1  2  3  4  |   Order by default

May 20, 2002, 4:00pm

is this my mistake on my side or did anyone else get the problem when using
the aw_user_data functions, it seems to keep the pointer if the bot
crashes? a few times i had aw_user_data returning a not NULL pointer when i
reentered with my bot for an avatar_add event....

(c++)

May 21, 2002, 5:18am

"agent1" <Agent1 at my.activeworlds.com> wrote in news:3ce97bc8$1
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Uhh... Activeworlds' SDK *is* written in C.
>
> -Agent1
>
[View Quote] i meant write the bot classes in C :)

May 21, 2002, 9:17am

I cant imagine running 2 different callbacks in the same setting for 1
AW Event, in any language.

all which counts for every form of botclassing, so what is the big deal.
Point is IMHO writing classes in c++ is for very obvious reasons easier
it being an class based language, while vb is more of an encapsuled form
of basic.

Creating a dll is not restricted to using comobjects either so also an
argument which doesn't really convince me.

"grimble" <grimble2000 at btinternet.com> wrote in
news:3cea2186 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Is this a reply to Brant's question? If so, I think you're wrong - its
> not simpler to make a bot class in C++ (which I assume you meant).
>
> The main issue is that you cannot provide a reference to a class
> member function as a callback function, so the whole callback process
> must be supported by a separate mechanism. This mechanism has to
> accept the event, determine the object that the event was intended for
> using the instance sdk instance parameter and deliver it accordingly.
>
> Also, all instances of VB classes are created as COM objects and
> therefore a COM DLL can be created very easily to distribute the
> classes as a bot framework with very little additional work as well as
> run out-of-process very easily.
>
> Grims
>
>
[View Quote]

May 21, 2002, 3:02pm

Fair enough, i was just commenting on the simplicity of wrapping the sdk
in C++ in a class as opposed to the convolutions necessary to to do the
same in basic. Having all sources in basic ofcourse negates the ease of
use in C. I am now in the process of cleaning up my bot class for C++
for public disposal. It is a simplefied extract from my own botclass,
took out all personal errorchecking and personal touches.Just a
barebones botclass, wrapping the aw.dll. Despite Grimbles objections the
class instantiates its own instance in AW, and keeps track of it
connected to it's own eventhandlers. (if they are provided ofcourse)

Check www.petrossa.com/botclass.html once in a while, as soon as it
returns without an 404 error the source code is there for public
download

Try downloading the free timelimited trial on www.borland.com of
cbuilder, it covers all of your objections to C.

Anyway, i'll be very intesrested to view your project :)

"brant" <awteen at shoemakervillage.org> wrote in
news:3cea49c2$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Well, in reply to your question, I was originally going to write this
> secret project in C++. I decided against doing so for two reasons.
>
> 1. I have hundreds of pages of code already written to do just about
> anything with the SDK that could be easily changed to do what this
> particular bot is designed for. In C++, I would have to rewrite all
> that code from scratch.
>
> 2. While I've written a lot of programs using console functions in
> C++, I have no knowledge of how to use the Windows API to create nice
> looking forms. I should probably learn how to use it, but doing so
> would push the completion of the project back beyond next week, AFTER
> 3.3 is released.
>
> Plus, VB offers a lot of ease in debugging that will allow me to get a
> project that doesn't necessarily rely on speed off the ground quickly.
> The only problem with VB is that inheritance is not supported (I
> believe VB.net supports it though), meaning that the only way I can
> add application-specific reactions to SDK events is to create a
> "generic module" which has a set of subroutines that are called after
> the class processes events. In the AvatarAdd event, for example, the
> class first manages the list of avatars (used in all applications),
> and then passes a reference of the "Bot" object to a global Sub for
> actions taken by this specific application. It's somewhat sloppy to
> have to create a "dummy module" with just the prototypes and no
> implementation and then make a copy to modify each time you want to
> write a bot - but it's the best VB offers, unless someone else has a
> better idea how this could be implemented.
>
> By the way, in case anyone is wondering, I plan to release all of
> these classes to the public in the hopes of spurring on interesting
> bot development. The code won't be compiled into a DLL - it will be
> released as the original source so everyone can take a look - stay
> tuned :)
>
[View Quote]

May 23, 2002, 7:57am

look for it in www.petrossa.com/botclass.html. flames are ignored, helpfull
critic is is welcome

May 24, 2002, 2:37pm

"brant" <awteen at shoemakervillage.org> wrote in
news:3cee6570$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> cells). The nested For loops are killing the processor, but I can't
> see any ways to eliminate them.

