more advanced than avs so will be taught more quickly
Go over to file - new on the top bar, you should be in a multi-colored square
9/10 times you'll be starting from this template, stock worlds are fine to make variants of but don't take other users jazz
So the first thing, you'll notice this signs you out
The blank template world by default doesn't connect to any servers, so we need to tell it that we want to be online when we're here
Right click any of the walls and click edit properties, this will expand the hierarchy menu in the bottom left
This is way quicker than the alternative of File -> World Properties then manually expanding out, and basically opens up the properties of whatever you point it at
Scroll up to the top of the hierarchy, you should see World1
Click it, then in the white box double click multiuser and set it to true
So now we're online, and when other people open your world they'll also be online
To get something ready to build in, you should make a folder like so
Next go to file - save, then save the world at the top of this folder
Now, go to open and get back into it
We did this so that our file path is set up, and we can use files in the folders that we just created
Now, concepts
Everything in worlds is made of
2d rectangles of varying sizes
3d models
Or holograms, which are 2d images that rotate around to face you
Think about how 3d models are made, from various "faces" put together
You can do the same thing with worlds, with smaller rectangles placed together
You generally want to sculpt from 2d because it's way less performance heavy, but there are exceptions
3d skyboxes and terrain look dope, and since neither need to be particularly complex, can be used to great effect
So, lets get down to making stuff
Go to Objects in the light grey menu, if you aren't already there
The 6 things here are the 6 things that are in our base room
Its just a rectangle, facing all 6 directions
You can click and drag these anywhere on your screen to place them
Get an east wall out, and lets explore it
Notice how it's only visible from one direction
This is important to keep in mind when making something that's going to be explored from tons of angles
Look at ur wall like this
This bar above the white box, is how you move your wall around
The first one moves it through the X and Z
The second controls the Y
Pitch roll and yaw are turn-y things, try them out and get an idea of what they do
The blue box scales stuff up and down, cut copy and paste do what you'd expect
Saving stuff is weird and I never use it
The last button is extremely important, and undoes your last action
It doesn't keep track of everything though so keep backups in case something messes up
Getting into the specific properties of our wall
In the hierarchy
Actions - stuff it does
Contents - objects inside it (not particularly applicable for a wall)
Event handlers - stuff that makes the actions happen
Material - how it looks
Shared attributes - cursed
Double click material and go into texture
Our File(URL) is the location of the texture (image) that we want to put on the wall, on the one side its visible
Go on google and find one image u wish to place on this wall
Load it up into photoshop or gimp, resize it to 128x128, and save it as a .bmp
Place it in the tex folder we created earlier
Now, go to file (url) and type
tex/(file name)
If you named it wall.bmp you would type
tex/wall.bmp
We can do that because from where our .world is, the program has to go into the tex folder then find the name specified
Using absolute paths isn't feasible to type such as C:\Users\cake1234566\Desktop\DEMOWROLD\tex every time
And web urls are cursed because every server goes down constantly
So always do relative pathing
tex/file
mus/file
3d/file
I should also mention that the folders names dont matter
You can call them anything this is just more standard
Now
Armed with this knowledge build a house and save it
Seriously, you won't get anywhere without practicing this and getting some memorization going
It'll also provide a springboard for the next lesson
So while you were making your house, if you messed with the boundary walls you'd see the Abyss ™️
You also may have had trouble using page up / down
Filling the abyss with something also solves the looking up and down issue
No idea why
So, let's fill it
Make sure you saved your world, then it's time for a field trip to meteor
This up here, is a sky box
We're going to steal it for the purposes of education
Right click up there - edit properties
We're going to hover over ShapeSky, press the Cut button, then return to the world you saved
Under room in the hierarchy, find Infinite Background
Paste the skybox we nabbed from meteor into the contents of Infinite Background
Now, this is a 3d skybox
