Thoughtfulmonkey brain leak

onvert Competition Entry #3

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:05:00 +0000

Probably the last entry into the onvert competition - with the closing date just over a week away - takes advantage of two features:

AR can highlight and modify elements of the real-world.
Reading the QR code with any app other than the onvert viewer still directs you to the right page.

The idea is fairly simple. A company sends out flyers to promote its new product. If you scan the QR code then you're taken to a site where you can buy it. However, if you scan it with the onvert viewer, then it also reveals a discount code that you can use on the site.

Of course the code wouldn't stay secret for long, and it would probably be on those discount code sites a couple of minutes after the flyers went out; but that's not really the point. The aim is just to build some engagement with the brand.

The view for non-onverts:

The view in onvert viewer:

You can cheat and view it all in a browser here: http://onvert.com/9z9qr7s804/

Lessons learnt:

The original onvert covered most of the text with a black square to hide it. This looked a mess when viewed through the camera because of differences of shade. Blending an augment with real-world background is near-impossible due to real-world lighting variations.

I'd urge onvert to relax their policy on logo colouring. The wording is already quite casual (http://onvert.com/legal/trademarks/), but with most companies enforcement is fairly strict. I could have gone with the allowed monochrome option and chosen my own accent colour in this case; and that might be the option that a lot of designers go with. If you're promoting a graphic to be added to other people's designs, then enforcing a colour scheme poses challenges. They might allow people to set their own colour for the "on" instead - the shape of the onvert is quite recognisible on its own.

Change of Name

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:11:00 +0000

The profile name originally attached to this blog was Lucius Nesterov; which was my Second Life account name. If you're unfamiliar with Second Life, then I should say that originally you had to select a surname from a predefined list, so it's not as random as it seems.

Since the blog has become more general, I'm switching to my real name of Matthew Leach.

Probably like a lot of people, I've built up a legacy of weirdly named accounts across different online services. Over the past couple of weeks people have, understandably, refered to me as Lucius Nesterov, and it seemed weird.

I'm still keeping a "brand name" of Thoughtfulmonkey though - website, gmail and twitter (@thought_monkey).

.

onvert Competition Entry #2

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:15:00 +0000

** Update: Corrected the codes on the image above. **

This example would be a poster or page in a magazine, which aims to increase awareness of endangered species.

It tries hook people through their curiosity - presenting a question, but not the answer. Basically, which are more numerous: actual Tigers, or people that support teams named after Tigers. Unless you're completely oblivious to the plight of endangered species, then the answer is probably obvious; but it still aims to shock through the scale of difference.

It uses the standard educational principle that if you just give someone an answer, then they can easily forget it, but if the are actively involved in finding an answer, then they are more likely to remember.

I originally wanted to compare the number of Black Rhinos to Chiuauas, but stats were hard to come by, and I didn't want to compare random things, like Rhinos Vs nuclear weapons.

Links
PDF of the poster: http://thoughtfulmonkey.com/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=tigervtiger.pdf
Web-view of "Animals": http://onvert.com/698xdpoais/Web-view of "Fans": http://onvert.com/67k3m626j/

The Numbers
To be honest the figures are probably miles off. For example, there is an American baseball team called the Detroit Tigers. Their contribution was a guess based on attendance at their games - I went with 10,000. Where-as if you follow information on Wikipedia - that the majority of baseball fans in Southern Ontario support them - combined with the population of Southern Ontario, and surveys on what percentage of the US population are considered baseball fans, then you end up with just over 5,000,000 (not even including Detroit itself). But it was getting complicated, so it's more of a concept really.

onvert Competition Entry #1

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 12:03:00 +0000

onvert?
onvert seems to be a fairly new entry into the smart-phone Augmented Reality market, and they're running a competition to start things off: http://onvert.com/competition/. I'm still kicking myself for not submitting to the Layar one, so I couldn't let this one slip by.

onvert use quite a nice system where you scan a QR code to launch the augmentation - removing any chance of confusion between different people's creations. The best part though is its simplicity. You can just upload 2 images to the website (a target image and the augmentation), and you've got yourself some AR. This obviously means that you're limited in what you can do with it, but it covers a lot of what people will want to do.

