<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I think one thing to consider here is that the concepts of agents is intrinsic to the operation of a sim. That is, when an avatar logs onto a region, agents are created on the adjacent regions. Thats partly how we can view terrain and prims on an adjacent region.<br><br>When an avatar crosses from one region to another, its agent is promoted, therefore making it visible and having additional abilities. So, when we speak about agents, we are really speaking from the existing viewpoint of how scenes are setup and how we allow a certain type of interaction between regions.<br><br>Charles<br><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">----- Original Message ----<br>From: Diva Canto
<diva@metaverseink.com><br>To: opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de<br>Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 11:14:28 AM<br>Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] User/Agent/Avatar Was: Question on Avatar Appearance persistance<br><br>
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. <br>
<br>
...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).<br>
<br>
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). <br>
<br>
<br>
Michael Wright wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">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. <br>
<br>
I think the general layout is something like:<br>
<br>
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)<br>
<br>
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...<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<br>
<b><i>Stefan Andersson <a rel="nofollow" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" ymailto="mailto:stefan@tribalmedia.se" target="_blank" href="mailto:stefan@tribalmedia.se"><stefan@tribalmedia.se></a></i></b> wrote:
<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">
<style>.hmmessage P {margin:0px;padding:0px;}body.hmmessage {FONT-SIZE:10pt;FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma;}</style>
Diva,<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
An agent needs no 'name' at all, but authentication credentials; an
avatar needs no credentials, but has a 'name'.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
I was actually not discussing persistence at all; your comment about
persistence being a burden is 100% right.<br>
<br>
When I say 'grid' I merely use a well-known term for 'resource
discovery scope'.<br>
<br>
As I mentioned, the 'User' concept, and with it user profile, is
(probably) out of scope and best left implemented somewhere else; <br>
<br>
but being able to separate agent login credentials from avatar name is
definitively within scope.<br>
<br>
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)<br>
<br>
/Stefan<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
<hr id="EC_stopSpelling"> Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:56:13 -0700<br>
From: <a rel="nofollow" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" ymailto="mailto:diva@metaverseink.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:diva@metaverseink.com">diva@metaverseink.com</a><br>
To: <a rel="nofollow" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" ymailto="mailto:opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank" href="mailto:opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de">opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de</a><br>
Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] User/Agent/Avatar Was: Question on Avatar
Appearance persistance<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
The best way of envisioning what I'm saying is to place yourself in the
shoes of a university.<br>
<br>
Stefan Andersson wrote:
<blockquote>
<style>.ExternalClass .EC_hmmessage P {padding:0px;}.ExternalClass body.EC_hmmessage {font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma;}</style>
Ehrm , not to spin off in too many directions at once, but we really
should acommodate for a somewhat more comprehensible set of concepts:<br>
<br>
"User" : an actual acting person in the real world - <br>
* can have many Agents (consider same person running
-multiple viewers)<br>
* has a real name, and an online name<br>
* has a profile with profile data<br>
* has credentials, to be able to be authorized<br>
"Agent" : the informational representation of a user in a world<br>
* has credentials, to be able to be authorized<br>
"Avatar" : the visual representation of an agent in a world (only one
per Agent in the SL universe afaik)<br>
* has an online name<br>
* has a profile, with profile data<br>
"Credentials" : data supplied for authentication (user names, keys,
passwords, hashes, et c)<br>
<br>
One example:<br>
<br>
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').<br>
<br>
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'.<br>
<br>
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)<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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)<br>
<br>
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".<br>
<br>
So; awaiting feedback, I propose we work towards the model outlined
above.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Stefan<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<hr id="EC_stopSpelling"> <br>
> Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:00:22 -0400<br>
> From: <a rel="nofollow" class="EC_moz-txt-link-abbreviated" ymailto="mailto:sean@dague.net" target="_blank" href="mailto:sean@dague.net">sean@dague.net</a><br>
> To: <a rel="nofollow" class="EC_moz-txt-link-abbreviated" ymailto="mailto:opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank" href="mailto:opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de">opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de</a><br>
> Subject: Re: [Opensim-dev] Question on Avatar Appearance
persistance<br>
> <br>
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 06:09:56PM +0100, Michael Wright wrote:<br>
> > 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.
<br>
> > <br>
> > And while I think there is no reason why we couldn't have<br>
> > AvatarAppearance hanging off UserProfile data. I'm still not
convinced<br>
> > there is a need to try to connect all these things. Avatar
Appearance<br>
> > is certainly a scene thing. In that every ScenePresence needs
a<br>
> > reference to one. But we could move the actual Av atar
Appearance<br>
> > class out to OpenSim.framework, or if going with the "Anemic
Domain<br>
> > Model" appoach suggested by Stefan then we could have a base<br>
> > AvatarAppearance in the model project. Then in the avatar
appearance<br>
> > module fetch the appearance object that was attached to the
user<br>
> > profile.<br>
> > <br>
> > But I'm not sure I really see any benefit in this over the
module<br>
> > doing a direct request to the user server for the appearance.
I<br>
> > actually think its better to decouple things in this way.<br>
> <br>
> By decoupling from the user server, we've coupled AppearanceModule
to<br>
> DataMapper, and are managing database connections in a
RegionModule,<br>
> which I think is a worse approach. <br>
> <br>
> m_scene.CommsManager.UserService.GetUserProfile(id) seems<br>
> like a much better approach. We could just add .GetUserAppearance
and<br>
> friends to it.<br>
> <br>
> > As I said in my last email, there could also be some
bots/NPC's that<br>
> > don't have userprofiles. And also I think there is a chance
that scene<br>
> > presences are created (and the appearance fetched) before the
user<br>
> > profiles are. But can't be sure of that without looking
deeper in the<br>
> > code.<br>
> <br>
> If an NPC exists in the environment, I would think it would have a<br>
> profile (it needs that for Name for instance).<br>
> <br>
> > But anyway as long as we went through the avatar appearance
factory<br>
> > module concept to fetch the appearance that was attached to
the user<br>
> > profile. Then I guess there is nothing stopping it. Just
seems a<br>
> > coupling that isn't needed.<br>
> <br>
> Yes, that's probably strictly true. Actually, we don't really need
it<br>
> hanging off of UserProfile. What I really meant was that<br>
> AvatarAppearance was an object that existed, and was
fetchable/updatable<br>
> from the UserService by UUID.<br>
> <br>
> > I am very strongly of the opinion that we need to keep the
factory<br>
> > module concept. So that a different module could be used.
Different<br>
> > regions/applications might want a completely different
approach to how<br>
> > the appearance of the avatars are handled. Like a game might
want to<br>
> > randomly just give each user one of a set of preset avatars.<br>
> > <br>
> > But with this factory module. We can actually fetch the
appearance<br>
> > from where ever we want, including the userprofile if it is
decided.<br>
> <br>
> If we move the default storage back into UserService, I don't think<br>
> we'll have an issue here. UserService will just support a
persistance<br>
> model for appearance, should anyone want to use that. How
appearance is<br>
> created remains in the region modules.<br>
> <br>
> -Sean<br>
> <br>
> -- <br>
> __________________________________________________________________<br>
> <br>
> Sean Dague Mid-Hudson Valley<br>
> sean at dague dot net Linux Users Group<br>
> <a rel="nofollow" class="EC_moz-txt-link-freetext" target="_blank" href="http://dague.net/">http://dague.net</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="EC_moz-txt-link-freetext" target="_blank" href="http://mhvlug.org/">http://mhvlug.org</a><br>
> <br>
> There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors<br>
> than zombies, and they tend to keep the vampire population down.<br>
> __________________________________________________________________<br>
<br>
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