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(sconzey: forwarded to the vos mailing list for discussion, hope you don't
mind)
On Sun, 4 Dec 2005, sconzey wrote:
Hey,
I too was inspired when I read Snow Crash, probably four or five years ago,
over the intervening period I've had a couple of good (and I thought
original) ideas to do with virtual reality. Finally motivated myself to do
something about it, and I find you guys beat me to it!
Well, I'm glad you found us :-) How did you, by the way?
I'd like to start contributing to the project, but I'm not quite sure where
to start, I'm currently reading the manual and trying to familliarise myself
with the VOS architecture, but I haven't planned beyond that.
Alright, well a couple questions first:
What OS/platform are you using?
What's your programming background?
I've read the "requests" section on the wiki, and the "bugs/requests" page,
so I'll probably start there.
Well, there's three broad directions that we could use help with right
now:
1) Better content import/export. Support for importing common 3D formats
into VOS for avatars and worlds, and/or plugins to popular modeling
packages to export to VOS formats.
2) Scripting support. We're working on binding the VOS C++ libraries
into Python with the help of SWIG, but there's still a fair amount of
legwork to do to finish it. Then the next step is to start work on a
highlevel API which provides more abstract events, so instead of "user has
moved" you can have scripts that run when "user has moved within 1 meter
of the door" or "user touches this button".
3) New rendering features: support for skeletal models, shaders,
constructive solid modeling primitives, portals, webpage-on-a-wall
(embedded mozilla), terrain hightmaps, etc... The work here is to add
these features to A3DL and then write the code to load them into the
Crystal Space engine. Related to this is also adding some features to
query the 3D environment, functions like collision detection and
line-of-sight.
We also need better content in general. We have a perpetual problem of
crap content (which is why our screen shots arn't particularly
impressive), because neither Reed nor I are particularly skilled at
modeling and we haven't manged to attract and retain 3D artists to develop
content specifically for VOS. So the direction of (1), content
import/export, is to be able to take content from existing systems (games,
other 3D/VR type software) and bring it to VOS.
Scripting is a huge, huge, huge open area right now. There are all sorts
of interesting things that we'll be able to do in terms of interactivity,
intellegent agents and such once we have the ability to attach scripted
behaviors to objects.
Rendering features is simply necessary to bring the 3D modeling
capabilities in VOS up to the state of the art -- as it stands right now,
A3DL uses a relatively small subset of what the Crystal Space engine is
capable of. Another project for the ambitous would be to write a plugin
for another popular open source 3D engine such as Ogre.
So, sconzey, it all depends on what interests you :-)
[ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
[Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet]
[ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ]
[ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ]
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