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Quick Links
- Developer Blog
- UpStage 2.4.2 User Manual – updated October 2012
- UpStage V2.1 server application – released July 2009
- Further documentation is available to download from our SourceForge wiki.
The UpStage server application
The UpStage server application is free to download and we encourage you to use it for creative, educational and social purposes.
It is open source and licenced under a dual-license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License and GNU General Public Licence (GPL).
Please note that you do NOT need to install UpStage to participate as chatter (audience) or player. You only need to install UpStage if you have your own web server and want to create your own customised UpStage.
Download the latest stable version of UpStage (UpStage V2.1, July 2009) or the latest beta release (UpStage V2.4, December 2010) from Sourceforge.
The July 2009 release of UpStage V2.1 includes an installer package that contains the required third party software. Please read the installation manual (created June 2009). Please note that we are now working on the beta version of V2.4. We strongly recommend that you join the developers’ list and talk with us first if you are going to install UpStage.
If you are installing UpStage manually, you will need the following software on your web server in order to run UpStage:
- Python: http://python.org/download/ (most web servers will already have Python, but you should check that you have the latest version)
- Twisted (1.07 or higher should work):
http://twistedmatrix.com/products/download - Festival (this is for text-to-speech; we have only tried 1.4.3):
http://festvox.org/festival/downloads.html - Swftools 4.3 + :
http://www.quiss.org/swftools/download.html (for creating avatars from images)
Documentation
- UpStage 2.1 User Manual – updated April 2011;
- Installation Manual, June 2009
- Installation Video – step-by-step guide
- More documentation (including guides and tips for installing an UpStage server) is available on our SourceForge wiki
Web cam software
Webcams on UpStage need web cam FTP software. Current recommendations are:
- Mac: Evocam
- Linux: Camstream (start the application from the console with LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so camstream)
- Windows: Fwink
Click here for information about how to configure your web cam application.
Technical Details
UpStage uses Twisted and Python on the server side, and swf/Flash for the client. The client and server communicate over plain TCP sockets. There is a mailing list for developers and those installing UpStage on their own server; to subscribe, go to http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=97481.
Twisted and Python
Twisted is a framework suited to creating event driven network applications such as UpStage. It is written in Python, a language which encourages you to do things quickly and well.
The server will also make use of:
swf/Flash
Flash is a ubiquitous browser plugin for displaying files in the swf format. It offers sophisticated graphics and interaction but demands remarkably little bandwidth or fuss.
There are also other swf players out there, eg:
but their full functioning on UpStage is not yet ensured.