Topic of Submission
I've got a few ideas, but the first one that I went with is based on toy packaging. It seemed best if the augmentation provided half of the content; not just a little bit extra. The concept was to use a transforming toy, where the AR revealed what it looked like in its transformed state.

However, I didn't want to get disqualified at some point for using copyrighted imagery. So...

Creating a Transforming Robot
Time for a lengthy diversion. I decided to create a papercraft robot for "simplicity". The basic process was:

Create a rough prototype in polystyrene.
Create a 3D model in Google Sketchup
Convert it to a paper model using PePaKuRa Designer
Add some chopped up photos and graphics

Shown below are the prototypes (the one on the right was to check face orientation before adding graphics):

And the finished result (click for larger image):

Not bad as a first attempt at papercraft, but definitely more work than I was expecting.

Packaging

The diversion continues, as now it was time to create the packaging. The most important features are the onvert QR code and reference image on the back. You could pick up the box, scan it, and then see what the transformed version would be like.

Finally the OnVert

Eventually it was time for the main event. Using photographs and graphics from the previous steps it was fairly quick to put together. I went with 3 layers in the AR - a shading layer, an intermediate step, and then the final transformation - arranged in a kind of upward spiral. The images, including reference are:

With the composite image:

Experience it yourself using the tag and reference image below:

(Click for larger image)

2 days of presentations

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:37:00 +0000

2 days, 2 presentations - both on Second Life. The first a joint presentation in an arts-focused seminar, based on the virtual theatre work, the second a presentation to built environment educators and trainers on the University's virtual quarry.

Common to both was the advice that anyone looking into using immersive simulations in their teaching, should make OpenSim their first choice. I'd guess that it's common advice circulating through the educational sector. At a time when funding is being cut to the point that jobs are being lost, there's no way of justifying the cost of 'trying it out'.

A model is starting to form in my mind where institutions jointly hire some hosted OpenSim land, and collaborate to produce a learning activity. And then when it's complete each institution takes a copy to use on their own local servers, run when required. We're entering times where the efficient use of resources is paramount.

Bright future for games in Second Life...

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:18:00 +0000

... possibly. Towards the end of last year Linden Labs officially announced that Rod Humble would become the new CEO. Having had a very successful career in the games industry, there are justified expectations that under his leadership Second Life will become more game-like. Whether that includes a focus on content or is more the "feel" of the experience, we'll wait and see.

With Mr Humble not due to actually start in the role until mid-January, I wouldn't have expected to see any impact until around the Summer. However, there are already some signs of shuffling at Linden Labs, such as the new blog post on games. It relates mainly to the category in the destination guide - which has gone from no mention of games at all, to a combined 'sports and games' category, to giving games an entry all on their own.

As I mentioned in the comments of that post, I don't see the point in separating sports and games in a virtual world like Second Life. The distinction between sports and games in the real-world is mainly due to culture and organisation - for example Kabaddi compared to British Bulldog. Currently Quackerstone Duck Racing is in the sports category; really? Categories are always tricky, which is why we shouldn't be using them anymore - see "Everything is Miscellaneous" - but for sports and games in SL I think that if you're looking for something in one, then you'll enjoy what's in the other.

Half Day Challenge: Melee

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 19:37:00 +0000

Got distracted there for a while so things ran on for more than half a day. Still, this is the last update.

Just to round things out I added in melee. Very simply when a unit activates it scans for adjacent enemy units and then distributes its melee attack across them. By rights it should also lock movement, but that's for another time.

The end result is a skeleton for a more advanced system. At the moment there are no real rules, but I've tried to use a modular system that would make it easier to expand. The visuals are also more at the abstract end of the spectrum, but they could be replaced with small figures or, maybe in an OpenSim megaregion, full-size models.

