Gather Town is suitable for hosting interactive events like poster sessions. This page lists some tips & tricks when preparing such an event. To learn more about the Gather Town application, start here.

Using a pre-built space with a poster room

Note that the HMI/I-Tech space already has a poster room set up for several posters, and a license for up to 50 simultaneous users. Ask the lab manager if you would like to use the existing space.

To host your event you will need to create your own space based on a template that contains poster rooms. For example, the pre-built "basic conference" and "deluxe conference" are suitable for this.

images/gathertown/conference-template.png

Creating a new poster room

Alternatively, you can add a new room to an existing space. Head over to the map maker and select the space you'd like to edit. When the editor has finished loading, the left menu lists all the current rooms in your selected space.

Press the "+" to add a new room, and give it a name (press enter to confirm).

images/gathertown/add-room.png

In the "Create New Room" dialogue, select "Start with a template". Then select the "conference-poster-room-12" or "conference-poster-room-24" to create your new room for 12 or 24 posters, respectively. The new room will have the necessary private areas already set up with dummy posters (the section below shows how to replace the dummy posters with actual posters).

images/gathertown/new-room.png

Your new room should look something like this. The numbered purple squares indicate private areas where your guests can discuss their poster with visitors.

images/gathertown/poster-room-mapmaker.png

Making the room accessible

First go back to your main room where people usually enter your space. You will need to add a door / portal to the new poster room. First click on the "Tile mode" in the top left menu bar. Then select the blue "Portal Tile" tool. Then click on an empty tile somewhere on your map to create a portal. From the popup "Pick portal type" you click "Portal to a room", then select the previously created poster room in the list. The editor will now show your poster room, as a final step you must click on an empty tile as the destination for the portal.

For example, in the screenshot below, we have added two portal tiles to the doorway labelled "Posters". Stepping on one of these tiles will teleport a person to the entrance of our poster room.

images/gathertown/portal-tile.png

Don't forget to press the save icon in the top menu when you are done. Head over to your space to test whether everything works as planned.

Adding custom posters

Posters can be added to the room in the map maker or directly from within the app. We'll cover the map maker here, since it seems a bit quicker and more intuitive.

First delete the existing (dummy) poster: From your main map maker menu select the "Object Mode" and enable the "Eraser Mode". Now lick on a tile with the poster you'd like to erase. Keep in mind that the underlying private area and impassable area will remain intact.

images/gathertown/erase-object.png

To add a new poster, first disable the "Eraser Mode" and from the left menu select "+" under "Objects". In the search bar, search for "poster" and click the "Poster Set" object. From the "Object Interactions" select "Embedded image".

images/gathertown/add-poster.png

There are several fields you should fill (ask your attendees to prepare the necessary files - An example is here):

• In the "Image" field: upload the main high-resolution poster (e.g. poster-full.png). This is the image that will be shown full-screen when people press "x" to open the poster
• In the "Preview image" field: upload a small preview of the poster (e.g. poster-preview.png). This is the image that will be shown at the bottom of people's screen when they stand nearby the poster, along with the "Press x to view poster" message. The preview image will be scaled to 433 pixels wide, and will display the top 100 pixels of the image.
• The "Activation distance": this is the distance that people stand from a poster to see the "Press x to view poster" message. Setting it at 0 means that only people in the private area will be able to view a poster. Setting it to 1 (default) means that people 1 tile outside the poster private area can still see it, but will obviously not be able to interact with the poster presenter. (In the default poster rooms you should not set it higher than 1, as it will cause overlap with other nearby posters)
• Under "Advanced options":
  • In the "Object image" field: upload the image for the poster board object that will be shown in-game to all people walking in the room (e.g. poster-stand.png). The image must be png (because of transparency) and must be exactly 96x160 pixels (to cover the 3x5 tiles of poster + private area). If you leave this blank it will show a default poster board with a generic poster preview.
  • In the "Active image" field: upload the image for the poster board object that will be shown to people who are nearby (e.g. poster-stand-active.png). This image is displayed when the "Press x to view poster" message is shown. It is good practice to include a yellow highlighted box around the poster so people know which one they are selecting. If you leave this blank it will show the default poster board.

When you have filled the fields, press "Select" and position the poster set over one of the empty areas in the room. A semi-transparent preview will be shown when you move your mouse around. Make sure that the poster aligns with the red impassible tiles and the purple private area tiles. Click the mouse to place it.

images/gathertown/place-poster.png

As always, make sure to press the save icon in the main menu after you are satisfied with the changes. Head over to your space in the app to check out how the poster looks.