Avatar Map, or by right-clicking on the chat screen and selecting Avatar Map.
Index
The X1 xelagot has an avatar map, actually two maps. You can reach it from the menu Uni | Avatar Map, or by right-clicking on the chat screen and selecting Avatar Map.
When the map screen pops up, click on menu or right-click on an empty space on the map to bring up a menu. You can also use the key shortcut Alt + M.
The first item on this menu is Bots, for selecting the bot for the map. You can also select the bot by pressing Ctrl + F1, Ctrl + F2 or Ctrl + F3.
Next is a 3.3 feature: enable terrain sensing with Terrain Sensing ON, or disable it with Terrain Sensing OFF. When terrain sensing is ON (default behaviour), bots in 3.3 or higher worlds with terrain will follow it while on it's surface, or fly above it. This is similar to how you navigate in the AW browser, but with a difference: you can not sink below the terrain surface. To be able to go below the surface, you must disable sensing. Key shortcuts: Ctrl + F5 to enable sensing, Ctrl + F6 to disable it. If this feature is not available on the menu, upgrade the bot!
The next two items on the menu are Top View and Front View. You can toggle between these by pressing Ctrl + Insert.
In Top View, the map orientation (upper edge of the map) can be fixed to either always oriented North by checkmarking Top View Orientation: North, or oriented in the direction that the bot is looking by clearing the checkmark.
The item Top View Centre: Avatar followed, when checkmarked, centres the Top View map not on the bot but on the avatar the bot is following (if present).
Front View Grid: Circular turns on/off the circular grid.
Front View Grid: Square turns on/off the square grid (my preferred choice).
Front View: Show Orientation toggles the orientation labels.
Front View: Show Position toggles the position labels.
Front View: Show Pitch toggles the pitch (look up, look down) indicator.
Shoot with Ctrl + Space toggles avatar clicking in Front View using this key combination.
Key speed... allows adjusting the navigation speed.
With Names you can select whether names are visible or not, whether they appear short (without brackets for bots and quotes for tourists), and which category of names must be displayed.
The button next to the menu button is for teleporting the bot locally. You can also activate it with Alt + T. Input the coords and hit Enter to teleport, or hit Esc to exit.
Above the map, on the left, there is a compass. The white needle points North, the red needle points to where the bot is looking. This is especialy useful in Top View.
Next to the compass, you will see in bold the name of the bot and, if the bot follows someone, the name of the target and the distance to it.
To the right, there is a clock showing the Virtual Reality Time.
Under the clock, in the same frame, there are 2 clickable icons, one for zooming in and one for zooming out. You can also zoom in and out by pressing Ctrl + PageUp or Ctrl + PageDown. Zoom works for Top View and Front View separately.
To the left of the clock, three buttons let you set the pitch of the avatar, i.e. look up, look level or look down. You can also use the keys PageUp, Home and PageDown to set the pitch.
Above these buttons, there are 8 buttons. 7 buttons are used in 3.4 or higher worlds, to set the avatar state, i.e. which set of implicit animations must be used: walk, run, fly, swim, fall down, jump, warp. On the far right, one button is reserved for the avatar and gesture list (if it is available, the buttom has an icon).
The top caption shows the location of the bot and, if the world has a terrain, the height of the bot above the terrain. If the pitch is different to 0, it will also be shown.
The caption just above the map area shows the sort of map being shown.
Under the map, there is an input box for text: type in your text and press Enter for the bot to say it aloud.
To navigate (move the bot), you can use the usual ActiveWorlds browser keys, including PageUp and PageDown: Up/Down to move forwards or back, Left/Right to turn, Shift + Left/Right to slide sideways, numeric pad Plus/Minus to fly up or down. If you press the Ctrl key while navigating, the bot moves faster.
Press Escape if you find that you can not navigate, or that you can not type text properly. You can also left-click on an empty part of the map to activate navigation, and on the text box to type. Unless you want to use the arrow keys to move the cursor in the text box, or the numeric + and -, you can type and send text while navigating.
The orientation of the Top View map can be set with the menu as explained above (Map Orientation: North), and the centre of the map with the menu item (Centre..). Avatars appear as little dots on a circular grid, with or without names. The distance between the circles is 10 metres.
This view has depth. The grid circles or squares are at a distance of 10 degrees from each other, the crosshairs mark the centre of the bot's field of vision. The horizontal grid line is at the same level as the bot. You can select the sort of grid and labels for orientation and position by right-clicking on an empty space on the screen (or clicking the menu button) and checkmarking the appropriate options.
If labels are shown, you will see the position of the bot on the horizontal crosshair line on the left of the screen. On the right is the pitch indicator. One special entry is the height above the terrain: it is shown to the left, just below the altitude, if terrain exists.
Avatars are seen symbolically as 1m x 1m squares in the usual colours: blue for identified citizens, green for non-identified citizens and tourists, purple for xelagots and brown for other bots. They all have one eye in the middle of the square, which faces the way the avatar is facing. The box is framed in a thin dark grey line.
Avatars are z-buffered and clickable by left-clicking on them, or by turning on Shoot with Ctrl + Space in the pop-up menu and using this key combination for the avatar centered on screen.
If you right-click on an avatar, a menu pops up with the name of the avatar, and a few data about it. It also allows you to take some actions, like whispering to it, etc.
To level the bot with an avatar, the horizontal grid line must pass through the centre of the avatar, where the eye is (if it is visible). This levels the feet of the bot with the feet of the avatar.
A few tips on distances: when the corners of an avatar square fit into the first grid circle, the avatar is at 4 metres of the bot. When the sides of the box fit in a 10 degree interval, the avatar is at about 6 metres, when they fit into 5 degrees (half the distance between 2 circles), the avatar is at about 10 metres. When the thin dark frame of the avatar disappears (or reappears) the avatar is at 30 metres distance. Distances are measured in 3D space, not horizontally, grid elements are separated by 10 degrees.
Index