Half Day Challenge: Ranged

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:28:00 +0000

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

The video shows the basic movement and ranged combat.

This first system is as basic as they come. The player selects a target and the unit uses the llSensor function to see if it is within range. If it is then it informs the target that it has taken damage.

Of course usually there would be a random check made based on the distance to target and units skill, and possibly random damage as well.

Half Day Challenge: Movement

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:58:00 +0000

A few overheads in setting up, but I now have a HUD that controls orientation and movement. I'm using the llDetectedUV function for both.

For the rotation this touch coordinate needs to be converted to an angle, which you can do using the llAtan2 function - just remember to subtract 0.5 from both x and y to move the origin to the centre.

vector touchPoint = llDetectedTouchUV(0);

float angle = llAtan2(touchPoint.y - 0.5, touchPoint.x - 0.5);

The angle will need adjusting so that clockwise is positive 0-180, and anticlockwise is negative. The OpenSim version that I'm using (0.7.02) returns inconsistent results for the four 90 degree quarters, so it might take some trial and error depending on what system you're using.

For movement, I'm just passing on the x component. Since this is just a number between 0 and 1 I'll use it to scale the movement. While on the subject, moving objects "forwards" is very easy using the built-in functions:

// Get the current rotation

rotation myRot = llGetRot();

// Get the vector that is pointing "forwards"

vector fwd = llRot2Fwd(myRot);

// Get the current position

vector myPos = llGetPos();

// Move forward a distance based on variables maxSpeed and movementScale

myPos = myPos + (fwd * maxSpeed * movementScale);

Just remember that an objects forward direction is along its positive x axis.

Time for lunch.

Half Day Game Development Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:01:00 +0000

I've found some free time over the Christmas break, so I thought that I'd devote half a day to working on a game project - it is the title of this blog after-all.

SL-based platforms aren't a good choice for real-time games. Basically, unless you're running a dedicated sim in SL with very little on it, then lag is going to be a major problem. As much as I love OpenSim, its performance would be even worse.

I've always thought that SL is a better platform for turn-based games. If you think about real-life, apart from sports, most games are turn-based, from hopscotch, to Monopoly, to Warhammer, to poker, to spin-the-bottle. Although this is hardly an epiphany, since most of the games that I've come across in SL were turn-based.

Anyway, since New World Notes reported that SL's new CEO had worked on some Open Source miniature wargame rules, that seemed like a perfect fit. I'll update on progress.

Results of OpenSim/SL Exercise

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:45:00 +0000

Last week we ran the SL/OpenSim activity for directing actors. The overall aim was for students to work in groups to plan out the stage direction for a piece of dialogue from Hamlet that only involved Hamlet and Ophelia, and then present their plan to the rest of the class. Virtual representations of the Globe theatre were used both as planning tools and the source of screenshots to use in their presentations.

There were 4 groups. At any one time only 1 group was in Second Life, and 1 was in OpenSim. They took it in turns, so ultimately 2 groups used OpenSim and 2 used Second Life.

The OpenSim setup is shown in the diagram below (the Second Life setup was identical, except that they connected to the Linden server instead of another PC in the room). Each group had 3 PCs, with two group members controlling the actors, and the remaining group members huddled around the 'director' PC. ((No it isn't the official Imprudence logo, but it's one of the variations that I prefer))

So how did it go? Put simply, very well. From the student experience point of view SL and OpenSim use was near-identical - one student did comment on OpenSim's tendency to flick the avatar's feet up to waist height occasionally. There were no crashes in either setup, and nothing noticeably weird happened. However a few general points did arise:

Getting to grips with SL

An issue that often arises in virtual world activities is the overhead in learners getting to grips with the technology. If anything we experienced the opposite effect. We bypassed all of the account creation/teleportation/inventory issues by providing ready-made avatars en-situ. Actors were on stage suitably dressed and the director was in the 'pit'. Actor controls were just the arrow keys to move around; the director controls were camera adjustment and screenshot taking. This wasn't enough for the students as they experimented with flying, text chat, and using gestures to act out parts of the dialogue.

