Making kids.... In Open Sim.

Hey All, Monday update,

I got tasked with creating a few child like avatars for OS, only snag I've ran into is the client server not wanting to save everything at once...but the basic inventory slots have been created, now to refine.

Emergency update, Ver 1.0

These clouds are getting me down.....

For the past few days my avatar has been a puff of smoke, this wouldn't be a problem; except for the fact that I've been tasked with avatar creation for Tuesdays meeting.

+ Kamal - create young boy and young girl avatar bodies and clothing.

+ - Join the OpenSimulator community http://opensimulator.org

I went ahead and contacted Richard, here's to hoping for a speedy resolution before I get swamped by homework for my other classes.

~Update~

Good news, I managed to fix my cloud issue. Avatar building is a go!

Bio Dome, Summon The Children!, Rainforests?

Thus far I've been working on building and texturing various objects for Open Sim that can be easily attached to avatars as a form of customization. Texturing complex geometry in SL/OS is, well.. not fun, and certainly not easy as dropping a texture on a simple wall or object. Avatar texturing requires the use of templates that map to the avatars body surfaces. I've obtained these templates and use them in Photoshop to generate the textures I need, then import them into OS. Fortunately, if there's anything that you can obtain tutorials for, it's creating clothing in second life.

http://nicolaescher.com/tutorials/clothing-in-second-life.php

Here's a look at using templates to create textures.

Progress on this project is going well, and I should have a complete space suit available soon. Here's a look at some beta clothing pieces, they are still tagged as objects, but that should be fine.

As far as the bio-dome goes, it looks like emails are being exchanged and I'm waiting for the link and foliage packs to show up in my inventory so that we can start cracking. The rainforest/blue crap project seems to be another area of communication break down. We were asked to work on it but as of this moment Isaac seems to be the only person who has been granted access to the prims for the project; as such I chose to continue my avatar work which turned into building child avatars for next meeting. I've already sent out an email on the open sim group but will be building on my own until I hear back from someone.

Systems Are 100% Operational...

Hello world... After many months I am back on blogger and this time to track yet another project, and maybe to even just casually blog about a thing or two. This is just an initial post to get the ball rolling... I've got homework to get back to.

http://www.myspace.com/ratatatmusic <- Amazing stuff...current band of the day.

FTP for everyone!

So..What is FTP?
FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol. As the name suggests, FTP is used to transfer files between computers on a network, such as the Internet. You can use FTP to exchange files between computer accounts, to transfer files between an account and a desktop computer, or to access software archives on the Internet. Keep in mind, however, that many FTP sites are heavily used and require several attempts before connecting.

Why Use It?
Its a guaranteed way to share DATA, namely files over the internet with any one who can connect to the FTP server.

How Do I Connect?!
You can use a web browser to connect to FTP addresses exactly as you would to connect to HTTP addresses. Using a web browser for FTP transfers makes it easy for you to browse large directories and read and retrieve files. Your web browser will also take care of some of the details of connecting to a site and transferring files. While this method is convenient, web browsers are often slower and less reliable and have fewer features than dedicated FTP clients.
Command line FTP
You can also use FTP in a command line format from your Unix account, or your Unix or Windows workstation. For help, see What are some common FTP commands? For example, to start FTP, at the command line prompt, enter: this also works with CMD in windows!

What Connection Information Or Credentials Do You Need To Connect?
To connect to a FTP server you need the domain, this is the most important component...depending on if the server uses anonymous FTP or requires you to insert a user name and password will dictate what other credentials you will need.

Second life Redux.

This week we were tasked to hop, skip, and maybe even drive around orientation island din linden labs second life, trouble is I had already been to the orientation island and there really inst any way to get back....I tried doing a bunch of searches and was unable to find anything relevant..unless....orientation island changed formats..cause I joined the SL community almost a year or two ago. This may seem like an odd request but I'd have to ask that you explore my blog a little and take a look at a few of the stories I wrote before in regards to SL.

Becon The Coders To Come Forth!

Mozilla is a rare, if not prefect example of what can happen when minds are allowed to collaborate on a single project that interests them all. As with OS distributions such as Linux and other projects in the same category the increased programing efficiency that can be brought forth by allowing many people to interact with a software code. However overcoming security issues as well as financial issues can bring even the best project to a halt; and thats where it takes a little luck and allot of skill. Both of which the guys over at Mozilla have in spades.

Personally I believe open source is a great Idea, not only to spark competition with products developed by payware companies but also to inspire creativity so that products become more robust and the coding community becomes self aware of how diverse and talented people that aren't necessarily connected with a mother company can be.

The Bridge.

A long time ago, in an office or school far far away; I/O hardware was limited to keyboards , mice, printers and monitors; one had to type a command or click on a button and wait for the computers response. Just like the green and black monitors of old this hardware to will soon fade from memory, forced into the obscurity of Wikipedia and PC hardware books...but by what you ask. A new generation of I/O hardware is emerging that promises to seamlessly blend interaction with your digital world and your real world. Just one of these devices could fill an entire thesis paper but I'd like to cover a few of them rather briefly in this short blog post.

