Release Note

Table of Contents

1. Manual
2. Directory Structure
3. Sample Worlds
4. Functional Specification
5. Restrictions
6. Caution
7. How to get updated news for this product product
8. Contact address

Dicrectory Structure

\Program Files\Sony\Community Place Browser\

• bin
  An excutable file cpbrowse.exe and the necessary DLLs
• doc
  Readme, manual, release note, and technical documents
• lib
  Library files for java and other components
• snapshot
  Window dump images in BMP file format are put in this directory
• tmp
  Temporary files created during the execution of the product go here
• world
  Several sample worlds including Circus Park 2 have been placed here
  If you put a new world content in this directory, a link from the entry room (the world that is displayed automatically when you launch this product) is automatically created. To use this automatic function, please consult the manual.

Sample Worlds

Analog Clock
There is an analog clock which tells the correct time. If you click the second hand, the clock itself starts to rotate. In addition, Netscape navigater displays a message for you.

Buggy
A dune buggy runs in a small course. If you click it, you can ride on it.

TV
Click buttons of the television set. They work as you expect.

SpotLight
Please click the sphere! You can see serveral effects of SpotLight node.

BeeBee
If you click a honeycomb then ...

Chat Room
Anyone can enter Chat Room - its a free public world hosted by Sony.*
In it, you can see other users who are represented by Avatars . You can chat with other users by using the text chat window and you can express a little emotion with our action panel. Voice chat is also supported.

Circus Park 2 (Multi-user World)
Anyone can enter Circus Park 2 - its a free public world hosted by Sony.*
In it, you can see other users who are represented by Avatars . You can chat with other users by using the text chat window and you can express a little emotion with our action panel.

Becuase you and other users are in the same virtual world, events that you see in the world happens for other users as well. It's a shared world !

* To enter those multi-user worlds, please download them from our homepage.
If you want to experience the multiuser worlds, you need to be connected to the Internet. After you connected to the Internet and you load a multiuser world in to Community Place, the browser automatically connects to the Community Place Bureau server on the Internet and you will be in the multiuser world.

Functional Specifications

• Link to a list of VRML 2.0 nodes that are supported in this release
• Link to a list of Sony enhanced nodes
• Link to a list of Sony enhanced Java API
• Link to Avatar Specification
• Link to Change Log

Restrictions

VRML2.0 Support

Browser Functions

1. While you are navigation by mouse dragging, shift-key and control-key are ignored.
2. The button icons may not change even though you press shift or control-shift keys during keyboard navigation.
3. When you push the HOME icon, you will return to the home position. However, your view angle might be different sometimes.
4. The color may be different from other browsers when you see the same VRML world.
5. Sometimes, if you release the mouse button while you go up and down by holding Ctrl-Shift keys and dragging the mouse, you may be 'transported' to a new location because the browser thinks you used the POI function.
6. If the size of the content is too large, nothing will be shown in the window.
7. You can set up SOCKS to connect to the Community Place Bureau server from inside the firewall. However, sometimes you cannot connect to Community Place Bureau WLS according to your network configuration.
8. Bookmark does not always work properly.
9. Avatar color will not be displayed correctly when you use two or more Community Place Browsers at the same time on the same machine.
10. In our sample "TV" world, please do not get too close to the TV monitor If you want to click the power-on switch.
11. In our sample "TV" world, you will hear the click sound of the switch after the music starts.
12. When you create a multi-user world, avatar files (avtwrl/XXX.wrl) must have one and only Group node at their top level. All other nodes are located in the "children" field of the Group node.
13. When you use voice chat capability, you may sometimes see "Cannot open Wave Input device." telop message in a main Community Place Browser window. In this case you need to click any window other than Community Place Browser, then click the main window of Community Place browser. Now you can use the voice chat capability.
14. If you set Voice Chat function enabled by Preference Dialog Box after you enter a multiuser world, you can't use Voice Chat function until you disconnect and connect to multiuser server again.
15. If you use more than one network interface at the same time, you may not connect to the voice chat server properly. This happens when you use Ethernet and PPP at the same time, for instance. In this case you will see "Voice Chat Server doesn't respond. Voice Chat function disabled." message in a pop up window. Workaround is to enable only one network interface (i.e., PPP only) and disable others.
16. You can use voice chat function of Community Place only if your PC has direct access to the Internet (i.e. your PC is IP-reachable). If you are accessing to the Internet via a proxy server or a firewall, you can't use voice chat function.
17. When a world use voice chat feature, you must specify the following Sony_WorldInfo node.

        Sony_WorldInfo {
          soundDeviceRate  11025
          soundDeviceBits  16
        }
    

Caution

Netscape 3.0 or later bundles Live3D plug-in as a VRML browser. With a VRML browser plug-in installed in Netscape, even if you specify Community Place Browser as a helper application for VRML files, the setting becomes inactive once you restart Netscape. To make Community Place Browser invoked when you open a VRML file, you need to deactivate plug-in browsers, or more precisely, deactivate plug-in DLLs.

Usually plug-in DLLs for Netscape are stored in:
c:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator\Program\plugins\npXXX.dll
'XXX' is a plug-in's name. For example, the plug-in DLL for Live3D is npl3d32.dll. By moving a DLL away from the directory, the DLL becomes inactive, and Community Place Browser is invoked as a primary helper application for VRML files. Be careful to move the DLL into a directory which is not under the above-mentioned `plugins' directory. Netscape searches all directories under 'plugins' for plug-in DLLs.

We also provide Npchooser (Netscape Plugin Chooser) to help you choose which plug-in DLLs are active.

How to get updated news for this product

Contact Address