Tower of Power!

Well ... not exactly Tower of Power but it looks quite magnificent at it's height. As I had presented earlier during the week, it was meant to be a tree-like structure; taking into consideration the technological background of our client, I kept the form (trunk and branches) of the tree and gave it a futuristic twist to it.


Doesn't look too tall from here eh? Distance is deceiving. Don't mind the Bob outfit =P

The tower consists of a central tube which contains a high speed elevator that ferries guests up and down the tower. The reception room leads to the entrance of the tower so guests would have to be cleared through Jeane and Sally first. Encircling the tube is a metallic ramp or otherwise known as The Stairway to Heaven which allows guests to walk up or down at their own pace taking in the magnificent views from various levels. I admit the ramp can be quite scary to walk on as I've tried my best to make it less steep from the initial design. I might also consider making railings just to make it a more secure walk. I'll let a couple of pictures further elaborate here ;)


As you can see from this image, it is very very tall and has a spectacular view of the entire island. This is one of the pink extensions on the upper levels.


And right on top is our relaxation heaven (pun intended hehe) aptly named Icy Heaven as it sits nicely in the clouds (the not too dense region) giving it a top-of-the-world feel to it.

Ok, if you noticed there are these pink extension from the main tower which are the branches. These lead to conference rooms or other rooms that are on the same level. Also, the pink under-layer used gives my fellow team mates the flexibility to expand on any level yet keeping the consistency of the colour and overall theme.

Team ARG progress

We have revamp our idea abit and add in the much needed depth to our story ... yes, you will see something at wed. for the technical side things still remain the same, we will improve on what we are actually working

Idea idea

Finalizing the idea was great today, and it really did give a clear picture to what we would be achieving in the months to come. The technical aspects remained somewhat the same, but the idea is now much stronger as the reasons to back the events are way better now.

I'm really hoping to see the pets in action real soon, as they will be something to be proud about, and something people will like.

SL-island :: Nanami

The island is (almost) empty now, and as I'm blogging Alevtaz is rezzing a super big tree on the spot where our reception once was. So don't panic, we're not going on strike. Ha... Instead of showing you our (not that) empty island, I'm gonna show you my handy work, as well as post a note to those authorised to come to our island.

My dojo in the midst of blooming Sakura trees...

Welcome to my humble abode... actually, it's a storeroom for keeping the bits and pieces I've collected all over SL or stuff the guys have made but I somehow didn't use. To people involved in this project, please do not touch the stuff because I'll have a hard time clearing/finding items later. If there is anything you want from the 'Sakura Dojo', please IM me.

On a lighter note, I'd like to thank Ms Jaime and Mr Soren once again for their useful feedbacks. And also, congratulations to all of us for the "courage" to put on some really crazy suits. Here's something to laugh about:

Raving Rabbit(Nanami), Hamtaro(Ha0) and Bob(Alevtaz) our bartender having fun on Le'Noir's ceiling fan...

And also, I've meet some really lovely people during one of my window-shopping trips. They have helped me obtain the really beautiful Sakura trees and even gave me an apple tree. To maxmax Miles -san: Arigatou, your trees willl make our island as beautiful as your cafe. And get this, we became friends even though we were speaking different languages. She's a Japanese living '15 minutes away from the Sea of Japan'. And well, I'm just glad I paid attention to Japanese lessons. And it also helps that she created a Japanese-to-English translator for folks living on her side of the SL-world. Really cool. Hope to go back again to play someday.

maxmax-san and halmisa-san: 2 of the friendly people I meet in SL...

I hope to meet more people like her in SL. Makes the process of this project even more meaningful and memorable...

SL-Island: Ha0

Display information


I created a display vendor for displaying information. It can toggle next, previous or go slideshow. For now the display in the frame is a dummy.




Display gadget


Well i also created another vendor that can display cool gadget. Here it can toggle next or previous. The left and right arrows are linked with the whole vendor. I was able to do communication between the arrows and the display vendor to switch to the correct object to display. Again the object being displayed there is another dummy.