I am not going to win a popularity contest here, but VB is really not
the language to write these kinds of functions in. VB has a big overhead
in loading almost everything but the kitchensink,so having a lot of
internal processor drain already to take care of handling your calls to
it.

That's the prob with these kinds of highlevel languages, you're stuck
with how they handle things, if you want to change it you really have to
go down the ladder.

IMHO one can only improve on speed by having a 'bestquess' mechanism in
place coupled with a really tightly written assembly routine. In VB
these loops you cant really make really faster that it is worth the
effort.

If you want i dont mind to coop on a project to build some objects which
can be linked to your project....

Don't expect any blinding speed though ;)

May 24, 2002, 4:31pm

"grimble" <grimble2000 at btinternet.com> wrote in
news:3cee8482 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> I think the way I would approach it (even in C++) would be to prebuild
> (and maintain) a 40x40 cell array to cover the query area, and then,
> under each cell (using the largest possible bounding box for each
> model), hold a list of references to the models that MAY overlap it.
> That would obviously cut down the checks to the objects that could
> feasibly be in the cell.
>
>
>

that would be a very good idea, but that would entail a large overhead in
maintaining the list. again this is not very well managed in VB. in a big
world this really could stack up to a large chunk of memory, which has to
be indexed on a continous basis. imo it would be better to have some kind
of lookup list of possible neigbours, for example a walk would normally
have a walk next to it....and get some kind of inter/extrapolation.
something like a cd player, where it second quesses what should be there
when databits fall out.

May 24, 2002, 6:53pm

I wasn't trying to make this into a religious discussion, i just tried
to give some real advice, despite what Grimble says, no way VB is going
to stack up to c, or assembly any which day. My suggestion is to handle
the serious numbercrunching in a seperate module and call it from VB.

if not suit yourself but no way you're going to handle the requests that
your idea will generate. And for sure the Aw browser is not written in
VB


"brant" <awteen at shoemakervillage.org> wrote in
news:3cee9a34$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> I appreciate the tips here, but I asked for help on the function, not
> the language. As I said before, I had originally planned to write
> this program in C++, but because I already have a lot of classes for
> various purposes written in VB, I decided to use VB.
>
> To tell you the truth, I don't think that any language will be able to
> handle what this function is supposed to do perfectly, since it's just
> a work-around for the same function in the world server. Just getting
> it to work took four days - it'll take many more to get it optimized,
> and there are time constraints (i.e. the release of version 3.3) to
> deal with here. It would be interesting to see how Roland implemented
> this function in the world server.
>
[View Quote]

May 26, 2002, 11:19am

all power to you, Grumble. be happy with what you got, and leave silly
uninformed 25 years of experience as a professional writer people behind
you in the dust of your mighty wrath. :)

Jun 5, 2002, 7:01pm

second this

"datedman" <russell at synergycorp.com> wrote in
news:3CFE3714.E94A255F at synergycorp.com:

> Hehe yah I had almost forgotten how any post here, no matter how
> helpful, is just fodder for folks to jump in and snipe.
>

May 25, 2002, 5:42pm

I am looking for testers for my bot, especially multiworld owners,
In short a Paradox Database based bot with a full GUI.

Next to all build 24 functions, it will (all following functions now in
early or later stages of development):

allow to run from 1 interface, to the bot limit, bots in as many worlds
as you want, at the same time , lets you log on/log off any bot anytime,
log all visitors or selectively by name/world their movements/chats in a
db (with grep retrieval), manage building rights per world on a
time/personal basis even kicking out caretakers if so desired, monitor
access to a world based on world rights on a personal basis with ip,
name and session recognition (rating of world), store whole, or parts of
worlds in a db (only limit disk space) and rebuild them somewhere else
selectively (any combination of object attributes, allowing for
coordinate transformation), allow to produce a wav on a name out of the
chat with any kind of number of sounds connected to any kind of action
per person , has a normal chat window, lets you click on an avatar and
give access through a menu to integrated email, browse homepage, eject,
transport and view info of the wearer, (in very early development) build
through a mspaint like interface where WYSIWYG, can browse objects from
the obpath and show them in AW by just clicking on the name in the
browser, (will auto differentiate between texture, jpg, wav, midi (most
of the time ;)), selectively delete objects on any selection with oops!
function (rebuild them if you made a mistake)

and anything else i forgot already but is there anyway or i will come up
with...or anyone else comes up with.

The timeframe for distribution is hopefully around september 2002, or so
much later inversely proportional to the number of testers.

This bot now takes 16 mb in download size and about 20 mb expanded on
disk. All interested participants have to register for a copy, as the
bot contains copyrighted parts. Send me an email if you want to join.

