Jason T Clark.net

After suffering a small setback with trying to run the Fantasy Demo World from my own Multiverse Server, I finally got going on defining my own world.

As the tutorials suggest, I started with the Terrain Editor. I created a simple Heightmap using the tool, and saved it. Next, I loaded up the terrain in the World Editor, and loaded a few simple objects to it……

……And this is where the experimentation stopped.  The machine that I was running the Multiverse Server on was an old asset from work, and I needed to return it.  Not to mention the fact that my attention was diverted for a couple months on a couple other projects.  I will be sure to keep you posted on the developments of Multiverse, since I do think that this platform still holds plenty of value.

Web3D is coming.  You know it, and I know it.  We know that virtual worlds and immersive online applications will only grow more and more as technology gets better, and the ideas for using these immersive platforms become more relevant.  Many of us gamers already see the validity of such environments for it’s entertainment value, and lately we’ve slowly began to become familiar with it’s alternative functions for collaboration and the realizations of presence in an otherwise “flat” world.

So, I stumbled upon this article on Forrester.com which details their business research on the future of the 3D web.  If you are still undecided about whether or not virtual worlds are here to stay, and you have $280 bux to spare, check it out.

Meet Verdelizaro.  He’s a dark green carnivore made by…well, me…in Electronic Art’s newest out of this world platform, Spore.  I created this being with the Spore Creature Creator: Trial Edition.  The UI was fairly intuitive, even though it didn’t have all the features that the full version has.  Now in my opinion, I think EA got this right.  For some virtual worlds, when you create an avatar, you feel like you are simply creating a representation of yourself, whether it’s a human-like avatar or not, you’re creating YOU, or as Morpheus would say “the mental representation of your digital self.”  In Spore, it felt more like I was creating a new inhabitant of a new world, but that did NOT represent me in that world- almost like creating a virtual pet.

Now here’s where the novelty comes in- from the Creature Creator you can create a video of your monsters, and upload them to YouTube- nice way to share what you done with the rest of the world. Here’s is Verdelizaro in all his glory, with one of his youngsters:

All in all, it’s worth the download if you have the time to play around.

If anyone here is interested in raising the level of immersion in your virtual worlds or online games, especially those that leverage bots and NPCs, then take a look at this post on gamasutra.com. I found it this morning as I was doing my morning sweep through the game industry sites (as usual) and this one stopped me in my tracks. It takes a look at the idea behind using dialogue and the various forms of communication that have emerged over time with respect to NPCs in games and virtual worlds.

One thing that I thought- environments like Second Life could use more NPCs and bots. Not everyone you run into HAS to be controlled by a warm body. Often times with environments like SL, that touts the idea that everyone you encounter is REAL, isn’t really a selling point for me. For example, there are plenty of virtual stores in Second Life, and upon entering them, you’ll notice that there is no one around, which leaves you to experience that store’s products and services through menu driven screens and text-based dialogue boxes. IMHO, the NPC element adds a level of “warmth” to an otherwise ghost town-like environment, that isn’t very inviting at all if no one is around; breathing or not.

MMO designers get this, but the mission is a bit different from social marketplace environments like SL. Quests are given from NPCs in MMOs, that allow you to experience what the game has to offer on your own to a certain extend. Shop owners are often times NPCs too. This is where I think SL can borrow from. I mean, even in real life, the customer service employees of certain establishments have scripted communications with is customers. This seems to translate well in the metaverse I think for very specific social and business related communique.

But I digress, check out the post if you’re into it…..and by the way, we do cover a bit of this in the Platform Second Life book as well…sorry, shameless plug

Experimenting with Multiverse continues…..

To make a long story, short- SampleWorld is up and running. I checked the forums, found the IRC channel, and asked my questions there. A guy in the channel said, “put the JDBC jar in with the other jars- in the other folder under Multiverse’s application directory.” Tried it, and it worked. Not sure why, but hey, let’s go with it.

Sampleworld took awhile to finally load in on my Vista machine, and when it did, I couldn’t “see” anything. the Multiverse logo stayed on the application window. I could hear the “Welcome to Multiverse” video running, but I couldn’t see it. Frustrated with how it ran on my Vista box, I tried on my XP laptop. Ironically, it worked a lot better on that system than my so-called “beefy” Vista machine- more on my gripes and pains with Vista later.

