Builder's Academy

The SW City Builders' Academy is an educational resource made and maintained by Syntax and SW Comit of the SW City community.

Overview

The Builders' Academy was made by SW City to gather and share building tips and techniques and pass them on to the community, primarily the the city residents. The academy is different from other educational services such as AWSchool and AW University in that the academy's main focus is sharing very specific methods of building, and not so much on the basics of building, and teaching how the browser works.

Builders Academy Screenshot

History

The original academy was a small wooden building in downtown Central SW City, built sometime in 2000. Ironically it was deleted years later due to no longer meeting "standards of building". A new academy, a more campus-like layout, was built in August 2001. Each building on the campus covered an area of building. Classes included included How to Get Started Building, Basic Commands, Troubleshooting, Innovations, Astart Astop Animation Scripting, Masking, Object Griding, and Visuals. The academy also featured a graduation system, which involved building something that met a list of requirements. Admission into SW City staff and/or acquiring prime pieces of property required graduate status. However the academy became obsolete as new techniques were developed and the browser developed, and all things having graduate requirements were revoked.

The academy program sat mostly dormant in 2002 and beyond. Updates were only added the website version of the academy, and those were far and few between. Between 2003-2006, all newly acquired techniques and tips to building were shared over the Scarabian Republic Forums, in the building section.

In December 2006, the new builders academy was launched, now a wiki-based website.

Features

The academy now breaks its services down into 5 fields:

Articles: These are articles about buildings in AW. For example a critique report on something. Reviews like this can help builders know what to look for in their projects.

Building: The building section overviews some of the basics to building, and serve as a foundation for advanced techniques.

Guides: Guides are the primary section of the academy. These are typically lengthy how-tos guides on topics such as realistic road design and planning, performance tuning your projects, and structural detailing.

Resources: Resources are directories of 3rd party art content buidlers can use to enchance their projects, such as sounds effects and picture graphics.

Toolbox: The toolbox is a repository of building codes, object .awg groups, presets, and mini-techniques such as road curving.

See Also

Official Website - SW City Builders' Academy