We can't texture this, it looks bland and generic
But like every other world uses this skybox so it does work
Save and its time for another field trip
http://smurfyworld.no-ip.com/jett/worlds/Nexus/nexus.world
Go here
Look at the sky and you can clearly see it's composed of walls
This is a template I commonly use, and you can as well
Because this deals with geometry rather than design
If you can find a skybox with the right "geometry" to give you the look that you want, then retexturing it is standard procedure
I've made my own in the past, but you really don't need to unless you want to get into hardcore stuff
So, right click one of the walls in the skybox and go to edit properties
You'll notice that the walls are grouped together like this
Background1b and 2t, as well as sky, are what's known as groupers
These are groups of objects put together for easy -
Duplication to put a bunch of them in your world
Reusability in multiple worlds
or
Relocation
Copy / cut Sky because its the main grouper which has everything in it, and put it in the world that you saved
You'll first need to delete the old skybox by doing this
Keep in mind, forgot to mention this
Infinite background is what you see when nothing's covering it up
So if you're making an interior, you dont want to waste resources on a skybox
Unless you want windows to the outside or to fix the page up / down issue
Now, going to start going quicker or else this is going to take me all night to write
Wait - Used in a sequence of actions (explained later) to delay the next action in the list
Sequence - Make a list of actions that you want to occur
Move - move object
Pickup - cursed
Sound - play music file
Teleport - take you to another world or another room in your world
Talk - send a message in main chat, note, will display as whoever triggers it's username
Set float / string / 2d point - cursed
Select avatar - change avatar
Wear - used in gallery of metamorphics in gz, cursed
Trade - cursed
openURL - open website
NotifyScript - secret official worlds only thing to trigger scripts
Dispenser - cursed
Playbackrec - cursed
RemotePortal - Forces portal to trigger even if conditions aren't met
Stdout - cursed
Animate - flash between textures
Print - Says something but with no username
Parallel - cursed
SetVisBump - cursed
URL - cursed
Set (all 5) - cursed
Posable - cursed
Move camera & video control - cursed
Gravity - used for elavators, it's complicated, I only vaguely know how it works
CameraHeight - set users sight height
StopRecording - cursed
Webwallcontrol - cursed
Now
When I say something's cursed
50% of them are outdated and dont work anymore
Other 50% are advanced and need not be covered now, dont have a linear definition and aren't useful to us yet
Everything in attributes is cursed,
Spin - rotates without moving
Can be used in any single object or in a grouper
Startup - happens when the room loads up
Same room - if you're in the same room as this thing, it happens
Build stairs - place it on a portal and it auto builds a room with stairs (use trigger now, do not make the user generate it)
Post-spin - rotates in an orbit around a point
Click - trigger on click
Diff room - trigger when in diff room
Build ramp - same as build stairs but with a ramp
Velocity - Cursed
Bump - trigger on bump
Proximity - trigger when close
Move & roll - cursed
So, now let's discuss the world hierarchy
It goes
World - Room - Objects in a room
World is everything, so whats a room
Rooms are spaces divided into what you want to immediately render and what you want to render when the user gets there
You want to break worlds up like this because of performence reasons
Traveling between these Rooms is done via portals
In Objects, find Default Room
Drag it into your world hierarchy, now you should have two
You can rename them to whatever you'd like via the name at the top for easy identification
In objects, place whatever kind of portal you'd like into the room that you're currently in
Then, drag one of the opposite direction into the Contents of the other room that you placed
Now, you have to set two things for these to work
Destination Room Name, and Destination Portal Name
So if we placed an EastPortal in Room1
We want to link it to a WestPortal in Room2
And then go to the other portal you placed in Room2, and link it to EastPortal in Room 1
But, you do have to do room name before portal name or it'll instantly crash because worlds is a quality program
Now that you have that connection set up, you can freely move those portals anywhere you want the connection to be
Its just easier now that you can walk through
And so ends Basic Shaper
I'll cover advanced stuff like non level terrain / stairs and hills, higher res textures, and elevators Some Day ™️