[Opensim-dev] User/Agent/Avatar Was: Question on Avatar Appearance persistance

Sun Apr 13 19:56:13 UTC 2008

That is a possibility. However, it seems a bit more complicated than 
necessary: you don't necessarily need to separate the concept of "agent" 
from the concept of "avatar", a 1-to-1 relation between these is fine.

I'm imagining the interaction of what you propose: I (actual person) 
sign up to the metaverse with one of many agent credentials, say my 
verisign credentials; suppose I have another one at yahoo, for example, 
or even a second one at verisign; then the viewer makes me choose 
between my many online names of avatars associated with my first 
verisign agent -- that's the step I think is unnecessary. Since I can 
have many accounts anyway, I don't need many avatars per agent. -- 
although I can see what you are saying is inline with the prevalent 
model of avatars being a grid concept, and therefore being able to 
change as one goes around different grids with the same agent.

In my view of things, users and agents, along with their credentials, 
storage and comms, would be served outside of grids, and there would be 
no *persistent* representation of them at the grid and regions server 
levels -- although grids might choose to provide that 
user/identity/agent service too, at least for some people. But this 
service would be completely separate.

I would like to sign up to the metaverse under one of my accounts and be 
able to go around many grids. There will be grids that won't allow my 
account there. That's fine. If I really want to go there, I should get 
an account with that grid, or with whatever identity service it accepts.

What you're proposing is one step more generic than what I, personally, 
need. More importantly, wearing my hat of a close advisor to 
organizations who are interested in developing services in 3D, I think 
that any persistent user/avatar representations at the grid level are a 
burden for these organizations. They will want visits from millions of 
people, and they don't want to store any information about those 
avatars, other than logging their visits.

The best way of envisioning what I'm saying is to place yourself in the 
shoes of a university.

Stefan Andersson wrote:
> Ehrm , not to spin off in too many directions at once, but we really 
> should acommodate for a somewhat more comprehensible set of concepts:
>  
> "User" : an actual acting person in the real world -
>   * can have many Agents (consider same person running -multiple viewers)
>   * has a real name, and an online name
>   * has a profile with profile data
>   * has credentials, to be able to be authorized
> "Agent" : the informational representation of a user in a world
>   * has credentials, to be able to be authorized
> "Avatar" : the visual representation of an agent in a world (only one 
> per Agent in the SL universe afaik)
>   * has an online name
>   * has a profile, with profile data
> "Credentials" : data supplied for authentication (user names, keys, 
> passwords, hashes, et c)
>  
> One example:
>  
> I'm Stefan Andersson in the real world. When I don't want to disclose 
> my full real name, such as in IM lists, I just call myself 'Stefan' 
> (which, in this case, is my chosen 'online name' or 'calling name').
>  
> Now, in most user databases, I need a unique login credential, 
> usually, i choose the username 'lbsa71' since that's available more 
> often than 'Stefan'.
>  
> Now, of course, I have a couple of avatars in SL, one of them is 
> called "PierreJoseph Proudhon" (first/last construct by SL 
> convention - strictly not necessary)
>  
> To choose what avatar I want to join SL with, and at the same time 
> authorize myself, I enter an avatar name and avatar password into the 
> viewer, which then uses it to authorize the agent with which I enter 
> the 3D world.
>  
> My point here, is that although this is how SL works, it's not how 
> OpenSim ought to work. The same 'shortcuts' could be the default 
> implementation, but we really should be able to log in with one set of 
> credentials, which would not be tied to the avtar at all. Also, some 
> other viewers or launch methods might let the user log on with his 
> user credentials, and simply CHOOSE his avatar (the web page login 
> method would allow for such a scheme)
>  
> I guess we might not even want to consider the 'user' and his 
> credentials, and leave that to various implmentations (like, how each 
> grid has their own user profile) but we should definitively call the 
> Avatars profile data 'AvatarProfile' - and separate "Agent login 
> credentials" from "Avatar online name".
>  
> So; awaiting feedback, I propose we work towards the model outlined above.
>  
> Best,
> Stefan
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:00:22 -0400
> > From: sean at dague.net
> > To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> > Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Question on Avatar Appearance persistance
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 06:09:56PM +0100, Michael Wright wrote:
> > > okay will try to make this my last email (before anyone replies) 
> on this. But I think I'm understanding more of what you meant.
> > >
> > > And while I think there is no reason why we couldn't have
> > > AvatarAppearance hanging off UserProfile data. I'm still not convinced
> > > there is a need to try to connect all these things. Avatar Appearance
> > > is certainly a scene thing. In that every ScenePresence needs a
> > > reference to one. But we could move the actual Av atar Appearance
> > > class out to OpenSim.framework, or if going with the "Anemic Domain
> > > Model" appoach suggested by Stefan then we could have a base
> > > AvatarAppearance in the model project. Then in the avatar appearance
> > > module fetch the appearance object that was attached to the user
> > > profile.
> > >
> > > But I'm not sure I really see any benefit in this over the module
> > > doing a direct request to the user server for the appearance. I
> > > actually think its better to decouple things in this way.
> >
> > By decoupling from the user server, we've coupled AppearanceModule to
> > DataMapper, and are managing database connections in a RegionModule,
> > which I think is a worse approach.
> >
> > m_scene.CommsManager.UserService.GetUserProfile(id) seems
> > like a much better approach. We could just add .GetUserAppearance and
> > friends to it.
> >
> > > As I said in my last email, there could also be some bots/NPC's that
> > > don't have userprofiles. And also I think there is a chance that scene
> > > presences are created (and the appearance fetched) before the user
> > > profiles are. But can't be sure of that without looking deeper in the
> > > code.
> >
> > If an NPC exists in the environment, I would think it would have a
> > profile (it needs that for Name for instance).
> >
> > > But anyway as long as we went through the avatar appearance factory
> > > module concept to fetch the appearance that was attached to the user
> > > profile. Then I guess there is nothing stopping it. Just seems a
> > > coupling that isn't needed.
> >
> > Yes, that's probably strictly true. Actually, we don't really need it
> > hanging off of UserProfile. What I really meant was that
> > AvatarAppearance was an object that existed, and was fetchable/updatable
> > from the UserService by UUID.
> >
> > > I am very strongly of the opinion that we need to keep the factory
> > > module concept. So that a different module could be used. Different
> > > regions/applications might want a completely different approach to how
> > > the appearance of the avatars are handled. Like a game might want to
> > > randomly just give each user one of a set of preset avatars.
> > >
> > > But with this factory module. We can actually fetch the appearance
> > > from where ever we want, including the userprofile if it is decided.
> >
> > If we move the default storage back into UserService, I don't think
> > we'll have an issue here. UserService will just support a persistance
> > model for appearance, should anyone want to use that. How appearance is
> > created remains in the region modules.
> >
> > -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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