Billboards, Posters and TVs

You may be wondering how to insert custom pictures into your Active Worlds creations. They are found everywhere throughout Active Worlds and serve several purposes, such as decoration with posters and paintings, or advertisements.

As you can see in this screenshot from AlphaWorld's landing zone, you can see pictures are commonly used:

Most objects cannot have pictures placed on them unlike textures, but there are some objects designed to accept pictures on a particular surface such as TVs.

To insert pictures, there is the picture command that can be used like the texture command, but instead of listing a texture, the picture command has to refer to a picture located on the internet eg "www.example.com/example.jpg". The pictures that can be used are limited to the 'jpg', 'png', 'gif' and 'bmp' file types.

If you have pictures on your computer that you would like to use in Active Worlds, you can use an image hosting website such as ImageShack. After uploading the image, you can find the URL (web location) of the image by right clicking it and selecting 'properties'.

You can also find other pictures you might want to use by searching image hosting websites. But using images from other places on the web may not be okay without permission since it puts a larger demand on other's websites. Also be aware about copyright. Using images that do not belong to you may be illeagle.

Now that you can find an image, lets put it in the world.

Objects

Here are a few objects that take images:

• tva2.rwx (large tv)
• tva1.rwx (medium tv)
• comp1.rwx (small computer)
• ptv1t00.rwx (small tv)
• tv1.rwx (small tv)
• tv2bs.rwx (really thin tv)
• tv3bs.rwx (medium tv)
• ptv1.rwx (large tv)
• ptv2bs.rwx (huge tv)
• news1.rwx (news stand)
• pictwll1.rwx to pictwll4.rwx (flat panels)
• xpict1.rwx to xpict3.rwx (large picture frames)
• pict1.rwx to pict6.rwx (medium picture frames)
• pp00.rwx (transparent panel)

You can find these objects in the "Pictures" section at the AWNewbie object yard which you can go to by clicking here.

Making a Poster

First we will make a poster and put in a house. For this tutorial we will use 'pictwll1.rwx' to do this. Find a wall of your house or a building where you would like a poster to go. Duplicate the object, move it back a click and then rename it.

After making the object, it seems to be inside the wall, so we will move it out. A whole click is way too far so we will use one 'shift click'. If you have trouble selecting the object and you select the wall instead, try moving the wall away first and then moving each object into place.

Good. The picture command is just "picture" and then the URL of the desired picture (including the file name) is placed after that. Adding the create trigger to the front, an example completed picture command is "create picture www.example.com/example.jpg".

I have used image shack to host a picture which I will make my picture command refer to.
Here is the picture I will use as my poster:

It's location is http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/6716/exampleposter.gif. If you want to follow this tutorial exactly, feel free to use this image too.

And now I put the it in my pictwll1.rwx object: 

There seems to be a slight problem with my poster. The image is out of proportion, since the 'pictwll1.rwx' object is a perfect square, and my poster image is not. I will use this scenario as an example to teach you a new command: The scale command.

The Scale Command

The scale command is a command that changes size of an object in each of its three axes. With this command, you can make objects taller, wider, longer, shorter, bigger and smaller. I will use it to change the 'pictwll1.rwx' object into a shape which fits the poster image I'm using.

The command is entered as "scale" with the multipler for each axis typed afterwards, with spaces between them. The first number refers to the x axis, the second to the y, and the third to the z. If you have only one number, it refers to all of them. Remember that the y-axis is the height, x is the width and z is the depth.

For example: "create scale 2 1 1" will make an object twice as wide.
"create scale 1 0.5 1" will make an object half as tall.
"create scale 3" will make an object three times larger in each direction.

After my picture command, I'm going to add a comma and then my scale command. The numbers I will be using is 1, 2, and 1. This will make the picture object twice as tall, because the image is twice as tall as it is wide. So the completed commands in the action box will be: "create picture http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/6716/exampleposter.gif, scale 1 2 1".

Now my picture looks better. When trying to find the right proportion, I usually just guess the numbers a few times until the picture seems right. But if you want to make it exact, you can do maths to make sure the proportions are equal.

The poster is now complete. If you would like to make a framed painting, you can use a framed object instead.

The scale command is very useful and is one of the commands I most use. I will be demonstrating its use in more scenarios in future blog posts.

Making a Billboard

A billboard can be made in much the same way, the main difference is that it is larger.