May 26, 2002, 5:52am

tnx, just put it in bots, huge? that's relative. But the reason: the
database drivers,(4mb) the internetsupport (botemail, browsing) (2.5mb)
the GUI drivers (6mb) the actual programsize is 100 kb :)
so updates usually take that much, the 16 mb is a one time only.


"agent1" <Agent1 at my.activeworlds.com> wrote in news:3cf00b59$1
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> It would be better to post this in the Bots newsgroup or in
> general.discussion.
>
> BTW - What is it that makes your bot so huge? 16MB is very excessive
> compared to other bots I've seen.
>
> -Agent1
>
[View Quote]

May 26, 2002, 11:08am

mfc stinks to very high heaven unfortunately. i had to do a project once
using VC and it irritated the &%%$ out of me...
I've been using C since it was about invented, and actually never got
the hots for ms products. they are usually sloppily build, bugridden,
cumbersome, underfeatured and counterproductive. Already since Turboc C
1.0 Borland had the lead on MS C in every which way. since Cbuilder i'd
never ever consider using VC again.

(IMHO :)



"grimble" <grimble2000 at btinternet.com> wrote in news:3cf0daf5$1
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> 3rd Party UI Library? Any reason you chose not to use the MFC?
>
[View Quote]

May 26, 2002, 11:14am

well, as long as i have been using C, longer i used basic. I started off
in the late 70's with bbc basic switched to business basic, turbo basic
and cbasic. I looked at VB but it didn't give me anything i didn't have
in C, it was a MS product (see post to GRumble) and that's the whole
story. I don't discriminate VB, i just think that you have to use the
language that fits the crime and not use a language just because you
know it. Some things are just better off written in c, others in
assembly, others using whatever. And if you're expert at VB c should be
easy to pick up, try it you might be amazed what a range of possibilites
opens up ;) Or don't and hey all the best.....


"kah" <kah at kahnews.cjb.net> wrote in
news:Xns921A88A4128CAkahatkahnewsdotcjbdo at 64.94.241.201:

> "chazrad" <petrossadeletethis at msn.com> wrote in news:3cf09459$1
> at server1.Activeworlds.com:
>
>
> 6MB of GUI drivers??? Get VB and make GUIs that take up a few kbs...
> (in your face, you annoying VB discriminator)... heck, even the huge
> VB RTL is smaller than that!
>
> KAH

May 26, 2002, 1:49pm

only 1 way to find out, Grumble :))))

"grimble" <grimble2000 at btinternet.com> wrote in
news:3cf0df48$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Then you suffer the consequences. A bot had better be pretty
> exceptional and different to warrant 16MB download and, more
> importantly the installation of that shuff.
>
[View Quote]

May 26, 2002, 2:11pm

have you ever seen Amadeus? (the movie ;) My very most often quoted
phrase is the one when mozart produced the first all german opera (4
hours of it), after which the austrian emperor says:

There's just to many notes.

And mozart says:

which notes would you like me to remove?

Unfortunately features come at a price :( wish it wasn't so, but.....
also it weeds out 'less then serious' participants.

Sounds also a bit like if you have to ask the price of a (fill in
whichever expensive car) you can't afford it.

Looks like only seriously interested people will try it out which suits
me fine really.

And what's 16 mb in todays world? and note that's only first time
installment, updates take only about 100 kb...

Furthermore by the very nature of this bot it is mostly geared towards
worldowners, which mostly by default have the storage and bandwidth to
accomodate this app.

Finally:

almost final:

all database interfaces
the delete/rebuild
the storage/rebuild (with edit)
world build allowance
wav/name sound producing
object browsing
integrated email/homepage browser
visitor logging
avatar popupmenu

less then stable:

mirror/follow
natural language interpretation of bot commands through whispers

really early stages:

building through paintprogram
multi botting in unlimited worlds at the same time

terrainbuilding i am currently studying and as yet is not implemented


"carlbanks" <Virtualcarlbanks at hotmail.com> wrote in news:3cf0dd56$1
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Sounds cool but if you can do it and make size smaller I'll test it.
>
[View Quote]

May 26, 2002, 5:39pm

"carlbanks" <Virtualcarlbanks at hotmail.com> wrote in news:3cf112b4$1
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> okie send it to me I'll test it for you.

tnx (i hope :) i'll make it available on my server, i'll give the adress in
a private email. it wil take about 1 week more to have the first draft
ready for testing....

