[Opensim-dev] future plans for NPCs (BOTs) in OpenSim

[Justin Clark-Casey]

Hi Hendrik.  Some others have outlined the existing work on server-side NPCs in OpenSimulator, which reactivated code 
that had rotted away.  The current server-side NPCs are quite recent and really still under development but they are 
functional.

I've worked on the NPCs most recently and it continues as an interest of mine.  However, it's not currently my top priority.

The NPC module is at OpenSim/Region/OptionalModules/World/NPC.  It has some oddities caused by its past (e.g. 
unnecessarily taking scene arguments on all calls).  It is hooked into by OSSL script commands.  However, it would 
certainly be fine to have an external interface for NPC manipulation as well.

Because there's currently no concept of 'npc' in the Second Life system, the viewer currently sees them as just like any 
other user.  This also makes their use a little awkward (e.g. you can't just drop scripts into an 'npc' directly - you 
have to put them in an object that attaches to them.  Getting beyond this gets into complicated viewer alteration 
territory.  I think we would be happy to accept patches for this provided they are generic.  Anything really specific 
could still be shipped as a region module.

Indeed, I'm very happy to accept NPC patches in general (providing that they pass the usual inspection).  Naturally, 
they would have to be BSD licensed and for significant non bug-fix changes we would need a signed contributor's 
agreement, as per [1].

[1] http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Contributions_Policy#OpenSim_Licensing_Conditions

All the best,

Justin


On 19/12/11 08:30, Hendrik Kunert wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I’m currently working on a OpenSim project for a German Company and we have some plans to integrate bots (NPCs) in
> OpenSim. On the www you could find some stuff about it, but in most cases there are only client side bots or LSL
> scripted bots in use. We planning a server side solution with an interface (xml-rpc or similar) for in-world editing
> over a hud and/or a viewer plugin. This project is planned as open source and maybe it could find his way back into
> OpenSim project.
>
> Now my questions are, is there someone working on bot integration? What are the plans for the future, does the community
> prefer server side or client side bots? And are there plans for “real” NPC without the need of an real avatar? It would
> also be nice, if someone could give me some hints, where I can find the bot-relating parts in the OpenSim code.
>
> thanks
>
> Hendrik
>
>
>
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Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
http://justincc.org/blog
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