Help with setting up NPC tour guides

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Caitanya Rupa 2
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Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Caitanya Rupa 2 »

Looking for someone to help me set up some NPC tour guides for my world.
Also would like that someone to do a bit of tutoring so I understand how it works. :shock: :oops: :lol:
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Constance Peregrine
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Constance Peregrine »

a guy named ohn lang did quite a bit of work on NPCs and distributed it all pretty widely, for a time.

Also, Phoneix Dreamscape said recently she is enjoying working with them.

I am personally looking forward to one or so when the market opens...I am curious how they will sell them.
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Dundridge Dreadlow
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Dundridge Dreadlow »

How much guiding do they need ?
It's all fairly simple ?

Or are you looking for a tour guide SYSTEM ?
Guess I could extend my minions a bit.
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Caitanya Rupa 2
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Caitanya Rupa 2 »

I read this post and got started - http://www.kitely.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=106
went here http://was.fm/opensim:npc
and here http://opensimulator.org/wiki/NPC_Automator_2.0

Realized I need some coaching and maybe some help :lol:

I got the action NPC moving man from Ohn that Graham had on his region
did not get the NPC multi-tool that Phoneix Dreamscape talked about. Have been reading the links from Grahams post.
Was hoping to find someone to walk me through creating a tour guide NPC.
Would need someone to do the heavy scripting and teach me to use the system so I don't become a complete pain. :?

I have taken some scripting on the other grid and can tweak scripts.
So not a complete noobie, just a bit wet behind the virtual ears :D

I would like a greeter to meet people who come to my regions and walk them around and answer some basic questions.
There is an art exhibit on one region - so someone to show that and how to use it.
Also if the greeter NPC can give some gifts or tell how to contact for more info is nice.

maybe one on the orientation region to help noobies along.
Would expand as needed.

I would like to learn enough to tweak the tour guides and later extend them some.
Does that make sense?

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Dot Macchi
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Dot Macchi »

I suspect this could be useful more widely. I know I would like to learn how to do this sort of thing.

Perhaps several of us could collaborate to develop a shared set of instructions and tools? Maybe even work on a tutorial?
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Dundridge Dreadlow »

Sigh, ok.

I'm working on a lot of this anyway. (I'm overloaded though)
The code on that site is interesting, though there are very easy ways to do things, specially for tour guides.

I have a whole list of things I am adding to my NPCs, I guess I can add some of your stuff too - it gets complex VERY quickly.

Get me a list of requirements and simplifications if you can think of it.
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Graham Mills »

Sorry, I've been a little busy. OK, a lot busy. Dundridge sounds like the guy to follow on this but here are my vague recollections.

I had some issues with Ohn's implementation and used the W&S system in a recent fire evacuation scenario http://was.fm/opensim:npc.

As with most of these things you dress the avatar in the appearance you want and use the script provided to capture the appearance on a notecard which you then pop in the npc rezzer.

The only issue I can recall is that by default it's set to startup when the world starts whereas I wanted it to start on chat. The simplest solution was a bit hacky as I had multiple npcs to trigger, viz for each npc I put an additional script in the rezzer that listened for the chatted command and then reset the startup script.

The W&S system is fairly heavyweight as it reads a notecard Script that specifies the npc actions. I didn't play with everything but I do recall that the delete command didn't work so I setup a collision-based script in a prim that derezzed the npc when it walked into it (you could mod Ohn's).

A more general gotcha that had me stumped originally is not appreciating that the npc is always controlled by the rezzer. If you want the npc to respond to chat when the rezzer is out of chat distance, you will have to relay the chat via an attachment on the npc (well, that's what I did -- maybe there are simpler ways).
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Caitanya Rupa 2 »

To Dot

Shared collaboration sounds good to me - would have a very wide usage from what I can see.
And a very good topic for a series of classes Kitely Plaza style.
Would love to place instructions and tutorials in my build school.

To Dundridge

Thank you very much for your time.

Sorry you are overloaded - /me sends a few NPCs to carry some of the load :lol:

Would be very grateful for any help you can give.
Need to have some kind of system that can travel to different grids.

We are volunteers training some youth in this tech and they are very excited to make their own 3D websites.
I know that they would love this kind of thing. Quite a few are gamers so this is really natural to them.

