Simulator User Group/Transcripts/2012.02.17

Simulator_User_Group
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== List of Speakers ==
Andrew Linden 	Ash Qin 	Draconis Neurocam
Elbereth Witte 	Falcon Linden	Fancy Detector
Fei Bourdeille 	Flip Idlemind	Ima Mechanique
Johan Laurasia 	Jonathan Yap 	Kallista Destiny
Kaluura Boa 	Keli Kyrie 	MartinRJ Fayray
Raven Juno 	Rex Cronon 	Sahkolihaa Contepomi
Sebastean Steamweaver	Simon Linden 	TankMaster Finesmith
== Transcript ==
[16:00] Elbereth Witte: hello, I'm blind and the sky has avatar head texture maps in it, I hope I'm not in the way :-)
[16:00] Sebastean Steamweaver: Impromptu seating today I see!
[16:01] Fei Bourdeille: That soubnds like the best acid trip ever.
[16:01] Raven Juno: Very much so.
[16:01] Raven Juno: Today Was Bring your own chair day.
[16:01] Simon Linden: yeah, please rez something interesting to sit, hover, or sleep on
[16:01] Kallista Destiny: Ave Andrew imperator, laguri te salutant
[16:01] Andrew Linden searches his inventory for "chair"
[16:01] Fei Bourdeille: Bring our own chair? No one told me. Sad.
[16:02] Raven Juno: its okay feli you can share with me
[16:02] Kallista Destiny: Library has a chair
[16:02] Sebastean Steamweaver: Hmm....
[16:02] [noctis] MESH leather wingback chair (13p, 9 PE) whispers: Sorry I'm full, i can not help you
[16:02] Raven Juno: Or not. :D
[16:02] Fei Bourdeille: Apparently not.
[16:02] Raven Juno: Chair is a jerk. Shall have to spank it later
[16:02] Sebastean Steamweaver: "Ice Throne"
[16:02] Fei Bourdeille: Hot?
[16:03] Andrew Linden: Hey, I found my old OmniTech Chair array
[16:03] Fei Bourdeille: I think I have... hang on
[16:03] Kallista Destiny: Better expand the table
[16:03] Sahkolihaa Contepomi: Let's hope Kelly doesn't break it this time.
[16:03] Fei Bourdeille: Oh, right, all my chairs at at home...
[16:03] Johan Laurasia: Gettin' a bit too familiar there Ima
[16:03] Johan Laurasia: lol
[16:04] Rex Cronon: hello everybody
[16:05] Keli Kyrie: Hi Rex
[16:05] Rex Cronon: hi keli
[16:05] Simon Linden: ok, I can jump into the release news ... next week we're not planning on promoting any of the RCs, but will be updating them on Wednesday
[16:06] Andrew Linden: Simon, are we going to restart the main channel?
[16:06] Simon Linden: If you have a region that gets a lot of traffic on the main channel, you might get some performance improvement with a re-start when it's convenient
[16:07] Simon Linden: no, so doing the restart can help
[16:07] Simon Linden: There may be partial restarts -- I think we did that recently on a similar week when there was no promotion
[16:08] Andrew Linden: The bit of news that I've got is that we opened up the "pathfinding" project on aditi, which is what I've been working on with Falcon for the last few months.
[16:09] Flip Idlemind: Haven't played with that yet but it looks fun
[16:09] Johan Laurasia: I have
[16:09] Johan Laurasia: and they are :)
[16:09] Andrew Linden: There is a blog.secondlife.com post about it, and we talked about it in Oskar's beta-test user group yestterday
[16:09] Ash Qin: The path finding tech is going to be awesome <3
[16:09] Ima Mechanique: how final are the LSL functions for that?
[16:09] Sebastean Steamweaver: This sounds very interesting...
[16:09] Johan Laurasia: really cool stuff
[16:09] Andrew Linden: Ima, those LSL functions are not necessarily final -- we can change them if there is good reason.
[16:10] Sebastean Steamweaver: This is for 3D space, yes? And not just 2D space
[16:10] Sebastean Steamweaver: /
[16:10] Ima Mechanique: I'd like one changed so far from reading the wiki
[16:10] MartinRJ Fayray: yes
[16:10] Andrew Linden: Sebastean, the navigation mesh is 3d sorta... bridges and tunnels are possible
[16:10] Jonathan Yap: Ima, did you write a jira?
[16:10] Ima Mechanique: I'm adding them to LSL Editor at the moment, so I'm reading them all pretty closely
[16:10] Johan Laurasia: no, it's not volumetric
[16:10] Johan Laurasia: the objects follow the ground
[16:10] Johan Laurasia: unfortunately
[16:11] Andrew Linden: however it does not supply a navigation "volumetric space". The AI characters that use the navmesh must walk along its surface.
