what i would like to see in a viewer is 1 the ability to disable loading of chunks (if i do not use the voice parts let me not load them at all)
2 a way to load the stuff in your sight range FIRST (why are you loading the ground texture when im at 20K altitude) 3 better support for small screens (hint im running on a netbook with 1024X600 screen) 4 this is a wild dream but an embedded "sandbox" sim with a single hardcoded account would be grand. i suppose the human kit is nice but 20 gigs?? i couldn't do that with SoAS MakeHuman Gimp and Blender without having like 12 gigs of content. btw are we muggles going to get to play sometime?? On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Justin Clark-Casey <[email protected]> wrote: > I wouldn't agree that people don't want to use virtual worlds as a > communication medium. I suspect it depends heavily on the context. For > instance, I'm currently involved with a student programme where many > meetings are held in-world and there don't seem to be too many problems > apart from occasional Vivox issues. In another context, we hold in-world > meetings all the time for OSCC planning and that seems to work pretty well - > for instance I could post up performance report graphs in world without > having to direct people to an external website. > > But I do agree that ease-of-use is a major issue. I think it would be very > interesting to see a viewer that provided a configurable way to strip out > the features that aren't needed in particular situations (e.g. education). > I think Firestorm provides skinning that can do some of this, but these > viewers are still pretty oriented towards Second Life and so that stuff > doesn't have much focus. Making such a viewer is something I would do > myself if I had double the amount of time I do now :) > > > On 22/07/14 09:14, Tom Willans wrote: >> >> I agree with Justin about a big difference being to persistent metaverse >> and longer term social dynamics, formation of identity etc. I suspect that >> many educational uses think in one off terms eg a collaborative class in >> business collaboration even if there is concern about reuse of assets o >> reusable learning objects etc. Not the development of university, school or >> wider social network. Most Unity examples are one off uses eg teach >> sensitive sex education, help the emergency services learn to communicate >> etc. rather than an ongoing world of Warcraft scenario. >> >> So one question is what is OpenSim used for? >> >> It is also a fact that OpenSim is tightly coupled with Second a Life, and >> this is not unsurprising given its heritage and the vast, in comparison, >> user base there and technical advice. There is of course the very tight link >> in terms of viewer technology. It was this link that, in part, made me >> choose OpenSim over Wonderland for instance. Whilst I predominately use >> OpenSim now it is not on social grounds but as a platform. >> >> People do not want to use metaverses on the scale of other social media ( >> viewing opensim as a social platform) or remote communication platform e.g. >> Skype meetings rather than OpenSim meetings. I once suggested a meeting in >> SL - might as well of mentioned someone has BO; move on quickly. OpenSim >> also shares a lot with virtual reality platforms - I do hate that term e.g. >> CAVE which like Unity tends to have a one off. The Rift is narrowing the >> gap, and OpenSim/SL has been displayed in CAVE environments. >> >> Technologies such as the Oculus Rift and other potential haptic >> technologies may have a impact. I had to halt my experiments for a while as >> Cybersickness on the DevKit1 caused problems. Still the Rift did score >> highly on presence questionnaires despite this, although the questionnaires >> are only a part of the presence story. >> >> The move to using multiple platforms, augmented reality is a challenge. >> In a social environment I want to communicate wherever I go. I am tapping >> away on my iPad, checked my emails on the phone and soon will start using my >> laptop. >> >> Is it time to pull together these strands about what will make a better >> OpenSim? >> >> I am not just talking about the technological issues, although these and >> the formats are vital but also aspects relating to human factors, presence, >> emotion, collaboration theory and of course standards formats as well as >> it's uses above? OpenSim does have a divide between the platform and viewer >> yet setting aside client/server and technical issues they are intimately >> coupled as one. >> >> Oh if anyone knows has a financial viability/funding wand please let me >> know ;) >> >> Tom Willans BSc(Hons) MBCS CITP >> PhD Student >> Serious Games Institute, Coventry University >> United Kingdom >> >> Managing Director Bessacarr Publications Ltd >> +44 (0)121 288 0281 >> email: [email protected] >> skype: tom.willans >> Second Life and OSGrid: Tom Tiros >> >> >> >> Sent from my iPad >> >>> On 22 Jul 2014, at 00:48, Justin Clark-Casey <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>> I think that OpenSimulator and Unity have some overlap but not by a huge >>> amount. >>> >>> My perspective is that the focus of Unity is very much on game >>> development. It gives you a good and flexible set of tools but you need to >>> do a fair amount of work to plug them together or extend them to create a >>> high fidelity (ha) product. The focus is on creating a one-off experience, >>> though the lines are blurring now that some games (e.g. Minecraft, DOTA2) >>> are very long lived and keep receiving updates. The experiences are high >>> quality because they are quite tightly controlled. High multi-user (let >>> alone massive multi-user) has not been a focus area because this stuff is >>> *hard* and nowadays not obviously a winning formula for gamers. >>> >>> For OpenSimulator, the focus and much of the raison d'etre is the unified >>> and persistent virtual world. Thus, it gives you a high level set of tools >>> which are much less flexible (inventory, attachments, linksets, etc.) but >>> because everyone has them it allows collaboration and content reuse at a >>> high level (e.g. scripted objects, OARs). Some games blur into this >>> (Minecraft, etc.). It's a free-form environment so there's a high degree of >>> freedom but a lot that can go wrong (analogous to open-world jank) [1]. I >>> see it as more web-like because the same high-level software is evolved over >>> time with the hosted content changing. >>> >>> Moreover, there's