Stepping Through the Star Gate
"..in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. He [Hiro] turns and looks back at the ten thousand shrieking groupies. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway, no longer immersed in a flood of avatars, he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars, hoping that Da5id-The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief-will invite them inside."
óNeal Stephenson, Snow Crash, pages 40-41.
Starting your journey
Figure 11.2 ch1a.jpg
The
Passport startup page.
The first step in your journey is to double-click on the shortcut
to Black Sun Passport (or use the Start menu entry). This will
start your Web browser, and bring you to the entry page for the
worlds. On this page, you can enter your avatar name, click on
another link to select your avatar, and then select the link to
enter some of the worlds. (Note also that you can opt to use Passport
to display only two-dimensional worlds
(Web sites with only the text chat displayed). I will focus on
3D worlds in this chapter.
Figure 11.3 ch1b.jpg
Select
an avatar for Passport.
The avatar selection page is a fun and easy place to test whether
your 3D browser plug-in is working. Clicking on an avatar will
bring the VRML file into a window frame. You can use the controls
for the 3D plug-in to rotate the avatar and have a good look before
you pick it. There are also buttons under the avatar for gestures.
If your avatar has gestures, this will show you what they look
like. Clicking on the Save button under the avatar will select
it as your representation. You must then return to the entry page
(press the back button), and then select Visit Our Worlds.
Note that VRML exists in two versions, 1.0 and 2.0. VRML 2.0 has
a lot more features, and is starting to get more popular. Black
Sun is starting to offer VRML 2.0 avatars. I chose to stick with
the original VRML 1.0 avatars for this
chapter, but you should feel free to explore VRML 2.0 avatars
and worlds.
Into the Worlds
Figure 11.4 ch6ca.jpg
Passport
is in full operation, complete with avatars.
Clcik to
get print resolution version
After selecting an avatar and user name you
will click on Visit Our Worlds and enter the Passport Entry Plaza
world, your starting point in the universe of Black Sun VRML worlds.
The preceding figure shows the Plaza with a couple of avatars
having a conversation.
Passport is organized as a series of frames within the Netscape
window. In fact, Passport is composed of plug-ins and Java applications
running all at the same time within Netscape or Internet Explorer.
With Passport, you don't need a separate application. Visiting
worlds is as easy as pointing your Web browser to Web pages which
are designed to work with Passport. The actual world, shown in
the main window, is displayed with a VRML plug-in such as Netscape's
Live3D or Silicon Graphics' Cosmo Player. The other frames
provide all the controls you need to interact with other people
in their own VRML avatars.
The main window (called the World Frame) shows the world, along
with the navigation controls of the VRML browser plug-in (as
in the previous figure, Cosmo Player from SGI). The interfaces
on the left allow you to move between private and public chat
lines, and to reach other services such as the avatar selection
Web page. Clicking on Scenes will bring you a list of VRML worlds
that you can visit, and Cards brings up your business card, a
kind of avatar ident. Black Sun borrowed this (along with
the company name) from Neal Stephenson's novel, Snow
Crash. You can exchange cards with any user you meet, and
build a collection of cards. The bottom frame shows the chat areas
and a list of users (by their chosen names) who are currently
in the Plaza area. You can send text messages to users, open a
private chat, or even start CoolTalk or Microsoft NetMeeting for
voice conversations.
You really need a powerful machine to run Passport, and I recommend
a minimum of 32MB of RAM and plenty of free disk space. Sometimes
Passport and all of its VRML and Java just gets tangled up, and
sometimes you will have to shut down your Web browser and
start again. Be patient, as Passport, like all virtual
worlds, is a work in progress.
A closer look at the Passport interface
The Controls frame, on the upper left, displays the controls for
the Passport client functions. Clicking on the icons will change
the work frame (on the bottom of the window), and let you access
chat lines, scenes, cards, help, and other features.
The controls
Figure 11.5 ch4b.jpg
The
controls frame allows you to control everything in Passport.
Find list
Figure 11.6 ch4m.jpg
The
scene finder lists other Black Sun VRML worlds that you can visit.
The Find button calls up a list of all the VRML scenes (worlds)
served by the current Passport program. Clicking on a scene will
bring up the number of avatars in each world. Often, the more
people in the world, the more interesting the world (or the people).
If you click on a scene and then press the button, Go to Scene,
you will load a new world. This new world may have its own set
of connected scenes. In this way, the Black Sun universe of worlds
goes on and on. Note that you can also list the top ten scenes
by user population, and list all the users in all the scenes who
can be reached from within the world you are
currently visiting. People finders are very important tools
in virtual worlds.
You can use the Worldwide Search function to find users in various
virtual worlds. Just type in their user name. You can enter the
asterisk (*) symbol to ìfind any user matching this combination.î
For example, entering a* will find anyone whose user name begins
with an A. Just entering * by itself will find all the users in
the worlds listed in Find directory. This user search function
is very handy for finding where your friends might be in the various
worlds at any given time.
Avatars list
Figure 11.7 ch4h.jpg
Go
back to the avatar selector.
