[vos-d] vos needs to be easier for designers to get in
Hi VOS-developer, I downloaded the new terangreal, new box world looks nice: good idea to have the move explaination in first sight! Funny little pyramid and penguin online then ;) Ok, but thats still all one can find easy if one wants to attend own stuff to vos from a non-hardcore-coder perspecive. I checked a lot of (not of very useful for this intend) theoretical docs on the vos website, till I found eventually that the world definitions are in the .xod files. So this info lead me to the first box world is stored in 3dworld-blocks.xod in main folder and the detailed stuff is in /worlds/blocks.cod.gz (hell why is not a simple README.txt or HOW_TO_EDIT_WORLD.txt in the main folder explaining such?) The blocks.cod is compressed (wow! saves 50 bytes?) and in cod-format (why not using a more human readable and editable .xod too?) What do I need to convert .cod back to .xod? Where do I find infos about that? Or better, can I write my worlds in (ok static?)vrml and convert to .xod by a tool? Where do I get them? All that infos could help new users to get more involved in vos I think. Why not include such examples in the download? Further more, if you look at the free blaxxun community: one central feature is a 'world'-list where user can promote own worlds: Why not add an interface or upload button so user can create own worlds or add static objects (given in common formats like .obj/.3ds/vrml?) to the first VOS world? Its nice that one can use blender to convert models, but thats another barrier to download, keeping people from attending. Also I think the first VOS worlds should show what possibilities (-shadows? water? layers? mediaformats? sounds?- I remember you added the emma3d features to vos?) VOS can use. If you want more users and especial content designers, the first steps should show why VOS is good for them. Or think it from a different perspecitve, why SL makes user want to be part of it? Show them that SL is 'dead-end-tech' (a word SL-hype has for other communities ;)! Anyway, I would like to bring some models into vos. Like a pirate ship? Maybe a little island? One there outside can help me to get a water surface working and convert/upload stuff on main server? The knowledge that vos is the better system is not enought. so far my ideas about hermetic ( online island editor example: http://www.cyworx.com/worlds/piratez9/index.wrl ) On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Peter Amstutz wrote: On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 09:15:37PM -0500, Reed Hedges wrote: Cory Linden (I forget his real name) did a QA about open-sourcing the client, and someone asked him if they think that also open-sourcing the server would hurt SL from a business perspective, and he said No. But I wonder if they do have plans on doing it. snarkWell, seeing as how they aren't making any money off of Second Life as it is, it would be hard to hurt their business any more than they're already doing themselves./snark ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] SecondLife geometry
Sorry for the late reply, just noticed this discussion. Secondlife supports cutting but no boolean. You can link several links together, and position them one inside the other to simulate a new surface - but in truth, it will still be a group of separate primitives, and no boolean operations are possible. Infact, we've been asking for it for awhile. There are several types of graphics i've spotted in SecondLife: A terrain bumpmap - for the world's terrain, can be edited via a standard raw file. A poser avatar mesh - The avatars are poser 2 models. We believe they messed with the design abit, but thats what they are. Primitives - pretty much everything else, other then the standard issue skybox. Particles - Clouds, several UI effects, and other effects that can be generated via scripted objects. The physics engine treats all the objects as individual primitives. Infact, for this reason, physics-enabled objects have been artificially limited to 31 primitives - LL says that too many physical objects with more primitives then this can cause the physics engine of the local simulator to slow down drastically and possibly deep think and halt. Every primitive can stand for itself. Each of them has their own personal inventory which can contain symlinks to other objects, including their own personal instances of script bytecodes - enabling each primitive to be individually scripted and have its own programmed reaction, including communication with other primitives within the same object as they. Most of the complex 3D effects are currently achieved by commanding the various primitives to move or transform in a certain way to simulate all sorts of motions. Commanding the Root primitive will cause the entire linked set to move in the world itself. The physics engine is Havoc 1. It is running on the sim, sending updates on all objects to connected viewers. Objects will always continue the previously given movement and will even clip through other objects in the scene unless another command is sent as override. (Not very good for games - slow reaction time) After playing with various streaming 3D clients - from Active Worlds to Blaxxun, Plastic Planet, Caligari, Terangreal and even GuildWars (Zone art files are only downloaded on demand, when you cross the border or enter a building - from that point onward they are available on disk), I can safely say that Linden Lab's primitives method is pretty good for streaming: It provides the fastest results. With most systems I had to wait up to several minutes to download a complex scene. With SecondLife the wait is limited to 5 seconds at best, with everything else finishing to render as you move in about 30 seconds to a minute even in a very complex scene. The problem is - SecondLife have not progressed this technology very far beyond adding afew features such as new primitive shapes, light sources and flexible primitives. One feature that would be interesting to see would be the ability to fuse the edges of primitives together to create a skinned object on the client side, boolean operations, or even the ability to specify custom primitive designs. As long as the server see the primitives only as such or possibly nodes, it should be possible to create all sort of interesting effects purely client-side to enhance the graphics. On Jan 11, 2007, at 4:58 AM, Mark Wagner wrote: On 1/10/07, Reed Hedges [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does anyone know if you can do boolean operations with prims? I vaguely recall that you can apply a few cut out operations but not completely general prim-prim boolean ops?? You can perform various CSG-like transformations on prims, but SecondLIfe does not support CSG. I suspect that this is because the prims are converted into meshes for rendering: CSG on meshes is a non-trivial problem. It may also be related to the physics engine they use. -- Mark Wagner ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] SecondLife geometry
