The Jeffrey Ventrella discussion thread

I couldn't resist but make one! Jeffrey Ventrella's name gets few hits so far in the SL Forum searchin' (diggin' through archives) but now that he's currently a Linden—Ventrella Linden—I'd wanted to start a discussion thread about the man and his work.

As some of you no doubt know, he's a cofounder of There, Inc. (background on that @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There ) and he's bringing his 1338 (more than 1337) abilities to Linden Lab and all of us here in Second Life. Specifically what? Well...

Jeffrey (this is beginning to sound like a gameshow) has a website @ http://www.ventrella.com where he posts many ideas, including those about Avatar-centric Communication. How we interact with each other, emote, immerse ourselves in online worlds, and much, much more. Lots of fun toys to try for FREE and play with. I've also just blogged about my trip through his website here:

http://torley.blog-city.com/ventrella.htm

This relates on both a specific and a general level to the future of SL. Avatars are, after all, pretty durn importante.

I'd also like to take this time to thank Oz Spade and CrystalShard Foo for leading me on this road of exploration.

Jeffrey, by all means, if you come to the forums and would like, please do post your insights!!! SAY SOME CRAZY THINGS, Y0!

Related: if any Lindens have personal websites you'd like to share with more info about your wonderful work—and not just "work" in the strictest sense but things you have created and are proud of—please do so! Spotlight time! Or blog more—there's already been some requests on here! Or something!

I was a beta tester in There and I'm still a member who visits There regulary, and IMO Jeff is a creative bomb. Comparing the moves and body language of There avatars, which look pretty natural and smooth, and the moves and body language of SL avatars, which ..ummm...completely suck, I'm hoping that Jeff will be working on making our avatar's moves look more realistic and not like those of robots in a flesh suit.

When I logged into There the first time I checked out my avatar closely and tried moves and gestures. Having been a member of quite a few virtual worlds in the past 12 years (2-D and 3-D) with all kinds of avatar looks and moves, I was really amazed about the realism. Then another closer look made me freak (in a positive way), and I really thought I was seeing things when I noticed it the first time....those pixels guys were actually "breathing", with a natural looking movement of the chest. It's not like this swaying like a twig in the wind that SL avatars do. Those avatars chests moved slightly, like that of a person breathing normally, with no other body movements when just standing around in a relaxed way. Besides that, the way they run, jump, sit or just stand around looks so much better than that of our avatars in SL.

So I'm really looking forward to the things Jeff is up to at Linden Labs. That and a better physical engine (since the vehicles in SL are a pain in the butt) will hopefully stop me from cussing and whining every now and then, like "god this all sucks, I hate SL, I'm heading over to There!"

Welcome to SL, Jeff!

Demian

OMG I cant believe this! I've been using Gene Pool since the dawn of time!
Small world! I love this guy already

What I will always miss about There: jumping off the cliff and sliding down the hill as my avatar flopped around with a gleeful look on her face. That amused me for days til I got enough money to buy vehicles.

Stunning site go and check it out now

I tried there once. I did like the graphical style and the vehicles, but overall, it was terribly boring for me.


And it launched from a webpage. Whoever thought that was a good idea? (Yeah, I know, Asheron's Call did it too, and I think EQ might have, I never played it)

LOL Lash, that amused me still even after I got vehicles! The Nene slide was the best.

Demian

I only tried There for about an hhour and never really heard of this guy. Though what I have read after seeing this post seems very promising for the future of Second Life. THere is nothing I want more than to see AV's get more realistic with the abilities to create more realistic animations. There are definetly some key feature to There than would really help improve SL.

Truly, I have no idea what he left There. They've been going in the right direction and Second Life is like There's mortal enemy. I think There is simply amazing, I mean look at There's vechile files... ThereScript is amazing.

Sweet. I'm There.

You sound familiar...

I second that.

He did great work for there, and I'm sure he'll do even better work for SL. It's very intresting to watch the "migration" of VR world Devs, always seems like a close nit community.

- Sam

OMG OMG guys... I IMed Ventrella and got a reply! His ideas blow me away!!!

I'm a big Ventrella fan.

