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Jun 7, 2001, 2:44am

Suggestion: Avatars being able to move with moving objects!

I know you get this suggestion a lot, but forward this to the programmers
anyway because I am including some novel suggestions on how to make it
possible.

I am a computer programmer too, so I am going to make this suggestion unique
by suggesting an algorithm to make it possible without increasing data
traffic. I know you get this suggestion a lot, but a possible programming
algorithm could be the following:

Avatar movement is currently recorded using world coordinates and vector
movement. My suggested solution is to instead make coordinates relative to
the object you're standing on, and leave it to the PC's responsibility to
keep the avatar attached to the object at 30 frames per second (even if
position updates only occur every 1 second)

(1) Whenever an avatar steps onto a moving object (rotating or sliding), the
avatar is "flagged" as being attached to that object. The avatar's XYZ
co-ordinates and vector motion would be locked to the object.

(2) No frequent avatar position updates would be required. Once the server
broadcasts the avatar's new "attachment" to a moving object, it would just
transmit one set of coordinates RELATIVE to the moving object itself (not
the world).

(3) It would be the personal computer's responsibility to keep the avatars'
position continually updated in realtime, based on the last time the server
broadcast an avatars' attachment to a specific object, and the position
co-ordinates relative to origin of object. Thinking of it another way,
it's as if the object would have its own set of "world coordinates". That
way, the server does not have to constantly retransmit co-ordinates of
avatars everytime the avatar is moving along with the object.

(4) This would only work with synchronous moving objects, for obvious
reasons (since everybody must be seeing the same object in the same
position)

(5) Server will just periodically rebroadcast avatar position, vector
movement data would be relative to the origin and orietniation of the moving
object. The position broadcasting can be just as infrequent as 0.5 to 1
second, as it currently does now. This does not increase data traffic at
all!

(6) Avatar affilation with a moving object will only occur with gravity
contact (that is, firmly standing on the moving object - not contacting the
side of a moving object, or bumping into it while flying)

(7) Server will broadcast when the avatar steps on the moving object, or
steps off the moving object.

(8) Since moving objects can consist of multiple synchronized moving
objects, stepping from one moving object to another can be tricky. I leave
this exercise to your own discretion, but you could simply just recommend
world builders to make one moving object into a single model, for
simplicity.

Imagine it...! Moving buses, trolleys, boats, monorails. Even cruise ships
with 100 people on them, perfectly stationary on its deck with intermittent
movements. As if a cruse ship was a separate world in itself, i.e. a moving
world (boat) within a stationary world (water).

Thanks,
Mark Rejhon
Citizen #6831
http://www.marky.com
marky at ottawa.com

Jun 7, 2001, 7:48am

[View Quote] Interesting concept. I see problems:
1, All robots which relies on the avatar movement would be useless because robots know nothing about the moving objects.
2, The concept of "hearing range" will be screwed - the server has no knowledge about the moving object.
3, All object collision will be off for the robots.

and probably much more.
Andras

Jun 7, 2001, 4:37pm

who said it was a bot...he said it would be in the actual program, am i
right?
[View Quote]

Jun 7, 2001, 5:45pm

I would hope so. I tire of having to rely on bots for more and more functionality that SHOULD be (and should HAVE been) implemented into AW itself in the first place.

[View Quote] > who said it was a bot...he said it would be in the actual program, am i
> right?

[View Quote] > robots know nothing about the moving objects.
> knowledge about the moving object.

Jun 7, 2001, 6:40pm

also, commands like tporting ppl and URL sending should be accesible trough
the right-click menu

KAH

[View Quote]

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