Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
4.
Nonhuman types
that are not based on an avatar but still can interact with the visitor: talking
trees, animals, environmental/spirit characters, fantasy characters such as fairies, signage that talks
(good for “all-access design”)
5.
Your custom NPCs
that it your special creative vision for your sim
12.7
DESIGNING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR THE INCLUSION OF NPCS
The scale and numbers of people or avatars in a landscape provide its deining qualities. In most ilms,
Fifth Avenue in New York City can be identiied by its populous masses on the sidewalks, but when they
want to make a shocking disaster movie, they show Fifth Avenue with those sidewalks empty, cabs parked
everywhere, and no evidence of the resident population. As the designer of this virtual environment, you are
also the director of these “background actors,” your NPCs, and it is your job to make sure they help deine
the overall mood of the region to the visitor.
12.7.1 K
ey
C
omponenTs
To
C
onsider
W
hen
y
ou
d
esign
for
npC
s
What kind of environment do you have? Is it a language-learning sim that looks like a French country
village? Or, perhaps it is a mystic temple for consulting a virtual psychic. There are many sim concepts ready
to be developed in virtual worlds [6], and they offer an opportunity to devise new ways to utilize NPCs in
your environment. Here are some key components to consider:
Interactivity:
What is the interactivity desired between the NPCs and the visitor? In your French
country village/language-learning sim, do you want the visitors to practice French with every NPC
they meet, or do you want to provide a scripted guide with a higher level of AI to take the visitors
around? Learning a new language is accelerated by immersion, and having the NPCs only respond
to French conversation would enhance that effect.
Progression:
Consider that there could be concentric circles of increasing interactivity as the visitor
moves into the most important part of the sim landscape. How would you design for that? For
example, you may want to set it up so that as the visitor gets closer to the meeting room where the
resident virtual psychic holds her séances the NPCs become more interactive and perhaps more
dificult to pass. They can become “gatekeepers” and security on a sim, set up to provide access
when given the correct password and to monitor the trafic and activities on the sim while you are
not there.
Guided Flow:
How can you relate trafic low and the positions of your NPCs? A virtual landscape, as
you know from the terrain designs discussed in Chapter 5, should “unfold” to the visitor as the visitor
travels around it. Suppose you provided an NPC or two at special junctions throughout the sim that
lead the visitors' exploration thorough your carefully designed terrain. These could be “native guides”
or friendly locals or perhaps even reclusive “celebrities,” who react to the visitor like they would to
voracious paparazzi and run off in the opposite direction, subtly inviting the visitor to give chase.
Other Life—Biosystem:
Recent developments in additional features have added Pathinding to
options available for nonavatar characters in Second Life. This could provide your environment
with a freely moving animal or insect population that responds to an avatar presence. Basically, the
Pathinding system, when activated on a region and combined with the appropriate scripts in your
animated character, will give the character the capacity to walk, crawl, or ly around the region,
