Issue #13, Monday July 29, 1996
ARTICULATED AVATARS!
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Some hitherto little-known members of the Active Worlds development team, Pam Forth and
Derek Upham, have been working for a long time to integrate "articulated"
Manufacturing the avatars for the animated sequences is a tough task right now, as Pam and Danny "Kalak" and Lynn Viescas can attest. The team is now working on overhauling the code to make it smaller, faster, and more versatile. They are also working to make it possible for other "Active Worlds" (see story below) to use this technology.
New User Interface ChangesSome major user interface changes were also bundled in with the avatar articulation. Kudos to Roland for his hard work in implementing these, including:
"Restricted" AreaOn the server side, a new "restricted area" has been implemented so that the administrators of a world don't have to cover all the ground in the center to avoid having others build there. This means the "Ground Zero" (central) area can have fewer objects and render more quickly as a result. This is a perpetual problem since the abundance of avatars at Ground Zero cause a definite slowdown in frame rate.
Still More to Come...There are still more changes to come! Some of them will take a while, but they'll be worth the wait. In the short term, look for more building objects... stay tuned to these pages for details.
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avatars into the codebase. Finally we get to see it in action, and it is
outstanding!
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| Active Worlds! | We finally have a name for this technology. |
| Nokia's Arctic Light Opens. | Innovative animations, "natural" beauty, and more. |
| Moria's Colony Alpha Opens Officially | The party in the Black Sun was a real "who's who" of Active Worlds. |
| About Our World | Some advanced building tips. |
| Under Construction | Astounding new constuction in AlphaWorld and other Active Worlds continues. |
| Advertisements | Ads from our citizens. |
| DataStream | Facts and opinions (mostly the latter.) |
ARCTIC LIGHT OPENS TO RAVE REVIEWS
FINNISH SERVER FEATURES INNOVATIVE ARTWORK
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Friday, July 19, 1996
Entry Point with animated flag, pavillion with net links (background)
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A view overlooking the lake | This new world seems decidely Finnish, and provides many of us who have never been to Finland with a glimpse of what the country is like. A scenic backdrop is coordinated with tree objects to convey a feeling of serenity and natural beauty. |
| The opening of Arctic Light is coordinated with a Housing Fair in Finland. Some of the structures in the world were built by real-life architects, scale models of real buildings in the Housing Fair! Other innovations include a wealth of ingenious animations, including a sailboat, rippling water, and a dog...and don't miss the fish in the lake. |
CoolTalk link on a phone, with scale-model houses in the background. |
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Part of the Housing Fair is
Broadband Village, an area where
all buildings are connected with high-speed ATM (155 Mpbs) Internet access.
Many of the links in Arctic Light take good advantage of high bandwidth, with
streaming video, radio stations, news links, and AVI clips.
A sauna features animation, sound, and some friendly-looking girls. Arctic Light is not yet open to the general public for building, but is a great place to visit until Nokia adds building capability (shortly, according to rumor.) Make sure you have some hard disk to spare in advance, though. All of the objects, textures, animations and sound are built from scratch and some of the are fairly large. To teleport there, click or teleport to: alphaworld.worlds.net:7019 ON OW, or take the portal to Telepark from Ground Zero. (Note: this is the address for the server currently running on Worlds equipment while Nokia gets the world started. The address will change when they move the server to their own equipment. The link in Telepark will updated at that time.)
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ACTIVE WORLDS!
AT LAST! A NAME FOR THE
TECHNOLOGY USED IN ALPHAWORLD
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Wednesday, July 17, 1996
Worlds has finally decided on a name for the technology used in AlphaWorld. You may have noticed that the name of the AlphaWorld client software (AWORLD.EXE) is now Active Worlds Explorer...AlphaWorld and other worlds like it, such as Colony Alpha, Arctic Light, Cyborg Nation, etc., are now known as Active Worlds, all part of the Active Worlds Universe. This is more important than you might think. Originally, AlphaWorld was just a quick name for a pre-release world. As you probably know, "Alpha" usually denotes early (pre-beta, natch) testing of software. However, AlphaWorld has been more of a success than Worlds ever imagined it could be during pre-test, so this particular world will always be known as AlphaWorld. When other folks open worlds that are meant for immediate release, they don't really want a name that implies pre-test. So...Active Worlds it is! |
COLONY ALPHA OPENS
FOR BUILDING
TAKING THE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT A STEP FURTHER
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Saturday, July 6, 1996
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Among the notables attending the gala affair were Protagonist, LittleBull, Da5id,
Lord Morpheus, Razzles, Netguy, Sky Shark, HenrikG, Cassie, Wepwawet, Calpantera,
Clifs, Paul Klee, Akira Tetsuo, and many more we forgot to write down. :)
Moria reports that the residents of Colony Alpha are forming quite a community, unaided for the most part. Evidently it helps that all building in CA is by permission from Moria, and carries a small price tag. This may foster more of a sense of community pride and cooperation. We'll keep an eye on the situation to see what develops. If you're interested in building in Colony Alpha, contact Moria for details. Colony Alpha is also featured in our Under Construction column this month. To teleport there, click or teleport to: alphaworld.worlds.net:7009 ON OW 0.4A, or take the portal to Telepark from Ground Zero. |
DATASTREAM
Farewell to Andyman
This time I have something very different to write about. I was contacted some
time ago by an AlphaWorld citizen named Knightmare in regard to the death of a good
friend first met in AlphaWorld. His name was Andyman, he was Swedish, and that's
about all I know about him besides that he was evidently a good person and
friend. I'm sad that I didn't get to know Andyman before he passed on, but I
know that Knightmare will keep his memory alive. He asked me to publish this
letter from Andyman:
Hello there... How do you do? I hope you feel better than me. I've been treated at a hospital for a while now, but this time they can't stop it. I'm sorry, but I can' stand it anymore. I would like to thank you for this time, and all the letter you have sent to me. Please, don't be angry. I've been struggling for a long time now, but it have been too tuff now. Plese, send my regards to the net, and let my name Andyman newer be forgotten. And give my regards to Aworld and WorldsNet please. Take care, and have a nice life. Disconnecting for the last time... //Andyman I've been asked by a lot of people to assess different virtual realities and the strengths and weaknesses of each. Of course, all of them are pretty weak right now, they all have a long way to go. But if I had to say what the one thing is that keeps me interested in AlphaWorld, it's the friends I have made here. Andyman was a real friend to Knightmare, and I'm sure to others in AlphaWorld, and we are all the poorer for his passing. |
and other content of this paper do not necessarily
reflect those of Worlds, and belong only to Dataman.