E-Ink, I'm sure you've heard this term floating around at one point in the other. E-Ink was originally a concept devised by OS programmers to allow seamless integration of written characters into TXT and Grahpics based enviorments, I.E your doctor drawing on your Xray on a touch screen pc. E-Ink has now evolved into a pratical replacment for printed media, one of the major issues of reading anything on a PC for long periods of time is eye fatigue; this is the main reason why digital distribution of printed content never really took off. New advances in E-Ink technology and even LED technology have allowed companies to solve that issue and the matter of power consumption. Below are three examples of said devices.
Toshibas New Sign.
Tokyo Subway
E-Ink Demo
Super Thin Display

This segways neatly into my next topic of interest, I-Displays. We breifly discussed I or Interactive displays in Monday's class with Microsofts Surface being the theme. For years end users and programers alike have tried to find a more natural way to interact with PC's and the content stored on them; trackballs, stylus, touch screens. These are just a few of the technologies that have surfaced thanks to work in this feild. Today however alot of the technology that was once relegated to high end users, coperate applications and in some cases military technology has slowly trickleled into the mian stream market. One of the most popular of these technologies is the interactive display, a screen that can be easily touched and manipulated with no obvious software layer. You just intuitively interact with the device and it excutes the desired command; and trust me it is as fun as it sounds. Here are a few video demonstrations after the break.
Data Vizulation And Traditional Interaction.
Analog Meets Digital
Sea Dragon
Water Board

The power of current day processors and GPU's makes this kind of interaction possible and not ludacriously expensive, ensuring that commercial and possibly even private acess to these technologies is less and less of a dream. Speaking of which..something I've been itching to show off, the new ATI Radeon 4870 GPU, packing GDDR5 memory running at speeds over 1ghz and only costing 300 dollars this GPU is capable of realtime video processing, physics processing and variable geomerty processing , it is also capable of putputing video and audio directly through a HDMI cable.
Tech Demo

Get A Life...A Second Life.

Greetings lads and ladies,

K.Rowe here with a few pictures from my recent excursions in secondlife. Why Kamal...what is this second life you keep going on about? Second life is basically a giant user created virtual world. People live, play, trade even fall in love in second life. Why Kamal...what are you doing in second life? Well...Ive got this independent study, we are scoping out second life as a virtual teaching medium and helping to establish Boston College's presence in this huge world.

Sounds cool right? Trust me it is, so far Ive barely scratched the surface of second life logging about ten hours are so. If any of you reading this had any notion of what second life was before I explained it your probably asking about the sex and other profanity that second life is supposedly plagued with. The thing about SL is that its broken into different islands and zones, PG, MA etc... so as long as you mind your P's and Q's its actually quite a tame and civilized place. One member even went as far as to say SL was a smart filter, all the dumb people get stumped at the login screen and eventually go away entirely. In my brief time there I've meet alot of people. Business owners, news anchors, teachers, social scientists. The list goes on and on really; but what each one has in common is an almost poetic relationship with second life and their own opinion on what it is and what it can become. In the coming weeks I hope to come to my own conclusion and experience as much as I can. I've managed to earn myself a bit of respect..popularity and Linden! ~Sl's form of currency~ The key so far is just to remember that Sl is made by people for people...so your going to have all sorts of characters in there. Alright..time for postcards and pictures. Please enjoy and if your ever in SL feel free to drop me a line.
Here you can see the second life UK's learning island. Its chock full of interesting and creative content, from art gallery's to lecture halls. Also thats my avatar looking the part of the poor college student hehe.
Yes...thats a dragon..well a person. This is one of my friends avatar ~don't worry I asked for permission to post his likeness in my blog~ And yes, believe it or not each avatar is a person and you've got to respect their privacy and even personal space...it would look very rude and weird..to be 3 inches away from someone; even in SL.

Here he is again posing for the camera. How nice of em.
Here is another acquaintance of mines in her werewolf form. I used some canned animations and a bit of timing to make a little machinima pose for you.
Here is that werewolf in her human form showing me some building skills. Thats the gunblade from final fantasy 8~for any gamers in the audience~
One of the MANY stores in second life. There was music..and greeters. It felt very authentic..I even won some money in a store lottery and game.
Me sporting some new threads. Yea I finally gave my fashion an upgrade. There goes my ramen noodles money.
Even in second life the stranger folks come out at night. This lot was particularly interesting. It was a huge hangout for avatars from every corner of second life where they could create items and buildings freely. It was actually quite a beautiful and unique place.
Wish you were here! Greetings from an animation store in SL. Yes...I realise my glasses are huge..and im working on that.
Me hanging out with one of the dogs on Sandras Island. Shes one of the more professional Sl members I meet with her own island and store and a huge amount of friends. I had a really pleasant time at her place.
Pictured here are the tons of dogs they have and a few of the people I meet. Yes, they are dogs in second life; and there actually quite nice and well trained. Although I got sniffed by almost each one.
More dogs! Rolling over none the less. Also pictured here are Mol and Blu, two of the ladies I meet. They are also co-owners of the island I was on and successful SL business partners. Mol also got married in second life, I found it a bit strange at first but after reading her profile it was apparent that her and her spouse were in love. They had a wedding and everything inside second life.
Dog whisperer move over..there's a new sheriff in town and he wears purple... More one on one time with the dogs. I did get to speak to the creator of these virtual pups and was assured that each one was running its own AI, pushing the SL servers to their max. A code over load has even gone as far as taking this entire lot off line for a period of time.