If you are using a 'pictwll' object as your billboard, the back of the image will also be shown. If this is not desired, then it can be solved easily. Simply duplicate the pictwll and move it back about one shift click. Then take the picture command off and give it a desirable texture. The small space between these two objects will be visible and will make the billboard messy. This can be solved by making a border. Alternatively, you could use a framed object, which already has a back to it but will not support textures very well.

I will now introduce some new objects: the 'cyl(x)a' objects. These are cylinders. The 'x' determines its length in clicks. 'x' can be 1, 2, 4 or 8. So "cyl4a.rwx" would be a valid object but not "cyl5a.rwx".

To make a border, you can put these cylinders on all sides. Billboards would also look nice with some supports to hold it in place, so you can use these cylinders for that as well. Feel free to give them whatever texture you desire.

If the cylinders are too thick and cover up too much of the poster, you can make them thinner with a scale command. "create scale 0.5 1 0.5" would make them half as wide, for example. You may also want to make the billboard image slightly smaller to reveal more of the edges.

The corners between the cylinders are slightly messy and you can fix this by making the top and bottom cylinders around the image slightly longer to cover the corners, then moving them into the centre again. There is also some z-fighting between the cylinders which can be fixed by slightly increasing the width of the top and bottom cylinders.

The values I used for the scale of these objects were 0.51, 1.05 and 0.51. Here is my completed billboard:

Making a TV

Lots of TV objects already exist. All you need to do is add a picture, but here it would be appropriate to try something new.  The picture command comes with an opportunity to frequently refresh the image, as often as you choose. This allows the viewing of webcams or other images that are constantly changing. A few users have actually made TV stations with shows based in Active Worlds, which is very cool. They work by having an online image file rotating through different images every few seconds.

You can learn about different television stations at the Active Worlds Wiki here. As I write this article, the only tv stations running are GCTV and SBN. GCTV has a nice website here and you can view it on your Active worlds TVs with the code "create picture gctvaw.com/tv update=10". This code will refresh the image every ten seconds, however the station sometimes goes offline. SBN, aka the Scarabian Broadcasting Network seems to have only one show running over and over, but you can still watch it with this code: "create picture www.swcity.net/tv update=5". I chose to update it every five seconds instead of ten because the image seems to update faster than that of GCTV.
As you can see, making the images regularly update is done by placing "update=x" after the URL of the picture, where 'x' is the number of seconds between each update.

That's the end of this tutorial, now go have fun, and remember you can visit Virtual Landscape's Active Worlds place here.

Really Simple Doors

Here is a quick tutorial on building very basic doors. These doors will fit in a standard pd01.rwx and similar door frames. Users will be able to walk through them.

Step 1: Find a doorway.

Step 2: Create a "doorpic2.rwx" object and place it in the doorway. You can use a "doorpic2a.rwx" object instead to give it some thickness. You may have to use shift clicks to get the door into place.

Step 3: Give it a nice texture. Good textures to use are "thdoor1" through to "thdoor7". So add the code "create texture thdoorx" where 'x' is the number you want to use.

Step 4: Add the code "; solid off" to allow users to walk through it. Remember the semicolon. An example of the full code is "create texture thdoor3; solid off".

An example of a completed door

Your door is now complete!

Ground Cover

Ground cover is objects that make up a ground, different from the world terrain. This is usually done with large walk objects given a grass texture.

The purpose of ground cover is to protect your land from other users.  If there is a piece of ground not covered by an object at any height, other users can build there and therefore vandalise the area. This protection only works for citizens, though. If you are a tourist, ground cover offers no protection.

Another reason for using ground cover is so you can use textures of your own choice instead of the default terrain, and also to bring the ground level up to 0 on the y-axis with your buildings' floors. Having no ground would allow you to see underneath your buildings which would be unneat. Also, the reason for having your buildings above ground in the first place is to have a particular texture for your floors, rather than just grass.

To build ground cover, simply place walk or floor objects between and around your buildings, and give them an appropriate texture.

Some good objects are 'walk001.rwx', 'walk001h.rwx' and 'floor001.rwx'. The walk object with an 'h' at the end is ten meters long unlike the other one which is only eight meters long. If your buildings have floors of normal walk objects (ie without the 'h'), it will be easier to place ground cover with the same objects.

The 'floor001.rwx' object's small size makes it easier to use around buildings with more unusual floor layouts.

If the space between buildings aren't in sets of eight clicks, you can overlap your ground objects to seamlessly extend the ground in groups of four clicks. This works because the texture repeats every four clicks on these objects. Z-fighting still happens but it can hardly be seen because each object looks almost the same at each place they overlap.

