Scripting my Avatar

I am thinking of using SL as a testing ground for a general AI program. Does the SL scripting language allow for full control of my main avatar? Or, would I have to embed an object with the AI code? Has anyone tried this before? I'm interested to hear what people have to say about this!

I also posted this to the SLdevelopment.com forum but it doesn't look like it will get any response.

Only limited control. You can move an avatar around, and trigger animations, with a scripted attachment. You can also simulate such things as giving people items and money (the attachment is actually the thing that gives them) and speech (except that the attachment is the thing that speaks, so it appears in a different colour in people's chat windows).

If you've got any specific task in mind, by all means post it here and we can say how practical it might be.

Depends on what you mean by, "full control." You can move your avatar. You can animate your avatar. You cannot TURN your avatar (unless it is with an object you sit on rather than an attachment). You can't make your avatar sit down or take things into its inventory or give things from its inventory (though you can give things from the OBJECT'S inventory). You cannot change clothes or appearance other then attached prims. You cannot make your avatar touch anything.

You can chat things, but they come from the object rather than your avatar (this will show up in a different color, and under the object's name). You can rename the object with your own name to make it look to some degree like it is you speaking. However, some scripts will do things based on who/what is actually speaking; though I try to write mine so they always check the owner of the speaker (which for an avatar is itself), I doubt most people do this.

So I guess the answer is, "not really, but in some limited ways."

Thanks Ordinal Malaprop & Hewee Zetkin. Since there is no direct way of scripting my avatar I should not use SL.

I think I'll use UO because it is a more simple 2D environment, and it should be easy to read all the tiles on the screen as well as many other environmental variables using an EasyUO script, which does allow full control over the avatar. Also, the scripts would stay firmly on my PC which would be another concern.

By the time I finally have something that works at least a little, SL may have an avatar scripting feature

Why not use libSecondLife?

libSecondLife is a client replacement library written in C#.

While it's not feature-complete quite yet, you can replicate most of what's possible in the regular SecondLife client.

You could either write your own client that is completely atonomous, or you could insert a proxy between the client and SL (this is also part of the library) and inject your own commands between SL and the client.

If you're going to work on AI, SL is a MUCH more powerful environment than UO. First of all, SL is designed for scripting and programming. Second, with the stuff that's being done with libSecondLife, it's legal. When I used to use UO, client hacks and scripting programs were against the TOS, and could get you banned.

SL is also free, if you don't need to own your own land.

i dont know too much about scripting.. but i will say one thing..

if someone made somthing you sat in and it made you move around and act on your own based on what was around you.. i would buy it..

but thats just me.

Perhaps it would be better to post some ideas about what you'd like to do, and get suggestions about how to do them.

"Full control" could mean control over physical appearance, it could mean control over "thoughts."

Maybe we should work on the Turing Test Could we create an AV with scripts that lives in SL, but has no direct human input. Would people notice? If not, TT is passed.

Mine would stay on help Island forever, and ask passers by, "Wanna fuck??" I am sure everyone would assume it is a real person.

If it's expected to be general AI program i don't quite see the need for it to control the avatar... you can have it sit in plywood box after all, why would the external appearance be important if it's the brain that's being simulated? o.O

Darnit! I'm an animator who does two-person interactions. I was told before that you can't rotate an avatar in script, so I resigned my products to being sensitive to which way the characters are facing. Then someone told me you CAN rotate avatars in script, but now I see this confirming the first person.

You used to be able to, apparently.

You can still convince them to sit on something and then rotate the object, of course.

I have seen some rumours about scriptable rag doll avatars so maybe in another 12 months . . . . . . .

LL was showing something off at SIGGRAPH . . . . . .
Linky