Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
NPCs can also save our lives. Disaster scenarios can be modeled using them as the endangered popula-
tion, allowing city planners and irst responders to identify and eliminate weaknesses in their evacuation
plans [10].
You will probably ind working with NPCs a challenge, but a rewarding one, so go ahead, Dr. Frankenstein,
create some artiicial life.
12.11 PROJECT: SETTING UP A BASIC AVATAR IN A VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT
Virtual worlds with their own content making employees like Second Life have created avatar content for
irst-time players so that they may enter the world in a character of their choosing. This may not be the case
with worlds you are creating on OpenSim, so it is important that you know about the basics of avatar setup and
appearance. Once you become adept at this task, you may want to create alternate avatars for inventory storage
purposes or have a couple of “lightweight” versions of your standard look for travelling around the Metaverse.
12.11.1 C
reaTing
a
n
eW
u
ser
and
m
aKing
The
u
ser
m
anifesT
Access the server for your OpenSim regions and make your new avatar or alternate (alt) avatar using the
“create user” command in either the region command window or in the Robust Service window if you are
running a grid of regions on OpenSim. The program will prompt you for the name, password, e-mail, and so
on and then set up your new avatar with its own UUID (Universally Unique IDentiier) and account.
Log your new avatar into the world for the irst time. In the Firestorm Viewer, what you will see is a cloud
and probably a message that the clothes are downloading. In fact, there are no clothes, skin, or any parts for
your avatar to download yet, so it will stay a cloud until you give it some (see Figure 12.3, picture 1).
You can solve this problem by opening the inventory window (the little suitcase icon on the bottom bar)
and then selecting and right clicking on the Body Parts folder. When the drop-down menu opens, click on
new eyes, hair, skin, and shape so that these are added to your inventory. Then, select them and right click to
“wear” them (see Figure 12.3, picture 2). You will now have a skinned avatar with the basic hairstyle.
The next step, as shown in Figure 12.3, picture 3, is to create some clothing layers for your avatar. This
is done the same way as the body parts. Go to the Clothing Folder in your inventory, select, right click, and
create new underpants, undershirt, pants, and shirt for your irst clothing layers and make sure to “wear”
them. Continue by adding the available clothing layers to your avatar until you have them all.
12.11.2 l
ooKing
o
Ver
The
C
loThing
o
pTions
and
l
ayers
You may have noticed that the avatar has 12 options when it comes to clothing layers. The basics are under-
wear, pants, shirts, skirts, jackets, and the kind of layers you would have in the physical world. Let's focus on
editing those irst. Under Avatar/Appearance, you will see an edit menu showing what your avatar is wearing;
in this case, it is called Avatar_basic_layers. Select the “wrench” (edit) icon in the top right corner so you
can modify these items (see Figure 12.4, picture 1). Your avatar will go into a pose, so you can see how the
adjustments will look.
The next menu that pops up has three tabs: Clothing, Attachments, and Body Parts. Since we are going to
adjust clothing irst, select the Clothing tab. As you can see, the list of what your avatar is currently wearing
will be displayed (see Figure 12.4, picture 2). Go ahead and click the wrench (edit) icon next to the clothing
item you would like to adjust to modify that layer.
When you get the layers for pants, shirts, jacket, and so on into edit mode, notice how you have two
options in the top section, one for Fabric and one for Color/tint (Figure 12.4, picture 3). The Fabric option