If you need to place ground more precise than of four clicks, then you can overlap ground and avoid z fighting by slightly raising one of the objects, but this is slightly unneat. Another way is the scale command which I will talk about in a later blog post.

Some useful ground textures include:

• terrain0
• fall_g
• grasso
• walk1

These textures may be different or non existant in different worlds, but these all work in AlphaWorld and AWTeen. You can also experiment with putting different numbers after 'terrain' to find different terrain textures.

That's the end of this blog post, have fun.

Some Building Techniques and Tips

Here are a few things that will help you with building.

You know how to rotate things around their y-axis, but you may also need to rotate them in other ways, for example, to lay a vertical object on its side. To rotate something on its x-axis, use your 'Home' and 'End' Keys. To rotate something on its z-axis, use your '/' and '*' keys on your numpad.

In the swimming pool tutorial, you learnt how to use shift while moving objects to move them more precisely. It is possible to move them even more precisely. If you hold 'Ctrl' plus 'Shift' while moving objects, it is moved only a centermetre, which is a a fifth of a shiftclick and 50 times as precise as a normal click.

It is also possible to rotate objects with precision. Holding 'Shift' and 'Ctrl' + 'Shift' while rotating objects will rotate objects more and more precisely, respectively. Here is a table showing the exact values for movement and rotation:




Those are the important things to know, but here are a few more tips.

When flying, there are two options for movement. In the 'Options' menu in the toolbox, choose the settings option and then click on the 'General' tab. Here you can select the “Ignore pitch when flying / swimming” option, if you want. If it is disabled, you will move up and down when moving forwards and backwards while flying. I personally enable this option, since I like to stay at the same level when flying. This allows me to look down over buildings and other stuff and still be able to fly over them. I find it a lot easier to use.

Something else that may help while moving around is using brakes. Pressing '5' on the numpad while numlock is off will cause you to move slower and with precision, that is, you won't keep slowing down gradually when you let go of a key. Instead you will stop instantly. This is important for when you are working with small objects; without being able to move precisely you may move right past the objects when you just want to move a tiny amount.

The last tip is using 'Ctrl' + 'Insert' to duplicate objects. This will move an object a different amount when it is cloned. The distance from the original object is equal to the longest length of the object along the X axis or Z axis. Which in other words means the longest horizontal length is how far away the object will be when it is duplicated.

Using 'Ctrl' + 'Insert' can greatly increase the speed of building repetitive objects such as ground cover or path objects. It makes the duplicated objects spawn right next to the previous objects so that it can be pressed over and over to make a line of objects. I'll have a blog post with more about this feature later on.

Hopefully you have learnt something useful from those tips. Feel free to experiment. And have fun :)

Swimming Pool

In this tutorial, I will be introducing action commands. We will also be building a swimming pool which will include the use of the texture and solid commands.

Building the Swimming Pool

We will build the swimming pool's solid structure first and the water later.

The swimming pool will take up the area of four walk objects, arranged in a square. First, find a nice spot by your house or wherever you are building. Duplicate a nearby object and make it a "walk018.rwx" object. Move it so that it is alligned with and touching the building you copied it from and then move it away in groups of eight clicks (a click is one arrow press or half a meter), so that the space between the buildings are eight, 16, 24 clicks etc. This will allow ground cover to be neatly placed between the buildings.

Now you have a tiled floor piece of your swimming pool. If you want to use a different textured objects, don't hesitate to go to the object yard and find an object with a texture you like.

Clone your floor piece three times and place the other objects around it to make a square.

Now duplicate one of the pieces, move it 4 clicks upwards and make it a "floor18.rwx", or use a number giving you a texture you like. This is a quarter the size of the walk pieces. Move into a corner above one of the walk pieces. Now make a layer of these in around the sides of the lower square.

Good. Clone a piece and make it a "pp18.rwx" or a different numbered 'pp' object if you want. Align it to the with the outer edge of the square, and lower it so that it's top is level with one of the top floor objects. Move and duplicate this object so that it completely surrounds the outer edge. Then make it surround the inner sides of the top floors.

We have a basic pool structure with a walkway around the water area in the centre. But there are two more things that need adding: a rail around the outside and and stairs to get up onto the walkway from ground level, and also to get in and out of the pool.