Here we can see Blu ~dog lover extrodinar~ forming a doggie conga line...it went in a full circle around us. Very entertaining stuff. This picture also shows off the complexity and beauty of the island I was on. Its hard work building these things, but well worth it.

As you can see I've been a bit of a busy bee in second life. Thus far its been very enjoyable. Until my next update take care.
K.Rowe

Space, just mite be the final frontier.

For the past decade or so the space shuttle has been an example of mans ingenuity and curiosity. However more recently the space program has faded into the back of the minds of many Americans, these days space shuttle missions are ~mundane~; heck I bet most of you reading this couldn't name two current astronauts without googeling or wiki. The Space Shuttle itself, officially known as STS or Space Transportation System is about to reach the end of its operation lifetime. In 2010 the Shuttle will be decommissioned and join the likes of other cold war technological marvels which include the likes of the Grumman F14 and SR 71 Black bird just to name a few. Unlike these other technologies NASA actually has no designed replacement that is ready to take over STS services and unlike a defense contractor no one really wants to fight for it either; I.E there is no X prize to save space exploration, no F22 raptor. NASA expects to have a replacement by 2015 and has actually implemented a *pay to ride* with companies such as Virgin Atlantic to piggy back on their commercial space ventures. For someone like myself its quite disappointing to hear something like this, I grew up with the shuttle and it will be missed; it was indeed an icon for our time. NASA just publicly released mock ups of what they think the next space vehicles will look like and honestly it isn't very promising but in today's economic environment I can see why they'd be rolling back to cheaper technologies. On average a single space flight costs 500 Million dollars, that's half a Billion dollars. So hopefully by 2010 NAHA, the national aeronautics, hoping to get into space association wont have to make that name official. Currently the private sector is the one experiencing the most growth as far as the space race goes. With google announcing their Lander Prize and with names like Richard Branson on the tips of every ones tongue it won't be long before a new commercialized space agency is formed, the UPS to NASA's USPS.For more info on anything you read here, please see the links below.
http://digitalcrusader.ca/archives/2007/09/lunar_xprize_re.html
http://www.google.com/sky/
http://www.virgingalactic.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle
http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/07/09/space-shuttle-gets-its-final-assignments

Homework Assingment 1 : One Rin..Erm Format To Rule Them All.

Kamal.O.Rowe

Assignment One


This data shows an interesting trend that many manufacturers are starting to notice, the casual audience dominates the buying market, it isn’t audio piles, it isn’t video piles, it isn’t hardcore techies. Its soccer mom Jill, Dan the accountant, Sarah the co ed and grandma Marcy. Technology that is fairly easy to use and more importantly easy to brand to a mass market will always dominant, regardless of if its a utilitarian product or not. It also shows how popular digital media, and more importantly portable digital media has become. Once upon a time to watch a 1080p movie you had to build a pc powerful enough to play it without a falter, set up a decoder box, correctly wire the speakers, the list goes on. Now its as simple as downloading it through your apple TV , video game console, or turning on your cable box.

The same can be said for content delivery; people want it, and they want it now. Once upon a time Friday night was movie night, you drove to blockbuster or the local cinema and sat through that annoying pack of people behind you talking through the entire flick. However now with advances in home theater technologies and distribution mediums a lot more people are *waiting until it comes onto DVD*, or more recently..*waiting until it hits live or psn,* ~Xbox Live & Play Station Network~ or simply just downloading it directly to a pc or laptop connected to a TV. On more than one occasion I’ve spoken to friends that were *watching TV on You tube*. So now the big fight is between traditional media, in this case a 50GB or 50 000 Megabyte aprox, optical disk or a 20Mb high speed fiber optic connection. It’s gotten to the point where the hardware required to access multi-media content from both these mediums is identical and in the case of the Play Station 3 both built into a single device. Now this is fine and dandy for gamer Stan, with his 1000 watt sound system, 42 inch lcd and shelf upon shelf of content at his finger tips; but what happens now to accountant Dan that visited Stan’s house and decided he wanted get in on this, but didn’t want to drop 5 or maybe even 6 grand. This is where the true battle lines are drawn to decide what will become the dominant content delivery medium and more importantly who will come to dominate that market. Markets run by terms like plug and play, accessibility, usability, personalization and now more so than ever affordability.

