ramblings archive at Daikon Forge

Archive for the 'ramblings' Category

Quick Tip : Displaying your C:SI sword

Apr
17
2008 in ramblings and C:SI.

Closed

drop I guess it never really occurred to me before, but I’ve recently begun to get a few questions about how to display a C:SI sword; the problem is that if you just rez the sword on the ground, it instantly turns invisible. This happens because it is assumed that when the sword is rezzed, it will be attached and waiting to be drawn.

The workaround is to first wear both the sword and the sheath, then draw the sword (either by clicking the sheath or by using one of the included gestures), then you can "Drop" it and it will remain visible.

If your pie menu does not allow you to select "Drop", then exit the menu, press CTRL-ALT-V, and try again; Drop should now be selectable.

Popularity: 14% [?]

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Virtual Worlds for Business - IBM creates OpenSIM Data Center

Feb
25
2008 in Software Development, Virtual Worlds (Other), ramblings, Real-world in SL, Opinion and Second Life.

1 Comment

Virtual World News had an article a couple of days ago on IBM’s announcement that they had built a 3D data center simulation using OpenSim, which I found particularly fascinating because I have long believed that the potential of Virtual Worlds like Second Life® and OpenSimulator was far larger and with potential for much broader application than what we are currently seeing. Take, for instance, this comment by an IBM researcher on the topic:

"Viewing information about your data center in 2-D text — even in real time — only tells a data center manager part of the story, because our brains are wired for sight and sound," said IBM Researcher Michael Osias, who architected the 3-D data center service. "By actually seeing the operations of your data center in 3-D, even down to flames showing hotspots and visualizations of the utilization of servers allows for a clearer understanding of the enterprise resources, better informed decision-making and a higher level of interaction and collaboration."

Visualization is extremely important, and the ability of virtual worlds to enhance visualization and make use of our visual/spatial processing abilities (using the concept of space as a memory cue and productivity enhancer) is absolutely fascinating and intuitive. We are quite simply built to work in a 3D world with maximum effectiveness, and evidence suggests that people have been formally taking advantage of this astounding ability since before 85 BC. IBM obviously believes that this has practical business application, and while some may question whether there is truly any practical benefit to using virtual worlds in this way, I strongly believe that we will discover over time that it’s one of the most powerful and effective uses of the technology - for business or otherwise.

I remember back in high school more than a decade ago, while reading a book about computer graphics programming in class one day I came across a quote (likely only half-remembered now) that really struck me powerfully : "Computers may be great at business and calculations, but graphics is what they are for". I doubt that the author of that book (it may have been Michael Abrash, I cannot recall after so much time) could have envisioned how powerful commodity graphics and general-purpose computing hardware would become in less than 20 years from the time he wrote that, but I’m willing to bet that he’d feel similarly about 3D technology and virtual worlds : It’s what computers are for. How exciting to be able to use a system like loci by actually building our own 3D representations, and then to use that representation to manage extremely complex real-world systems that are difficult to truly understand in a flat printout or 2D program.

Popularity: 57% [?]

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Progress on the new katana

Feb
08
2008 in ramblings, products, C:SI and Second Life.

Closed

Time for a post that’s less of a rant, huh? Okay, well it’s probably a good time to mention a little bit about the progress of the Wave update and the new katana I’m making.

Firstly, I have been working for the last few weeks on an update to the Wave Katana, and have gotten a tremendous amount of good feedback from my beta testers. Most of what was fixed or changed had to do with the controls and responsiveness, and despite all of the encouraging comments I’ve gotten from some of the good folks in the C:SI community regarding how the Wave doesn’t auto-combo like the other swords, I’ve received far more comments from many more people that the biggest reason they don’t use the Wave is that it doesn’t do so. Because of this, I’ve implemented the same kind of combo ability as the other swords, and so far the feedback I’ve gotten on it is mostly positive. Aimee doesn’t like it much, but says that it doesn’t mess things up, she just chooses not to use it. That’s what I was hoping, and is a decent compromise I think.