There are several types of rail objects available. I'm going to use the "rail2t00.rwx" object but if you want to use a different one you can find them at the AWNewbie object yard. My rail object is 4 meters long, which is also as long as a single 'pp18' object. If you choose a different rail object, for the purpose of this tutorial, make sure it is the same length as the 'rail2t00' object.

Put the rail around the edge of the pool. If you duplicate it from one of the top floor objects, you will not need to adjust it's height. If you copy one of the walls, it will appear underground and to access it you will have to hold shift while flying downwards, to go through the ground. Make sure immediately press the fly up button or else you will keep falling downwards.

After you've put up the rails, on one side, delete the two inner rails to create a space for the stairs.

To make stairs, duplicate and object and rename it "stair03m.rwx". Put it outside the walkway and on the ground so that it's Y location is zero. You will notice that it is slightly above the ground. When you put ground cover around the pool, the stairs will line up with the ground cover. Rotate and move the stairs so that it lines up with the space between the rails. Make a second one and place them side by side so that they take up the whole space.

Then put two stairs on the inside of the pool area, on the opposite side of the walkway as the stairs on the outside.

Great, now we are up to the water and action commands.

Action Commands



Action commands go in the action box of an object. They consist of two parts: triggers and commands. Triggers determine when to activate the commands, while the commands perform an action on the object or other objects.

In this tutorial you will be using the "create" trigger. This trigger performs the commands when the object is seen by the user. The commands we will be using are the "texture" and "solid" commands. The "texture" command is used to change an object's texture while the "solid" command changes the solidity of objects, allowing users to pass through them without using shift. I will talk about all the other triggers and most other commands in later blog posts.

Water

First, duplicate an upper floor object and rename it as "walk000.rwx". This is a transparent walk object and will be our water. Put it in the middle so that it covers the pool part.

Now we will use an action command. First, in the action field of the object properties box, type "create". After that trigger, we can type a command. Leave a space and type "texture". This command requires that a texture name is written after it. The texture we want to make this is "water1", so leave a space after texture and then type that. Everything in the action field should now look like this: "create texture water1". Now deselect the object. It will now be updated to look like water! If it doesn't, check the spelling of the action commands.

Even though our water looks like water, it doesn't act like water, as we can walk over it. We need to use the "solid" command to allow us to walk through it (without using shift).

Select the object again. A second command is needed for the same trigger. To use more than one command, use a comma after the end of the last command. Then type the new command. What we need to type to stop the object being solid is "solid off". After the "solid" command, the words "on" and "off" determine whether the object is solid or not. The words "yes", "no", "true" and "false" also work.

Everything in the action field should now look something like this: "create texture water1, solid off".

There is one problem with our water though, there is a z-fighting issue between our water and our stairs. Z-fighting happens when two objects overlap each other or are very close to each other. It will result in part of both objects being drawn to the screen and it happens because the computer doesn't know which object is in front.

It is also unrealistic to have the water at this height. So we will move the water down. If we just move it down one, two or three clicks, they will still overlap parts of the stairs. The solution is to move the water with a fraction of a click.

To move objects more precisely, you can hold down shift. While holding shifts, you will move objects a tenth of a click with each button press. Move the water down one and a half clicks from the top by moving it down one click, then five shift-clicks.

The problem is now solved and the water is at a more realistic level.

Texturing the Stairs

There are no stair objects that have the same texture as the tiled 'walk', 'floor' and 'pp' objects. We don't have to put up with differently textured stairs, though. We can use the texture command on the stairs to make them the same texture. This particular tile texture is "tile4".

In each stair object, you need to place the code "create texture tile4". You don't have to type it in each time, just copy and paste it.

Now you have a completed swimming pool, great work!

More textures



Now that you know the texture and solid commands, you can now use them in your other buildings. I personally use the texture command with almost everything.

Here is a small list of commonly used textures to get you started with more stuff, however I will make a blog post later on dedicated to making a list of a lot more textures.

• tile1 through to tile6 
• stone1 through to stone15
• brick1
• water1
• ocean4
• wood1 through to wood8
• metal1 and metal2

As well as object yards, there are texture yards out there which have lists and categories of textures. You will find links around the universe to them. For example, go to the landing zone of AlphaWorld and click the link to "Building Object Yards" underneath the number of objects sign. You will be taken to a group of teleports for object yards, but to the right is a group of teleports for texture yards.

Another good way to find new textures is to select objects by other people to find out textures they use.

That's all for this blog post. Now have fun doing more building!