[16:11] Ima Mechanique: Jonathon, no. Wanted to ask about it before hand. There's enough jira wasting space as it is ;-)
[16:11] Andrew Linden: If you move an AI character too high off of the naviable surface it won't know what to do.
[16:11] Johan Laurasia: so is it pretty much carved in stone that there will be no volumetric down the road?
[16:11] Sebastean Steamweaver: Hmm...
[16:11] Jonathan Yap: Sometimes it doesn't know what to do even on the ground :P
[16:12] Johan Laurasia: lol
[16:12] Andrew Linden: No Johan, we may add volumetric navigation later.
[16:12] Andrew Linden: We didn'
[16:12] Johan Laurasia: I thought it was workin' pretty well when I tested it.
[16:12] Andrew Linden: We didn't think we could get it done in time for the initial release.
[16:12] Andrew Linden: More work will be required.
[16:12] Rex Cronon: what exactly does volumetric navigation mean?
[16:12] Ima Mechanique: Andrew, what's the reasoning behind llGetClosestNavPoint returning a list instead of a simple vector?
[16:12] Johan Laurasia: I imagine so... well, the work done so far looks great Andrew.
[16:12] Sebastean Steamweaver: It means, for example, you can have an object floating in space and have an object find a path around it.
[16:13] Andrew Linden: Volumetric navigation would be useful for flying things
[16:13] Sebastean Steamweaver: Instead of being "locked" into going, say, right or left.
[16:13] Johan Laurasia: right, it wil find a ground path from point A to point B, and point B can even be across region lines
[16:13] Andrew Linden: Ima, I'm not sure why it returns a list. We'll have to ask Falcon.
[16:13] Jonathan Yap: I wondered about that list of 1 vector, too
[16:13] Rex Cronon: it goes through water, or does it avoid it?
[16:13] Jonathan Yap: It does not work underwater
[16:13] Ima Mechanique: okay, I'll try to ghet a hold of him ;-)
[16:14] Johan Laurasia: it treats water like itls not there and moves along the bottom of the sim, water or not.
[16:14] Johan Laurasia: floor of the sim
[16:14] Andrew Linden: At the moment navigation under/over water is not working.
[16:14] Johan Laurasia: it does move fine underwater, just along the floor
[16:14] Andrew Linden: really Johan? That sounds like a bug.
[16:14] Jonathan Yap: Actually, that's how I would expect it to work
[16:15] Johan Laurasia: I saw some test boxes & and a tricycle moving just fine under water.
[16:15] Andrew Linden: AI characters should navigat around water in our current implementation.
[16:15] Rex Cronon: a fish wouldn't hug the ground
[16:15] Andrew Linden: If you thow one in the water it will sink to the bottom and stop moving.
[16:15] Sebastean Steamweaver: Would it be possible to make water avoidance, or even non-water avoidance, optional?
[16:15] Johan Laurasia: hmm, they looked like they were set to wander, and perhaps they were rezzed there
[16:15] Johan Laurasia: it wasn't a large body of water
[16:15] Jonathan Yap: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Pathfinding_in_Second_Life
[16:15] Andrew Linden: perhaps someday when we have underwater navigation working Johan.
[16:15] Sebastean Steamweaver: For example, constants: "AVOID_WATER, AVOID_AIR, IGNORE"
[16:15] Andrew Linden: er... I meant Sebastean.
[16:16] Johan Laurasia: yeah, no, I was just stating I saw some moving under water, I didn't rez them
[16:16] Johan Laurasia: so I dont know how they got there
[16:16] Johan Laurasia: if they were rezzed there, or what, I don't know
[16:16] Johan Laurasia: they move great btw
[16:16] Jonathan Yap: I saw Falcon slumped over on a tricycle, sleeping off a drunk was he?
[16:16] Johan Laurasia: best object movement I've seen in SL hands down
[16:17] Sebastean Steamweaver: Well, I have an AI that I was going to write pathfinding for, but it would need to be for 3D space. While this is interesting, I may end up still writing my own until volumetric pathfinding is possible.
[16:17] Andrew Linden: Yeah, I heard about that. Falcon said he closed his laptop and when he reopened it he found himself on the tricycle.
[16:17] Sebastean Steamweaver: "What your avatar does while you're not looking..."
[16:17] Jonathan Yap: I got a 403(?) error trying to post a photo of that to my feed
[16:17] Flip Idlemind: So yesterday I asked if anyone knew how to go about expressing interest in being in the beta test group for the fancy LR stuff, and I was told to Im Charlar. I did but he didn't repsond...I suppose I can understand a person with a job being busy
[16:18] Rex Cronon: if u send it to another sim, and if there finds no entry, no scrip parcel how will it deal with that?