May 27, 2002, 8:14am

Hey tnx! i'll put you on the list, already 2 wow. Scripting...i was
thinking about it, but to make it worth the effort it would have to be a
scripting that at least could interprete other botscripts, otherwise
people wouldn't use it anyway. since the other scripting bots work fine
it's probably better not to put my efforts there, but more in adding
predefined, most popular functions with same sort of extensive parameter
setting. Didnt work this out yet as you can see :)



"young phalpha" <RhaneC at msn.com> wrote in
news:3cf18fe3$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> include me in it, I'm hoping you'll add scripting or something of the
> sort?
>
> - YP
>
[View Quote]

May 27, 2002, 5:43pm

ok KAH. at least i can be sure you'll pick my bot to pieces :) Just be
gentle, it's it's first time :)))

"kah" <kah at kahnews.cjb.net> wrote in
news:Xns921BD2EF7E960kahatkahnewsdotcjbdo at 64.94.241.201:

> "young phalpha" <RhaneC at msn.com> wrote in
> news:3cf18fe3$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:
>
>
> And me please :-)) (send any mail to the address in my From header,
> it's my real address)
>
> KAH
>

May 29, 2002, 5:34pm

tnx KAH, i didn't see his post because i've put all the negativists in
the killfile, but, yes trust me: i dont use any MS crap except for
msagent... which for a change really works quite well :) glad to see
someone stands up for poor little me :))))

I can't help myself unfortunately, i felt i was mature enough to ignore
blissfully this immature flaming but Strike proves me wrong so against
every better judgement:

funny guy, explain what?

so why i didnt see it yet?

AW alone has 125.000.000 objects....not hard? are you joking?

auto updates? what's that?. I have a cadillac, it doesn't get updated
that often (auto is a car in Europe :)

wmp to play sounds? so how are all the others going to hear you? by
phone? or they will all start the bot, that will crank up the no of
people in a world for sure... or is strike just milking to find out how
to do it really?

wouldnt you like to know, strike

????? cant make heads or tails ofthis.

Anywhere i said it was difficult? i just gave some of the main features,
i didn't attach a value for money list to it or did i? I wrote this prog
for some friends of mine, and after i found out that most functions are
not available to bot users, i decided to share it with the rest of aw,
if you dont like it well.....be sure i'll sleep quite soundly :)

Anyway, my main prog is 100 kb now, so that's 1/3 of yours....or did you
forget all the drivers vb adresses that are a integral part of winblows?

Read about Runtime Link Libraries first why dont you.


Or are you that incompetent to think that VB is an entity by itself and
that the compiled exe contains all code necessary to run it?

Or that that the VB distributables contain all the code to run your app?

Or that VB doesn't incur an enormous overhead because of it's lack of
typing?

Imagine the code necessary to check every time in a loop if the variable
you give it is a char, word, double word and so on.

To have switch cases with open arrays instead of fixed words, try to
write a parser that will arrange that for you maybe then you will
realize the enormous price you pay for the userfriendlyness of basic.

I love basic, for it's ease of use, it let's me write a quick and dirty
prototype of my idea. But to write a full blown enduser safe app in it?
Not on my life. As easy as it lets me prototype it lets me f**k up an
app in ways no debugger gets unrevelled in a 100 manhours.

For sure C++ is a pain the ass if you want to write something quickly,
but for designing and maintaining serious software nothing beats it yet.

Furthermore don't forget most os's are written in C or C++ combined with
assembly for a reason.

If you want to slag someone do it well, or at least wait till you have
seen the product, which i offer to you for a special price ;)

Enough, i've said my piece. I could really go on about this for hours
because as most of the flamers i've seen sofar my knowledge is based on
experience and not of selective reading of books.

Be happy with whatsoever, and anyday you want ot derise C, well i'll
just don't give a sh*t, whereas sofar most people flaming me seem to be
very affronted be me....

Be well all of you, from now on i'll ignore any post that's not
constructive

May 29, 2002, 6:45pm

you all will manage

"silenced" <nospam at privacy.com> wrote in
news:3cf53a73$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Learn to reply.. I can't make out your replies from his.. very hard
> for him to follow as well I'd assume.
>

May 30, 2002, 7:49pm

you mean to say: you 'can' type in vb, but you also can not.
to 'dim as' is optional

"kah" <kah at kahnews.cjb.net> wrote in
news:Xns921EBB80A78B8kahatkahnewsdotcjbdo at 64.94.241.201:

> Note that VB *does* have typing, but it also has a type called
> Variant, which does not have typing, and it is considerably slower
> than a variable declared as a specific type, all serious VB
> programmers keep well at distance from it.
>
> KAH

May 31, 2002, 3:36pm

screenshots in menton

Jun 2, 2002, 4:05pm

I checked and rechecked, but sometimes aw will return a spurious pointer in
AW_EVENT_AVATAR_ADD to the aw_user_data request especially in an empty
world. unfortunately this does not happen consequently but it is something
to look out for. my workaround is to check the pointer address for a valid
range, since ( at least what i noticed) it useally returns a ridiculous
address.