For my analysis I chose to take a look at BRDVD or BluRay Digital Versatile Disk .Versatile because you can store more than video on it, along with its pros and cons. BR is a next generation storage medium, offering all the convenience of a physical, light weight disk, combined with ludicrous storage capability. How ludicrous? Lets make a little comparison; the average DVD stores 4.7 Gigabytes of information, the average hard disk stores 250 Gigabytes of information though HDD are being made in platter sets equal to a terabyte 1000 Gigabytes. A BR disk on the other hand can hold up to 50 Gigs in dual layer format; immediately you can see why this is beneficial. Now before you say,well there you go one hard disk can hold 5 or more BR disks; consider the following. A HDD requires a power source, generates heat; needs drivers, and most IT professionals wouldn't recommend carrying one around and certainly not shipping one with data on it to your local store for a stock boy to chuck around and then selling it. Basically as a quick and dirty storage medium, the HDD is no good; this is where BR comes into play, and all you need is a drive at home that can read a BR disk. Games, movies, RAW images, uncompressed video, uncompressed audio; they all instantly become portable without fear of losing critical information because of an accidental drop.

Of course, there is nothing good on this earth, which in too great amount can not harm. The same goes for BR, the most prominent con being its cost. To be frank BR is bloody expensive; on both a manufacturing and commercial level. The diodes that create the light which reads BR disks is very difficult to create and any device that promises to play back 1080 P content in 7.1 must have the processing power to do so. Lets take a look at some prices; the average BR PC drive is 300$ U.S, the average BR certified H.T.P.C or home theater PC is 1000$, the average stand alone BR player including the Sony PS3 is an astonishing 900$. This is before you throw in movies that cost Aprox 50$ a piece, and what ever else Best buy wants to con you into buying. It seems the old mantra of Live Long And Purchase is alive and well; however with all emerging technologies prices at first are slightly inflated , or as I like to call it *early adopters tax*. The competitions on the other hand, in the form of downloadable content and High Definition cable are all much cheaper and some argue much more practical, a one Terabyte hard disk is three to four times cheaper than the average blue ray player making storage for downloaded content less of a concern that it used to be; with the introduction of PVRs, IP TV and the evolution of gaming systems and pc' into more powerful multimedia devices than ever before, there’s no doubt that the cheapest and most practical devices will win. At the moment Sony has a good footing with the PS3, it’s been estimated that 4.48 million PS3’s have been sold thus far; however the number of machines bought purely as BR players is unknown. In the US the competition is very tough, with 51% of households having access to cable and subsequently HD cable and another 26% having satellite television. Broad band internet penetration is even higher with an estimated 57% of American households with PCs having high-speed internet.

So what exactly do these numbers mean for BR? Sony needs to keep in mind that only 30% of Americans have a high definition television set so their market for BRDVD as a source for HD content is limited to say the least and currently there here in the US there is no way to commercially obtain a BR RW drive and blank BR disks, so its usability as a storage medium is also limited. To be blunt BR has a serious fight on its hands if it wishes to dominate anything other than the $5.99 bin currently occupied by HD-DVD movies and old black and white movies.

Sources:
http://www.physorg.com/news96628138.html
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=867358
http://www.kotaku.com
Http://www.engadget.com
http://www.tiger.com
http://www.newegg.com

Man its been a while.

Dropping in a few screen shots of our latest inclass assingment..yes Hamtaro is recognized by the Boston College Faculty.

Sunday Night Fever!

Hey all,
Tonight was out first day in SL and it was a pretty great experience. I was very happy to see everyone got online and customized their character a little. Ive had a few issues as far as vista goes..and I'm not as awake as I'd like to be, but I'm hanging in there.

New Semester, New Rig!

Time is a cruel mistress that waits for no one, beckons everyones attention and then mocks you. To think just a few weeks ago it was the beginning of summer, and now it's already fall. The summer wasn't a total bust though...meet a few new friends, got a sweet new job, riced a few foo's and had an all around good time. However with the new semester approaching and the move into the new house coming up I'm being forced to upgrade some junk and budget like crazy. So before I pay for parking and all that jazz I dropped a few bills into my rig to bring it up to date.

Here is a pic of whats in there thus far ~excuse the cable management...~

The specs are decent...and I over clocked a few components to make up for the lack in cash.
Its a Q6600 running at 3.3 Ghz ontop of an IP35 pro mother board.
The 2 gigs of OCZ ram is currently running at 918Mhz at 4,4,4,15 at 2.25 volts.
The video card is a HD 2900XT running at stock speeds.
Sadly I am using vista and it has proven to be headache after headache...After much comprimising it's all finnaly stable and tooting away.
Storage devices are 1X150 raptor ~mmm fast~
2X160 gig ~for bittorrent and other hd killing applications~
1X500 gig WD, for mah media...lots of media...
1X250 gig external. Keeps my norton ghost image nice and toasty.