[16:18] Flip Idlemind: IM as in Instant Message, not "I'm"
[16:18] Jonathan Yap: Send him an email
[16:19] Andrew Linden: Rex, at the moment the AI characters will blunder into no-script, no-entry, and full parcels.
[16:19] Ima Mechanique: FLIP as far as I know, he hasn't contacted anyone yet concerning that. I got on the list at Monday's script meeting
[16:19] Andrew Linden: Eventually we'd like to update the navmesh somehow to indicate that an object can't enter such parcels.
[16:19] Sebastean Steamweaver: Hmm
[16:19] Sebastean Steamweaver: Pragmatic question:
[16:19] Sebastean Steamweaver: On the blog it states, "An ethereal wisp glides through a fantasy forest and then vanishes, only to reappear at your side a few seconds later. Dozens of beetles and rats creep across the floor of a decaying,decrepit building, scurrying away whenever you get near. A hideous, scaly beast chases you up hills and across regions, dodging anything that gets between it and dinner."
[16:20] Johan Laurasia: so ultimately they'll try to navigate around them
[16:20] Sebastean Steamweaver: Now, while that sounds great, it seems that having a bunch of tiny objects pathfinding at the same time would be... problematic for the server.
[16:20] Johan Laurasia: treat them as obstacles
[16:20] Sebastean Steamweaver: How feasible/taxing on the server would that actually be/
[16:20] Rex Cronon: u can make a swarm of bees:)
[16:20] Andrew Linden: No Sebastean, the pathfinding is pretty fast.
[16:20] Johan Laurasia: really zippy
[16:21] Jonathan Yap: I had 50 cubes following or evading, it was fun to watch
[16:21] Johan Laurasia: go to the path sims and see... very smooth and quick
[16:21] Ima Mechanique: Sebastean take a look at the video. Larre has many rats, a snake and other object "running" around
[16:21] Sebastean Steamweaver: I think I may do that! That makes me happy.
[16:21] Andrew Linden: Well, it's nice to be able to talk about it now. But this is why I haven't been doing much maintenance lately.
[16:21] Sebastean Steamweaver: Followup on that: I'm assuming that essentially, the navmesh only works on ground level and won't work in skyboxes?
[16:22] Ima Mechanique: I liked the rats especially ;-)
[16:22] Andrew Linden: Once this is done I should be able to fix more bugs.
[16:22] Johan Laurasia: right Sebastean
[16:22] Rex Cronon: don't these AIs also need a health system?
[16:22] Ima Mechanique: disappointed the snake didn't get one though :-(
[16:22] Rex Cronon: i mean damage
[16:22] Andrew Linden: Sebastean, actually it may be possible to make navigation work in skyboxes.
[16:22] Sebastean Steamweaver: Would it be at all possible for the navmesh to be "offset" vertically? Or would that essentially be what you have planned for volumetric navigation?
[16:22] Andrew Linden: There are some details there though...
[16:23] Flip Idlemind: Ima: So there is a "list" that exists of people who are in the beta testing group?
[16:23] Andrew Linden: generating the navmesh takes a significant number of CPU cycles
[16:23] Ima Mechanique: FLIP, charlar took volunteer name Monday
[16:23] Andrew Linden: so we don't want to include any objects in the navmesh that move around and change it
[16:23] Ima Mechanique: not sure if we're volunteers or victims at this stage ;-)
[16:24] Flip Idlemind: Hmm, well I think I said "/me raises hand" when he asked who wanted to be part of it
[16:24] Sebastean Steamweaver: Ah, like objects that are using the animation functions or physical objects?
[16:24] Johan Laurasia: equal split Ima.....
[16:24] Johan Laurasia: lol
[16:24] Ima Mechanique: FLIP he said to send an IM
[16:24] MartinRJ Fayray: yes you did, flip
[16:24] Sebastean Steamweaver: keyframe* animation functions
[16:24] Jonathan Yap: Is the navmesh usually the ground mesh, but it can also be something else that is set up by an estate manager with new viewer tools?
[16:24] Flip Idlemind: I would gladly be a victim of (almost) anything if I could start using the fun LR things!
[16:25] Ima Mechanique: he replied to mine saying he'd be in touch at some later date. I suspect that he's making arrangements before contacting anyone
[16:25] Andrew Linden: Right Jonathan. We're going to add some UI tools a some new "bits" on the server side
[16:25] Andrew Linden: so that objects can be specified to be included in the navmesh calcuation.
