Economy3D an Activeworlds resource

1. Organize your texture images before uploading them. The default terrain will be the texture you name terrain0. The textures you will use most often should then be numbered consequitively. Activeworlds can accept up to 500 terrain textures (4.1 universes only). Upload your terrain textures to the texture folder on your object path. Keep in mind that any terrain texture image with that name already on your path will be overwritten when you upload the new one.

2. So now you have uploaded your terrain textures and have a flat empty world covered with the terrain0 texture. How do you create a natural looking world? The easiast but most time consuming method is editing the terrain by hand. The world terrain is made up of 20 x 20 meter cells. Right clicking on one of these cells will bring up the Edit Terrain window in your browser. Changes to the Elevation box will allow you to raise or lower each cell at the highlighted corner of the terrain section. The number in the Texture box correlates to your terrain texture names. Quick tip: use your arrow keys for faster selection of terrain cells, changing height elevations, and changing textures.

3. Another method of creating terrain elevations is by using height maps and bots. 2D programs like PaintShop Pro or Photoshop,and others can be used to create the grayscale bitmap images the bots use. Black would be the lowest elevation, white the highest. Andras offers a freeware program called Dem2RWX here that will use the image to upload and create the terrain in your world. The site also offers tutorials and a newsgroup for the program.