It all gets displayed on my 19 inch samsung...~not the biggest but meh~ and my new MX 3200 logi combo works very well. When projects roll around I usually kick stuff onto my second display.

But yea..now that Im on this tight budget I believe I wont be touching this rig for a while...and with independent studies and projects looming I cant risk adding hardware that would crash the dam thing either... And yes...I am a techy...nothing else to waste money on...

This may be my last note for a while seeing as how I don't come on here very often and I'm going to be busy as heck...

P.S....this is one of my fav case picks....

UTMOD Manual

=================================================
How To Install
=================================================
This ZIP file contains the PresentsUT2004V22 folder. Maintian its folder
structure and extract it to your UT 2004 folder.

Add the following line to the [Editor.EditorEngine] section of your
UT2004.INI file.

EditPackages=PresentsUT2004V22

After you add the line above to your UT2004.INI file, you can build
PresentsUT2004V22 from a MS DOS Command Prompt with the following steps.


After that step has been completed hold both the Windows flag key and the R key to open up the RUN box. Inside this box type CMD.


Now that CMD Prompt is running we need to have UCC find and install our new object. The following command may differ depending on where you have chosen to install your copy of Unreal. The default instillation folder is C:\UT2004.
Type the following command into the CMD window.
C:\UT2004\System\UCC.exe make


Here is what the folder should look like.


Where to find your unreal ini and what to do with it.
===================================================
How to use the mod.
===================================================
Run UT, start a death match and simply activate the mutator.

_________________
K.Rowe
BC Student
IETG Member
Media Grid Member

UTMOD V2.0

I finished this version a few days ago but hadn�t got a chance to update the forums as yet. This is version 2.0 of the project; the team agreed on a texture and item to create so I went about making it and importing it into unreal as a modification to an existing game mutator.

The mutators function is to randomly spawn *presents* on the map that can be touched and picked up by players *or bots* and award them within game powers, the mod fits the criteria set by the team because it's an item that can be picked up and tracked, they spawn in a random but set pattern and disappear from the map is the subject takes too long to pick it up, however a disappeared item simply respawns in another location.
===============================================
Creation and Design.
I managed to get in touch with the mutaros creator Steve aka The Catcher who gave me a few tips and tricks on how to comprehend unreal script and customize his mutator as I saw fit, the knowledge and assistance was priceless. For future reference here are the URL's that he gave me which contain various tutorials on working with unreal.
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Static_Mesh_Modeling
http://3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=84303
http://fordy.planetunreal.gamespy.com/links.htm
Instead of using 3DSmax and having to export my model using Actor X, Steve recommended that I build the static mesh inside unreal tournament, this design had a 50 percent chance of success as the tutorial didn�t recommend making meshes in UT due to software limitations. I'm pleased to announce that in my case...it was wrong.


Here you can see one of the many static mesh's created, I had to trial and error a bit to get things just right.

This is what the mutator looked like before

And after.
As previously stated Steve�s assistance was invaluable..I know nothing about unreal script besides a few beginner tutorials, coding like this would have been nearly impossible for me under the time restraints if I were on my own.

That�s just a smidge of the code for one of the presents.u
===============================================
2.0B?
I�m calling this 2.0Beta because it isn�t what was first imagined by the team. The final version would contain items that we can manually place in the map using unreal ed. As I work on that I will keep the forums updated on the progress, however I am pleased to know that we have multiple versions of the modification.
_________________
K.Rowe
BC Student
IETG Member
Media Grid Member

UTMOD

Hey everyone, after reviewing the code I learnt that it's enginered to place items on Navigation Nodes. I can manualy add , remove, or change the position of these nodes and thus control where Items spawn. I tried it and it works perfectly with the fact that I can tell the mod to spawn more presents. Another way is to associate the mod with another item, I'll experiment with that but in the mean time Nodes work and work well.


The Apple looking object is a Navigation Node used to tell bots how to get around a map.
_________________
K.Rowe
BC Student
IETG Member
Media Grid Member

No Linden...no problem.

Greetings all,

K.Rowe here with a look at Second Life. Very recently I had a conference call with the other members of the B.C team and was granted access to the B.C island; so in the weeks to come expect to see more entries on the overall progress of both projects. However all work and no play makes VR a boring place so I still intend to bring you some of the best SL has to offer. There’s a surprising amount of fun and highly interactive content in SL, and it all contains the unique spice that is the SL community. Some of these activities included guided tours, evenings spent fox-trotting in the local jazz club and even a skydiving session. The following are a few pictures from my various escapades in SL so please sit back and enjoy. Also at the end of this entry will be one of the interviews I promised from the half time show. The interview is with Electric Eyebeams ~SL name~ and his part in SL and the UK’s virtual education project.

The B.C island logo.

