THOUGHT (aka Centric's Blog)

The newest HiPiHi client includes a content-creation system which adopts some familiar features from Second Life and adds a number of its own very useful features. The basic interface is similar to that in Second Life. For example, buttons for default shapes - like a box, a cylinder, a sphere, etc. - are almost exactly the same. Check out the image below:

The colors of the three arrows below representing orientations of objects are also same - X axis for red, Y axis for green, Z axis for blue.

Tools for selecting and adjusting textures in Second Life are duplicated in HiPiHi - color tint, material property, full bright option, transparency. Texture formats supported are JPG, TGA, PNG, and DDS. If you’re already a Second Life user, the interface will be pretty intuitive. There are also some features unique to

HiPiHi that many Second Life users have always wanted:

1. Undo/Redo function: You can go back and forth between each step.

2. Clone stamp: You can place copies of objects consecutively by checking the box that allows cloning.

3. Buttons for Copy/Cut/Paste/Link/Unlink objects. You don’t need to memorize shortcut keys; just click on buttons with nice little icons representing their functions. However, advanced Second Life users might prefer having the shortcut keys they are already familiar with.

 4. Object alignment function: Objects can be automatically aligned along a desired axis by selecting those objects and clicking on "align along X (or Y or Z) axis."

5. Secondary surface pattern: In addition to basic textures you apply to objects, you can also add another texture underneath or on top of them to give objects a combination of textures. In this picture we applied a "stone" pattern on top of the Centric logo. You can also adjust the intensity of this secondary pattern.

Overall, these content-creation tools should be easier for beginners to use than those in Second Life - unless you don’t read Chinese! The new functionality is a very welcome addition.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.