It should be said that these were English Literature students, with a voiced aversion to 'techie' things. Some of the challenges experienced in introducing SL activities might be caused by exposure to too much early on. The group structure also provided peer support and allowed 'back-seat drivers'.

Phychomotor vs Affective learning

The activity was very successful in terms of students being able to use the technology as an assistance, rather than hindrance, in planning their stage direction. However, it seemed to be a less successful activity in terms of leading to an affective change in their understanding of Virtual World (VW) uses. There seemed to be a lack of imagination or extrapolation as to how VWs might be used in other areas.

This is probably a symptom of how the activity was designed. Removing distractions limited their view of the bigger picture. It's something that will be addressed in any future activities, but I'll wait to see what appears in the students' reflective journals before passing judgement.

First OpenSim project?

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:06:00 +0000

Although I've experimented with OpenSim, and created a few generic educational tools, we haven't used it in a project at the University yet. Although we might do in the very near future.

Shown above are characters on the stage of our virtual Globe Theatre. A previous activity involved students positioning the mannequins (foreground) to explore issues of actor positioning and movement during a scene. To give a better understanding of the affordances of Second Life, it was decided to replace the mannequins with student controlled avatars (centre). This probably seems like an obvious decision to users of Second Life, but the students in question are being introduced to and using Second Life in a single session, and we wanted to reduce distractions from the core activity (navigation issues, creating logins etc). As a compromise we'll be providing pre-made accounts where avatars start in the right locations.

However, a challenge is that the class will need to be divided into groups for the activity and there is only one theatre. There isn't space on the island to duplicate it, and so hopefully OpenSim can come to the rescue.

Our Globe Theatre was created by a developer in our department, and so we were able to export it to OpenSim fairly easily (see image above). The costumes are an entirely different matter, as they were produced by Karen Royer. Even large parts of the mannequins are purchased pieces.

This is a major issue in the educational use of OpenSim, which several people have highlighted. Generally speaking most academics don't have the time or ability to create good quality virtual environments. Even if they could, constantly rebuilding things that others have already made is wasted effort. Thankfully some resources are appearing, such as myOpenSim, although I'd prefer if they did away with the concept of pretend money.

Trying Diva - Part 2: wifi

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:49:00 +0000

Just a quick update to post some thoughts on the web interface supplied with Diva. The bottom line is that it's sole purpose at the moment is to administer accounts, and it does that well. It looks quite nice too.

I can definitely see the benefits of allowing people to register their own accounts, even in a stand-alone, classroom setting. However, there is potential to do a lot more. True, it also allows you to view your inventory, create folders and shuffle things around, but that's not particularly useful.

An alternative is the Opensim Webinterface - opensimwi (redux), as described here. It seems to have more features, including a more easily customisable front-end, but it looks a little dated. Out of the two I would probably still go with the Diva version.

A promising integration that was trialled a while back was linking Elgg to OSgrid. It was supposed to synchronise friends and groups between the two, and I'm sure it did when I registered some time ago, but it seems to have lost all of the functionality now. That's a shame.

I also remember hearing something about being able to buy things from other people's inventories. I'd like to see something like XStreetSL linked into the OpenSim database so that you can just list something as for sale in your inventory, and it would appear for sale in a web listing.

Trying Diva

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:34:00 +0000

I finally got around to trying the diva distribution of OpenSim. I followed the instructions available here, which actually weren't as complicated as it seemed at first glance. So long as you follow it step by step then it's pretty fool-proof. Although I've had previous experience with both OpenSim and an equivalent of MoWeS called XAMP, so I'd be interested to hear about other people's experiences.

One step that did look as though it could be a lot simpler was the setup of the MySQL server. My recommendation would be that at the point when you're choosing Apache2, MySQL5 etc in the MoWeS mixer (pretty much the first step in the instructions), that you also select PHPMyAdmin in the Application software section.

