• Introduction
• UpStage v3
• Introduction
• UpStage Team
• Technical Information
• How to Help UpStage
• Audience
• Audience View
• Audience Chat
• Audience Interactivity
• Players
• Logging In
• Player Profile
• Player View
• On-stage Player Tools
• Avatar Tools
• Audio Palette
• Drawing Palette
• Speech and Text Chat
• / Commands
• Media Management
• The Workshop Interface
• Creating and Editing Players
• Creating and Editing Stages
• Uploading Media
• Browse Media
• Edit Media
• Creating Media
• Creating Graphics for UpStage
• Creating Audio for UpStage
• Streaming
• Introduction to streaming
• Video tutorial
• Sending a stream
• Red5 Publisher interface
• FMLE
• VLC (Linux)
• Creating a stream avatar
• Prerecorded streams
• Appendices
• Glossary
• Text2Speech Voices
• Troubleshooting

On-stage Player Tools

Logged-in players have access to a range of on-stage tools, not visible to the audience, which enable the real-time manipulation of preloaded media and live elements on the stage. 

The previous chapter showed the default player view of the stage, with the Avatar palette at the top right above the chat, and galleries for props and backdrops at the bottom of the screen. The Avatar palette appears as the default, with the Audio and Drawing palettes accessed by clicking the appropriate button in the Avatar palette. These three palettes are explained in the following chapters.

 Changing Backdrops

Backdrops are images that fill the entire background area of the stage; avatars, props, streams and all except one layer of drawing appear in front of the backdrop.

The backdrops assigned to a particular stage appear as small icons in the Backdrops Gallery, at the bottom left of your screen.

Roll your cursor over the icons to display the name label so that you can accurately choose the backdrop you want. If more than 8 backdrops are assigned to a stage, arrows will appear at either end of the bar to allow you to scroll through the backdrops, which are displayed alphabetically.

Click once on the icon to place the backdrop onto the stage; click the icon a second time to remove it.

Multiframe backdrops can be used in the same way as normal backdrops; to change the backdrop's frame, type /b 1, /b 2 etc in the text input field. Type /b 0 to make the backdrop animate through its frames. (For information about creating multiframe backdrops, see the chapter Creating Graphics for UpStage).

Holding and Placing Props

Props are images that can be "held" by an avatar; you must be holding an avatar on the stage in order for that avatar to then hold a prop. When an avatar holding a prop moves, the prop will move with the avatar.

The props assigned to a stage appear as small icons in the Props Gallery at the centre bottom of the screen.

 

When you roll your cursor over the icons, a name label appears, allowing you to distinguish between similar or very small props. If more than 8 props are assigned to a stage, arrows will appear at either end of the bar to allow you to scroll through the props, which are displayed alphabetically.

Click on the prop icon in the Gallery, and it will appear at the top left of your avatar. Click again on the prop icon in the Gallery, and it will remove the prop from your avatar. If another player clicks on the same prop that you are holding, it will be transferred to their avatar.

Props that have been created as .swf animations, or uploaded as multiframe props, do NOT allow you to change the frame of the prop while it is on stage (as is the case with avatars and backdrops). When placed on the stage, a prop which has been uploaded as an animated sequence will appear only as a looped animation; a prop uploaded as a single frame (as .swf, .jpg or .png) will appear only as a still image. (For information about creating props, see the chapter Creating Graphics for UpStage).