I just installed Hipihi 50011 a few minutes ago.
After several attempts to log in met with “Server Maintenance” errors, I mentioned this to the Hipihi@msn.com group, which of course meant that my next attempt would succeed.
Having used the word “succeed” in this post, I now have a “There was an error in your appearance data, reload?” dialog box.
Probably the thing to do in such a case is click ok.
This error message is also in English.
The toolbar at the bottom is also in English. (You know, I’m tired of capitalizing english. It’s just the name of a language. It doesn’t merit finding the shift key.)
Alright, click OK.
Well Phoo again, it’s showing me as male, and the terrain appears gray.
Switching the avatar to female is a simple task. The gray terrain will require restarting.
Looks like I’ve lost my customized face and hair. It wasn’t much in the way of customization so it doesn’t matter. Also the default Hipihi female avatar has a great figure that doesn’t scream “Adjust Me” so that’s good.
I was hoping to see all English on the interface but no such luck, but, if it is using the partly English interface without having to do the text file editing the previous version required that is a good thing. It might, however, be reading the text file that had to be edited in the previous version. I didn’t uninstall the old version, and I didn’t take any steps to keep the new version from overwriting the old version or using the same folder as the old one did. So it might be using configuration info from the old version.
Exiting from the Hipihi client, I attempt to find the “Configure Hipihi” program in the Hipihi system tray icon. (Notification area icon for you youngsters). The right click menu for the Hipihi system tray icon is in Chinese, so it’s a matter of trial and error. There doesn’t seem to be such an option. That means it will be in the Start Programs Hipihi folder,. under “Hipihi Config”,. and indeed, there it is.
The Config dialog is in Chinese. I don’t know what the first one is since I can’t read it.
The second one has options 2_0, 2_A, and 3_0, for different classes of video cards. My ATI Radeon X800 gets assigned as the middle grade ny the Hipihi folks, assuming the installation program checked , but appears to only really be able to work right at the lowest setting, so I set this to 2_0
Pressing the left Chinese labeled button on the Config dialog box closes the dialog and I try again. I check the properties of the Hipihi Quicklaunch icon. It is ambigous about what version it will run – it just shows Hipihi World as the program folder and Hipihi.exe as the file to run. Apparently this is the correct info to run the new version. I expect the terrain to be terrain colored this time. . It’s still loading. There’s the login dialog, click OK, there’s the bird chirping and other ambient noises one would expect in Hipihi.
Hipihi starts out zoomed way the heck away from your avatar . I don’t know what that’s about.
It did remember that I’d changed the av to female during my brief first run. And the terrain is now terrain instead of looking like loading texture from Second Life.
It’s night in Beijing and in Hipihi, which means that I can’t test out whether they’ve solved the problem of the pulsating sun. Somewhat like the Second Life windlight client story, Hipihi started out with a small simple sun, and at some point the programmers decided to make the sun fancy. Problem is, I don’t want a big bright fancy sun, and, worse, in Hipihi the fancy sun has so far failed to work properly. It pulsates, it changes sizes like a heart contracting and releasing, and the light rays coming from it are quite cartoonish and wrong looking. They also added a lens flare, but I’m not using a camera, and I don’t notice lens flare effects in the real world while I am outside. So I’m not too pleased with the whole big attention getting sun deal, but if there’s got to be some kind of cult of the sun thing going on, it should at least work right. So far Hiphi’s monster sun is monstrous but works wrong. The sun in a virtual world doesn’t need to look realistic at all. It needs to have an appearance that pleases the user.
Enough about the sun. Now to find some trees.
Well I didn’t make it to trees before seeing a mountain. I stop to see if I can walk on the slope. Hipihi has up till now done a bad job of dealing with hills, with the avatar on slopes.
Well they’ve got that problem fixed. You can walk or run up and down slopes without any trouble. Excellent!
It’s been a bit disappointing so far in Hipihi seeing the motionless trees. The birthplace in Hipihi has trees; so click on the Map button and the Birthplace button and ….
Moving trees!!!!!! Hooray!!!!
And they’re phantom too, so no more getting stuck in the trees all the time.
Im getting nervous about all these words not being saved so I’m gonna go ahead and post this now.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: Hipihi, virtual world, virtual worlds, SuezanneCB, SuezanneC Baskerville, speedtrees, 50011, virtual reality