In step 1, after you get confirmation that Apache and MySQL is running, open a web browser and go to: http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

In the window that opens click on the Privileges tab (shown as 1 in the image).

Enter a User name of opensim, set a password (including retyping it), as shown in 2. Then select the radio button option to create a database with the same name, as shown in 3. That's it. No use of command prompts or typing in unfamiliar strings of text.

I've only had a brief play so far, but I'm looking forward to trying out the web interface and sending things flying around the Megaregion. My only concern was that I couldn't connect to it from another PC. Whether this is due to permissions or the hard-coded local IP I don't know. Hopefully the former.

Running a LAN grid

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:42:00 +0000

I don't want to clutter this post with the background reasoning, but I would argue that the majority of educational uses of virtual worlds can be addressed by running 1 student per grid, or ad-hoc multi-user set-ups. The second of those seems to be a lot easier now than the last time that I tried it.

The instructions in this post will allow you to set-up a loca

l OpenSim grid, for use within an institution's firewall. You can walk into a lab, start the server on one PC, and have the students connect to it through other PCs.

Server setup:

Download OpenSim and run it once in order to configure it - as described here.
You will need to use the 'create user' command to create an account for each student.
Copy the 'bin' folder to a USB stick.

Running the server:

Plug in the USB stick
Run OpenSim.exe (OpenSim.32BitLaunch.exe on 64bit machines).
**Update** In the OpenSim window, type: 'show region regionName'.
Note down the text that starts with http://

If you've forgotten the name that you gave to your region, then it is shown in brackets within the OpenSim window, i.e. Region (regionName) #

Viewer setup:

If you already have Second Life viewers installed then skip to the next bit
Alternatively you can install a viewer on any PC, and then copy the viewer's folder from the 'Program Files' directory (typically on the C drive) onto a USB stick. The just run the executable in this folder.

You (or the students) will need to configure the viewers so that they connect to your server. If the server is run from the same PC each time, then you should only need to do this once.

Running the viewer (easy way):

Viewers such as Imprudence and Hippo include a grid manager where the ip address of the server can be added. Be sure to include 'http://' at the front and ':9000' at the end.

Running the viewer (slightly harder):

Copy your existing shortcut to the viewer (assuming it's installed - if running from a USB right-click on the exe and choose 'create shortcut').
Right-click on the new shortcut and choose 'Properties'.
On the 'Shortcut' tab, look for the 'Target' option.
At the end of the text in the 'Target' box add: '-loginuri http://11.5.2.54:9000/' where 11.5.2.54 is the ip address of the server.

There is of course a huge variety in networks and institutional setups, but hopefully these steps should work in most cases. You should consider involving your IT or eLearning department when trying to setup OpenSim in this way. They probably won't like running things from USB sticks, but their alternative might be a more robust system.

OpenSim commands

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 09:34:00 +0000

You can type commands into the OpenSim window. It can be a bit daunting if you are not used to 'command line' applications, and although there is a possibility that you might completely wipe everything that you've made, the chances of doing it by accident are very slim (hint: avoid any commands that include the word 'delete').

To list the available commands type: help

To create a flat terrain (taken from Roger Stack) type: terrain fill 21

If you're tired of being Test User type: create user firstname lastname

When you're finished and want to shut down type: quit

Note that permissions are ignored by default, so even if you login as a different avatar you will still be able to modify everything that's there. You won't have access to the other avatar's inventory though - unless you feel brave and use the IAR system to transfer it.

Running OpenSim from USB

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:29:00 +0000

With Linden Labs pushing out educators there have been an increasing number of blog posts regarding OpenSim. What caught my attention were the guides to running OpenSim from a USB stick, such as the one by Roger Stack. Although very comprehensive and probably the best way of doing things, it's quite complicated, and we should be showing educators how easy it can be.