Playing the role of D.J at a local Latino music club.
It takes two to tango, and some mocap strings binded to your avatar as well...
Playing the piano at "Bogarts." One of my favorite hang out spots in S.L
"Use the force Luk...I mean Kamal..." "These aren't the VRML files your looking for."

That just about sums up a brief portion of what I have been up to in S.L thus far. The interview I promised is up next; so heres to hoping you enjoy it. Please note as well that there is heavy ~chat lingo~ in the conversation and I left the format as is so please post a comment if you need anything explained. Until next time, take care. I go forth now to patiently await my lawsuit from Lucas Arts.
========================================================================

14:34] MediaGridKamal Beck: first of all Eyebeams, thank you very much for sitting down and talking with me today.

[14:34] Eyebeams Electricteeth: NP MGKB

[14:35] MediaGridKamal Beck: So, as a starter. How long have you been in SL?

[14:35] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Only 3 weeks now but have had an av (another one) for over 2 years

[14:35] MediaGridKamal Beck: Wow...very impressive two years! So I’m assuming you’ve been in Sl since almost the beginning?

[14:36] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Only in so far as I downloaded the av - I did nothing with it

[14:36] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I didn't see the need until the Best Practices in Education in SL that's what drew me in

[14:37] MediaGridKamal Beck: Ah, that’s actually a very good lead into my next question. So you’re with the Education Uk program. Would you happen to know what started it and also how did you become interested and involved?

[14:38] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Well basically I blundered around the first time in SL in the conference - it was a bit of a culture shock but then I'm an early adopter and I'm used to those

[14:38] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I went to the Stateside EduIslands first

[14:39] Eyebeams Electricteeth: and then using the search facility came here

[14:39] Eyebeams Electricteeth: And as I knew some of the institutions I started to network

[14:39] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Talked with Chris Eggplant

[14:39] Eyebeams Electricteeth: and there was some synergy

[14:39] Eyebeams Electricteeth: So I took out office space because I needed a base

[14:41] MediaGridKamal Beck: Ah I see. Well I’ve got to let you know. As a complete stranger to SL talking to you first was actually a pleasant experience. Of course the tie and sparkly glasses helped as well

[14:41] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Well this persona evolved over time - at first I made the mistake of binding a giraffe figure to my av and I was probably one of the scariest figures around

[14:42] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Then I went completely black for a while and people said that was too much on the dark side no features at all

[14:42] Eyebeams Electricteeth: so I gradually evolved an av and will probably evolve again

[14:42] MediaGridKamal Beck: Lol, indeed. It seems evolving is a large part of second life.

[14:43] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I think several people have more of a "game" personality but also a business one

[14:43] Eyebeams Electricteeth: It's easy to switch

[14:44] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I am more concerned with RL issues in SL but with it segmented by "game" possibilities

[14:44] Eyebeams Electricteeth: augmented*

[14:44] MediaGridKamal Beck: Having said that; how persistent would you say the educational presence is here in Sl and what do people like you have in mind for its future growth and development?

[14:45] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Well in the UK I can see it is really just emergent and there are a few Universities around the world and a few private institutions but it is very early days yet probably an education gold rush

[14:45] Eyebeams Electricteeth: with all the qualities of a boom town

[14:45] Eyebeams Electricteeth: qualities*

[14:45] Eyebeams Electricteeth: :)

[14:46] Eyebeams Electricteeth: and the pitfalls

[14:46] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I think that it has amazing potential to pull together many disenfranchised groups

[14:46] Eyebeams Electricteeth: providing they get access

[14:47] Eyebeams Electricteeth: the disabled, disaffected learners, the elderly, people with young babies who have little time in RL for learning - I could go on

[14:47] Eyebeams Electricteeth: The concept of "virtual space" to do synchronous activities is quite an interesting now

[14:47] Eyebeams Electricteeth: one and worth mainstreaming

[14:48] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Because with the introduction of ubiquitous technologies

[14:48] Eyebeams Electricteeth: then ubiquity in terms of place and connectivity becomes trivial

[14:48] Eyebeams Electricteeth: and RL space is less top the fore

[14:48] Eyebeams Electricteeth: if personalized

[14:48] Eyebeams Electricteeth: so where you are in Real Space is no longer as important

[14:48] Eyebeams Electricteeth: as who you are with

[14:49] Eyebeams Electricteeth: and whom you engage with

[14:49] Eyebeams Electricteeth: and about what

[14:50] MediaGridKamal Beck: Very nice. As someone who participated in ~virtual~ class's I can truly see where your coming from. And having never considered some of those possibilities it definitely brings new insight.

[14:50] MediaGridKamal Beck: As you may have already know I’m helping to spearhead the Boston College presence in second life. Do you have any words of wisdom for me and colleagues?

