[MUD-Dev] Speaking of Avatars

[J C Lawrence]

On Fri, 13 Mar 1998 22:22:57 PST8PDT 
Jon A Lambert<jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> I spent a couple of mindless minutes the other day looking at
> Microsoft's Chat client for IRC.  

I hear that bathing is lye and nitric acid is a generally recommended
recovery treatment for that.

> It might be of interest to some
> graphic client developers, so I've included an attached .jpg
> screenshot of what a session looks like.

Interesting.  Very.  Some questions (as I don't have any version of
Windows here):

  The cartoon figures are pre-canned assemblies of body components
(this head on that body etc)?

  What controls the zoom-in/zoom-out focus I see in the various
images?  The lower right image for instance has zoomed in on the two
figures seen in the lower left image.

  Similarly, what controls the body postures as seen in the upper left 
and upper right images?  Can you drag the limbs of the art deco chap
(I presume that's you) into various postures to have that appear
remotesly with the spin wheel below being a selection box for facial
contortions? 

> There where several hundred users on this particular server and
> there was no appreciable lag over and above the normal IRC text mode
> as all the graphics are generated from within the client.  While I
> found the comic book aspect quite irritating after awhile, it struck
> me as a format that may be quite suitable for a Superheroes, X-Men
> or Anime type mud.

Ahh, can this client be used with normal IRC servers, or is it MS
specific ala NetMeeting?

> While the initial selection of avatars was quite limited, I found
> the analog selection of expressions or poses in the lower right
> corner of the screen an interesting implementation.  One may select
> varying degrees of smiles, smirks, frowns, etc. by moving the
> selector button from the neutral position anywhere within the
> circular control.  It wasn't really an analog selection.  Various
> comic backgrounds could be selected and were also limitied.

Did dragging the central selector also control physical posture?

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...