[Opensim-dev] avatar system or similar
Diva Canto
diva at metaverseink.com
Thu Apr 10 17:39:15 UTC 2008
I also don't know much about the details of realXtend's design on this,
I only know the general goal.
My thoughts about this are as follows: we want organizations to control
who visits their regions, no question about that. There will be
organizations (like role-playing games, for example) that will require
accounts with them for people to play, and that's perfectly fine. This
also happens on the web: if you want to "play" in facebook, you need to
get an account with them. But there will be organizations who will
welcome visits from accounts in other worlds, or accounts served from
"identity services", which don't exist yet. As I said, from where I
stand, I see this as a *major* need. I'm working with a lot of people
who want to use virtual worlds like that. They want to build useful
services in 3D, and they need people to visit. If people need to get
accounts with them, the whole idea stops in its tracks at the station --
or else they do it in Linden Lab's grid.
I don't see any need for *automatic* selection of one of several
possible accounts associated with a real world person -- that's a level
of sophistication that's unnecessary at this point and in the forseable
future. I think that goal is blurring the much simple things that can be
done relatively easily.
What I see is the need for identity services that are independent of
any particular grid. Here's the usage scenario:
1. People get accounts with one (or more) identity services. For
example, I (Crista Lopes) get an account in an hypothetical identity
service provided by VeriSignVW; that account is called
crista at verisignvw.com. Besides my ID, VeriSigVW gives me storage space
for my crista at verisignvw.com inventory.
2. I login to some virtual world, say OSGrid, using that account. OSGrid
must accept avatars from VeriSignVW. Maybe OSGrid is more generic than
that; maybe it accepts accounts from any identity service that complies
with a standard ID protocol, TBD.
3. As I visit regions in OSGrid, all comms with inventory and user go to
VeriSignVW.
4. At some point I want to visit some other grid, say IBM's public grid.
I TP to it under my representation which is crista at verisignvw.com
5. The IBM grid must accept avatars from VeriSignVW. If it does, swoosh!
there I go. If it doesn't, I can't TP to it. I must logout, and login
under some IBM account. The extra work of automatically selecting
between my VeriSignVW account and my IBM account is completely
unnecessary at this point. I can do that manually. But having the
ability to surf under one single account between grids that accept that
3rd-party accounts is a major step forward.
Michael Wright wrote:
> I haven't been able to find too much on how the RealXtend avatar
> system is really going to work. And while in some ways I think its a
> step in the right direction, it also seems to limit a lot of things.
> I'm not so sure you should alway have the same avatar for everything.
> Or should completely cut the "region servers" out of the whole
> process. If I teleport to a region that has a role playing game, maybe
> my avatar should automatically change (at least clothes, but maybe
> body as well) to fit into that game. So the region has to be able to
> have some say over the avatar.
>
> I have the same sort of thoughts about inventory. While it should not
> be centralised, the regions do need to be able to (with permission) do
> certain things, like maybe a region gives you a extra set of folders
> for use in that region, but they disappear when you leave it. I am
> also not sure there should be just one inventory set for each user.
> Why not a number of sub sets that can be combined etc. Maybe the
> region could restrict access to only a certain set, which might be a
> set that it provides, when in that region; no space ships when in that
> serious business region.. Inventory really needs to swap to a more url
> based system.
>
> Also we need to remember not everything will be interconnected. There
> will be some applications (or possible grids) that want to be separate
> from everything else.
>
> So I don't think we should be forcing any centralised system on
> people. And yes from what I've read, I actually think the realxtend
> avatar system sounds too centralised, but that could be because I
> don't know enough details of what is planned. I'm not saying its
> wrong, it just doesn't fit all possible uses. So we need things to at
> least be modular.
>
> Having said all that, of course I think a lot of people and
> applications will want to have shared resources like these. Just we
> have to be careful in how they are implemented. And for opensim at
> least, that should be a open process/design that everyone can be part of.
>
> */Sean Dague <sean at dague.net>/* wrote:
>
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 08:50:33AM -0700, Diva Canto wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > What happened to realXtend's "avatar system"? Is it being
> integrated
> > with OpenSim?
>
> Short answers. I don't know, and no. The process for code coming into
> OpenSim is to put a patch in mantis. I haven't seen any proposed
> patches in this area in mantis.
>
> > From where I stand, that, or something like that, is a major
> > architectural requirement for virtual worlds to get serious.
> Without the
> > ability for people to get an identity+inventory that they can port
> > around through different organization's grids, this is not going
> to be
> > that useful. I see a lot of interest from organizations to set
> up their
> > own virtual worlds under their control (so, their own grid'ed
> regions),
> > but if people have to get accounts with them to visit, this is
> just not
> > going to work for serious usages - period.
>
> Hence you've created the paradox. :)
>
> * We want everything connected
> * We don't want to trust a single authoritative source for info
> (otherwise you'd be on Second Life)
>
> Honestly, this is a hard problem to solve, and one that seems a bit
> beyond the current scope. That being said, implementations and
> research
> in this area which work with OpenSim are always welcomed.
>
> > I understand there's a ton of stability work to be done, but this
> > particular architectural decision is really important, even
> > (especially?) at this early stage; we all trust stability will
> happen
> > over time.
> > Is there anything that I can do to boost the efforts in that
> direction,
> > besides sending this email?
>
> Sample peer based User services that allow cross talk would be useful.
> The moral equivalent of OpenID for virtual worlds (because you
> need more
> than just what openid provides).
>
> -Sean
>
> --
> __________________________________________________________________
>
> Sean Dague Mid-Hudson Valley
> sean at dague dot net Linux Users Group
> http://dague.net http://mhvlug.org
>
> There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors
> than zombies, and they tend to keep the vampire population down.
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