I think the Wave update is pretty nearly ready for distribution, and I will do all of the final polish stuff needed this weekend, so if you already own a Wave Katana you will be receiving an update soon.

On the new sword front, I had decided that I really need an *entirely* new set of animations. The ones I had for the Wave were okay I guess, but I really didn’t want to just re-use them for this new sword, I want to try some new stuff out.

There are 17 animations for most C:SI weapons (3 left, 3 right, 3 fwd, 3 kick, 1 special, dash, double-jump, block, ready stance), and I’m about 80% through that list. I’m not 100% pleased with the animations, but overall I’d say they are not too bad, and are definitely different than the Wave. I truly hope people like them.

The prim part of building the actual sword is about 90% done, and I’m quite happy with it. It’s a plain old katana, nothing really new or exciting there except for the use of sculpted prims to do some things I really couldn’t do otherwise. For my own personal amusement, I actually gathered measurements from several different swords (from websites like this one from Nihonto Antiques) and made my sword reasonably close to the average [NOTE TO SELF: Dig up the actual numbers and post them here]. It may look small in comparison to most C:SI weapons (especially the Dynasty Flame), but I assure you it’s not a wakizashi

I anticipate another week’s worth of work before I’m ready to pass along a beta to the testing team, and I won’t speculate much on how long it will be after that point that it’s ready for sale. Depends largely on the feedback and bug reports I get, naturally. On that note, I’ve already selected those people that will be beta testers, and it’s a fairly sizable list of people compared to the past. It’s not terribly likely that I’ll add more people, though you are welcome to ask and present a case for why you would be a good tester, and I will of course consider it.

Okay, rambling’s over, gotta get back to work

Popularity: 18% [?]

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New weapons and Master’s Treasure

Jan
20
2008 in tournaments, ramblings, C:SI and Second Life.

2 Comments

I don’t participate in contests and tournaments much anymore, due at least in part to comments made by one well-known fighter after our duel where she said that it was apparent I was using my position as a C:SI developer to cheat (I wasn’t, so that really upset me), but one of the things I really do still enjoy and get into whenever the opportunity is available is Ayame’s "Master’s Treasure" competitions. I might even go so far as to say that Master’s Treasure is my favorite "game within the game" I’ve seen thus far in Second Life®.

If you’ve not played "Master’s Treasure" before, it’s basically a kind of "King of the Hill / Capture the flag" competition where there is a treasure chest that must be protected. If you protect it against all comers for a given amount of time, you win the L$ contents which sometimes range as high as $10,000L. One of the challenges is that the treasure chest is on a platform raised up in the air high enough that you must use a double-jump to even reach the platform, and it’s not large enough to support large numbers of people. If you fall, it could easily take you so long to get back on the platform that someone else has time to take the prize.

Those of you who have seen this in action will understand what I’m thinking, then, when I ask "How will these new weapons fare in such a game?"

Both Esprite’s Ninjaken and Ayame’s Dynasty Flame weapons have special attacks that do not move the player during the attack. That movement, or charge, used to make it somewhat challenging to remain on the platform and probably discouraged use of the special somewhat (though for this and other reasons the naginata is quite popular during Master’s Treasure). In addition to that, Ayame’s dual-wield swords can damage everyone around, which again is kind of like the naginata special.

This line of thought got me very curious about Archanox’s new weapons, a dual-wield set of daggers (currently in Beta testing) that among other things has movement as part of the attack repertoire. In a normal duel this is very interesting as it makes for some visually appealing fighting as well as making distance and timing a little more important. But what of Master’s Treasure? Seems to me that it could make it somewhat hard to remain on the platform if you go to slash or kick someone and end up falling off the platform as a result.

I’m not really trying to make any significant point here, it’s just an interesting mental diversion - something to think about as I sit here and eat my breakfast - but you can bet I’ll be sitting straight up in my seat and paying attention to how these new weapons do during the next competition

Popularity: 16% [?]

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