Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
avoiding obstacles that have been identiied by the Navigation Mesh, or NavMesh. There is much
more information about it here on the Good Building Practices of the Second Life Wiki (http://wiki.
secondlife.com/wiki/Good_Building_Practices/).
12.8 SETTING UP AND DESIGNING THE LOOK OF YOUR NPCS IN SECOND LIFE
Assuming you now have an insatiable desire to create your irst NPC, let's talk about the initial steps you
must take and how to design the look. In Second Life, you can make them by creating a new avatar account
and signifying that it is a “scripted agent” or “bot” on the Scripted Agent Status tab in the avatar's account
page. In Second Life, the bot support is quite robust, and you have the option of running that bot and control-
ling it with software in your computer such as Thoy's (http://slbot.thoys.nl) or running it as a server hosted
bot via services like SmartBots (http://www.smartbots2life.com/) or Pikkubot (http://pikkubot.de). Since
your bot is basically an avatar, albeit a machine-controlled one, you can alter its appearance just as you
would your own avatar. When you create this bot in Second Life, you must log in on that account and set up
its appearance. When that task is done, open another viewer window and log in as your usual avatar, make
friends with your new bot, and send it some Linden dollars and inventory (not too much, just what is neces-
sary). Now, you can utilize the stand-alone software options or the server-hosted options noted previously.
Each of these options has websites and inworld facilities to help you set up your bot with their system; you
only need to decide which service suits your bot usage the best. To help with that decision, look at the Second
Life wiki (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_bot_software_comparison).
While you think of the character of your bot, and by extension the appearance of your bot, you should ask
yourself, what will make my design memorable? How can I support the message of the shop, region, or sim, and
how can I add mannerisms to my bot's behavior that are appropriate to the period of its dress and character?
12.9 SETTING UP AND DESIGNING THE LOOK
OF YOUR NPCS ON AN OPENSIM REGION
Setting up an NPC on an OpenSim region is actually simple. Basically, the NPC in OpenSim will be a clone
of your avatar, wearing whatever your avatar is wearing when you make the clone. Again, you should push
yourself to be creative with your clone's appearance and behavior to bring dynamic design into your environ-
ment. Scripts for setting up NPCs are available on OpenSim (http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OSSLNPC). Eva
Comaroski has a great tutorial online at the Wizardry and Steamworks site (http://was.fm/opensim:npc) for
creating a series of NPCs that follow a path, read a script to chat with you, and wander around.
12.10 NPCS AND THEIR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
The classical age of NPCs has just begun. Every year, more developers and designers create smarter NPCs
in their games and simulations. An artiicial game character called UT^2 has been judged to be human
by more than 50% of the actual humans playing against it, earning this NPC the coveted BotPrize for
Human-like Bots [7].
NPC visual diversity is now possible by modifying avatars with genetic algorithms in their creation
programs [8]. Imagine whole populations of NPCs walking around your environment, representing the
genetic diversity you would ind in any major city on Earth. Soon to come, no doubt, will be diversity of
behaviors and animations running on those NPCs, which will not be read from a note card, but from a
procedural program that actively changes in response to the environment [9].