Random moving objects


Here are some random moving objects. They move and able to face that direction they are moving. The blue blast are also moving around the room randomly. Well these animals are dummies too. I also did the click on an object to go to a website. (not shown here).

Rena :: Week 4 :: Progress Post 2

Hmm I've been working on the design sketches since the presentation on Wednesday. Two of these pet designs are "revamps" of the previous sketches I had posted. Like Jason, I based my pet designs around existing animals. I try to represent which animal in a cuter way and add wings so that they can fly with their "flying" owners.

Well, as for the designs for the pet shop and hospital interior, it's really draft, because I still have no specific idea on how I want them to look like. I did take a look on references. Erms, I want the pet shop to look inviting and cute. As for the hospital, hopefully can make the rooms different, make the mood of each room to reflect the personality of the patients. Erm, well, it seems we're still not quite decided on how each of the personalities will be.

Web Technology

The first time communication was established between Second Life and the web, I got very excited and it was extremely awesome. The potential this has is tremendous - and as far as I know, our Second Pet game might be the first to utilize persistent objects in the world that retain data to bring immersion from player-made objects to a new level.

As of now, I have already established a link from Second Life to the web - that the pet's name is stored online in a MySQL database and retrieved, then used in the Second Life client. This will be what our game will utilize to allow the players to access their pets from anywhere using just the browser, for some less important tasks such as checking their hunger status, etc.

It has been a great week and this is quite a milestone in the web-secondlife interaction.

jas0n

I'm back with a couple of concept sketches.
I'm currently trying out different styles for the pet designs. I drew 5 different pets for each style. I decided to base the pet designs around existing animals (see survey results).
The 1st one is very similar the 1 I drew for the GDD.. basically its just a cute head + the tail.

The 2nd has a "typical asian eye" + "upper-body-only" style:
The last is a somewhat weird/crazy style whereby all the pets look clueless or sadistic or both.
Comments deeply appreciated

Rena :: Week 4 :: Pets Designs

Had our in-game presentation just now. We were told to work harder on the designs because they were not acceptable. The one which was modelled out was also said to look like Pokemon. So, I'll be updating my new sketches to this post and hopefully will be given comments.

Kazaf Post 1 of the Week

Weee Post ... I decieded to revamp my email system so now players can just drag and drop a notecard into the email box named "Email" with the first line as the address, the second line as the subject and the fourth line as the message and vila u are done. I will spend another fully on improving the script to accept notecard with the correct format and flither out unneed items when it detects it.

Rena :: Week 4 :: Progress post 1

Hmm, so fast it's week 4 already. Well, we went to meet our client, on Monday. It was a nice experience, because they were really friendly. The session was great as they had different views to our ideas, views that we forgot about or views that we couldn't picture. With their suggestions/views, changes to our idea will be required. So far, we still have some "conflicts" that we have not settled.

For this week, other than meeting with the client, I did a test for the SL Importer. I know Jason and Huiping tested it already, but I wanted to familarise myself with how the importer works, so I tried it out too. Although with this importer, we're allowed to model our stuff in 3DS Max, but it seems that the tools that we can use is pretty much the same as in SL, because we can only import the supported SL primitives from Max into SL.

However, the additional benefits of modelling in 3DS Max is the ability to add some specific modifiers, undo or clone something. Now, it does seem like the importer has some kind of problems according to Jason. I also have another problem with the primitives in 3DS Max itself. Some of the primitives for example, cones and pyramids, do not appear as it is supposed to be upon rezzing. Instead, they appear as cylinders and cubes. I believe this is a problem with the script called SLPrims. I think the script is still in beta. Hopefully, a solution to this problem can be found soon because modelling the hospital, medical equipments and other stuff in SL isn't easy.

