A proper night sky for the 2.0 rendering engine.

Sky

These options control the look of the space your world is contained in, including the color of each area of the sky. These colors will fade to one another across the sky, allowing you to create different effects. For example, you could set the west color to orange, and the rest of the colors to blue or black to create a "sunset" effect.

Backdrop

This is the name of a JPEG file to use for the backdrop image of your world. If you do not want a backdrop in your world, leave this field blank. The backdrop file is downloaded from the "textures" directory of your world's Object Path.

Skybox

This is the name of a RWX or COB file to be used as the skybox object in your world. The skybox file is downloaded from the "models" directory of your world's Object Path. See Skyboxes for more details on skybox objects.

Color

Top

This controls the color of the sky directly overhead.

North

This controls the color of the northern part of the sky.

East

This controls the color of the eastern part of the sky.

South

This controls the color of the southern part of the sky.

West

This controls the color of the western part of the sky.

Bottom

This controls the color of the sky that is below the horizon. Usually this color is never visible, since either the terrain or ground object is in the way, but all of the colors blend into each other for a smooth gradient effect, so this color will effect the look of the world's sky near or below the horizon.

Cloud Layers

There are three layers of clouds available for use in your world. Each layer may have its own texture, an (optional) mask, and an opacity. The layers are "drawn" in numerical order, with layer three being drawn last. This means that if layer two is opaque (it has no mask and the opacity is set to full) then it will block your view of layer one. Similarly, if layer three is opaque, it will block your view of the first two.

Note that the world light source texture will be rendered after cloud layer 1, but before layers 2 & 3. This makes it possible, using a starfield texture for cloud layer one, to have stars in the sky that will not overlap the "moon" texture.

The use of filmstrip textures is not supported by the layered clouds feature in this version of Active Worlds.

For each layer you have the following options:

Texture

This controls what texture will be used to paint the clouds. Note that it does not have to be an image of clouds. For example, you could specify an image of stars to create a night sky. Leave this field blank to disable the cloud layer.

Mask

You may specify a mask to go along with the texture for a particular cloud layer. This field is optional. You may also give the same name for both texture and mask to make the texture "self-masking". This means that brighter areas will be more opaque, while darker ones will be transparent.

Speed X

This defines how fast the clouds will move. Positive values will cause the clouds to go east, while negative values will move them west. Larger numbers will cause the clouds to move faster. Set this to zero if you don't want the clouds to move.

Speed Z

This defines how fast the clouds will move. Positive values will cause the clouds to go south, while negative values will move them north. Larger numbers will cause the clouds to move faster. Set this to zero if you don't want the clouds to move.

Tile

This controls how many times the texture will tile across the sky. Setting this to 1 would cause the texture to fill the sky from edge to edge without repeating. Setting this to 4 would cause the texture to tile four times in each direction.

This is a tradeoff setting. Lower numbers will make each area of the sky more unique, but also more pixilated. Higher numbers will make the texture sharper (and thus seem more detailed) at the expense of making the sky more repetitive. One good technique is to make layer 3 less repetitive, but transparent enough to let the clouds above it show through and add to the level of detail.

Opacity

This controls how opaque this layer of clouds is. Setting the slider all the way to the right will make the clouds fully opaque, thus blocking your view of the sky and any preceding layers. Setting this to the left will make the layer more transparent.