Attention Lindens

Ok it's 6am my time, and like a true SL addict, I cant sleep. So rather than toss and turn and dream of fanciful castles in the air, I'm gonna drag y'all into my madness, so I'm not the only one with insomina

It was mentioned that later on down the road, we will have the ability to pose our AV's. And some metion was made (though it may only be rumor) that a offline pose creator might be available (for making action sets while not online). All well and good.

But what I want...

I would like to see the ability to rez a second or third or fourth AV. Strictly cosmetic. These AV's would be posable by the creator (and rezzing them could cost a steep price say 500-1000 each). These Proto-AV's could be used as dummies to model wares for shopowners, or as monsters in a spook house, etc.. Make them as customizable as our own..er wait, maybe a bit less detailed, but still generally adjustable.

Now the Fun part.

If these Proto-Av's could have tacked on Action Sets, and Also be imbued with Scripts. You could have Doormen that walk up, open a door and greet the Users as they approach. You could have a Information Kiosk that had a Proto-Av that would dispense information just by asking her questions. You could even script/action set sparring partners, or creatures to fill dungeons or complexes for fighting or adventuring. And lets not forget, that a Proto-Av could have all the information for a standard lecture, and when asked (at any time), repeat that information to a new commer, as well as displaying (through actions) how it's done.


All in all it's just the same as any bot. but the difference is that the movement, and adjustability makes the Proto uniquely SL, and a whole new world of exploration. (people will be designing and selling custom maids, butlers, carny hosts, creatures, etc..)


I hope I can see this in the future.

Side note,

While I know a Proto could be built with standard tools, I wanted this because with the addition of posing, you could more easily manipulate joints. Also the Proto would react like an AV with movements of one joint affecting the whole body. rather than just that one piece.

Also, for the sake of scripting and attaching, the attachemets would react just like on a normal AV.

and if I think of anything else, I'll be back (sleep, neeeeeed sleep)

i like it! i wonder if maybe you could have two types a static and a dynamic, or maybe you get charged by how much you want the avatar to do... so an avatar that just sits there and poses costes less than avatar that walks around in circles, spouting random saying, which costes less than the crazy-i'm-gonna-make-chop-suey-out-of-ya-kung-fu-bbc-look... i think you guys get the picture

great idea. I actually like the idea of a basic static costing like 100 LB, and going up from there (up to 1000's for the total berserker full action with a kung fu grip type).

This would help to keep the occurances of such types down, and therefore save on needed server resources, while still allowing the lower resource driven models to be available in relatively good supply.

Now mind you.. I want one of the kung fu grip fellars! Sounds like a perfect bodyguard.

Great idea!

Unfortunately, I can't promise that we'll do it. The problem is, once you allow scriptable "fake" people into the world, it opens up all sorts of opportunity for grieving (i.e. making other players miserable). I could make a fake avatar that pretends to be you, or at least close enough for a newbie to not know the difference. Then I could make that avatar do all sorts of nasty things in your name. It should be clear that behind an avatar is a real person (associated with a unique name).

The other problem is that more avatars slow down your framerate (a lot). We're doing everything we can to make SL run smoothly on our minimum hardware spec. Adding more avatars to the mix is just going to make it harder. Yes, we could make them expensive, but then they will become "prestige" items and people will buy them and place them in the world just to show how rich they are. ..

Not to say that it won't happen. We just have to think carefully about these issues. Any suggestions?

Um, how about just the "poseing" - its not to hard to make a dummy with limbs and such - and with a bit of work, you could make a suit of armor with the primatives. Now say you want it to stand at the gate of your castle and salute when you walk by. This is possible with the scripting, but its certainly not easy - its ward enough to make a waggin' tail on a dog. But it would be cool if we could set some sort of skeleton on it - say the av attachment points without the av - and have the ability to script the same gestures into the skeleton which has the "parts" attached. This way you could have "bots" that are clearly not players, and - I think - cut down on the extra processing that a full avatar takes up.

heh, and now to think of it - you could use one of these dummies maybe as a poser to create custom gestures - taking a clue from xav and his whistles, the system that defines how an av is animated is so elegant, I wanna take it out dancing. And with a few safeguards in place to prevent poses that crash, it might be fun to create your own gestures in-world.

BBC

i think that you should be only able to create dummy avs of you, their name can be dummy Nada(there by keepint the owner accountable), and they will look exactly like i did when i created it. and i was thinking more on the scale of like 500 for a standing, and 10,000 for something that moves... but that was just me.

My only problem with this idea is if the dummy avatars are as customizable as OUR avatars. Because that's basically what takes up a ton of our framerate, the fact that avatars have SO MANY customizable options (meaning more polys). How about all of the avatars look the same (much less polys) and you have the ability to clothe him/her and attach objects to them to make them more customizable. In the same way you could tell a newbie by their Ruth outfit, you could tell a dummy by their face or any other distinguishable feature left exposed through any attachables or clothing.

I just wanna keep my framerate high the game is almost perfect as is! No need to add sillier things! (FYI I'm a huge CAD fanatic so this game is like a dream come true)

I dont know but I really want a SL baby girl someone make it
and I pay big time hhaha

Oh jeez, how's your boyfriend taking this information??

I had thought about the frame-rate problem, and additional server load, and a host of other things.

And in reality I didnt plan on this being a pre-release idea. lol it's a large addition, and I would think this is years down the line (let SL get a following, get built up -and say hello to a new expansion everyone). As time goes on, computers only get faster, stronger, capable of leaping large java pages in a single bound. And as time goes by speeds increase for internet access as well. Will it ever get to the viable stage? who knows. but I do know it would add a lot to the game.

As for griefers.. if you make the proto-av's distinct (ie when you mouse over them or click on them you get information in a "Name of creature/object" under that "NPC" or "Proto-Av" or somesuch) you take out the problem of the proto being confused with someone else for griefing purposes.

Add to that the new eden (looks great), and you have a method of showing the new comers the difference during their initial exposure to SL. (and if a new comer bypasses all information and teaching and jumps right in cause they dont care to learn - lol well hard knocks are just as effective as the class room).

In the end, if the proto-av is too much of a problem, then as suggested, even a skelleton with posable, or limited movement abilities that can then be added onto with objects would be desireable.


I dont know why I keep using "proto-av" it just sounds cool.