[14:51] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Yes try to make the experience as fun as possible

[14:51] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I have a few issues with instructional design

[14:51] Eyebeams Electricteeth: as I regard that as too linear

[14:51] Eyebeams Electricteeth: also don't just do glorified chat

[14:51] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Do Stuff that you can do in SL that you can't do elsewhere

[14:52] Eyebeams Electricteeth: For example it's great to use whiteboards and polling machines

[14:52] Eyebeams Electricteeth: but what if you had a giant twister board and everyone voted using twister poses :)

[14:52] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I think every learning opportunity should be collaborative

[14:53] Eyebeams Electricteeth: should*

[14:53] MediaGridKamal Beck: Lol, I agree, or rather. I concur!

[14:54] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I think outlining courses are good but very soon people get the low level skills and thenthe challenge is to give value added that good teachers can give in the Rl

[14:54] Eyebeams Electricteeth: So having someone type a lecture at you here is just as boring as if you were in the real world

[14:55] MediaGridKamal Beck: Of course there will be new skills to obtain and challenges to overcome. What challenges have you run into thus far and what skills do you feel are necessary?

[14:55] Eyebeams Electricteeth: There are no "dynamic" teaching aids in SL . No equivalent of a chalkboard that I have seen

[14:55] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I*

[14:56] Eyebeams Electricteeth: No way to react quickly other than with type

[14:56] Eyebeams Electricteeth: or poses

[14:57] MediaGridKamal Beck: I see, so creativity. Is that an important requirement for any one working in SL?

[14:57] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I think creativity is vital - otherwise it is going to be a very dull

[14:58] Eyebeams Electricteeth: If you can walk around inside an atom or fly through the solar system or look at the structure of DNA by walking around it you should be able to do so

[14:59] Eyebeams Electricteeth: SL is far too text based for me at present and I'd like to see more interfaces between SL and the outside world and vice versa

[14:59] Eyebeams Electricteeth: With the advent of Location Aware Devices this will come

[15:00] MediaGridKamal Beck: Ah, another fantastic lead off...your pretty good at this eyebeams. In regards to Sl's interface. Do you believe the learning curve to be an obstacle as well? And how do you expect it you improve; and how would you like it to improve?

[15:01] Eyebeams Electricteeth: It should improve - in fact the more Open Source SL goes the better .

[15:01] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I'd like to see the initial learning curve reduced and made trivial with smart tutors or av to guide you

[15:01] Eyebeams Electricteeth: more bots

[15:01] Eyebeams Electricteeth: at first perhaps

[15:02] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Going into the browser and onto mobile devices would be good

[15:02] Eyebeams Electricteeth: as would the ability to put it on your own server

[15:02] Eyebeams Electricteeth: and bespoke it entirely

[15:03] MediaGridKamal Beck: Interesting that you should mention server privatization that leads me to one of my final and probably most controversial question.

[15:04] MediaGridKamal Beck: Many educators turn their back on Sl because of the bad press it's been getting. With its more lucrative and adult oriented content. How do you feel about this press and what would you do to make SL safer?

[15:05] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Well it's an adult world - deal with it - that's for starters but there are ways to lock down and sanitize the experience but then I think people would miss out on the cultural diversity - after all everything that happens here happens in real life - with Teens it is different there need to be spaces that are safe and secure

[15:06] Eyebeams Electricteeth: It's exactly the same argument you would have for networked communities - and in Real Life there are acceptable use policies

[15:06] Eyebeams Electricteeth: to deal with REAL LIFE infringements

[15:07] Eyebeams Electricteeth: it shouldn't be so different

[15:07] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Cyber bullying greifing here is bad yes at times

[15:07] Eyebeams Electricteeth: but safe spaces are available

[15:07] Eyebeams Electricteeth: as it becomes mainstream access may well be an issue

[15:07] Eyebeams Electricteeth: access

[15:07] Eyebeams Electricteeth: just as it is in RL

[15:07] Eyebeams Electricteeth: I guess

[15:08] Eyebeams Electricteeth: but smart protocols rather than moral panics are the way to deal with that

[15:08] Eyebeams Electricteeth: than moral*

[15:08] MediaGridKamal Beck: Very well said

[15:08] MediaGridKamal Beck: Mister Eyebeams its been a pleasure sitting and having this chat with you today.

[15:09] Eyebeams Electricteeth: NP MGKB

[15:09] Eyebeams Electricteeth: :)

[15:09] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Happy to share

[15:09] MediaGridKamal Beck: lol I hope in future as my experiences progress I can have more serious discussions with you.

[15:10] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Oh yes I do have a verbose button I think I need some scripting to deal with that

[15:10] Eyebeams Electricteeth: ;)

[15:10] MediaGridKamal Beck: Lol, indeed. Again thanks allot, and I won’t change this convo at all...besides correcting the typos.