And so, the easy way:

Go to http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Download
Download the zip file under the 'Binary Packages' heading, and extract it somewhere
In the Bin folder, run OpenSim.exe (OpenSim.32BitLaunch.exe on 64 bit machines)
Eventually you'll be asked for a region name - enter something
For everything else just keep pressing Enter to accept the default settings
Wait until it says: Region (the name you entered) #

That's it. You now have a locally running OpenSim server. Copy the bin folder to any location where you want to run the server from (including a USB stick). Always remember to close the server correctly by typing quit.

Connecting to the server is also easier than some have described. Don't bother messing around with shortcuts; viewers such as Imprudence and Kirstens allow you to pick 'localhost' from a drop-down list:

Assuming you went along with the default values you can login with first name: Test, last name: User, and leave the password field blank.

Linden Lab's war on games continues

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:09:00 +0000

Linden Labs recently over-hauled their forums. I'll ignore the fact that it's broken for now, since they're sure to fix it at some point.

However, the first thing that I noticed was the fact that the games section of the forum has been removed. It's true that it didn't get too much activity, and that might have been their selection criteria when moving between systems, but it certainly doesn't help the gaming community.

Forensic House Update

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:06:00 +0000

Just a quick update on the forensics simulation. A bit of surrounding detail has been added to the bedsit environment to add context (see below). The crime scene is now in the basement of the central building.

Shown below is the view when you first walk in; although because of the enclosed nature of the environment you'd actually have to be in 1st person view. There's still a little bit of work to be done to create a more realistic setting.

Various important objects have MCQ quizzes attached; and a feedback board has been added to indicate which quizes were attempted, and whether or not a 100% score was achieved.

Educational tools in OpenSim

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:38:00 +0000

My first batch of educational tools for use in OpenSim has been released, and is available at:

http://thoughtfulmonkey.com/eduset/

It's an IAR file, which allows you to load the objects into your inventory without affecting any existing build.

I'll also be adding in some tutorial videos to show how the tools work. The sound is a bit low on the first offering, but you get the idea. If you have any suggestions or problems then feel free to voice them in the comments (it's moderated so they won't appear straight-away).

Educational tools in SL

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:26:00 +0000

I've just finished compiling a list of educational tools available in Second Life. You can view the Google Doc here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AbJhUXLbxPT9ZGY0NDNwM3pfNmhwbTVxZGMy&hl=en

AIMLBot and Open Metaverse

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:53:00 +0000

To remove any hard work in creating a chat bot using Open Metaverse, I performed a search for C# AIML parsers. Top of the list was AIMLBot (http://aimlbot.sourceforge.net/), and after a bit of poking around they seem to work well together.

There was some head scratching because the chat example on the Open Metaverse page (http://lib.openmetaverse.org/wiki/Respond_to_inworld_chat) seems to be out of date - the LL prefix from LLUUID and LLVector3 seem to have been dropped. The AIMLBot also doesn't come with the xml and aiml files needed, but I just took those from Radegast.

As it stands the chat call back is fired whenever anyone starts typing nearby, and when it hears itself. My slap-dash solution is included below:


static void Self_OnChat(string message, ChatAudibleLevel audible, 
 ChatType type, ChatSourceType sourceType, string fromName, 
 UUID id, UUID ownerid, Vector3 position)
{
  if (message != "")
  {
      if (fromName != "Test Bot")
      {
          //process chat here
          AIMLbot.Request request = new AIMLbot.Request(message, 
            myUser, myBot);
          AIMLbot.Result reply = myBot.Chat(request);

          Client.Self.Chat(reply.Output, 0, ChatType.Normal);
          Console.WriteLine(reply.Output);
      }
  }
}

That's the main component of the chat bot, so you can see that it is very easy to implement.

Creating Bots for SL/OpenSim

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:16:00 +0000

If you have any exposure to Second Life culture, then you will hear discussions about 'bots' - which are simply avatars controlled by computers, rather than by real human beings. For example, when you perform a search for places in SL, the results are ordered based on traffic, with the places that have had the most visitors listed at the top. Some unscrupulous people used bots to inflate their traffic stats to move up the search list. Also, how do you know that the preset grinding sequence of the SL stripper you just paid was initiated by a person and not a computer? Do you care? Should you care? Why are you there?