I'm also doing some more sketches of the pets because the style is supposed to be cute but my previous designs weren't cute. Basically, I searched for different pictures and searched through the entire Pokemon database for inspiration. I sketched out whatever Pokemon I find cute so as to help me "analyse" what contributes to a cute pet. Haha... so here's what I call my research sketches:

So, according to my "analysis" I believe cute pets equals to big eyes, big ears, small/no mouth, plump/puffy body and eyes that are "wide apart".

Thus I came up with these:

Only the one on the bottom left is "passed", so I coloured it. The top 2 looks very similar to 2 other Pokemon and the fourth one is said to look weird. So, I need to churn out one more "good sketch" but I'm having problems thinking. Hopefully, I can churn out that good sketch tomorrow. Then I can start to model too. And together with Jason and Hui Ping, we shall finish the required models and graphics ASAP. There's also animation to worry about...blah blah...

SL-island week 4

Melissa:

Didn't update much last week, so now I'll make up for it. *drumrolls*


I revamped the reception, re-did the waiting lounge and refurbished the bar (yep, our secret is finally disclosed). I actually went around SL to do some shopping and researching. Most of the stuff sold were pretty decent but stil doable, so I didn't spend much time buying furnitures. I spent the time flying around SL, getting ideas, inspirations, etc and then built most of the stuff back 'home'. It's more worthwhile this way. I've also themed the rooms I built so I'm more organised that way. This suggestion is thanks to Ms Jaime and Mr Soren for suggesting to put the reception in an aquarium...

Here are some pictures:

Le' Reception Revamped

I have a more colorful version, but I'll jus show this. This room is themed 'Earthern Glam', though it's more jungle than glamourous... I've kept it down to earth because it's still business afterall. But it's not complete, there's still room for improvements, and I'm open to feedbacks. I replaced the waterfall walls with hanging moss because it's not as laggy and easier to color co-ordinate. That pink just clashed with everything I wanted to do.

Freaky - the adoring plant.


Meet Freaky the stray plant I picked up. He was a freebie among many other fun and crazy stuff I picked up while window-shopping SL. I modified him abit, so he's more endearing then freaky. He's currenly staying in the Waiting Lounge, themed as 'Icy Heaven'. 'Heaven' here refers to our plan to build this room way up in SL. But this idea might be scrapped in view of better ideas from our Landscape Meastro - Gabriel. So the theme might be tweaked abit. Currently this place is under constructions.



Waiting Lounge - waterfall view

'K, last of all, the Bar. Currently it's called Le'Noir cos of the very gothic looking chandelier. Yes, sounds very French. That name came on a whim, just like most of the stuff I've built/bought for this room. The theme is very abstract at the moment, cos I've just been rumaging through my soon-to-explode inventory, and piecing up knick-knacks for this room. Will be adding more interactive stuff like darts, drinks dispenser, and hopefully a dance floor. SL-Fever anyone? Oh yea, the piano we bought is playble, color-changeable, poseable, etc. Really cool stuff.

Bob the Bartender welcomes you to Le' Noir


That's all for now.




Ren Hao:


Christie/sensor
Did the sensor detection for Christie.
She can detect visitors and greets them without having to click on her. She has a short term memory though, after 1 minute she will forget the same visitor she greeted before and will greet again.


Flying Hamtaro

Next I did the flying Hamtaro. It will randomly move around the island in random direction. Well, it will get lost somehow lol. Will be adding restriction to prevent that.







Ham ham Tour

Next I did the Ham Ham tour. For now is a simple tour outside the reception area and the waiting area. Will finish out the whole tour when the island layout is out.

Ideas SLi

Today I discussed with Mel (Nanami) about island layout and design aspects that might be interesting. We had an idea of a tree system which will make use of my Stairway to Heaven structure encirclinga trunk which branches out to the rooms. These plans and ideas are still preliminary at the moment but it has good potential for aesthetic and functional values. Hao also was working on making toys and the sorts for the waiting lounge and he had a flying hamtaro which constantly got lost (LOL). Anyways, on a personal I've yet to show a practical example of video streaming which I've been talking about a loong time already. So here it is with the HDTV I built with support of 480p, 720p and 1080p at a 16:9 aspect ratio =D

jas0n

Before modeling the pet, I did a little survey amongst my friends to decide on the design style of the pets.
26 prefered the "Cute" style (eg Pokemon) while only 18 supported the realistic style.
Of the 26 that chose the "Cute" style, only 1 liked "Alien-type" pets, while 15 prefered "Animal-type" pets. 10 thought that both were good.
So, I started to model the 1st pet..

