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

Tue Aug 21 17:27:19 UTC 2012

Lisa, when it comes to using OpenSim in the classroom, check out Coffs
Harbour, which just happens to be in Australia :-),
http://coffsharbourpublicschool.edublogs.org/virtual-worlds/ They've been
successfully using Sim-on-a-Stick (SoaS) for awhile now. Ener Hax at
http://iliveisl.com/ put SoaS together and uses it for her Enclave Harbour
project.

Sarge

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Lisa Evans <lisa.p.evans at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Alan,
>
> Thank you very much for your email, this is inspiring stuff! Unfortunately
> my time is so limited because I'm at home looking after my two year old
> daughter most of the day, but I'm going to try and spend some time looking
> at some of the virtual worlds people have pointed out to me in the next few
> days. I'm looking forward to it :)
>
> I think being able to tell the funding panel that there's the potential
> for students in Australia to go on a virtual trip to St Andrews Cathedral
> and a castle in Scotland would work very much in my favour.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Lisa
>
>
>
> On 08/21/2012 04:43 PM, Alan Miller wrote:
>
>> Hi Lisa,
>>
>> I've been following your discussions with some interests. I am based at
>> the University of St Andrews in Scotland and we have done some work with
>> similar goals to the ones that you describe.
>>
>> We have been developing historical reconstructions with the goals of
>> supporting learning and promoting cultural heritage. I think that all the
>> things that you describe are possible, with sufficient resource.
>>
>> Please feel free to have a look at some of the resources that we are
>> developing. Be aware that they are all work in progress ... in fact
>> reconstructing the past may by definition be a work in progress!
>>
>> There is a reconstruction of St Andrews Cathedral. The most important
>> religious building in Scotland from the 12th to the 16
>> Centuries,inextricably tied up with the wars of independence and the
>> reformation and associated with historical characters such as Robert the
>> Bruce.
>>
>> A reconstruction of Linlithgow Palace, an important residence for the
>> Stewart Kings of Scotland and closely associated with MAry Queen of Scots.
>>
>> There is also a reconstruction of a 5th Century Spartan Basilica, which
>> is part of a Virtual Excavation game aimed at archeaologists.
>>
>> A reconstruction of a 16th Century Salt Pan and a reconstruction of the
>> related excavation site - developed through imnporting points cloud data
>> into opensim.
>>
>> CErtainly connecting with web resources is a powerful way of enriching
>> these 3D reconstructions. Within the Cathedral their is a virtual
>> exhibition of rare books that links to web and library resources and the
>> Linlithgow Palace resources makes extensive use of linking to online videos
>> images and other resources. Connecting with social media to enable visitors
>> to contribute to the resources is also possible.
>>
>> It occurs to me that it would be excellent to create some kind of
>> "Virtual Grid" which enabled navigation through virtual world/opensim
>> historical reconstructions.
>>
>> If you want to have a look at some other information related to this work
>> have a look at our blog:
>>
>> http://blogs.cs.st-andrews.ac.**uk/openvirtualworlds/<http://blogs.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/openvirtualworlds/>
>>
>> There is also a face book page, you can like if you feel so inclined!
>> http://www.facebook.com/**OpenVirtualWorlds<http://www.facebook.com/OpenVirtualWorlds>
>>
>> If you want to crate an avatar, login and have a look around then try:
>> http://openvirtualworlds.org/**cathedral/<http://openvirtualworlds.org/cathedral/>
>>
>> There are some pre installed images of resources mainly for windows boxes
>> here:
>> http://www.openvirtualworlds.**org/demiurge/sticks.html<http://www.openvirtualworlds.org/demiurge/sticks.html>
>>
>> Hope this helps and would be happy to cooperate in taking historical
>> reconstruction and education in virtual worlds forward.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  This is actually the kind of thing I was imagining we would do. First of
>>> all divide the grids up by historical eras, but within an era there would
>>> still be a lot of jumble, with different stories happening in the same spot
>>> at different times with the same buildings but people wearing different
>>> kinds of clothes and so on. I envisioned that you should be able to work
>>> out what date you want to visit, and only load the stories that are current
>>> at that date, with "permanent" structures always loading. I'm glad you
>>> suggested that independently of me bringing it up :)
>>>
>>> On 08/21/2012 04:25 AM, Mic Bowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> Just to throw something out...
>>>>
>>>> What about a region module that can play a "log" of events by adding
>>>> and removing objects according to some script (add this object here,
>>>> remove that one, ...). There are certainly temporal databases that can
>>>> determine the "state" of the elements at a particular time...
>>>>
>>>> --mic
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 10:27 AM, Miller, Peter <
>>>> pmiller at liverpool.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 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/<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>
>>>>> [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<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
>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________________**_________________
>>>>> Opensim-users mailing list
>>>>> Opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
>>>>> https://lists.berlios.de/**mailman/listinfo/opensim-users<https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users>
>>>>>
>>>> ______________________________**_________________
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>>>> Opensim-users at lists.berlios.de
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>>>>
>>>
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>>> Opensim-users mailing list
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>>>
>>
>>
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