Viscape Curation

This guide will show you how to curate Viscape using Flashpoint.

Superscape Viscape is a 3D viewer released in 1996 with the main goal being creating virtual worlds users could explore. We accept all kinds of Viscape content, not just games and animations, and this is especially true here, as not many traditional games or animations exist for it. Its library is mostly comprised of applications and 3D models of virtual worlds.

Before You Start

This tutorial will assume you've read the standard Curation Tutorial, which is highly recommended to go through. Try curating a Flash game before moving on to other platforms like Viscape.

Recognizing Viscape

Button typically placed in the page before the plug-in was needed.

In older pages, you could find an option to enter a "Virtual world" or "3D Website/Page" or something along those lines. Most have a sort of "buffer page" where you'll be asked to download the plugin in order to view it's 3D content, usually accompanied with the Superscape Viscape prompt button most pages used, but not always.

When entering the page with Viscape content, your browser may automatically download the content file. If it does not, right-click the page and click "View Page Source," then look for an object or embed tag with a link to the content file. Viscape content files can have one of 3 known file extensions:

• .svr - Stands for "Virtual World Compressed", this is by far the most common file type you'll find, as it was much more preferred due to it's small size due to internet speeds in the early years of the internet.
• .vrt - Stands for "Virtual World", this is the original file type used, that fell out of favor at the start, so you're more likely to find these in the older apps, although not guaranteed.
• .ssv - Another rarer file type that can be used.

Before proceeding with curation, you need to keep in mind that there are two main types of Viscape apps;

• Standalone apps - These are similar to most Flash Games, where the Viscape file can be removed from the page and run separately without missing any content or important details. The whole experience is contained within 1 or more Viscape files.

• Integrated apps - These Viscape files are part of pages/games that can have HTML and/or Flash components, all combined into one. These need to be saved as a whole. Saving only the Viscape portion would be like only saving a cutscene from a game.

Notes

Before you begin, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• This is an old plug-in from the late 90's, so many of the pages that hosted them might no longer be online, and if they are the Viscape files might be gone.
• Most of what you'll find will probably be saved on the Wayback Machine. Due to the way it works, saving only what's loaded at the beginning, multiple assets might not have been saved, resulting in missing parts. These pages/apps should still be saved, but there will be a lot of partial curations, and you should note what's present/missing from it.
• A lot of these had links to other websites, separate from the Viscape app, these can be ignored and left as 404s.
• This tech has been recently added, and there are still from issues with how Flashpoint runs it, such as .ssv and .vrt files not always functioning, older apps needing a missing older version of the plug-in to launch properly, and HTML/JavaScript buttons to interact with elements in Viscape not working.

Curation Steps

Follow the Curation Format to add metadata for your game and create its correct content folder. The Platform should be Viscape and the Application Path should be FPSoftware\startSVR.bat.

The Launch Command you should use depends on the type of game you're curating;

• If it's a Standalone app it should link to the .svr, .vrt or .ssv file, for example http://www.middlestreet.org/cabinet/MSTREET.svr

• For integrated apps, it depends on the URL of the page where it's located, it can be a simple URL like http://ilhabela.org/, or it can link to the .htm or .html file for the page, for example http://ykc-pc.co.jp/top.htm.

When testing the game, you'll be asked if you want to use your 3D graphics card, or run in CPU mode when you launch Viscape. Either option works, although you might encounter some texture glitches and speed differences, so use the one that seems to work best for you.

Wrapping It Up

First, make sure that you have thoroughly tested your curation and followed the Curation Format. Scroll down in the Curate tab and click the Export button at the bottom of your curation to save it as a .7z file. After you've exported the curation, you can find it by clicking the Exported Curations button on the Curate tab (as long as you didn't choose to save it somewhere else). Once you have the file, submit it to the Flashpoint Submission System. An explanation of how the site works is available here.

After you have uploaded your curation to the website, a Curator will check it. This can take some time, so please be patient. You will be pinged in the #fpfss-notifications channel about whether or not your submission was approved, and if any changes need to be made.

Congratulations! Your submitted game/animation will appear in a future version of Flashpoint.