[16:25] Andrew Linden: However that will put some restirctions on those objects
[16:25] Flip Idlemind: Ok, well hopefully he's got me on this list now
[16:25] Sebastean Steamweaver: Heh, come to think of it, avoid_light and avoid_dark would be interesting pathfinding parameters as well.
[16:25] Andrew Linden: such as not being able to be moved under normal circumstances.
[16:26] Ima Mechanique: non-physical too?
[16:26] Johan Laurasia: I can think of quite a few msyelf
[16:26] Andrew Linden: Yes Ima. Any object included in the navigation info must not be able to move around.
[16:26] Ima Mechanique: kinda implied in not move, but wondering if it needs to be explicit
[16:26] Sebastean Steamweaver: From the description ,I'm guessing avatars are one of the only/few mobile elements to the navmesh?
[16:27] Andrew Linden: No, if you create a regular box (non-physiccal) it would be considered a "movable obstacle" in the AI system
[16:27] Ima Mechanique: avatars aren't part of the navmesh I don't think. just mobile obticals
[16:27] Andrew Linden: so characters will move around it
[16:27] Jonathan Yap: things wil go around obstacles
[16:27] Jonathan Yap: if you have navmesh they can go over them(?)
[16:27] Andrew Linden: so not just avatars, but all other non-navigable objects
[16:27] Sebastean Steamweaver: Ahhh, I see. So there is the navmesh, and then mobile obstacles within the navmesh.
[16:28] Ima Mechanique: the video explains it pretty well I think
[16:28] Andrew Linden: yes, it should be possible, for example, to specify that your house is naviable
[16:28] Johan Laurasia: got that link to that video handy anyone?
[16:28] Rex Cronon: where can i find this video
[16:28] Simon Linden: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Take-a-Sneak-Peek-at-the-Pathfinding-Experiments-Being-Conducted/ba-p/1386511
[16:28] Ima Mechanique: it's on the blog, don't have it handy
[16:28] Sebastean Steamweaver: Perhaps a script could flag an object as a mobile obstacle if it contains any functions that involve movement, nonphysical or otherwise?
[16:28] TankMaster Finesmith: do you can use your rumba in the house?
[16:28] Johan Laurasia: ty Simon
[16:29] Andrew Linden: Yeah, I guess there will soon be a bigger SL-roomba niche market.
[16:29] Ima Mechanique: I think anything not part of the nav-mesh is automatically an obstacle
[16:29] Keli Kyrie: What about combat sims? There are some object you want to hit a another not go around.
[16:29] TankMaster Finesmith: hehe
[16:29] Andrew Linden: Good question Keli.
[16:29] Sebastean Steamweaver: Yeah, Ima, but I'm thinking about when the navmesh i generated.
[16:29] Johan Laurasia: llPursue()
[16:30] Johan Laurasia: llNavigateTo()
[16:30] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is half over
[16:30] Andrew Linden: There is a setting in the new LSL api that will make an AI character NOT avoid moving obstacles (like an avatar)
[16:30] Andrew Linden: however I don't think there is one to specify that it NOT avoid non-moving obstacles (such as a bunker in a shoot-em-up region)
[16:30] Sebastean Steamweaver: Hmm
[16:31] Ima Mechanique: but it doesn't allow them to deliberately bump into objects does it?
[16:31] Ima Mechanique: oops answered
[16:31] Jonathan Yap: Maybe you need an additional feature, an AI that projects a keep-away zone
[16:31] Andrew Linden: Yes, I think you can make an AI character try to navigate to where an avatar is standing and bump into them.
[16:31] Sebastean Steamweaver: Andrew: when you go above the navmesh, what is the current behavior? Does it only react to mobile obstacles?
[16:32] Ima Mechanique: but what about objects, like doors
[16:32] Andrew Linden: Sebastean, could you rephrase that? I don't understand.
[16:32] Andrew Linden: Ima, yeah doors are going to be tricky.
[16:32] Jonathan Yap: What happens if you rezz one of these things on a platform 20m above the ground?
[16:33] Keli Kyrie: With this will you be able to make a guided missile that will go around all objects till it finds its target. Like you see in the SiFi movies?
[16:33] Ima Mechanique: Sebastean, if you go above then you're outside the mesh and an error occurs
[16:33] Sebastean Steamweaver: When you take a pathfinding object above the navmesh that's currently generated, what happens to the object? Does it still move around, but ignore objects other than mobile obstacles, and pretend everything else doesn't exist?
[16:33] Jonathan Yap: I guess we can go and see, too :)
[16:33] Fancy Detector: Falcon Linden has arrived!
