When within a VRML
chatroom, by right clicking on the top VRML viewpanel, the Basic
Choice Panel is opened. This screenshot shows a typical configuration.
Your avatar may be easily toggled on or off in this way. The very
first choice in viewpoints is the EXACT spot you
entered the chatroom. This makes it easy to reinitialize the room if
you become lost within it. Other choices within
viewpoints are specific parts of the room. These may be
named or show as default.To navigate, make sure your mouse is focused on the top VRML panel. If it looks like a crosshair, it's focused. To focus it, leftclick the VRML panel once. Up arrow is forward, down arrow is backward, left is turn left and right is turn right. To rapidly move to a specific object, first touch it with your mouse (note, if the mouse becomes a hand, the object is a link and should ONLY be touched if you want to visit that object's homeworld, just touch near it to NOT visit that object's homeworld). Now click and hold the left button and touch the F3 on your keyboard and click the object again when the mouse becomes a circle symbol. You may use multiple clicks to increase the speed at which you move towards the selected object. The mouse will change to a circle symbol to tell you it is processing your jump. To move rapidly towards people, find their name in the lower chatpanel (the rightish side in the panel with the yellow or green person at the top). Touch that person's name, right click it and select beam to. You will be transported to that person. You may also elect by right clicking a person's name to have a private chat with them.
On the Setting Preferences menu, this is a fairly typical
selection for the General tab. Do not alter the User Interface
Level, it must be left at the Expert Level or the
viewpanel may become unuseable (use F9 if you goof this). On the
caching tabs, allow for harddrive caching as it will greatly speed
things up and alter the time settings there to 365 days with a 100M
maximum. You may manually dump the VRML cache at any time, but having
the files in your Blaxxon VRML cache makes worlds load in a matter of
seconds when revisiting them. Avoid using the mip map
options, these are for testing of objects and lighting and make the
worlds look nasty. The verbose warning is optional, but
if enough people enter a chatroom using missing vertex objects (this
may slow you down or make you fall over), the verbose warning panel
will give you warning. As a rule, leave this option unchecked - most
surfers find it annoying. If you do fall over, right click the screen,
go to Movement and select Straighten Up. You
may also do this through your keyboard as CONTROL + SHIFT + U
KEY. The other options on the other tabs may be experimented with
freely, they alter different aspects of how a world looks and loads.
Obviously, make note of how the panel is set when you first open it in
case an option choice produces a strange result. Users with a Direct3D
tab (note: the Direct3D version is NOT recommended) may have a
slightly different set of tabs and options. As a rule, most of the
preselected choices on the tabs within the Setting Preferences menu
are preoptimized for your system and should work nicely. The chatrooms
are NOT optimized for Direct3D, use Prefer OpenGL as a
rule.
The
last part to explain is the Chat Panels (lower third or so of your
screen). The top piece (usually the left side) is fairly self
explanatory and intuitive. The self scrolling text is the chat
dialogue, and the small text entry area with the green, yellow or grey
arrow is where you type your chat text. You may hit either
Enter or the green, yellow or grey arrow to send text
to the chat panel and have it viewed by the others in the world.
Synthetic voice will then speak the text you have typed.The bottom part (usually the right side) contains many functions. The small yellow (or green) man tab lists all the chatters in the world you are in. The numbers next to him are first for how many people are in the same world as you and second how many people are in all open chatrooms. The yellow (or green) door tab lists all open chatrooms and how many people are in each. To change chatrooms, right click the name of a chatroom, then select Open. Note that if you are the only person in a chatroom and you leave it, it may disappear from the list and not let you back in immediately. Also, the list of chatrooms is for the entire Blaxxun public chat system, and not specifically for Chat World. While the Blaxxun Chat Police may show up at any time in any room, some chatrooms may have a more liberal approach to appropriate chat behavior than here at Chat World. Guests from the Blaxxun public chat system (and especially the Blaxxun Chat Police) should always be treated courteously. Asking them to leave is not appropriate. The yellow (or green) log tab is your session list. This is very handy in case you need to review it due to inappropriate behavior of a chatter. You may also find your chatlog within your Blaxxun folder (inside your Programs - Blaxxun Contact - Chatlog file on your harddrive). If you feel a chatter is being inappropriate, you may turn him over to the Blaxxun Chat Police. The chatlog contains the information needed to attempt to identify the chatter in question.
The tab with the four yellow (or green) rectangles on it contains important information about how you appear to other chatters. You may right click the Avatar Library link and make any selection from the library. The Non Textured series is just that, ordinary people in office attire. The Textured series has more realistic avatars - they are also much larger files. Click your choice, copy its URL from the Address Bar (usually near the very top of the browser window), use your back button once (to reopen the regular rightish part of the lower chatpanel), and enter the URL of it at the prompt in the Personal Data (part of Options - four yellow or green rectangles) link. If the world reforms without textures after an avatar change, use Refresh or Reload . Avatars can be changed as frequently as needed. You may select a username, and input other information in the Personal Data section. If you have enabled harddrive caching, this will become your permanent username profile. Inputting your homesite URL will cause your avatar to contain a link to your homesite. This can be very handy as an advertising and promotion strategy if you are a frequent VRML chatter. Please use good taste when selecting chatroom nicknames.
***NOTE*** Children of 13 and under MUST use a chatroom nickname and may not enter other information in the Personal Data section. Children of 13 and under MUST be accompanied by an adult supervisor at all times in the VRML chatrooms. Children of 13 and under are admonished to not reveal anything of a personal nature at any time, and to immediately seek adult help should anyone in the chatroom become too friendly. Some people will try to become your friend so that they may harm you. Failure to comply is grounds for banning. As the chatrooms are housed in Germany, normal COPPA complicance is voluntary and is NOT assumed. If you feel this is unfair, you may NOT use the VRML chatrooms.
The Voice section is fully emplemented. You may be asked to download voice enhancing software - do so. You may alter the generic voice to any of the choices shown, and may also alter other aspects (words per minute and such) of how your synthetic voice sounds. The presets are usually quite good. Synthetic voice will speak your words after you type them and hit Enter or the green, yellow or grey arrow.