Jun 4, 2002, 5:37am

Hi Miles,

Yes, it only happened 3 times so far out of the uncountable times it was
triggered. I enter an empty world avatar_add get's triggered spuriously
with (ofcourse) nonsense as data....i can't think of a program error that
generates avatar add events itself?

Regards Chaz


"milesteg" <MilesTeg at nerim.net> wrote in
news:3cfb5894$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Hi chazrad,
> I m using aw_usr_data in every event and callback handler but i never
> encountered this problem so far...
> If it happens , i will tell you.
>
> Regards,
> MilesTeg
>

Jun 7, 2002, 12:57pm

in which language, or you want pseudocode?
"edubacon2" <chokamir at plugnation.com> wrote in news:3d00c493
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Heyz
>
> I'm kinda new here can someone give me some source code of:
> how to move a bot
> how to change the weather
> how to make a bot for EduVerse
>
> Thx ChoKamir
>
>
>

Jun 16, 2002, 1:11pm

"jackbnimble" <privacy at plz.com> wrote in news:3C75EE64.9070101 at plz.com:

> And free LOL
>
[View Quote] try www.petrossa.com/download/bot.zip, it should work with most compilers

Jun 29, 2002, 2:01pm

tnx Grumble, very good advice. i actually missed that point :))))


"grimble" <grimble2000NOSPAM at btinternet.com> wrote in
news:3d1dd465$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> With the introduction of the Tilt and Roll attributes in v3.3, some
> SDK applications (including publicly released bots) may produce
> unexpected results. This only applies (I believe) under the following
> circumstances ...
>
> (a) the application picks up object click, object add or cell object
> (i.e. handles 3x3, 5x5 and/or cell
> next queries) events.
>
> (b) the application uses object change, add or load SDK methods.
>
> (c) the application code was written for a previous build of the SDK
> (i.e. one that doesn't support the Tilt and Roll object attributes)
> but where the version of the SDK has been "upgraded" to build 24
> without changing the code to handle the setting of the tilt and roll
> attributes.
>
> (d) 3-axis rotation is enabled in the world (or more to the point,
> there are objects in the world where 3d-axis rotation has been
> applied)
>
> For those that can't see the problem at first, I'll try to explain. As
> you're aware, all relevant attributes need to be set to the desired
> values when making a call to the SDK since the values are retained
> within the SDK throught its "life". So if the last object event
> (perhaps from a query event) raised on build 24 included non-zero Tilt
> or Roll values, these will be used in a subsequent aw_object_change
> call if they are not reset by the code.
>
> If the application was written for (and works perfectly well with)
> build 23, but the version of the SDK has been changed to build 24
> without readdressing any object add, change or load calls, you may
> find that the Tilt and Roll of the new object will not be what you
> expect.
>
> As an example, an application that maintains a billboard, changing the
> picture on an object at regular intervals may end up creating the
> object on its side or skewed at a funny angle. I really depends on how
> the object tilt and roll attributes have been "left" by the last
> event. Pre-build 24 applications will only be setting the Yaw of the
> object for its orientation and not the Tilt and Roll.
>
> I've reworded this a few times trying to get it to make sense, and I'm
> not sure I have managed it. If your application doesn't use the object
> change, add or load SDK methods then its not an issue. Unless the
> developer didn't read the help pages properly, this only applies to
> applications that PRE-DATED build 24 and the version of the SDK used
> has been changed TO build 24.
>
> For VBer's benefit, build 24 is either AwSdkOcx5.ocx or the recent COM
> wrapper from MrGrimm (they're both based on build 24).
>
> If you're in the habit of keeping the version of the SDK up to date in
> your applications you my want to check this in your code.
>
> Grimble.
>
>
>
>

Jun 29, 2002, 2:57pm

Ask Mickeysoft :))))

(U is to close to I on my keyboard i can't resist ;)

"grimble" <grimble2000NOSPAM at btinternet.com> wrote in news:3d1de0c9$1
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> Me too, chubrub. Still, who needs backwards compatibility, eh?
>
> GrImble
>
[View Quote]

Aug 9, 2002, 8:06am

"tomilius" <homeworkkid at msn.com> wrote in
news:3d536882 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> well, the new function i recently posted doesnt fully work, so i give
> up and im learning C++ now :)
>
shhhh, don't tell grimble :)

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