[16:33] Andrew Linden: To make "navigable" doors that can open and close (cutting off part of the navmesh) they can't actually be "part" of the house -- they have to be separate objects (dynamic obstacles).
[16:34] Andrew Linden: Sebastean, if you somehow move an AI character too high off the navmesh surface it will become "lost" and will be unable to navigate.
[16:34] Sebastean Steamweaver: Okay
[16:34] Jonathan Yap: What is "too high" currently?
[16:34] Johan Laurasia: well, can't one use a sensor to detect a path finding object, and use that as a trigger to open the door?
[16:34] Ima Mechanique: ahh Falcon, just the Linden I want to bug... er I mean ask a question
[16:35] Andrew Linden: However, a skybox that was flagged as being part of the navmesh should get navigable triangles on its floor.
[16:35] Sebastean Steamweaver nods.
[16:35] Sahkolihaa Contepomi: Uh oh..
[16:35] Keli Kyrie: Hi Falcon
[16:35] Sebastean Steamweaver: What currently happens if an AI character can't reach its goal?
[16:35] Andrew Linden: Falcon is here to answer more questions. We had one for you...
[16:35] Johan Laurasia: Pull up a chair Falcon
[16:36] Raven Juno: First thing. Make Nekomimi maid girls to wanter around the linden homes paying residents daily visits. This must be acomplished.
[16:36] Johan Laurasia: heh
[16:36] Ima Mechanique: Sebastean it raises its prim hands in the air and give in. (triggers the path_update event with destination-unreachable flag
[16:36] Falcon Linden: Hey folks
[16:36] Simon Linden: Does pathfinding work on AV attachments?
[16:37] Rex Cronon: hi falcon
[16:37] Andrew Linden: Ima Mechanique asked why llGetClosestNavPoint() returns a list rather than just a vector.
[16:37] Falcon Linden: simon: no, not at present. IT's something we could probably add fairly easily
[16:37] Falcon Linden: my first hacky implementation of the AI code was to override the click-to-move function
[16:37] Falcon Linden: and it worked
[16:37] Sebastean Steamweaver: Heh, that would be interesting for mazes.
[16:37] Falcon Linden: Ima: because there may be no closest nav point available
[16:37] Falcon Linden: an empty list is easy to check for
[16:37] Ima Mechanique: Falcon, what's the reasoning behind llGetClosestNavPoint returning a list instead of a simple vector?
[16:37] Falcon Linden: list point = llGetClosestNavPoint
[16:37] Falcon Linden: if ( point != [] )
[16:38] Falcon Linden: ...
[16:38] Ima Mechanique: yeah, but a waste of time. could siply check for a weird vector like other functions do
[16:39] Falcon Linden: no.
[16:39] Sebastean Steamweaver: Are you referring to the llDetectedTouch functions?
[16:39] Falcon Linden: Checking for weird vectors is a ludicrous solution, though it was considered
[16:39] Ima Mechanique: Sebastean, as one example yes
[16:39] Falcon Linden: because LSL doesn't support the RIGHT solution
[16:39] Falcon Linden: (pass by reference, return a boolean for success)
[16:39] Jonathan Yap: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetClosestNavPoint
[16:39] Falcon Linden: the only "weird vector" we could use would be NaNs and I want to yank the ability to generate a NaN in a script ASAP
[16:40] Ima Mechanique: why is a very negative vector not useable?
[16:40] Falcon Linden: because a negative vector just means a point in a region W, SW, or S
[16:41] Andrew Linden: how about a vector with a negative z-value
[16:41] Sebastean Steamweaver: Hmm...
[16:41] Falcon Linden: e.g., llNavigateTo(<-128, -128, 0>, []) will take you to the middle of the region to the SW if possible
[16:41] Kaluura Boa: My idea too... Negative Z.
[16:41] Ima Mechanique: obvious -1,-1,-1 is not okay as it's technically valid location, but what about -256, -256, -256?
[16:41] Falcon Linden: Andrew: no...because, no.
[16:41] Falcon Linden: :P
[16:41] Falcon Linden: Ima: valid also
[16:41] Falcon Linden: in fact, <-1000, -1000, 0> is valid
[16:41] Johan Laurasia: oh cool
[16:41] Falcon Linden: it means to /try/ to go about 3 regions south and 3 regions west
[16:42] Ima Mechanique: -256 are valid? two sims away?
[16:42] Falcon Linden: it may not work since you won't know in advance if the region 2 spots over is all underwater or something, but it would work
[16:42] Falcon Linden: err, it would work if there really is a reasonable path there
[16:42] Johan Laurasia: so are you saying, technically, there's no limit to how far you specify as long as there's a path, you can specify it?
