I can remember." Sorry, eep, I thought it had been you. Must be a bug in my newsreader then, it had your name above it. [View Quote] -- "_ | /\ \ / __/ /_ eepOct 2, 2001, 8:08pm
Uh, RAS *IS* RW's propietary texture format NOW (AW3+). Try to keep up, dimwit...
[View Quote] > Hm, must have been someone else who wrote : > > "RAS is RenderWare's propietary texture format that's > been around for as long as I can remember." > > Sorry, eep, I thought it had been you. Must be a bug in > my newsreader then, it had your name above it. > [View Quote] |