Selecting the Avatar button allows
you to take another look at the avatar that you are using. You
can try out the gestures and even select a new avatar. This is
kind of like going backstage between scenes to change costumes.
Chat lines
Figure 11.8 ch4e.jpg
Opening
the Public Chat line shows all the chat, and lists all the people,
in the world.
Clicking on the Public Chat line will change the work frame to
show you all the chat that is going on in the current world, and
list everyone who is in the scene (as shown in the previous figure).
In public chat, anything you type is "heard" by everyone
else in the current world. The Home Chat line is a private party
line for friends. Additionally, there are up to three one-on-one
chat lines which you can set up. A red bar to the left of the
list of chat lines indicates new activity on that line. Like a
snoopy old-time telephone operator, you can monitor up to five
simultaneous chat lines!
People
Clicking on people (which lists the total number of people in
the current scene) will list all the people in the work frame.
Options
The Passport client has a number of options you can adjust to
your own preferences, including personal preferences, font sizes,
and firewall access settings. See the section, ìFine-tuning
Your World,î later in this chapter for more details about
options.
Help
Selecting Help will open your Web browser and display the Black
Sun help documents for Passport.
Logs
Figure 11.9 ch4f.jpg
Here
is the HTML Web page version of a chat log.
Public and private chat sessions can be logged. Black Sun has
implemented these logs as streams flowing into Web pages. Very
cool! Passport automatically keeps transcripts of all your chat
sessions in chat log files (the default directory for these is
C:\blacksun\passport\chatlog). These files can be accessed at
any time directly from the chat controls, or since they are plain
text files, they can be loaded into MS WordPad or any other ASCII
editor or word processor. This feature could make Passport an
excellent tool for remotely connected
business meetings or interviews.
Optional controls
World builders can add their own controls for additional features.
This is an advanced topic for those hosting their own community
servers. (See the Black Sun Interactive
home page at http://www.blacksun.com
for more information on controls).
Getting Around with Passport
Viewpoints
Figure 11.10 ch4g.jpg
You
can fly over the plaza and select Viewpoints.
Right-clicking on the mouse brings up the controls for the VRML
plug-in. One of the most important items on these pop-up menus
is Viewpoints. Viewpoints are like camera locations in the scene.
As you can see in the preceding figure, there are quite a few
viewpoints defined for this scene, and we are currently in the
one called Overhead, which places us over the Entry Plaza. Viewpoints
are a handy way to move to the hot spots of the world (defined
by the world's builders). You can also roll through these
viewpoints by pressing Ctrl+Right Arrow. Viewpoints are a feature
of any VRML world.
Basic Navigationóit's not easy folks!
You can navigate by clicking down on your left mouse button and
rolling forward or backward. To navigate with the mouse, you will
have to master the dashboard controls of the VRML plug-in
you selected to run with Passport. The dashboard is the set of
icons on the bottom of the 3D world window (as seen in the preceding
figure). Chances are if you click and hold your mouse button,
and move it on top of these control icons, you will move in the
world (or move the world). Every interface is different, and I
recommend that you just try them out to learn their tricks.
VRML plug-ins were built to look at simple 3D models, not to navigate
in a large virtual world, so the navigation in Passport is difficult.
Every VRML-based world (such as OZ, Sony's community place
browser and others) has navigation problems. I hope that the makers
of these worlds will soon learn how to make navigation as fast
and easy as in 3D games like Doom or Descent. Black
Sun has tried to make navigation possible through keyboard keys.
This is definitely a better way to move, although it is still
like swimming through a bowl of porridge.
Keyboard and mouse navigation controls
Arrow keys
Pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard will move you in the corresponding direction in the world, for example:
- Up arrow moves you forward
- Down arrow moves you backward
- Left arrow moves you left
- Right arrow moves you right
Make sure that you've clicked the mouse in the frame in which
the world is displayed, or your keyboard keys will not move you.
Ctrl+Arrow keys
Pressing the right arrow while the Ctrl key is held down, will take you to the next viewpoint. Press it again to move to the next viewpoint and so forth. Correspondingly, pressing the left arrow while the Ctrl key is
held down, moves you backwards in the viewpoint sequences.
Mouse buttons
You can use your right mouse button to spin around the world.
Just click and hold the right mouse button, and the world will
spin. Holding down Ctrl while dragging the mouse with the left
mouse button held down, will allow you to slide in any direction.
Learn to fly
You can fly up over the scene by pressing Ctrl on your keyboard,
and then pressing and holding down the left mouse button as you
roll the mouse forward (away
from you). This will cause you to rise up. To sink back
down, do the same thing, only move your mouse towards you.
Navigation bar and shortcuts
To have the navigation bar (sometimes called the dashboard) displayed
on your screen, right-click, and select Options È
Navigation Bar.
Traveling from one world to another
A number of worlds are accessible through the Passport client.
You can list worlds to travel to by using Find List (described
earlier in this chapter) or by finding a teleport to another
world and double-clicking on it. You will see an example of teleporting
in the section, ìTours of Passport Worlds,î later
in this chapter.