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Centre for Vision Research
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VVF Gathertown Help Page

Getting Technical Support

  • Our technical support assistant will be available to assist you with Gathertown or other technical issues you may have during the conference. Email cvr.york@gmail.com with a description and (if possible) screenshots of your issue.
  • You can also get technical support at the Help Desk in the space’s Lobby Room or by sending a message to the space’s chat window.
  • In this handout, there’s also a Gathertown troubleshooting & FAQ section (scroll down).

Navigating our Gathertown Space

Lobby Room

Talk Discussions Room

Hangout Room

Game Room 1 & 2

  • Lobby Room: You can find information resources about the conference and get technical support here.
    • Help Desk: If you have a Gathertown issue or an issue with our space, go to the Help Desk to speak with our technical support assistant.
    • Map Poster: View this poster to see a full-scale map of the lobby.
    • Information Poster: View this poster to see this information handout.
    • Today’s Agenda Poster: View this poster to see today’s schedule for talk sessions and other events happening in our space.
  • Talk Discussions Room: There are five talk discussion rooms with ten speakers in each one. Each talk discussion room is dedicated to a specific session. Check out Today’s Agenda Poster in the Lobby Room to see today’s scheduled speakers.
  • Hangout Room: You can hangout with other attendees here.
  • Game Rooms: You can play all sorts of games (poker, Skribbl.io, and more) with other attendees here.

Having Connection Issues?

  • Gathertown recommends these system specifications:
    • 2.4GHZ dual core
    • 8GB RAM
    • 10 Mbps download speed
    • 3 Mbps upload speed
  • Lag increases as you connect to more Gathertown video streams. When connecting with 20 or more Gathertown video streams, Gathertown will be heavier on your system.
  • Download, install, and use the Gathertown Desktop which may help performance: (https://gather.town/download)
  • Turn off HD video or smooth movement
    • When you’re in our Gathertown space, go to Settings > User Tab > Use HD Video Quality or Smooth Movement then turn one or both of the settings off.

Instructions for Using Gathertown

  1. Gather is available to Chrome and Firefox users. It may not work, or work as well, on other browsers.
  2. After you click our Gathertown link and enter the password, you’ll see a screen where you can enter your name (use your full name so others can find you easily) and specify audio/visual preferences.
  3. Next, when you enter the room, there’s a tutorial (takes less than a minute) to familiarize yourself with Gather Town. It covers:
    1. Moving around using your keyboard.
    2. Muting and unmuting yourself.
    3. Interacting with objects.
  4. Once you enter the space itself, you can move around the room with your mouse cursor/pointer. You can’t walk through walls, but you can walk through people by holding down G on your keyboard while you move.
  5. You’ll find a toolbar on the bottom of the screen with a few icons:
    1. Note that there’s a little lag as people move in and out of conversations, so be patient.
    2. Share screen allows you to share the screen with those in your circle of interaction. You can use this function, or you can use a document/slide deck in the shared google folder that you can each open and edit together like a whiteboard.
    3. Minimap gives a broader view of the room you’re in. You can enter other rooms and use Minimap to see what’s there.
    4. Use the avatar icon in the toolbar to switch your avatar’s appearance.
  6. Click on the participant list to see who’s in the room. To locate participants, click on their names and use “locate”. Follow the line that locates where they are.
  7. If you’re totally surrounded by people or furniture and cannot move, hit space bar to “unblock” and it’ll move you a few spaces away.
  8. Use two fingers up and down on trackpad to see the videos of people in your circle of interaction.
  9. Conversations with more than 20 users tend to lag, so if you experience such delays, break your conversation into 2 smaller groups.

Resources

Gathertown Troubleshooting & FAQ