[16:42] Ima Mechanique: damn.
[16:42] Falcon Linden: yes.
[16:42] Falcon Linden: The path has to make progress toward the goal at each region
[16:42] Ima Mechanique: okay, I see your reasoning then. Don't like it, but that's not your problem ;-)
[16:42] Sebastean Steamweaver: Looking at llWanderWithin, will the list options account for "ground-bound" objects vs flying objects, like wisps, bees etc, which can wander vertically? Would there be any way to define a wandering vertical range?
[16:43] Falcon Linden: so if you try to go two regions west, you can't go: east, north, north, west, west, west, south to get there
[16:43] Sebastean Steamweaver: Oh wait
[16:43] Falcon Linden: sebastean: nothing can wander vertically
[16:43] Sebastean Steamweaver: I hadn't finished reading the page, heh.
[16:43] Falcon Linden: vertical pathfinding is unsupported
[16:43] Falcon Linden: :P
[16:43] Falcon Linden: but you /DO/ need to be a little careful
[16:43] Falcon Linden: because say you have something like this:
[16:43] Jonathan Yap: while wandering can something use setpos to go up and down a little bit though?
[16:43] Glass of Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice ! whispers: MMMmmmm!
[16:44] Ima Mechanique: Jonathon, you can jump ;-)
[16:44] Johan Laurasia: can an object be linked with another object so you can get it to hover?
[16:44] Ima Mechanique: upto 2.0m
[16:44] Falcon Linden: johan: yes
[16:44] Falcon Linden: but using setpos won't do what you want
[16:44] Falcon Linden: you can use setlinkprimitiveparams, though
[16:45] Johan Laurasia: that works great for me then, because I'm looking more for hover than full volumetric movement
[16:45] Falcon Linden: Okay, so suppose you have a region like this
[16:45] Falcon Linden: And the red box is your wander box
[16:45] Falcon Linden: your character may choose to go to a point on the top floor
[16:46] Falcon Linden: because there is a path to get there, even though that path leaves the area
[16:46] Falcon Linden: so you need to be a bit careful
[16:46] Sebastean Steamweaver chuckles
[16:46] Sebastean Steamweaver: I can see how that would cause problems, but I like that as an option.
[16:46] Falcon Linden: yeah, it's something we could someday add an option to prevent, but I'm not 100% sure how it would work on the code side
[16:46] Sebastean Steamweaver: "STRICT_AREA" vs allowing it to "improvise"
[16:47] Ima Mechanique: Falcon, how far off the mesh does the destination have to be to cause the PU_FAILURE_INVALID_START flag to be raised
[16:47] Falcon Linden: ima: I'm pretty sure 2m will due it, but maybe less under some circumstances
[16:47] Falcon Linden: do it*
[16:47] Sebastean Steamweaver: Would that become available at some point, assuming at some point we get volumetric pathfinding?
[16:47] Sebastean Steamweaver: Err, 'that" meaning vertical wandering.
[16:47] Falcon Linden: sebastean: if we someday get volumetric pathfinding, I can't see any reason not allow you to wander in a volume
[16:48] Sebastean Steamweaver nods
[16:48] Falcon Linden: certainly it would be as easy to implement as llWanderWithin
[16:48] Ima Mechanique: ooh I see butterflies in the future ;-)
[16:48] Sebastean Steamweaver: It would seem you'd need a different function for a volumetric wandering script
[16:49] Ima Mechanique: more likely bees though, as this is too smooth for butterflies
[16:49] Sebastean Steamweaver: That raises an interesting question though.
[16:49] Sebastean Steamweaver: Would you be able to define volumetric areas by giving a function a list of "containment points"?
[16:49] Sebastean Steamweaver: To build your own custom "cage" for objects?
[16:49] Falcon Linden: sebastean: naah. llWanderWithin just picks a random navmesh face and then a random point in it. For volumetric, it would pick a random voxel and a random point in it
[16:50] Rex Cronon: u can just make a empty box/cylinder so the ai can't find a way out:)
[16:50] Sebastean Steamweaver: Yes Rex, but I'm looking at more dynamic areas than being constrained to box/cylinders/spheres.
[16:50] Falcon Linden: sebastean: you don't need to. You can use llWanderWithin but choose the origin and size from a list of origin/size pairs
[16:50] Johan Laurasia: can you affect the movement of something using non physical llSetPos() then go back to the navigation?