On further testing of the importer, I found out that it might not work so well after all.
1st I modelled out the model inside 3dsmax..
and then I tried importing into SL..
It came out weird!.. I'm not sure is there a step that I've missed or did wrongly. Anyways, so I re-did the model inside SL.
Anyway I changed the initial design slightly (eyes and mouth), because some of my friends pointed out that pikachu styled eyes are cuter ;)

As for animations, we might have a problem because all the animation programs for SL use a human "biped" layout.

Also, the animations are uploaded in the form of gestures. Therefore, it only works on your avartar, not the items/objects.

Idea

The final idea we decided on is simple - we tell the players that we are collaborating with a health company to give them a surprise (which is the pet-gets-sick game) as a company that has set up Second Pet, and then use this to create a strong character which everyone respects and has bonds with by providing impossible clues and making this character the one that always surprises and solves the problems.

Later on, this person has a friend who gets sick and has found a donor online through another strong community he is - but the countries' laws prevent any donation and that is when the players will have to collaborate to discuss ways that would improve this situation, then get letters written to the government/associations to contribute to the cause. We do this by having the company (us) offering pet rewards to those who help and although it will end up with the imaginary sick person dying, the feelings will remain and the people will feel that change is needed.

However nicely this fits into the scope and satisfies all the requirements, I feel it is too little of a game and more of a social stunt/experiment that manipulates people into doing things. The idea will be discussed more thoroughly this weekend to add in more game elements.

SL - island: week3

RenHao:

Functionalites of Sally is done. She is able to listen to password from guests to enter to the waiting lounge. She only start to listen to the guests 1 hour before the event start. She also do regular updates to check for any expire card and delete them. The lists that store the information from the notecards are properly managed as well.

Also did an object that will give notecard sample on how to book the room.

Mel:

Nothing much to update. Just glad Ms jaime and Mr Soren came n gave tips on what to improve for my buildings. noted n will change. Thx 'chers ! =D erm...Thinking of making a theme for every area. but i'll cut down on yellow cos it blinds my eyes. Then the waiting lounge and soon-to-be-revealed secret will be above the reception... I think. Maybe I wont do a spiral staircase cos I killed the previous one and the previous killed me in the process... so yea, maybe I'll do a tunnel, and people will float up when they get approved.

Rena :: FYPJ Week 3 :: Progress post 2

Since the last update I posted, I've done more research on the common symptoms of kidney and liver failure. I also found information about religions which are against organ donation, as well as the differents between coma and brain death. The timeline for the Curse of the Pharaoh has also been done.

Research on the common symptoms of kidney and liver failure:
-Fatigue
-Slow, sluggish, movements
-Swelling of legs
-Experience muscle (hand) tremors
-Feel quite itchy
-Bruise easily
-Mental confusion
-Coma
-Trouble with bleeding
(http://www.surgery.usc.edu/divisions/hep/patientguide/symptomsofliverdisease.html)
(http://www.mywhatever.com/cifwriter/library/mortals/mort2514.html)
(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/print/ency/article/000501.htm)
(http://www.medicinenet.com/kidney_failure/article.htm)

Differences between coma and brain death:
The main difference between coma and brain death is the brain activity.
People who are in a coma have not lost all of their brain functions. They still have some level of measurable brain activity and their brains are still sending out electrical impulses in response to stimulus. And even those people who are in a really deep coma have enough brain voltage to show up on an EEG.
(http://amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/braindeath.html)