Isn't this called procedurally generated content? Not entirely unlike what they did with .kkrieger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger) ... On 1/15/07, Or Botton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry for the late reply, just noticed this discussion. Secondlife supports cutting but no boolean. You can link several links together, and position them one inside the other to simulate a new surface - but in truth, it will still be a group of separate primitives, and no boolean operations are possible. Infact, we've been asking for it for awhile. There are several types of graphics i've spotted in SecondLife: A terrain bumpmap - for the world's terrain, can be edited via a standard raw file. A poser avatar mesh - The avatars are poser 2 models. We believe they messed with the design abit, but thats what they are. Primitives - pretty much everything else, other then the standard issue skybox. Particles - Clouds, several UI effects, and other effects that can be generated via scripted objects. The physics engine treats all the objects as individual primitives. Infact, for this reason, physics-enabled objects have been artificially limited to 31 primitives - LL says that too many physical objects with more primitives then this can cause the physics engine of the local simulator to slow down drastically and possibly deep think and halt. Every primitive can stand for itself. Each of them has their own personal inventory which can contain symlinks to other objects, including their own personal instances of script bytecodes - enabling each primitive to be individually scripted and have its own programmed reaction, including communication with other primitives within the same object as they. Most of the complex 3D effects are currently achieved by commanding the various primitives to move or transform in a certain way to simulate all sorts of motions. Commanding the Root primitive will cause the entire linked set to move in the world itself. The physics engine is Havoc 1. It is running on the sim, sending updates on all objects to connected viewers. Objects will always continue the previously given movement and will even clip through other objects in the scene unless another command is sent as override. (Not very good for games - slow reaction time) After playing with various streaming 3D clients - from Active Worlds to Blaxxun, Plastic Planet, Caligari, Terangreal and even GuildWars (Zone art files are only downloaded on demand, when you cross the border or enter a building - from that point onward they are available on disk), I can safely say that Linden Lab's primitives method is pretty good for streaming: It provides the fastest results. With most systems I had to wait up to several minutes to download a complex scene. With SecondLife the wait is limited to 5 seconds at best, with everything else finishing to render as you move in about 30 seconds to a minute even in a very complex scene. The problem is - SecondLife have not progressed this technology very far beyond adding afew features such as new primitive shapes, light sources and flexible primitives. One feature that would be interesting to see would be the ability to fuse the edges of primitives together to create a skinned object on the client side, boolean operations, or even the ability to specify custom primitive designs. As long as the server see the primitives only as such or possibly nodes, it should be possible to create all sort of interesting effects purely client-side to enhance the graphics. On Jan 11, 2007, at 4:58 AM, Mark Wagner wrote: On 1/10/07, Reed Hedges [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does anyone know if you can do boolean operations with prims? I vaguely recall that you can apply a few cut out operations but not completely general prim-prim boolean ops?? You can perform various CSG-like transformations on prims, but SecondLIfe does not support CSG. I suspect that this is because the prims are converted into meshes for rendering: CSG on meshes is a non-trivial problem. It may also be related to the physics engine they use. -- Mark Wagner ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d -- QOTD: Violence is the last resort of the incompetent -- Isaac Asimov GPG Public Key: http://www.jargonjunkie.com/rants/scones.asc Website: http://www.jargonjunkie.com/ ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] vos needs to be easier for designers to get in
