Worlds
Experimental
Worlds are not part of Homer 1.0: they are the author's experiment, and worlds live outside the builds and outside the repository. This page is for those who already have a world set up.
A world is a home that has a ready-made landscape instead of rooms: one model for the whole site and a separate “touch” model you walk on. A world has no yard or grass around it, and when it opens, the camera looks at the spawn point.
The first such world is Station Square from Sonic Adventure DX. It's built from a purchased copy of the game. SEGA models and sounds are not part of Homer and are stored only on the Homer server.
How it works
A world opens as a separate home with its own revisions. The owner grants access to it like to any home. Many world edits arrive from the server by themselves, without an app update.
What you see and what's solid in a world may differ. Shop window glass is solid even though it's transparent, while you can walk through a palm tree. You can walk on stairs, ramps and the waterfront: a curb below the knees is stepped over, a canopy above the chest doesn't get in the way.
| Part | What's inside |
|---|---|
| Station Square | Six acts of the game, each a separate world. The square, city hall, station, sewers, hotel, Twinkle Park |
| Mystic Ruins | Also split by acts. The train from the station goes there; the transition is instant, with no loading |
| Egg Carrier | Eggman's ship: 12 sections outside and inside, each with its own plan and music |
The signs are translated into Russian: “Казино Кена” (Ken's Casino), “Центральный вокзал” (Central Station), “Кафе „У вокзала“” (Station Café) and others, 15 in total.
Transitions
- A ring on the floor. A glowing amber circle. Step into it — and you're at the arrival point, with its height and view direction. Until you step out of the circle, it won't fire a second time.
- A seam. Between acts of one world there are no rings; the transition is unnoticeable. If the view on the two sides of the seam doesn't match, the seam is shown as an amber strip with a ledge.
- Like in the game. The train leaves from the edge of the platform, the elevator lifts you to the Twinkle Park gallery, the hatch near city hall leads to the sewers, the mine cart rides to the Mystic Ruins jungle. You get to the Egg Carrier by boat: the circle at the edge of the beach leads to the flight deck, the circle at the port side leads back.
During a transition the frame blurs for 0.6 s and becomes sharp again. In the headset there's no blur, to avoid motion sickness.
The fastest way is the walk menu → Teleport…. The item is available to everyone. In a world it has teleporters by name: the station, elevators, the hatch, trains, all Egg Carrier doors. First in the list is “To entry point”, followed by your walk neighbours.
Moving things
| Thing | How it moves |
|---|---|
| Elevator | Runs by itself, with pauses. Step on the platform — it carries you up and down without falling |
| Doors | Open when you approach. One person approaching opens both leaves |
| Decor | The planet above the shaft, antennas and fans rotate, traffic lights blink, the boat rocks |
| Lamps | Street lamps and lights glow, most noticeably at night |
Elevators and decor run on a clock and are in the same position for everyone walking. Doors open separately for each person. In the web version things farther than 300 m from you stand still.
Light and sound
Signs, neon, screens and shop windows glow by themselves. 26 street lamps on the square and 36 floodlights on the ship cast light. Location music is off by default and is turned on in the walk menu.
In Station Square you move faster than at home: three times the step speed, a 3.5 m jump, Spin Dash and Homing attack. This is a setting of the world itself, see Walk.
Flat plan of a world
A world has no rooms. Instead, the plan shows a top-down section at the height you walk at, otherwise the station roofs and the mountain would cover the halls. One act is shown at a time, picked with chips at the top.
The plan shows passages: the trigger circle at its real size, a green arrival point and a dashed line between them. Tapping a passage shows its coordinates. For those who can edit the home, the Arrange mode button lets you drag the circle and the arrival point:
- in the app, the height is taken from the floor at the new point;
- in the web version, the height stays the same.
Loading
The first time you open a world, the “Loading the world” screen shows how much has been downloaded and parsed, and a Don't wait button. The first load takes longer; after that the files come from the phone's or browser's storage. Walls appear 2–4 s after opening, and you can enter the walk even earlier.
An old app breaks the world
A build that doesn't know about worlds reads the landscape floor as empty and cuts it out when saving. Before editing a world, update the app on all devices. The app updates from the Homer server by itself.