[16:50] Falcon Linden: johan: yes
[16:51] Falcon Linden: also, folks, here's something important:
[16:51] Johan Laurasia: to make butterflies that jump around, per se, as was suggested earlier
[16:51] Falcon Linden: AI, by its nature, is an evolving feature. We make NO promises that if you use the calls other than as-intended and as-documented that we won't break them in the future
[16:51] Rex Cronon: i already have seen butterflies:)
[16:51] Falcon Linden: e.g., all we guarantee for llWanderWithin is that it will wander within an area centered at the position and /roughly/ "radius" in size
[16:51] Ima Mechanique: Falcon, I always work on that assumption ;-)
[16:52] Falcon Linden: whether that area is a sphere or a box or something else could change at any time
[16:52] Ima Mechanique: quirks don't count as far as I'm concerned
[16:52] Falcon Linden: Ima: You get a cookie, but many scripters get no cookie :P
[16:52] Sebastean Steamweaver: Hehe
[16:52] Falcon Linden: A more realistic example is llEvade
[16:53] Falcon Linden: right now it looks for a hiding spot within 10m of its fleeing path. In the future, that might be 20. Or it might do something else. All we promise is that it will try to get away from the target and try to hide in some sense
[16:53] Ima Mechanique: I was taught "if it ain't documented, it don't exist" of course when I started SL LL didn't really document any of LSL so we made it up as we went along ;-)
[16:53] Falcon Linden: fair enough
[16:53] Falcon Linden: :)
[16:54] Ima Mechanique: now however, there is official docs, so we should all know better ;-)
[16:54] Falcon Linden: Any other questions?
[16:54] Keli Kyrie: What about the opposite of Evade.... like have a cat walk down the stairs?
[16:54] Sebastean Steamweaver: Can the movement also be affected by non-physical forces, like llSetForce, or llApplyImpulse, etc?
[16:54] Falcon Linden: Keli: there's llPursue
[16:54] Johan Laurasia: yeah, but remember the days when you could store war & peace in an ojbect description? :)
[16:54] Ima Mechanique: there's llPursue
[16:55] Sebastean Steamweaver: Why did I call that non-physical
[16:55] Falcon Linden: sebastean: llSetForce and llApplyImpulse require physics
[16:55] Meeter: Timecheck : User Group is almost over
[16:55] Sebastean Steamweaver: Yes, I had a brain-derp, I meant physical forces.
[16:55] Falcon Linden: and no, those don't work on characters
[16:55] Falcon Linden: characters aren't rigid bodies
[16:55] Johan Laurasia: but llSetPos() does
[16:55] Falcon Linden: they use a different (still havok) system
[16:55] Falcon Linden: llSetPos doesn't require physics
[16:55] Rex Cronon: so, will bullets pass through these path finding AIs?
[16:55] Falcon Linden: no, they won't
[16:55] Andrew Linden: I remember those days. I tracked down a problem where someone put that or some other novel into an object description.
[16:56] Johan Laurasia: lol
[16:56] Johan Laurasia: really, I think it was only reliable up to about 8k or so
[16:56] Sebastean Steamweaver: How do the keyframe animation functions affect AI, if at all/
[16:56] Sebastean Steamweaver: characters*
[16:57] Andrew Linden: Yeah, it got truncated, but our parsing code wasn't robust either.
[16:57] Fei Bourdeille: All this talk of AI is making me think of Birds and Ators.
[16:57] Andrew Linden: So if you put the right text in there other problems would happen.
[16:57] Andrew Linden: What? Fei you remember Ators?
[16:57] Fei Bourdeille: I remember a lot of things.
[16:58] Andrew Linden: Wow, those were removed a looong time ago.
[16:58] Johan Laurasia: Yeah, I'm over 5 years now and I have no clue what an Ator is
[16:58] Fei Bourdeille: Yeah, but we still have a nice video to remind us of times long past.
[16:58] Fei Bourdeille: Ators were AI that lived in Linden World. More or less, they were snakes.
[16:59] Ima Mechanique: in a few hours I will be 7 years old
[16:59] Andrew Linden: Yeah, Ator's were carnivors and ate birds.
[16:59] Andrew Linden: The birds ate rocks.
[16:59] Johan Laurasia: holy wow Ima
[16:59] Johan Laurasia: Happy Rez Day
[16:59] Ima Mechanique: er I mean my avatar, don't want to get banned for age play or anything
[16:59] Sebastean Steamweaver: On a different subject, just a quick question. Last week you said you were going to look at the llRenderText (or similar) functions and llMatchGroup. Did that come up in last week's office hours?
[16:59] Fei Bourdeille: Technically I will be... Actually I am not sure, i would have to look at my first rez date.
[16:59] Johan Laurasia: lol
[16:59] Rex Cronon: may u get to 100:)
[16:59] MartinRJ Fayray: happy rezday Ima
[17:00] Johan Laurasia: How old is your avie Andrew?
