Written by Awportals.com

Activeworlds, Inc staff member Flagg today released screenshots of the 4.2 custom avatar system likely to have other 3D platform developers quaking in their highly-static boots.

[limg]http://www.awportals.com/img2/42beta1.jpg[/limg]The images, first released to the forums and then displayed in Test3 world include 4 images of a cross-dressing E N Z O transforming from a light blue template into a highly detailed woman through the avatar designer panel.

At first glance there appears to be enormous customisation in the CAV system, with clothing alone providing up to 12 individual items that may be set by the user. Other customisations include being able to select skin, eye and lip colour with scrollers to select what we presume are intensities or appearances.

In regards to basic facial features, the screenshots show options for editing mouth size, smiles, ears, jaw lines, chin and even the underbite / overbite alignment.[rimg]http://www.awportals.com/img2/42beta2.jpg[/rimg] Judging by the size of the scroll bars displayed we can approximate that these options constitute only half of those available to users when designing their CAVs.

The 4th image of the set includes what appears to be a small picture in picture view to allow viewing of the entire avatar at once while other additions include a new second person camera.

Although tourists will not be able to use CAVs, most likely due to a requirement of their storage, the reception of the screenshots was exclusively positive in the brief period of time that the images have been public.

The question is could this feature prove to be the salvation of the Activeworlds primary universe? As long as the rest of 4.2 has other good fetaures that are well polished, it may very well be.

More Screenshots

http://objects.activeworlds.com/flagg/demo/avcolor01b.jpg
http://objects.activeworlds.com/flagg/demo/avcolor02b.jpg
http://objects.activeworlds.com/flagg/demo/avcolor03b.jpg
http://objects.activeworlds.com/flagg/demo/avcolor04b.jpg