a very high social focus through time. Because the >>> same high-level concepts are shared, there's more scope for network effects >>> (esp. with the Hypergrid) but the technological base is much more primitive >>> and relatively unexplored. >>> >>> So whilst I think Unity makes sense in many use cases, OpenSimulator is >>> ultimately much more interesting to me (unsurprisingly) because it gives a >>> glimpse into something radically new, a distributed, anarchic and evolving >>> Metaverse rather than a single vendor game. >>> >>> I think there is vast scope for the OpenSimulator ecosystem to continue >>> to evolve with features such as template objects, multi-level linksets, more >>> intuitive viewers and to adapt to technological evolution as embodied by new >>> hardware such as the Oculus Rift. Because it's open-source, innovation can >>> happen anywhere and without a single company's permission. I believe the >>> critical thing is that we arrive at protocols and formats that allow >>> evolution by disconnected parties whilst still inter-operating with the >>> existing system. Again, it's a comparison with a web ecosystem that has >>> extensible formats such as HTTP and HTML (insert a tag that a browser >>> doesn't understand and it doesn't (usually) stop your whole page from >>> rendering). >>> >>> However, arriving at these formats and solving other hard fundamental >>> problems takes an enormous amount of time and effort, not only through >>> writing code but also in discussion and co-operation between parties with >>> different interests. My hope has always been that the platform will become >>> interesting enough to attract the critical mass of academics, enthusiasts >>> and entrepreneurs who can generate the time and funding required. To some >>> extent this happened but not enough (as of yet) to win any significant >>> attention outside of this niche. >>> >>> [1] http://www.giantbomb.com/open-world/3015-207/ >>> >>>> On 21/07/14 16:43, Wade wrote: >>>> This discussion has been the most enlightening I've seen in a long >>>> time! >>>> Thank you everyone! >>>> >>>> My experience agrees that faculty don't generally want to learn 3D >>>> content creation. >>>> >>>> Students are an interesting mix, and in high-stress programs also have >>>> very little tolerance or capacity for steep >>>> learning curves. >>>> === >>>> *On simplicity * >>>> >>>> In terms of students building things that didn't exist, maybe there is >>>> a game-principle based sweet-spot, because >>>> it's clear from the numbers that tens of millions of people spend tens >>>> or hundreds of hours with Minecraft. >>>> >>>> That suggest to me that students would love to co-create cool stuff, but >>>> the interface for doing so needs to have an >>>> extremely extremely simple /*starter subset*/. I say "starter", >>>> because gaming-principles also show that people who >>>> stick around and pay for worlds like World of Warcraft*_like >>>> challenges_*, or "unnecessary difficulties" as Jane >>>> McGonigal's "/*Reality is Broken*/ - why Games make us Better and How >>>> they can Change the World" book explains so well. >>>> (Imagine the interest in golf if the average length from tee to hole was >>>> ten feet, in a straight line, on a flat course, >>>> and the hole was ten feet across.) This is a great book, by the way, >>>> and very eye opening and challenging a lot of >>>> misunderstood concepts about "games", the nature and type of feedback >>>> that works, and why so many people voluntarily >>>> spend so much time on them, that is directly applicable to building any >>>> learning environment. >>>> >>>> For experienced builders (or those past their anxiety - resistance >>>> stage), yeah, prefabs in Unity are great! >>>> >>>> What is even better is that in Unity you CAN build/*hierarchical >>>> objects,*/ then mix and match the parts. In OpenSim >>>> and Second LIfe, once you put the wheels on the car and make a >>>> link-set, all traces of "wheel" are gone, and it >>>> becomes absurdly difficult to go back and put different wheels on the >>>> car if each wheel has 47 parts like spokes or >>>> lugnuts. You can approximate some of that capacity with "Builder's >>>> Buddy" or other tools that let you rez an entire >>>> multiobject scene with one click, but those are a true pain to load and >>>> maintain. >>>> >>>> So, whether it's Unity or OpenSim, I think one thing that is needed >>>> that is very hard to still see for Virtual reality >>>> natives is exactly HOW SIMPLE the INITIAL interface has to be, so that >>>> it is satisfying and rewarding to try to use for >>>> a terrified newbie, peeking though the fingers of the hands over the >>>> eyes. So simple in fact that even a faculty >>>> member might say "Oh heck, even I can do THAT!". >>>> >>>> === >>>> *On "weakest links" in collaborative environments* >>>> >>>> And both faculty and students are greatly upset by technological failure >>>> where they are used to trivial behavior, such >>>> as having voice working. The collaborative environment is much harsher >>>> than individual user environment since for >>>> voice (or many other things) to actually be useful, it has to work for >>>> EVERYONE, not just most people. >>>> >>>> This is a feature of collaborative environments that I didn't realize >>>> till Gary Olsen pointed it out. A collaborative >>>> environment can become a "weakest link" exposer, where everyone's >>>> experience is limited by the least capable user. >>>> This is one of the issues with, say, Electronic Health Records systems >>>> that is underappreciated and distinguishes it >>>> from, say, a cloud-based spreadsheet. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Opensim-users mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Justin Clark-Casey (justincc) >>> OSVW Consulting >>> http://justincc.org >>> http://twitter.com/justincc >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Opensim-users mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Opensim-users mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users >> . >> > > > -- > Justin Clark-Casey (justincc) > OSVW Consulting > http://justincc.org > http://twitter.com/justincc > _______________________________________________ > Opensim-users mailing list > [email protected] > http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users -- Robert L Martin _______________________________________________ Opensim-users mailing list [email protected] http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users
