1  |   Order by index

Apr 8, 2003, 5:25pm

I wish that AWI would add another bit to the Avatar gesture and Avatar type
protocal so we can have 512+ avatars instead of the current 255. Considering
we are begining to use bots to switch avatars there really is no point to
limit it, especially when each AV may need say 3 differnt forms.

- Mark

Apr 8, 2003, 7:19pm

Well, it's your wish, so I'll try not to sound too negative about it, but I do want to point out that avatars are usually the most complex objects in a world and if there is actually a single byte (8 bits) storing that information, aso opposed to the limit being totally arbitrary, then the addition of a single bit would generally bring either 7 more or 23 more bits with it, depending on the data type moved up to. The resulting 16 bits or 32 bits would allow "much more" than 512 avatars... which I'm guessing is why you said "512+" ... for example, if 8 bits are used now, an additional 8 bits would mean an additional 65280 avatar positions available. A 32 bit data type would allow distinct identification of over 4 thousand million avatars.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Apr 8, 2003, 8:17pm

16 bit for the avatar identifier would be fine (for a while)

I love to have choices :)

Should go together with a dropdown or tab, the current menu already
causes problems with low screen resolutions and 250 AVs.


[View Quote]

Apr 8, 2003, 10:56pm

It would be nice if we could create folders (or the people who own the
world -- globally) that we could drop avatars into that category. Kinda like
the favorites on Internet Explorer.

-Sk8man1


[View Quote]

Apr 8, 2003, 10:59pm

errr and also we can make avatars with the same either .rwx or name go into
the same category for every world (a checkmark in the options menu maybe?)
Also disable a lot of avatars in a "Owner Only" folder that the CTs can drag
and drop av names into.

[View Quote]

Apr 8, 2003, 11:29pm

[View Quote] Rick should appoint some of us as an idea team to get some of those ideas that have
been waiting forever to be included that keep getting pushed aside for eye candy.
Not that I don't like eye candy though.

--Bowen--

Apr 9, 2003, 3:30am

Perhaps enhancing the avatars.dat file to support addition of avatar category submenus would be a good way to handle the screen resolution issue. Right now, Tourists can only choose from the first two entries in the Avatars menu. Perhaps each sub-menu could then be specifically flagged as available to everyone, or only citizens, or only citizens with certain privileges. I'm sure there are many possible variations, but... something to think about. :)

TZ

[View Quote]

Apr 9, 2003, 3:44am

Interesting. I just posted pretty much the same idea, and then I find this one. Hehe. I do see a difference though. I was suggesting something specifically for the world designers to make use of, where your idea is a little broader in scope. Building on what I see as the best of both, how about this variation?... Add avatar sub-menu support in the Avatars.dat file, and also make it so that the avatars.dat file could indicate whether or not to allow a special "collection" sub-menu where you could store avatars from other worlds that also supported it. That way, worlds which choose to support the Avatar->Collection sub-menu would be able to share avatars with other worlds that support the Avatar->Collection sub-menu, while worlds which didn't support the Avatar-Collection sub-menu would be limit people to the avatars actually supplied "for" the specific world. It could also be possible to set a world to allow read-only access to the Collection sub-menu so that you could use shared avatars but not add ones from that world, or write only access so that you could add avatars from that world but not use avatars from other worlds while in that world.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Apr 9, 2003, 9:46am

??? I think it would be easier if we could drag and drop avatars into
categories though, like you can in the internet explorer "Favorites" drop
down menu. Add a favorite, add a folder. Go in there and drag the favorite
into the folder. That's what I'm talking about kinda -- people having to
edit the avatars.dat file would get complicated and messy, we'd also have to
edit one for every single world which is why I said it should be global if
grouped avs are allowed by the world. The avatars would still be on the
object path... it would use either the same .rwx name or the same avatar
name that's in avatars.dat. If the avs name is blah.rwx or blah1 on the
avatars menu than and you put it in the group "Miscellaneous", if you go to
another world with an av named blah.rwx or blah on the av menu, it should
automatically be grouped by your browser into "Miscellaneous". This would be
an option for you, and the world to decide. You so if you don't want to
auto-group avs you don't, and the world if they don't want you grouping
avatars for some reason.

-Sk8man1

Apr 9, 2003, 10:50am

It would be nice to have the different "forms" of the avatars grouped. Maybe
the best way to do this would be to throw away the "index" concept (or keep
it as a default for backwards compatability) and assign each avatar model in
the list a discrete id in the avatars.dat file. Then we could use part of
the id for identifying the type and part for identifying the sub-type ... or
have two ids for this rather than involving the binary logic.

.... purely from a programatical point of view, I think this would be a
benefit to in-bot avatar handling - hidden from the browser user.

Grims.

[View Quote]

Apr 9, 2003, 3:17pm

I had only meant for the enhancements to the avatars.dat file to be used by world designers when setting up avatar lists for their worlds. I'm sure many world owners would like to keep some level of control over which avatars can be used in their worlds, and which avatars from their world (if any) can be used in other worlds. Sounds like other than that we're pretty much thinking along the same lines.

TZ

[View Quote]

Apr 9, 2003, 4:20pm

I was aware TZ, I just wanted to give the impression of how much more a
single bit could do for us AV Wise.

- Mark

[View Quote]

Apr 9, 2003, 5:50pm

That's not what I meant... I meant that no matter what you use the world
avatars, but if avatars from another world have the same name, they're
grouped like you had them in the first world. You don't have to use the
avatars from another world....

Apr 10, 2003, 12:42am

Yes, I understood that. As I was saying, or at least attempting to say... What I described in detail was meant to expand on that as a combination of what I saw as the best of what you were talking about with the best of what I was thinking along similar lines.

TZ

[View Quote]

Apr 10, 2003, 9:21am

k

Apr 15, 2003, 9:22pm

How, again, is it SO hard to just make a listbox? The avatar selection can
be a dockable listbox and maybe a button saying "Switch Avatar" or something
similar to that. It doesn't even have to be dockable! Nothing on AW is
dockable right now anyway... (by the way, I find that annoying that we can't
dock and undock stuff)

[View Quote]

Apr 16, 2003, 7:17pm

Actually, I would personally think of that as a waste of space, and it would do nothing to add any enhancements beyond being able to see your avatar's name all the time... but I suppose some people might like that.

TZ

[View Quote]

1  |   Order by index