Activeworlds Custom Avatars (CAV's) is a system to allow world and universe owners to provide customizable clothing and body defenition options to their users, inside of any Activeworlds powered environment.

CAV's are constructed from an arbitrary number of parts, as defined by the world/universe administrator. Individual parts can be selected by the user, and further customized with textures (image maps) and/or colorizing, also defined by the administrator. These parts are combined to form an "avatar", the virtual character "worn" by the user, and representing him/her in the world.

The CAV system can be divided logically into two areas: Content, and the CAVtemplates.xml file.

CAV content includes all of the mesh data files (body parts), textures maps (coloring and some clothing), and animation sequences (avatar movements) used in the CAV system. The CAVtemplate file defines how all of these data are combined to form an avatar, and in which ways it can be modified by the end user.

CAV content is stored on web accessible file paths similar to an Activeworlds world object paths. These locations must contain three folders with the following names and function:

avatars - This folder contains all of the mesh data for the body parts defined in the template file. (DirectX binary or ASCII 3D file format)

seqs - This folder contains all of the avatar animation sequenses defined in the template file. (Activeworlds .seq files)

textures - This folder contains all of the image maps referenced by the mesh models and manipulated by the template file. (jpg, png, bmp, and other image formats)

The CAVtemplates.xml file is a text editable configuration file for the CAV system. This file defines which avatar parts and texture layers are availible to the CAV builder system, as well as all of the avatar catagories and options that the user can see. This file also defines which animations are associated with each avatar.

The CAVtemplates.xml file must be compressed in the .zip format and placed in the avatars folder on the chosen CAV object path

Details of the CAVtemplate file are covered in another section.

CAV's can be defined at both the universe and world level. Universal CAV's can be worn in every world that a user visits, as long as that world is set to allow Universal CAV's. World level CAV's are defined seperately for each world in the universe and are unique to each world in the universe.

When a universe CAV is defined in the current universe, the "Custom Avatar" option will appear in the Avatar menu in the browser menu bar. If a World CAV is defined for the current world, then the "Custom World Avatar" option also apears in the same menu. Both options will be availible if Both the universe and the current world have CAV's enabled.

Universe CAV's are automatically available to Citizen level users if a properly configured CAVtemplate.xml file exists in the avatars folder of the Universe Object Path. This path, along with other CAV options are defined in the Universe Attributes menu found under Options>Universe>Options in the browser menu bar.

CAV related items in the Universe Attributes menu:

Allow tourist CAV - Enabling this option allows Tourist level users to wear Custom Avatars.

Allow bots CAV - Enabling this option allows bots (programs that log into the browser) to be physically represented by a users current CAV.

Under the Object Path subheading:

Uni avatar OP - This field contains the URL of the location which contains the "avatars" content folder. This may be the same location as the "Texture and seq OP".

Texture and seq OP - This field contains the URL of the location which contains both the "textures" and "seqs" CAV content folders. This may be the same location as the "Uni Avatar OP".

Object Refresh - Defines how long in seconds after which the browser client (end user) will be forced to redownload, or refresh its content. This should generally be set to the default maximum of 10080, unless a special need demands otherwise.

Object Password - This field must contain the password used by the compressed (zip) mesh files in the avatars folder, if any is used. Mesh data files need not be password protected.

World CAVs must be enabled in individual worlds via the "World Features" menu found under Options>World>Features in the browser's menu bar, using the following options under the "Custom World Avatar" submenu:

World CAV Citizen - Enables Citizen level users to wear the World CAV's of the current world.

World CAV Tourists - Enables Tourist level users to wear the World CAV's of the current world.

World CAV Bots - Enables Bot users to wear the World CAV's of the current world.

Other options include:

Uni CAV Citizen - Enables Citizen level users to wear a Universe CAV in the current world.

Uni CAV Tourist - Enables Tourist level users to wear a Universe CAV in the current world.

Uni CAV Bots - Enables Bot users to wear a Universe CAV in the current world.

CAV Object Path - This field contains the URL of the location where the current world's CAV content folders are stored. Unlike the universe object path's, all of the folders must be stored in the same location.

CAV Object Password and CAV Object refresh are the same as the Universe equivilents.

Once the CAVtemplate file is defined and all of the CAV content exists in the correct locations, the CAV itself can be built by the user useing the browser's CAV window. This can be accessed by clicking the T-shirt icon on the browser toolbar or by pressing "Alt-F6"

This calls the Custom Avatar build screen for the world or universe, depending on which the user is currently wearing. The following hierarchial catagories exist, with selectable entries according to the definitions in the CAVtemplate.xml file:

Type - This is the broadest catagory of avatar, and is intented to be used for Avatars with wildy different structure that generally will not share any body parts. For example; Human, Robot, Alien, Animal, and Dragon, would all be of a different "Type". The "Type" catagory is defined in the CAVtemplates.xml as "Race"

Gender - This is the a sub-catagory of "Type", and would normally contain male and female versions of this type of avatar.

The "Gender" catagory is also defined in the CAVtemplates.xml as "Gender"

Avatar Options - This is a sub-catagory of Gender and can be used to create unique or distinct option sets for each Type>Gender avatar. There may be only one option set with all avatar option availible, or ths catagory could be devided into distinct sets. For example, the avatar Human>Male could have an avatar option set such as "Business" or "Casual" or "Medieval" or "Sci-fi" to create distinct styles sets. Any avatar option that uses the same basic model, but requres a unique option set belongs in this catagory.

The "Avatar Options" catagory is defined in the CAVtemplates.xml as "Avatar"

The following option sub-catagories are all based on definitions within the CAVtemplates.xml file:

Base Colors - This sub-catagory shows color and opacity selectors from all non-selectable texture layers defined in the CAVtemplates.xml.

Shape and Accossories - This sub-catagory shows all geometry (mesh) catagories and parts as defined in the CAVtemplates.xml file.

Style and Color - This sub-catagory contains all selectable texture layers along with associated color and opacity slider, as defined in the CAVtemplates.xml file.

This CAV builder contains options to Load and Save custom avatar settings as well as to randomly select colors and modifier settings. These options exist in the browser regardless of the contents of the CAVtemplates.xml file.