[15:10] Eyebeams Electricteeth: NP go d it :)

[15:11] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Now I have to go RL calls

[15:11] MediaGridKamal Beck: lol awesome. Expect the post up by Monday

[15:11] Eyebeams Electricteeth: Cheers

[15:11] MediaGridKamal Beck: indeed. Peace

UTBETA

Building the Iphone Ver. 1.0A.
===============================================

The first step in building our Iphone is to obtain reference materials and edit our images so that the 3D model creation software, in this case "Auto Desk 3Ds Max" can create a texture map.
http://nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0049.050/download/2007-e7ac219caa969bbd0686a48e713bf443-3 -URL link to download a 30 day free trial.



Now that we have our textures saved as TGA files we can create our polygon mesh and add the texture to it. This is done in 3Ds max by using the cube primitive and correcting its dimensions. Please note that Unreal will only accept textures at certain dimensions, I used 256X512.


With our model created we now need to export it into a file format Unreal will understand. This is accomplished by using the Actor X plug-in found at this site http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html. They're a few settings that must be modified before we can correctly export our model.
1) An output folder must be selected.
2) The app will look for skin geometry. Deselect this option and instead select "all textured". Now hit Save Mesh.
3) Now we must create a script template. The class will be "Iphone" and the base will be "Actor", now deselect assume pcx textures and head up to the animation section.
4) Even though our object isn�t going to be animated we are still required to enter animation variables before we can save our script. For the Animations Sequences Name we can enter "Temp" and for the range enter 0-10. Now select digest animation, once this is done select the Animation Manager and move temp over to the Output Package.
5) Now create your script by scrolling down.
6) Check your output folder. It should contain Iphone.PSK, Iphone.TGA and Iphone.uc. Create three new subfolders inside your Output folder labeled classes, textures and models. The .TGA goes into textures, the .PSK goes into models and the .uc goes into classes.

Our model is now fully exported and ready to be coded for use in UT.
===============================================
Editing UT script.
First download and install ConTEXT, this program is used to open .uc files and gives you the ability to read and edit them. Use it to open Iphone.uc and edit it using the example shown below.

//===============================================================================
// [Iphone]
//===============================================================================

class Iphone extends Actor;
#exec MESH MODELIMPORT MESH=IphoneMesh MODELFILE=models\Iphone.PSK LODSTYLE=10
#exec MESH ORIGIN MESH=IphoneMesh X=0 Y=0 Z=0 YAW=0 PITCH=0 ROLL=0
#exec ANIM IMPORT ANIM=IphoneAnims ANIMFILE=models\.PSA COMPRESS=1 MAXKEYS=999999 IMPORTSEQS=1
#exec MESHMAP SCALE MESHMAP=IphoneMesh X=1.0 Y=1.0 Z=1.0
#exec MESH DEFAULTANIM MESH=IphoneMesh ANIM=IphoneAnims

// Digest and compress the animation data. Must come after the sequence declarations.
// 'VERBOSE' gives more debugging info in UCC.log
#exec ANIM DIGEST ANIM=IphoneAnims USERAWINFO VERBOSE

#EXEC TEXTURE IMPORT NAME=IphoneTex0 FILE=TEXTURES\apple_iphone_1.tga GROUP=Skins

#EXEC MESHMAP SETTEXTURE MESHMAP=IphoneMesh NUM=0 TEXTURE=IphoneTex0

// Original material [0] is [02 - Default] SkinIndex: 0 Bitmap: apple_iphone_1.tga Path: C:\Documents and Settings\Kamal.O.Rowe\Desktop


defaultproperties
{
Mesh=IphoneMesh
DrawType=DT_Mesh
bStatic=False
}


Please not that included in my script is a line for sound, you can ignore this, unlike UT 2003; UT 2004 uses a custom sound format that doesn�t support .wav. Save your changes and copy your output folder into the UT 2004 root folder. E.G, C:\UT2004.
===============================================
Adding Iphone To UT.
Now that we have our model finished and scripted we have to add it into UT using UCC.exe and by adding a command line to UT2004.ini.


Once located open the .ini file with notepad. This will allow us to read and edit the file. Hold CTRL+F and in the search field type EDITP. Scroll to the very end of the EDIT PACKAGE list and add the following package.
Edit Packages=Iphone ~Always! Make a copy of your ini before editing~

Save and close the .ini. It's now time to make UT import our iPhone. To do this we have to run CMD as explained in the previous post. The command typed will be dependant on where you installed your copy of unreal but the format remains the same.
X:\UT2004\System\UCC.exe make, X= the drive letter, \UT2004| may be \Program Files\UT2004\. The rest of the command will remain the same.

UCC should now check all installed components and give zero errors. If an error occurs please check your folder locations and Iphone script.


If everything goes smoothly you should have a file named Iphone.U in the system folder.

===============================================
Using The Iphone.
This is the last step, and the easiest. Simply run UT2004 and start a death match. Remove bots if necessary and use the "~" key to drop down the console. In the console type "summon iphone.iphone" and your new iphone should spawn into the world giving you +10 health every time you bump into it. Please not that the iphone like all Items in the game isn�t solid and will allow you to pass right through it. It also isn�t coded to be picked up.