UpStage v3 User manual
Avatar Tools
The avatar palette, at the top right of the player stage view, provides tools for holding and moving an avatar. An avatar is a graphic object that a player operates to move around the stage and speak, a sort of digital puppet.
Holding and Moving an Avatar
The avatars assigned to a stage appear as small named icons in the Wardrobe (the area at the right of the avatar palette); use the arrows to scroll up and down the Wardrobe list. To hold a particular avatar, click on its icon in the Wardrobe. The icon will disappear from the Wardrobe and appear in your Mirror, the square area to the left of the Wardrobe. This shows you which avatar you are currently holding. A greyed-out icon in your Wardrobe means that another player is holding that avatar.
Once you have an avatar in your Mirror, click on the stage area and your full-size avatar will appear there. Click in another place, and it will move there.
Tool palette
Fast/Slow
This button controls the avatar movement – fast causing the avatar to jump to where you click, and slow causing it to glide there. The button shows the action that the avatar will change to when next clicked – for example if your avatar is gliding, the button will show fast. Click on it to change to fast, and the button will become orange and say “slow”.
Stop
When your avatar is gliding (in slow mode), click on stop to stop it at any point in its trajectory.
Name
This button will hide or show your avatar’s name on the stage – this is particularly useful when working with invisible avatars. When you first hold an avatar, the default state is for the name to be showing, so click on “name” before you place the avatar on the stage if you don’t want the name to show.
Draw
This button changes the function from acting to drawing, displaying the drawing tools palette instead of the avatar tools. See the chapter Drawing Palette for more information about drawing.
Drop
The drop button will remove your avatar from the stage, and put it back in the Wardrobe so that you are no longer holding it. If you want to leave your avatar on the stage while you operate another avatar, simply select the new avatar from the Wardrobe without clicking drop.
Clear
Use clear to remove all unheld avatars and props from the stage.
Audio
This button displays the audio tools palette. See the chapter Audio Palette for more information about using audio.
Player/Audience counter
Below the control buttons, a counter keeps a live tally of the number of players (P) and audience (A) present on stage at any time. Typing /details in the text chat input field will give you a list of the usernames of the players and the number of audience in the chat window.
Right-click menu
The right-click menu is accessed by right-clicking you avatar on stage; if you are using a Mac, hold the control key (ctrl) and click on the avatar to access the menu.
<INSERT RIGHT-CLICK MENU SCREENSHOT HERE>
Rotate Avatar Left/Right
These options allow you to rotate your avatar 90° either clockwise (right) or anti-clockwise (left).
Move Up/Down
These options change which layer of the stage your avatar is on; allowing you to hide your avatar behind other objects (excluding the backdrop) or have it in front of everything else. (The same functionality is provided by the arrows in the mirror.)
Move Fast/Slow
These control how your avatar moves about the stage. Fast will cause it to jump to where you click, and slow make it glide to where you click. (The same functionality is provided by the fast/slow button in the tool palette).
Draw On Avatar
This allows you to draw on your avatar. Anything you draw on your avatar will move with your avatar.
need some explanation here of how this works - e.g. to change colours, & how this differs from drawing on a drawing layer (also is it possible to draw on someone else's avatar, or only the one you are holding?)
Clear Draw On Avatar
This will clear all drawings currently on your avatar.
Rename Avatar
This allows you to rename your avatar, and will only work if you right-click on the name. (You can also rename your avatar with the /nick command).
Operating Multi-frame or Animated Avatars
Avatars that have been created as .swf animations, or uploaded as multiframe avatars, allow you to change the avatar while it is on stage.
Animated Avatars
Created as .swf files, these avatars will animate in the Workshop, Wardrobe and Mirror. When placed on stage, animated sequences will appear as a still image in the first frame of the animation. Type /a 0 to start the looped animation, and to display a different still frame type /a 1 (the default), /a 2, /a 3 etc.
Flash Movieclips will animate on loop without typed-in commands. You need to create these as movies in Flash – see the chapter Creating Graphics for UpStage for more information.
Multi-frame Avatars
These work in a similar way to the animated avatars, but are created by uploading a series of still images (in .png or .jpg format) rather than creating an .swf file.
Changing Your Avatar’s Name
There are three ways to change an avatar's name: off stage, via the media edit section of the workshop, or on stage using either a command or the right-click menu. The on stage methods are explained here.
Type /nick newname (with newname being the new name that you want) in the text input field at the bottom of the chat window, and hit enter.
Or, use the right-click menu option "Rename Avatar".
When using invisible avatars, you can make words float around the stage by showing the name, and using /nick or the right-click menu option to change the visible word on screen.
Only up to 9 characters will be visible on stage; if you have a longer name it will all be visible in the text chat.