What have you put into your NPCs so far? Might be able to adapt some things so that it doesn't get too complex.

For Requirements: Not sure how complicated this is.
Would like some kind of NPC as greeter to help people find things. Like:

Welcome (AV name) to (place). How may I help you today?
Wait for chat response look for keyword like "art exhibit" "class" orientation"

Then answer:
"If you would like to go to (name place or event) please follow me."
Walks to appropriate sign and says
"Please touch this sign to go to (name of place or event)

I can write most of the possible answers.
Might be good to have them on notecards

For example if someone says Class
Then asks "which kind of class are you going to?" Build class, sanskrit class etc.
and then proceeds with that loop.

Is this too complex?

Have you been to Harbinger Haven on SL? They have an AI small dragon there who is very funny and can answer limited questions.

When the person arrives at the place or event there can be anotherr NPC to guide them.

Like at orientation center - "if you need more help, just let me know by saying Help"
Then can put the text and further training in the NPC who can walk the path with the trainee.
Makes things more personal.

would put a wait in at each area "let me know when you are ready to move on by saying Go"
"If you no longer need me, then say Off"

Ultimately we are building this - http://www.TOVP.org
We have been asked to have tour guides for the opening and afterwards.
So this is what we are building towards.

Hope this all makes sense and is not wayyyyyyyyyy to complex :oops:
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Caitanya Rupa 2 »

To Graham

Thanks for taking the time to answer and for all of the info.
Will read it and try things out.

I have gotten to the point of redressing the NPCs and sending them to various places.
Not so difficult to change that part or the conversation.

I can understand the animations and have to play with seating or interaction with prims.
Seems I have to see the NPC as basically an avatar that is programmed to move, but has all of the characteristics of a normal person linked avatar.
Is that correct?

If so, then.... have to think about that.
If not, then.. what are the limitations?

Sounds like you have put a lot of time and thought into your improvements and refinements.

Do you have more info or machinima on that fire evacuation scenario?
Sounds like it was amazing.

You are very busy so I am very grateful for your time.

Lots of good info here and eager to learn more and put it all together in some kind of training package.

Thanks to everyone for their answers
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Re: Help with setting up NPC tour guides

Post by Graham Mills »

The npc can't do everything an avatar can do. For example, while it is simple enough to get the avatar to sit using W&S, I couldn't figure out how to make them change the animation without triggering a stand. The only way I could see was to fake a seated posture, i.e. not a true sit as such, just a seated animation. That's actually quite important to me as I want to look at non-verbal communication.

The fire evac was done for a talk I gave recently though the sub-text was finding a way to gain basic avatar skills and keep them honed. It's really not that amazing but it does also show use of a HUD to show time and track completion (less than two min and you have to repeat, that kind of thing). Ramesh has (or will have) complete first-responder scenarios based on his SL work.

I need to get back to chatbots. The simplest solution is the Eliza system ported by Dedric Mauriac: http://www.lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.ph ... izaChatbot and various other places. In the past I've also used http://www.pandorabots.com/botmaster/en/home but the responses can be less predictable and the Eliza system is sufficiently simple that students can write the script themselves. I had a student who used it for a public health inspection scenario based on a restaurant and I think that worked OK.

PS: there are several other chatbot services. One I saw recommended by Austin Tate (ai austin) is http://site.mycybertwin.com/.
Caitanya Rupa 2 wrote:To Graham

Thanks for taking the time to answer and for all of the info.
Will read it and try things out.

I have gotten to the point of redressing the NPCs and sending them to various places.
Not so difficult to change that part or the conversation.

I can understand the animations and have to play with seating or interaction with prims.
Seems I have to see the NPC as basically an avatar that is programmed to move, but has all of the characteristics of a normal person linked avatar.
Is that correct?

If so, then.... have to think about that.
If not, then.. what are the limitations?

Sounds like you have put a lot of time and thought into your improvements and refinements.

Do you have more info or machinima on that fire evacuation scenario?
Sounds like it was amazing.

You are very busy so I am very grateful for your time.

Lots of good info here and eager to learn more and put it all together in some kind of training package.

Thanks to everyone for their answers
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