Ok, so in review, I’m able to connect to the demo worlds with the client without incident, the server application running on Linux doesn’t take that long to configure, and I can connect to my server instance from a remote client by changing a short “one-liner” in the world_settings file. My only issue now is the performance. I don’t know if there’s a way to improve the performance of my server instance, and hosting it on the ‘net somewhere I’m not quite ready for. I’m wondering if that video is a stream that’s eating up bandwidth when I connect to the Sampleworld- who knows. Still, I think this platform is worth of trying to create something of my own on. Deciding what to create becomes the next question. Ok, here’s my ratings for initial impressions of Multiverse:

Experimentation Ratings for Multiverse:

Client Installation: A

Server Installation: B+

Documentation: B+

Support: B+

Stay tuned for the next episode in the series, when I start creating my own world with Multiverse.

“Experimenting with Multiverse” continues…..

OK, so I downloaded both the server application, and the Multiverse development tools. Installing the Multiverse development tools was a breeze, although when I began using the Multiverse World Editor, defining an asset repository for it was interesting. I went with the SampleAsset repository, downloadable from the Multiverse site. Thing is, it kept complaining about there not being a “Misc” directory in the asset repository. Two things: change the manifest, or create an empty “Misc” directory. I went with the non-destructive option by simply creating a false Misc directory in the SampleAsset repo just to satisfy the requirement. Once I got passed that, The World Editor loaded up nicely. I tested out loading up the Sample World file, which again, loaded up as expected. I’m not sure how intuitive it is to use this world editing application, maybe those of you out there who have played with it can key me in. It’s seems a bit lackluster at first glance, but as I get more involved, it’s possible that feeling will dissapate.

OK so satisfied with getting the tools working at this point, I decided to tackle the server. I am an avid Ubuntu Linux user, and if anyone tells me that Ubuntu is too difficult to use shouldn’t be walking on their hind legs. Anyway, I was impressed from the fact that this app installed strangely without any hiccups as well. A couple minor things, such as making sure my symbolic link to java was pointing to the correct one, setting up the database, etc. etc. Nothing a web developer couldn’t handle. I’m at the point where I’m ready to try to connect the client up to my server running the sample world……..

…….after configuring my server as suggested, alas my first problem- the MySQL/J Connector.  For some reason, when I look at the server logs, the server is not finding the JDBC driver.  I’ve triple checked the multiverse.properties file and provided the correct path.  Still no party.  Well, I guess I’ll stop here and figure out how to deal with that….off to check the forums!

One thing I’d like to start doing here is sharing my experiences with the masses- to not only share news from external sources, but to also share with you my own “news” in the form of discoveries, technology evaluations, and explorations of virtual worlds and interactive media.

So with that said, I spent some time over the last few days exploring Multiverse; a development platform
for creating virtual worlds. First impressions are lasting ones, like the scent of a woman- pleasant or unpleasant, and my first measuring stick is how the environment looks. I know that’s a shallow one, but hey, it’s how I’ve always been- what’s pleasing to the eye can certainly be intriguing at the least. I downloaded the Multiverse World Browser and Registered for an account. My first interest was to see the Time Square Demo World. If they can get that right, there’s certainly potential for the platform yet. After the installer ran, and the patches were applied, I proceeded to login. The first thing I noticed was the Axiom.dll updates, which means the graphics rendering is done with the C# flavor of OGRE. Not a bad choice- it’s one of the leading graphics rendering engines in open source, and the scene management is fairly straightforward.

Once I logged in, I was quite impressed. The default avatar held a slight resemblance to the avatars in Entropia Universe, which isn’t a bad thing, and the overall environment was sleek and trendy:

The UI was quite basic, but what do you expect from a demo world. As I’ve seen in screen shots the UI can be updated. After walking around the virtual streets of Time Square (listening to the Fresh Prince), I decided to load up the Fantasy World demo. This test for me is to see if I could see myself playing a game based on this platform. Once the world loaded up, I created my avatar/character. Again, not to many choices but not surprised. I dropped in the world and immediately saw a few scripted wolves running around. Again the environment although not as advanced as say, Crysis, it could do the job for a basic virtual world solution. One thing I missed was the shadowing. I didn’t see where that was implemented, but maybe that’s in the works. It has the potential to aesthetically a step up from Second Life and/or Active Worlds, but maybe a slight step down from CryEngine-based Entropia. Intrigued enough by what I saw, I went ahead and downloaded the server, and developer tools. Check out my next post on Multiverse as I take a deeper dive.