The symptoms of brain death are as follows:
-There are no spontaneous respirations (the person cannot take a single breath on his/her own).
-The pupils are dilated and fixed (the black of the eyes is wide and does not react to light).
-There is no response to noxious stimulation (painful stimulation provokes no eyeblink, no grimacing, no movements of any part of the body).
-All extremities are flaccid (there is no movement, no muscle tone and no reflex activity in any of the limbs - arms or legs).
-There are no signs of brain stem activity:
-The eyeballs are fixed in the orbits.
-There are no corneal reflexes (stroking the clear part of the eye with a fine wisp of cotton fails to produce any movement of the eyelids).
-There is no response to caloric testing (exposing the tympanic membrane of the ear to ice cold water fails to produce movement of the eyes).
-There is no gag reflex or cough reflex.
-Two EEG’s (electroencephalograms or brain-wave tests) at about 24-hour intervals showing no electrical activity coming from the brain, i.e., flat or isoelectric tracings.
(http://www.comarecovery.org/artman/publish/BrainDeath.shtml)

While in coma, a person can continue to heal and progress through different states of consciousness.
(http://www.biausa.org/Pages/coma.html)

Religions/laws/countries opposing organ donation:
-Gypsies
Gypsies tend to be against organ donation. Although they have no formal resolution, their opposition is associated with their belief in the after-life. Gypsies believe that for one year after a person dies, the soul retraces its steps. All parts of the body must remain intact because the soul maintains a physical shape.
(http://www.organdonor.gov/donation/religious_views.htm)

About the Gypsies:
Roma people, also spelled Rroma, Roms, or Romani, related ethnic groups in Southern and Eastern Europe and the Middle East:
-Cikáni, also spelled Tsikaanji mostly in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
-Gitanos, also spelled Ciganos, mostly in Spain, Portugal, and southern France
-Kalderash, the most numerous of the Roma people, mostly in the Balkans, Central Europe, North America
-Romnichal, also known as Rom'nies, mostly in Britain and North America
-Sinti, also known as Zigeuner or Zingari, mostly in Germany, Austria and Italy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy)

-Shinto
In Shinto, the dead body is considered impure and dangerous, and thus quite powerful. Injuring a dead body is a serious crime. It is difficult to obtain consent from bereaved families for organ donation or dissection for medical education or pathological anatomy because Shintos relate donation to injuring a dead body. Families are concerned that they not injure the itai, the relationship between the dead person and the bereaved people.
(http://www.organdonor.gov/donation/religious_views.htm)

About Shinto:
Shinto is the native religion of Japan and was once its state religion. It involves the worship of kami, gods. Some kami are local and can be regarded as the spiritual being/spirit or genius of a particular place, but other ones represent major natural objects and processes: for example, Amaterasu, the Sun goddess, or Mount Fuji. Shinto is an animistic belief system.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto)

-Japan
The Japanese law prohibits organ removal from children under fifteen years old with stating that the declaration of intention for organ donation by persons under fifteen years old is invalid.
(http://eubios.info/ABC4/abc4133.htm)
(http://www.jotnw.or.jp/english_top/englishtop.html)

Idea week

This whole week had been focused on idea brainstorming and we did come up with a couple of good ideas with a lot of potential - but they are very crude at the moment, and we need to refine them a little.

The two ideas everybody agreed on are namely, the Second Pet idea and the Archaeologist Curse idea have both been elaborated on by the rest of the team members and I shan't bore you with repetition. However, a couple of modifications to the idea are being made at the moment and I will post on the latest edition of it tomorrow.

!

Rena :: FYPJ Week3 :: Progess post 1

Hmm... this is my first post on my progress for this week.

Since last Friday, I've done some concept sketches for one of the GDD called Second Pet. An example:
I also have a sketch which is used for concept sketch for the other GDD called Curse of the Pharaoh. The colouring for this was done by Jason, because my computer crashed the other day and I couldn't scan in my sketches. So he did the scanning and the colouring. I also contributed to the GDD for Curse of the Pharaoh.

