[Opensim-dev] User/Agent/Avatar Was: Question on Avatar Appearance persistance
Diva Canto
diva at metaverseink.com
Mon Apr 14 18:14:28 UTC 2008
This is great! 8-) I'm looking forward to OpenSim having these concepts
all cleared out, and the decoupling in place. I'm still not convinced
that the goal of agents automatically taking different avatars in
different grids is a worthy goal, because people can always get accounts
in those places if there is a special code there.
...You need to think about the larger consequences of these gaming
practices, which make sense for games but can be severe for serious
applications. For example, I would simply hate that my avatar would be
forced to wear a head-to-toe veil whenever I visit a world hosted in
Saudi Arabia... But since that is a super-set of what I'm saying, I'm
not going to argue [much]; if OpenSim ends up supporting that kind of
thing, I'll simply stay away from worlds that will *impose* anything on
my choices for my avatar's appearance or inventory. Unless, of course, I
choose to sign up for a role-playing game (and I can imagine some
western people looking at the veils and the discriminatory practices in
Saudi Arabia as nothing but a role-playing computer game... /me shakes
head).
Anyway, the way things are right now, there's enormous value-added in
OpenSim already: opening the source is crucial, having the ability to
extend region features is extremely important, physics is important,
supporting full LSL and beyond is important, etc. etc., but... there's
this one feature -- or whatever you want to call it -- that I think is
the single most important thing that will make OpenSim the
infrastructure that most organizations (around me) will want. We can all
live with bugs and incompleteness for a while, but we need to know that
we can have visits from people not registered here and let them visit
without us having to give them any persistent resources or imposing
anything on them (if someone shows up naked to a virtual classroom, the
negotiation will happen as it would have happened in the real world --
through a conversation and eventual eject).
Michael Wright wrote:
> Yup there is certainly division between the various layers , and I
> think at times we have all got confused about the different terms in
> opensim.
>
> I think the general layout is something like:
>
> Users - can have a account with authentication and profile data etc.
> We should offer support for anonymous users too (configurable, if it
> is enabled or not)
>
> Agent- can be thought of as the connection between the client and a
> region. So the agent in the region, that contains the user's avatar,
> is called the root agent. But the client can have child agents in the
> neighbouring regions. The agent connection is at the region level, so
> in opensim they "own/have" a ScenePresence that is its entity in the
> 3d world...
>
> ScenePresence- they are the entities representing the agents in the 3d
> world, They have a position etc. The root agent's ScenePresence has/is
> a physical Avatar, so other users will see it. While the child agent's
> ScenePresence can be thought of ghost entities, that can see other
> avatars but can't be seen itself.
>
> It is possible that some clients could be created that don't actually
> have any ScenePresences connected to their agents. And still allow
> things like textures to be uploaded or inventory to be managed. Or
> even messages broadcast into the 3d scene. Like maybe region Admin
> Clients.
>
> I think that there has to be some decoupling between Users/Agents and
> Avatars. As yes for some cases you want to take the same avatar around
> everywhere with you but that is not always the case. As I said before
> some Games or whatever might want to give you a avatar for use in that
> application. So we just need to make sure we support the different
> cases. Also some 3d visualisation applications might not want any
> avatars, just all users having ghost entities.
>
> OpenSim is not about creating one single type of metaverse. It is
> about creating a 3d multi user platform that various applications,
> including a global shared metaverse, can be built on top of.
>
>
> */Stefan Andersson <stefan at tribalmedia.se>/* wrote:
>
> Diva,
>
> the division of agent and avatar is definitively therere; you can
> have 'agents' in neighbouring regions that communicates changes in
> those regions, but these does not have avatars associated with
> them. Agents (both child and root) also has a 'camera' that is
> positioned in the regions.
>
> An agent needs no 'name' at all, but authentication credentials;
> an avatar needs no credentials, but has a 'name'.
>
> Technically, what a region needs is a (trusted) source to tell it
> to expect an agent connection with certain properties, then an
> agent that connects with those properties. It also needs to know
> where to fetch the information to send to that agent in response
> to agent requests. As OpenSim evolves, we will probably less and
> less assumptions regarding how this is organized and communicated.
>
> I was actually not discussing persistence at all; your comment
> about persistence being a burden is 100% right.
>
> When I say 'grid' I merely use a well-known term for 'resource
> discovery scope'.
>
> As I mentioned, the 'User' concept, and with it user profile, is
> (probably) out of scope and best left implemented somewhere else;
>
> but being able to separate agent login credentials from avatar
> name is definitively within scope.
>
> Also, my note was as a response to the current state of the region
> and user storage - I was merely trying to get us to take a
> (relatively) small step towards a more generic model; which would
> then let us work better with various authentication and naming
> schema. (For example, the one I'm working with now, which clearly
> needs separation between login credentials and avatar name)
>
> /Stefan
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:56:13 -0700
> From: diva at metaverseink.com
> To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] User/Agent/Avatar Was: Question on
> Avatar Appearance persistance
>
> 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 <mailto:sean at dague.net>
> > To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> <mailto: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://dague.net/> http://mhvlug.org
> <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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