Dynamic Texture Scripting in Kitely

[Min Tigerpaw]

Base on my current scripting work for Kitely stuff I have some activities with dynamic textures. In the course of this work I observed (and will certainly observe more) aspects with scripts for dynamic textures that I think worth to discuss to better understand what is possible and where are limits (and if they eventually might be pushed ).
I'll post them one at a time - and I want to start with fonts for dynamic textures:
So far I could find only the 4 very standard fonts below that work within Kitely with osSetFontName or as graphics-command in the data section of osSetDynamicTextureData:
Arial, Courier, Times New Roman and Helvetia !
Are there more that work and I didn't find them? if so - can I find/get a list somewhere? - and if not ... can other fonts be made available (what I think has to be done on the side of the operating system of the Kitely Server.
Why is that of significance? -- When we want to create dynamic text on prims, this would be fancy to have fonts closer to handwriting and other calligraphic variations (imagine a stylish guestbook with Arial font-types - a no-go for me!)

[Graham Mills]

Hi Min,

The fonts we currently support are the standard ones included in Linux, which is the operating system that is used by most OpenSim hosting providers. If we add additional fonts and you rely on them being installed then scripts you create may stop working as intended if you sell them via Kitely Market to avatars on other grids which don't have those fonts installed.

You can overcome this limitations in fonts displayed on media on a prim using the instructions listed here: http://opensim-users.2152040.n2.nabble. ... l#a7579460

[Min Tigerpaw]

Hm ... doesn't sound like an attractive perspective for dynamic textures in Kitely then to me .. this way we will limit ourself to the largest common denominator of core LINUX installations which means a bit of stone age font-types. LINUX can do a lot better!
Font-options for media on a prim is nice but the types of application are different - so it's another story!

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

meh

ANYTHING can be displayed with dynamic textures

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Min,

We could install various public domain fonts but that would mean that people who rely on them existing will get a nasty surprise if they try to use them in another grid where those fonts aren't installed. This would also limit the attractiveness of various exportable scripts. That said, if people accept these limitations this is something we're willing to add to our todo list (not as a high priority though, finding good scripts that we can freely use is time consuming).

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

I dunno about other grids, but I for one would be very happy if Kitely set the standard and allowed more fonts Anything that makes Kitely better is a good thing

Scripts attempting to use fonts that don't exist tend to fallback to using one of the standard ones anyway, so enemy grids will still display, just not as pretty, so no worries there

Besides - the topic title is Dynamic Texture Scripting in Kitely

[Ilan Tochner]

I started writing a reply and then noticed I'm not sure whether fonts are transfered from the sim to people's viewers. If they aren't downloaded from the sim then the only fonts you'll be able to use are ones that you know already exist on people's computers.

Does anyone have any info about this? If you have sim-on-a-stick running you can install some funky font on that computer and try accessing that sim from another computer that doesn't have that font installed. If this simple test fails and the second computer doesn't render the text using the funky font then there likely isn't much we can do about adding more fonts while allowing people to use standard viewers.

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

I've not tested the installed font thing for the os texture commands, but I do know the textures are generated at the server, and downloaded to the viewer as if they were a normal texture. This allows textures downloaded from websites to be used almost trivially

..if it were the fonts installed on peoples computers and generated client side, we'd have hundreds instead of 4

[Ilan Tochner]

Sounds like a preferable approach to having us install a few fonts would be to have a standard script people could employ to use fonts from third-party sites.

[Dundridge Dreadlow]

I'm already using custom stuff from my server - but writing a new font layout language that runs on the remote server (or duplicating the one built into opensim)isn't as trivial as it should be(there are severe length limits). Plus, it isn't as easy as capturing a webpage layout, there are issues with running a browser instance on a webserver. (it throws a massive security wobbly)

I ended up doing a custom generator for each of the layouts I was using. For example the image/texture below was completely auto generated and fed to my in-world display boards and computers. Personally I use a combination of techniques as needed.

Unfortunately, this doesn't help Min.