These few days is mainly spent on discussion for the GDDs as well as some background research for the Curse of the Pharaoh. Research so far includes ancient Egyptian myths and curses, egyptian artefacts, mummies and pharaohs, achaeological tools and the bacteria in ancient tombs.

Research on Tomb Curses and Bacteria in Tombs
The most famous event revolving around Egyptian tomb curse has got to be the King Tut Curse.
The Tomb of King Tutankhamun was discovered by Howard Carter in November 1922. His explorations were financed by Lord Carnarvon, who attended the tomb’s opening after the discovery. On the day of the opening, Howard Carter’s pet canary was swallowed by a cobra and Cobras, as the goddess Wadjet, were the protectors of the Pharaoh.

Perhaps, this was a coincidence, but this probably inspired Mari Corelli (Mary Mackay), a novelist, to publish a warning in March 1923 that there would be dire consequences for anyone who had entered the sealed tomb.

Weeks after this revelation, Lord Carnarvon died of pneumonia in Cairo on 5th April 1923. It was also said during the moment Lord Carnarvon died, the lights went out in Cairo and his dog, Susie, back in England, howled and died in that instant.

It was also reported that one inscription found on an Anubis shrine stated that:
“It is I who hinder the sand from choking the secret chamber. I am for the protection of the deceased”. However, a reporter at that time added his own words to the inscription and other reporters also invented their own curses and reported that they were found in the tomb. These led people to believe that Lord Carnarvon’s death was a result of a “Pharaoh’s curse” and that “Pharaoh’s curse” exists. Even till today, the belief in tomb curses still exists.

However, recent studies showed that some ancient mummies do carry mold, including at least two potentially dangerous species which can cause allergic reactions ranging from congestion to bleeding in the lungs. Ammonia gas, formaldehyde, and hydrogen sulfide have also been found inside sealed sarcophagi. In strong concentrations, these can cause death in extreme cases. These results may explain the death of people who died shortly after entering the tomb.

(http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/curse.htm)

(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0506_050506_mummycurse.html)



Egyptian Myths
This is one of the links to a few of the myths that I have found - The Story of Re. Frankly, after reading it, I got abit blur. But I find this story quite nice. Haha~

(http://www.egyptianmyths.net/mythre.htm)



Archaeological Tools
I haven't find a really good website that tells all about the excavation tool. What I have found are in bits and pieces...
Use of GIS in archaeology for mapping of the site: http://www.esri.com/industries/archaeology/index.html
A beginner's guide to archaelogical tools:
http://www.catsco.org.uk/bguide.php

Egyptian Artefact and Mummy
Images from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/photogalleries/king_tut/

Seriously, I got freaked out during the research. I'm interested in curses, mummies, pyramids and stuff but some pictures of mummies just freaked me out totally. And the worse is looking at the pictures of the artefacts and mummies at night... They just seem to look so alive, which is very freaky to me! I'm really timid... lols (highlighting some of the pictures makes them even more errie...=X)

I also found a website that can translate English to some ancient Egyptian language. It's really cool! (Opps, I lost the link. I have it somewhere, but I can't find it now. Will update it next time.)

Hmm... for the rest of the week, I guess I'll continue researching on common symptoms of the different illness, maybe more on archaeological tools. Perhaps, changes to the GDD or ideas if needed. I may also want to try out the SL Importer, to see if it can work well with complex models?

jas0n

Have worked out the story and timeline of the whole game with the team. Plus, I also came out with several concept artworks and produced a GDD for the "pet" idea.

Cute chick. Fun to eat.

Also, I have tested the 3dsmax builder for SL and it works. Next, I will be testing out how detailed the models can go. Another task for the weekend will be to test out the animations.

Kazaf

currently no scripting has been done as i have spending time to get the TDD out for thursday meeting with supervisor. Work shall begin after the thursday meeting , shall continue to improve the email system and maybe make my barney sing.