Regardless of the controversies, bots are very useful as NPCs. Compared to the alternative on in-world modelled and scripted bots, out-world bots will generally look better (using the avatar mesh and any of the high-quality garments and animations you choose to purchase) and have potentially better AI. I will now share with you the knowledge gained from a brief investigation into how to create these bots, with specific consideration to OpenSim.

Important note: Every bot neads a valid login account.

Easy-Peasy Method:

The Radegast client (http://radegastclient.org/wp/) is a non-graphical client for SL. It supports almost everything you might want to do in SL, except look at it, and also includes a built-in AI agent based on A.L.I.C.E. You just turn it on as a setting, and when anyone enters chat nearby that includes the avatar's firstnname (this is very important), then Alice will repond.

I.e. If you log in as Rupert Marmaduke, and somebody says "Hello Rupert Marmaduke" or "Hello Rupert", then they will illicit some suitable response.

For OpenSim, you will need to set a URL and port in order to connect (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:9000).

Personalising Radegast (Maybe):

As mentioned the Radegast chat-bot is built upon A.L.I.C.E, which uses aiml definitions. Basically these are xml files, listing patterns (what the user might say) and templates (how the bot might respond). For example:

<category>
<pattern>TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF</pattern>
<template>I am a natural language chatterbot, that talks to people via computer networks such as the Internet.</template>
</category>

You can conceivably modify the aiml files that come with Radegast (stored in Program Files\Radegast\aiml) as you see fit. Whatever you put in the template section is regurgitated whenever the pattern is matched. I have not tried this, but I'm 90% sure that it would work.

Getting Complex: OpenMetaverse

If you want to get your hands dirty then you can download a C# library called Open Metaverse - and it is what Radegast was built upon. There are plenty of examples provided, and it is very easy to get an avatar to login and say something (i.e. follow 5 instructions then copy and paste). Capturing the surrounding chat and responding intelligently is obvioulsy the biggest challenge.

By default the library connects to SL, but you can switch to any grid using:

client.Settings.LOGIN_SERVER = "http://osgrid.org:8002/";

Full details are given here: http://lib.openmetaverse.org/wiki/How_to_create_a_basic_libopenmv_bot_for_osgrid%3F

MCQs in SL

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Shown in the video are various options for showing multiple choice questions (MCQs) in SL. The fundamental criteria was that the questions needed to be attached to an object in-world, and so there were 3 main options:

Dialogs: MCQ presented through a series of dialogs. Only a certain amount of text can fit on a dialog button, and so longer options need an ABC-style system.
HUD: Very similar to the dialogs, but allows for 'bigger buttons' to display options.
Website: Displays a website using the in-built browser. In this case the website was made using software called Twine, but any html page would work (including javascript).

The dialog and HUD are roughly equivalent; with the HUD possibly just having the edge since its appearance can be customised, and it doesn't have the button size restrictions. The website option has many advantages, including support for images and larger passages of text, but requires a server somewhere to host the pages, and extra effort in authoring them.

In the video the Dialog questions load slightly faster because they are hard-coded, while the HUD is reading from a notecard. The notecard is the better option because it is easier to produce questions for. The system that I'm using requires lines to start with special characters, as shown below:

?Question
*Incorrect option
*Correct option<
*Incorrect option
+Positive feedback
-Negative feedback
#

I think that this is a fairly straight-forward, human-readable format, so putting together quizes shouldn't be too difficult.

I want to briefly mention Twine, which is a fantastic tool for creating branching scenarios. It was used in the website example to create a linear quiz, but it can be used in much more creative ways. Full details can be found here: http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/

Second Life Games Directory Update

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Leach) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:50:00 +0000

15 more games added; many more still waiting.

http://thoughtfulmonkey.com/slgameslist/