His work at There simply is awsome and his ideas and examples on his website are very interesting and neat! Can't wait to see what he brings to SL.

If you're looking for an interesting read I suggest: http://ventrella.com/Alife/avatar_animation.html

Which seems to talk about both Second Life and a bit about There as well (not directly, but the similarities are there).

I do disagree slightly with this:



I think a WWW construct can be beneficial in many ways. Allowing users to go to popular spots right away, or to other neat spots setup by users ("teleport" tours, or "web rings" if you will). At the same time however, There does have the excellent feeling of "place", which goes along way in certain aspects. So overall I would say the ideal thing would be to do both! As the virtual world (or virtual space, i.e. "cyberspace" grows, along with it will there need to be more than one world, an infinite endless world would be detering, to have many different worlds would be more realistic and at the same times allows users to experience different surroundings that they never could before. With these many worlds, one could determine how they wanted their world to be, wether to be a Placetual world or a WWW world that allows direct "hyperlinking"/"teleporting" to any one place in the world.

Doing both opens up the opportunity for using the "Virtual Space" not only for resort style, but also as a replacement/expansion of our current WWW in the long term sense.

For Second Life as it is now, the WWW/Teleport model is nessisary, the reason being because the technology is not ready for a There style "Place" type setting, this is due to sim-crossings and general current simulator constraints. While it would be better to eliminate the constraints of the sims, that would most probably be more time consuming and a longer wait than placing in a WWW model which would stand untill no longer nessisary (or later run in parralel).

Three things.

1. PLZ JJ VENTRELLA HOST A TOWN HALL! OMG. Freck, I'd like more devs and technical specialists at LL to do Town Halls, if not fireside chats.


The other two, I forget. I'll get to them later.

OMG OMG Thorley....share!

Demian

I really, really want to repeat it here. I've rarely seen so much sheer creativity JAMPACKED into a freakin' IM. He sounds SO nice too.

But sorry, because it was intended as private to me, I can't requote... you can, however, IM Ventrella and tell him what you think of his schtuff!

I hope to get more discussion on about this as it's sooo relevant to our future—Avatar-centric communication says it all. He just sounds like a reallyreally kewl guy.

I'm definetly all for having a Ventrella town-hall.

Jeff, your ideas are some of the more original in the VR scene, and this place is packed with VR enthuists. How about it?

I concur! I'd love more specialized Town Halls!

Cory and Andrew and Phoenix are a few others I can think of off the top of my head who would be interesting to hear topics from.

Cory on overall technology.

Andrew on physics and possibilities to explore with it (not promises of what's to come, just what he would like to do if possible).

Phoenix on database structure and handling.

I'm sure theres more, would be fun if each Linden got to host a Town Hall if they wanted at one point or another.

I have been Emailing back and forth with Jeffrey about a idea I have about a in game pose/animation maker,through this exchange he told me what he's working on.I hope I'm not breaking any trust that Jeffrey gave to me by posting this,but he did say it was OK to discuss what he is working on.

First a link describing the sort of things he's doing,this is NOT a site made by him. http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/models/m_ik.htm

Now relate whats on that site to our avatars and get a smile a mile wide like I did, This will make avie to avie poses and animations look much more realistic.

Don't expect this real soon,as it sounds like it's in the planning stages now,but WOW.

FIC!

Woo, that would be very cool.
But now, how will we put it to use.
Right now, every movment that our avatar makes is done by a predefined animations.

So inverse kinectics would have to be tight to LSL.
SO we could get a function like this, to touch a panel.
llAnimate(LEFT_ARM_HAND, position);

But that would also mean that the entire body would have to move with the HAND, maybe the avatar needs to walk a few steps to reach it.

So very interresting, but still somemany things about it are unclear.
But a bright future indeed.

Frans,from what I gathered this will be put to use first through simple animations,for example a handshake,but the hands will line up no matter the sizes of the avies involved.(within reason of course,a small avie couldnt shake hands with a huge mech avie for example) The possibilities beyond this step,who knows,hugs,kisses etc.It's a very complex project,but if anyone can do it Jeffrey can,