SL-island :: Nanami

Larger reception





Basically, I enlarged the reception area by... 2 or 3 times, as the client suggested. Added some furnitures to fill the empty spaces as I had no idea what else to add in, so for now it's just chairs, tables, chairs and more chairs. The Registration Counter looks more regal now, with built-in "cabinets" and stuff. Also added an Administration Desk, for Jeane the Administrator. Also did a little Halpdesk Bell that gives Notecards to players who touched it. The notecards would contain instructions for registration, or booking an event.




Christie the Greeter

No, Sally is not Christie's evil twin, and Jeane is not Sally's clone. Those are bots I made. There's also Bob, but I'll keep him, and other miscelleanous stuff, under wraps for now. I chose pink and grey for their 'uniforms' because pink and grey are the main colors of my building. Will improve on the uniform when I have more time. I will be working on enlarging the waiting room, and also putting interactive 3D 'toys' in it. And also maybe make Christie more intelligent. Currently she only greets players who touched her. Maybe I'll make her say random stuff like 'Nice weather!' etc, when there are guests around. Might enliven the place abit...

SL::Island - Ha0

Meet Sally and Jeane



Well here i am going to introduce 2 persons. Meet Sally the receptionist and Jeane the administrator (modelled by Nanami). Jeane is the one for event organizers to book the conference rooms and Sally is the one to check who can enter beyond the reception area.

For Jeane, the fundemental funtionalities of her is basically done. In order to book a conference room, the organizers will have to drop a notecard to her. The notecard has to be differentiated from any other normal notecard that anonymous person may drop in since anyone can drop items to her. Any anonymous items drop to her she will delete away. For now i differentiate the notecard by adding "Inv:" infront of the notecard name. The content inside of the notecard will contain vital information such as time, password, guest's name etc. When the organizers drop the notecard to her, they will have to wait until Jeane reply ok as she will check if the room has already been booked. If the room has already been book, that notecard become invalid and the organizer will have to drop the notecard again.Once she replied ok, she will give the notecard to Sally.

For Sally, her job is to allow only the guests who are invited to enter beyond the reception area. She detect by listening to the guest for a password to enter. For now she can detect the notecard from Jeane and able to store the name of the notecard in a list. Will continue to make her more intelligent.

EngSH - ARG

I have been practicing scripting in SL these days. Now my Froggie listens to a few basic commands and still responses to people touching them. I'm starting to get a hang of SL scripting. I'm still using Froggie for scripting practice. Every suggestion to how the pet should respond is welcomed =D

SL ARG: Week 2 Research

Sorry but I forgot to update on my progress last week. Anyway this post is to make up for last week's. Basically, it's research on:

Importing 3DS Max models into SL
I found this link on the net: http://www.windyweather.net/smf/index.php?topic=108.0
The importer can be found in SL based on the location given in the abovementioned URL. The URL also has instructions on using the SL Importer.
By the way, I have found a copy of the Importer but have not tried it yet.

Importing animation into SL
After searching for ways of doing the animations for use in SL, I don't think there is anyway to actually use MoCap for the animation, or should I say, maybe there is, but I didn't manage to find it. Anyway, below are some links to the programs for animation in SL.
-http://www.avimator.com/
-http://caladan.nanosoft.ca/c4/software/posemaker.php
This page contains a guide to uploading and making animation for use in SL.
-http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=050

Research on organ donation schemes
Singapore's Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA)
http://www.moh.gov.sg/corp/systems/organ/hota.do
-All non-Muslim Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents between the ages of 21 and 60 years are included under HOTA
-Willing donors will have priority in receiving a cadaveric organ if they need one
-People can opt out of HOTA if they do not wish to donate their organs
-HOTA includes kidney, liver, heart and cornea
-HOTA includes cadaveric donation and living donor organ transplantation

