Personal avatar

A female PAV, created by SistaAVs

A male PAV in Alphaworld

A monolithic, rectangular PAV in Alphaworld

A Personal Avatar (PAV) is an avatar you can wear in any worlds set to allow PAVs in the Active Worlds Universe. AWI-operated Worlds are all PAV-enabled. Private world owners may also allow PAVs. In order to use a PAV, it must be enabled at the server-level by an AWI Employee who selects the "Personal AV Enabled" checkbox in your citizen information.

Pricing

AWI's current fee for a Personal Avatar is $19.95 USD for the initial upload and inspection. Any subsequent change to the avatar will cost $14.95 USD to cover the time spent reviewing the proposed change and the storage of the changed files. AWI's fees may be reduced if submitting through an authorized PAV Vendor (see below). PAV Vendor fees are additional and are based on the work involved to get an avatar to PAV specifications.

Creation Guidelines

When creating your own Personal Avatar, the following set of guidelines must be followed. (See also: Original PAV Guidelines Post)

Naming

• All cit numbers must be 7 number digits. (I.e. cit number 342345 would be listed as 0342345).

Texturing

• Naming: All textures must start with citizen number followed by texture name (i.e. 0342345greyshirt.jpg).
• Name Length: Texture names cannot be longer than 30 characters (including any mask commands. I.e. Wood23_mask_wood23m is considered 19 characters).
• Combined Texture Filesize: The combined file size of all textures cannot exceed 100k.
• Texture Resolutions: All textures must be 256x256 pixels or less. The total amount of textures on an avatar cannot exceed 512x512 total pixel area (This comes out to four 256x256 jpg’s or sixteen 128x128 jpg’s).
• All textures must be powers of 2 (32x32 or 64x64 or 256x256) You cannot have textures for example that are 31x23.

Sequences

• Sequences can be either stock AW sequences or custom sequences. All stock sequence spelling must match AWI provided sequences.
• Max Sequence File Size: 50K.
• All custom sequence names must be preceded by 7 digit citizen number (i.e 0343456jump.seq) and zipped.
• No avatars can have more than 30 sequences (including both implicit and explicit).
• A sequence INI file must be provided. Sequence INI files will replace the Avatars.DAT file and control the sequences of your Personal Avatar.
• The sequence INI file must start with sq and end followed by the 7 digit citizen number (i.e sq0342345.ini). It then must be zipped (i.e. sq0342345.zip).
• All sequence INI files must be in the proper PAV format. (similar to avatar.dat file). An example of this proper format is listed below. (Also, see more at Universe Pavatars article)

   [options]
   autowalk=1
   autolook=1

   [implicit]
   wait=qeyeidle2
   endwait=talking
   warp=qfly2
   idle=qn1_wait
   fly=qfly2
   swim=qswim
   fall=qfall1s
   hover=qhover1
   float=qhover1
   slide1=slidelow
   slide2=slidehigh
   jump=qjump1
   run=qrun
   walk=qwalkf2

   [explicit]
   gesture1=Macarena,qmaca
   gesture2=Angry,angry
   gesture3=Tantrum,willy04
   gesture4=Cannot Hear,banohear
   gesture5=Blow a Kiss,qblkiss
   gesture6=Happy,qhappym
   gesture7=Angry,qangryf
   gesture8=Dance,qdance6
   gesture9=clap,clap

Make sure there are no spaces before or after commas in the sequence INI file (ie "gesture1=Macarena,qmaca" would work but "gesture1=Macarena, qmaca" would not).

Modeling

• Size restrictions: Cannot be any taller than 3 meters and any wider than 2 meters (2 meter x 2meter x 3 meters tall). They cannot be any smaller than .5 meters high and .5 meters wide.
• Polygon count: 2500 Triangles or less. Quads count as two triangles. They can be counted with most 3D modeling programs such as Accutrans, or through a text editor.
• Masking/Opacity: No more than 100 Triangles can have a mask or an opacity less than 1. No invisible avatars.
• Illegal RWX commands': opacity fix, aw_wireframe
• Must not invoke object errors when loaded into AW (switch on your object errors in AW if you are not sure).

Other

• AW has total editorial rights and approval rights on all PAV submitted.
• All PAV’s must conform to Activeworlds content guidelines http://www.activeworlds.com/community/terms.asp.
• PAV’s may not violate any third party copyrights.

PAV Vendors

Activeworlds, Inc. has authorized select organizations, vendors, and citizens of the Active Worlds Universe to sell PAV work. Below is a list of officially sanctioned PAV Vendors:

• SistaAVs: Avatars by Lady NightHawk & Lady HardDriven (Website)