[17:00] Meeter: Thank you for coming to the Server User Group
[17:00] Andrew Linden: Sebastean, no I didn't read the jiras. That is what I meant to do.
[17:00] Andrew Linden: I'm still fuzzy on the llRenderText() idea.
[17:00] Draconis Neurocam: andrew is 9 years 8 months
[17:00] Johan Laurasia: bet he was wearin' that outfit that day too...lol
[17:00] Sebastean Steamweaver: That's fine! I think I'm going to update llRenderText anyway. It's been a long time since I looked at it, and I think it could use some updating to streamline the proposal a bit.
[17:01] TankMaster Finesmith: falcon fell asleep again
[17:01] Ima Mechanique: quick, find a tricycle to put him on
[17:01] Sebastean Steamweaver: Andrew, do you know if the keyframe animation functions affect characters at all?
[17:01] Flip Idlemind: Would that be a non-hacky, non-requiring-tons-of-prims way to put arbitrary text on a prim and now above it?
[17:01] Fei Bourdeille: Why put him on a tricycle when we can make him a tricycle?
[17:02] Sebastean Steamweaver: I'm just trying to see if there might be a smoother way to achieve vertical "floating" movement than setpos.
[17:02] Flip Idlemind: not above it*
[17:02] Andrew Linden: AI characters do not play well with keyframe. Those two features will be exclusive.
[17:02] Sebastean Steamweaver: And yes FLIP, that's the idea.
[17:02] Andrew Linden: If you try to use them today... the consequences are undefined... the sim will probably crash.
[17:02] Sebastean Steamweaver: Ah, alright. I will make it a point to avoid that.
[17:03] Andrew Linden: Ha. My table has been returned.
[17:03] Andrew Linden: Must be time to go.
[17:03] Sebastean Steamweaver: Hehe
[17:03] Simon Linden: haha
[17:03] TankMaster Finesmith: lol
[17:03] Johan Laurasia: it is...lol
[17:03] Sebastean Steamweaver: Thank you for your time, Andrew, Simon, Falcon
[17:03] Andrew Linden: Thanks for coming everyone.
[17:03] Ima Mechanique: yeah, subtle message that
[17:03] Simon Linden: One hour autoreturn here
[17:03] Flip Idlemind: Actually, a friend brought up an interesting idea the other day...
[17:03] Ima Mechanique: thanks for having us ;-)
[17:03] TankMaster Finesmith: have a great weeken andew, simon, falcon
[17:03] Draconis Neurocam: thanks andrew, simon, falcon
[17:03] Sahkolihaa Contepomi: Enjoy your weekend, Lindens.
[17:03] Flip Idlemind: Ya know how there's llTargetOmega?
[17:03] Falcon Linden: sorry guys
[17:03] Johan Laurasia: Thanks for your time as ususal Andrew, Simon, Falcon.
[17:03] Flip Idlemind: That sets a viewer-side spinny-ness
[17:03] Falcon Linden: flash conversation with the execs
[17:03] Falcon Linden: did I miss any important questions?
[17:03] Simon Linden: Thanks everyone for coming
[17:03] Keli Kyrie: Thank you Andrew, Simon, and Falcon
[17:04] Sebastean Steamweaver: Andrew got my question, thanks Falcon :)
[17:04] Ash Qin: Thanks Lindens
[17:04] Rex Cronon: tc andrew, simon, falcon an everybody:)
[17:04] Sebastean Steamweaver: I didn't see anyone ask any other pathfinding related ones.
[17:04] Falcon Linden: excellent
[17:04] Flip Idlemind: What if there were an equivalent function that sets a viewer-side go-up-and-down-y-ness?
[17:04] Ima Mechanique: only one Falscon. How to get you on a tricycle ;-)
[17:04] Falcon Linden: flip: heh
[17:04] Sebastean Steamweaver: Bobbing, Flip?
[17:04] Falcon Linden: Ima: yeah, I don't know how I stayed connected last night
[17:04] Sebastean Steamweaver: That would be neat.
[17:04] Falcon Linden: my laptop was off.
[17:04] Falcon Linden: that was...odd.
[17:04] TankMaster Finesmith: miricels of SL
[17:04] Falcon Linden: but the trike is cool
[17:05] Jonathan Yap: Falcon, you are lucky I got an error 403 (forbidden) this morning trying to put your photo on my feed
[17:05] Falcon Linden: rez a box in front of it while you're riding and see what happens!
[17:05] Falcon Linden: For now, ciao!
[17:05] Sebastean Steamweaver: It can be currently achieved, but, not through viewer-simulation.
Simulator_User_Group
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