Singapore's Medical(Therapy, Education and Research) Act (MTERA)
http://www.moh.gov.sg/corp/systems/organ/medical.do
-MTERA is an opt-in scheme for individuals 18 years and above
-In this scheme, the adult next-of-kin can also pledge the organs of deceased patients of any age for donation.
-MTERA includes all organs and tissues
-Under MTERA, people pledge their organs or any body parts for the purposes of transplant, education or research after they pass away.
-Muslims who pledge to donate their kidney, liver, heart and cornea under the MTERA will receive the same priority as other Singaporeans and PRs who have not opted out from HOTA

US's National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA)
http://www.optn.org/policiesAndBylaws/nota.asp
-NOTA established the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to maintain a national registry for organ matching and for the network to be operated by a private, non-profit organization under federal contract.
-NOTA states that organ means human kidney, liver, heart, lungs, pancreas and any other human organs other than cornea and eyes. Bone marrow is included.
- Any knowingly acquire, receive or transfer of organs for valuable considerations is prohibited under NOTA
-Organ donation scheme in US is opt-in.

Australian Organ Donor Register
http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/yourhealth/our_services/aaodr.htm
-Administered by Medicare Australia on behalf of the Australian government
-This scheme is for people 18 years and older
-Voluntarily, individuals can limit donation only to certain organs/tissue
-Organs include kidneys, heart, lungs, liver, pancreas while tissues include heart valves, bone tissue, skin and eye tissues.
-Donation only occurs if person dies under certain cirsumstances and if consent to donation has been made
-People have the freedom to opt-in or opt out of the scheme

New Zealand Organ Donation System
http://www.givelife.org.nz/
-Registration through the drivers' licence
-Unable to specify which organs to donate
-Family can override a person's wish to be a donor

Research on ARGs
Basically, I have read the book, Beyond Reality: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming.
The book talks about the ARG and also give some examples of past ARGs including, The Beast(ARG for the movie A.I.) and The Art of the Heist. It mainly summarises the storyline for the 2 games and the process of solving of the games. More information on The Beast can be found here: http://www.cloudmakers.org/
I also read through the forum thread for an ARG called Doom Skull. This game ended just only recently and players of this game were fully aware that this is an ARG. However, the game was so engaging the the players worked hard on this game. The game features alot of encoded clues.

Video Streaming Part 2

Ok ... So today I've explored video streaming in Second Life at several places. However, some locations I visited either required the owner (which I could not contact), needed money or were scheduled on some other day. Well here are some images of these places I found ...

DemandX Demo Video ...
DTV Music Video Streaming ...
LifeChurch.tv
Dell's Screening Room!

From what I've read and asked, video streaming in Second Life isn't too difficult ... in fact, it's the layer beneath putting it into Second Life that's more challenging. Anyways, the process of streaming live videos should go like this:

Firstly a source is required (duh!) which usually comes from a DV (Digital Video) camera and preferable (or perhaps a requirement) to be in Quicktime formats such as .mp4 or .mov.

Broadcasting would require a computer that sends those video signals (including the encoding process) and apparently Apple Mac OS X is very much preferred around the SL community. Also since OS X is used, Quicktime Broadcaster comes free with it which makes things much simpler. Since broadcasting is a resource hungry process it is usually recommended to be the ONLY thing the computer is doing and nothing else (not even running SL).

Next up is the streaming server which receives the data from the broadcasting machine which is eventually redistributed to viewers. Though not power hungry, it is a definite bandwidth hog especially with a request of high definition streaming over multiple viewers simultaneously (ouch! for 512k users). To keep things simple. Darwin Streaming Server seems to be favoured here and eventually a URL will be provided which can be linked to web browsers or in this case, SL.

Onto the SL part, in the land we own, we simply enter the URL in the Media tab if the About Land window and it is in SL already! Of course, a surface has to be specified to actually view the video. This is done by designating a Media texture through the same way videos are streamed in. It isn't a special texture therefore any other texture that uses the same texture will display the video. Anyway once all that is set its ready to be played! Well, with this I hope everything goes smoothly (getting an Apple computer rather than having to use multiple platforms)