I'm with hermetic here, while the code is comparitavely well documented, there's little on content generation at all. However, on the flip side, this is an open source project, and you've just found a way to contribute. -sconzey On 1/15/07, swe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi VOS-developer, I downloaded the new terangreal, new box world looks nice: good idea to have the move explaination in first sight! Funny little pyramid and penguin online then ;) Ok, but thats still all one can find easy if one wants to attend own stuff to vos from a non-hardcore-coder perspecive. I checked a lot of (not of very useful for this intend) theoretical docs on the vos website, till I found eventually that the world definitions are in the .xod files. So this info lead me to the first box world is stored in 3dworld-blocks.xod in main folder and the detailed stuff is in /worlds/blocks.cod.gz (hell why is not a simple README.txt or HOW_TO_EDIT_WORLD.txt in the main folder explaining such?) The blocks.cod is compressed (wow! saves 50 bytes?) and in cod-format (why not using a more human readable and editable .xod too?) What do I need to convert .cod back to .xod? Where do I find infos about that? Or better, can I write my worlds in (ok static?)vrml and convert to .xod by a tool? Where do I get them? All that infos could help new users to get more involved in vos I think. Why not include such examples in the download? Further more, if you look at the free blaxxun community: one central feature is a 'world'-list where user can promote own worlds: Why not add an interface or upload button so user can create own worlds or add static objects (given in common formats like .obj/.3ds/vrml?) to the first VOS world? Its nice that one can use blender to convert models, but thats another barrier to download, keeping people from attending. Also I think the first VOS worlds should show what possibilities (-shadows? water? layers? mediaformats? sounds?- I remember you added the emma3d features to vos?) VOS can use. If you want more users and especial content designers, the first steps should show why VOS is good for them. Or think it from a different perspecitve, why SL makes user want to be part of it? Show them that SL is 'dead-end-tech' (a word SL-hype has for other communities ;)! Anyway, I would like to bring some models into vos. Like a pirate ship? Maybe a little island? One there outside can help me to get a water surface working and convert/upload stuff on main server? The knowledge that vos is the better system is not enought. so far my ideas about hermetic ( online island editor example: http://www.cyworx.com/worlds/piratez9/index.wrl ) On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Peter Amstutz wrote: On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 09:15:37PM -0500, Reed Hedges wrote: Cory Linden (I forget his real name) did a QA about open-sourcing the client, and someone asked him if they think that also open-sourcing the server would hurt SL from a business perspective, and he said No. But I wonder if they do have plans on doing it. snarkWell, seeing as how they aren't making any money off of Second Life as it is, it would be hard to hurt their business any more than they're already doing themselves./snark ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d -- QOTD: Violence is the last resort of the incompetent -- Isaac Asimov GPG Public Key: http://www.jargonjunkie.com/rants/scones.asc Website: http://www.jargonjunkie.com/ ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] vos needs to be easier for designers to get in
Hermetic: Awesome ideas! While I could easily create a secured MySQL database of world names and URLs, and even a PHP file that accesses the list and puts it into a tidy table, what I can't do is make the people who know how to program access my database, and put it in the program as a new feature. And as I don't know programming languages that well... I'll really have to rely on someone else's programming ability, I believe. Anybody out there willing to work with me on this one? On 1/15/07, sconzey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm with hermetic here, while the code is comparitavely well documented, there's little on content generation at all. However, on the flip side, this is an open source project, and you've just found a way to contribute. -sconzey ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] vos needs to be easier for designers to get in
Hopefully, when I'm better at coding, I can code an internal world editor that lets you right-click on objects if you have permissions to them, the way you can in ActiveWorlds, and move them around, or rightclick on your character in a free-edit world, to add new objects. Then it'll just be a matter of having the right object files in the right directories, and putting the right sounds and textures on them... hopefully. ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] Browser-based 3d Pirate game
To all newer on this list, Im developing a browser based build-up 3d pirates-game, technic is php/mysql/vrml. While shared events are possible with that, its a lot of work to make a system vos already has, including its stabile 3dchat. (some screenshots: http://www.cyworx.com/viewtopic.php?t=26postdays=0postorder=ascstart=15 notice the lack of shadows and the bad water of the old vrml viewer used) Check out Puzzle Pirates from 3-rings design. I can tell you some of the better ideas they had, that they chose to do without. When your ship reaches an island, at one time, you could send your pirates all out foraging. http://yppedia.puzzlepirates.com/Foraging Purportedly, they would spend their jobbing hours (of which you have up to twenty-four, collected over the course of real-life hours) to go out and forage various areas and retreive wood, stone, plants, and gems to sell or use in making in-game items (swords, clothes, cannonballs, rum, and even ships)... Though more recently, wood, stone, plants, and gems have been replaced with useless fruit, useless gems, and useless ore, that can only be sold for money. The devs claimed that foraging ruinned their game, but it is only because they repopulated their islands on a schedule with a percentage of certain items... The way they were doing it, the islands would run out of stuff to forage, and then mystically, stuff would reappear on the island, all at once. People figured out when the stuff was populating itself on the island, and foraged all the goods out of it. ThreeRings could have picked from that percentage every time someone clicked the 'forage' button, or even made it where pirates had to explore the island and click on a tree to forage wood, but apparently they were too reserved to try such daring and innovative functional approaches. I'm not suggesting that you do such a thing with your game, but it does seem like a good start to a pirateful economy. ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
