[Opensim-users] Some questions about recreating history in OpenSim

[Miller, Peter]

Q: My main issue right now is trying to work out how you create sims that represent not only a region in space but also a period in time. I've been thinking that I would have a grid that contains regions in which only stories from, say, 1950 to 2000 were created. Then another grid would represent the same real world area, but contain stories from 1900-1950. The further you go back in time, the longer the time intervals would get, along an approximately logarithmic scale, so if you were telling stories about the dinosaurs one grid would represent the entire Jurassic era, for example.



A: There's theoretically nothing to stop you doing this as far as I know. Different grids use the same coordinate space. In practice there have been reports that teleporting to identical locations in two grids can be problematic -- to quote:



"You can’t hypergrid teleport from one destination to another one that has exactly the same grid coordinates. This can be a problem for standalones, since many use the default 1000,1000 coordinates." http://www.hyperica.com/how-to-travel/



I have no idea whether that is still the case. Of course, incorporating an offset would not be difficult.



One nice thing you can do with OpenSim is to merge regions derived from OARs so you could in theory superimpose a succession of eras in a single region. Again, there's probably a little more to it than that but it's an interesting place to start :)



Best wishes



Peter

________________________________
From: opensim-users-bounces at lists.berlios.de [opensim-users-bounces at lists.berlios.de] on behalf of Lisa Evans [lisa.p.evans at gmail.com]
Sent: 19 August 2012 18:18
To: opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
Subject: [Opensim-users] Some questions about recreating history in OpenSim

Hi all,

I'm very new to OpenSim and just signed up to this list to ask a few questions. Sorry if I come across as a bit of a newbie, although I've been studying OS for a few days and I have my own standalone grid up and running at home.

I'm putting together a proposal for this educational portal run by the ABC here in Australia:

http://www.abc.net.au/learn/proposals.htm

My project is all about teaching history, the idea being that students and history classes could put together simple sims telling stories about the history of their own local area, linking them up with videos, photos, essays, etc (which you could hopefully launch from within the sim). Their sims would all be linked up in a hypergrid, so students from all over Australia (later maybe the world) could get into a virtual time machine and visit different places at different times, to see what was happening. Students would be able to chat with each other and show each other around their creations. Hopefully the act of collaborative world building would engage them in learning about history, but I would want them focussed on just telling small stories, involving a small number of characters (which would be created as NPCs if that's possible, with simple, looping animations if not more complex behaviour) and buildings, objects, etc. (I have ideas about how to source lots of 3D content, which I need to explore more).

I'm sure none of this is an original idea, but it seems like a good opportunity to put an idea like this forward. I just was wondering if anyone could tell me whether it would work in OpenSim or if there are some big barriers to creating something like this.

My main issue right now is trying to work out how you create sims that represent not only a region in space but also a period in time. I've been thinking that I would have a grid that contains regions in which only stories from, say, 1950 to 2000 were created. Then another grid would represent the same real world area, but contain stories from 1900-1950. The further you go back in time, the longer the time intervals would get, along an approximately logarithmic scale, so if you were telling stories about the dinosaurs one grid would represent the entire Jurassic era, for example.

Would this be the right way to go? I've been reading about regions and grids and hypergrids but I'm pretty sure there's a lot I don't understand.

My own background is that I've been working in 3D animation for film, TV and games for the past decade, as a 3D all rounder and a technical artist. I've worked on one big MMO for three years that was never released. So I know about 3D modeling, animation, worldbuilding, etc. but I've never spent much time around Second Life or OpenSim, so a lot of this is new to me.

Thanks for any help!

Cheers,

Lisa Evans
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