Dealing with Abuse

Prepare for Potential Abusive Participants

Report any abuse on OpenVCE.net to abuse@openvce.net

Prepare for Potential Abusive Participants

1. Take a note of plot settings that may be changed to replace them afterwards.
2. Set standard security model to allow maximum access but avoid silliness (NOTE there could be much tighter access and security for relevant meetings).
3. About land -> Options: object build only by plot group members - individual build off; fly, push, edit terrain, etc all off; safe mode on; leave object entry and run scripts on unless this causes a problem.
4. World -> Region/Estate -> Estate - check any previously banned residents, etc to be aware of previous issues.
5. Speak to Estate Manager for the region you are in if you have any questions.

Standard Procedure for Dealing with Abuse

1. Make sure you have chat/IM logging on.
2. Bring to attention of nominated security avatar.. or if they are unavailable any other officer or in world POC.
3. IM (not open chat) griefer and ask them to desist.
4. If they persist, warn them by IM (not open chat) what you will do and then "kick them from estate" (a temporary removal)
5. If return or cause other issues, add them to ban list for the region/estate as appropriate.
6. Report the matter with the IM/chat log to abuse@openvce.net or Austin Tate who maintains the abuse reports for VCE.
7. Refer any appeal or back chat with the banned person to Austin Tate, who can handle appeals.
8. The final authority on Appeals is the Vue Regional Planning Authority (VRPA) on behalf of the Virtual University of Edinburgh, who administer the VCE region.

Event Role Functions

Functions for Meeting Manager

1. Nominate meeting officers for the following roles (all could be same person/avatar): event manager, security and assistance avatar(s).
2. ...

Functions for Security Officer

1. Be aware of Abuse Procedures.
2. Be first point of contact for abuse procedures if a higher level administrator is not in the event.
3. ...

Functions for Meeting Assistant

1. Look at event participant profiles to see if any are very recent entrants, to be prepared to assist them.
2. Be prepared to assist people who are struggling with features, media feeds, etc.. Use IM as soon as posisible for this. Use pre-built standard advice via FAQ SOP pages.
3. After event refine FAQ Tips.

More details:

• Pre-meeting checks - check the presentation/talk is in place, if appropriate – if not, notify the presenter immediately
• Greetings – indicates which meeting that the new arrival is coming to
• Give friendly instructions – ask them to take a seat, try out whisky, take a sample object to try out with, turn on voice chat, turn on movie button, point them to an introduction page for the meeting, etc, as appropriate
• Use personal IM to help individuals that needs it – if the person is not familiar with private IM give a friendly
• Give a notice, if the meeting is delayed
• Give a reminder, if the meeting is due to start– e.g. indicate that the meeting is due to start in X minutes.
• During meeting checks - Check the presentation/talk is progressing well, if appropriate – if not, notify the presenter
• Use personal IM to help individuals that have problems, e.g. with media facilities or avatar operations in general
• When the meeting is finished, thank people for coming
• Stay behind to help individuals with un-resolved problems. 

 

Setting up and Managing a Group

Setting up a Community or Group on OpenVCE

You can create and manage resources for a community of interest in openVCE.  This may provide news, access to shared resources, a knowledge book (a style of Wiki), image galleries, forums, etc.  There are many ways in which this could be done, but a suggested mechanism is described here to set up your group, in a way that has been found useful for other OpenVCE communities.

• Browse to the the page for "Other Group Books" and add a child page there to act as the top level entry page for your group.  Give it a suitable Title, and you may wish to establish some tags that will apply to your group content.  By adding this as a child page of the "Other group Books" page it will already appear in a suitable posiution in the "Book Outline" but this can be altered at any time by editing this page, where, for very active groups, you can also shift it to be a "top level" book.  Importantly give this page a "URL Path Setting" (friendly URL) that reflects the name of your group.  e,g, "example".  save that page and you already have a stable URL for you community http://openvce.net/example
• Then, you can insert your group logo, a description of the group purpose, and add on "child pages" to act as sub-sections.

Example Group Home Page (with Forum and Members Lists)

Example Knowledge Book (a type of Wiki)

Example Image Gallery (Esatblish by uploading an image and creating a new gallery for it)

Example Resources Page (establish a child page and attach files to it)

• You may set up Events via the Calendar, See separate Standard Operating Procedures for Events.

• Create a "Group". For security, OpenVCE.net does not allow all users to create groups, and have group leader level persmissions.  So "Create Group" does not appear in the create content menu normally. Please contact Stephen Potter or Austin Tate who can arrange this initial step with you.  However, after this is done you can create a Group Forum and manage memberships, communicate with members, etc.  Groups can be open, moderated or by invitation only.

Moderated Groups and Members

A group manager may require users to request membership which they can approve or deny.  A group manager can see the number of outstanding requests for membership  not yet handled on the Group Page in a group block on the right side.  It says N members (M) where the number M in brackets are those awaiting approval.  When you click on the members list link, there are several displays.  Go to the "List" one and that lists all members with approve/deny actions for those awaiting approval.

For all users OpenVCE.net insists that they have authenticated to use the system using:

• e-mail - which you can assume reaches the person as they would have needed it to authenticate their account)
• real name
• organization

We recomend that you do not allow membership of any moderated group without knowing who an individual is are as they could cause havoc with the very open edit and change permissions on OpenVCE.net.

If they chose not to give a recognizable real name and organization check with the OpenVCE.net admin team (admin@openvce.net)  to ask who they are and we can ask them to give a better name/organization first.  The e-mail must get to them as they could not have authenticated with OpenVCE.net otherwise. OpenVCE requires an e-mail confirmation before they a user can get in and change anything.

Standard Operating Procedures for Admins

These are Standard Operating Procedures for OpenVCE Admins.

Policy

The OpenVCE.net web site is an open publicly accessible site for the benefit of its members.  Maximum openness and sharign is encouraged.  The aim of the admin is to maintain this openness while avoid abuse and problems that affect others in the community.

Privacy Policy

The privavcy policy for the site is maintained via a link easily visible on the home page, and http://opevce.net/privacy.

Account Authorization

1. The usual policy for accounts is that a valid e-mail address must be stated and this is used to mail joining instructions and e-mail verification to the new user.
2. Any user registration where the e-mail address fails can be deleted immediately.
3. A full name and organizaton must be stated.
4. A CAPTCHA check is addded to try to avoid too many spurious and software derviced registrations.
5. At times, administrator approval is also sought before an account is unblocked for use. The admin in such a case will check the organization field and verify it is a genuine one, or if the organization restates the user name, check that this is valid as far as possible. In cases of doubt, and where time and workload permits, an e-mail to the new user to check why they wish to join may be sent.  It is safe to delete questionable accounts, as the user will get a predefined message askign them to contact accounts@openvce.net directly to ensure a second attempt will be authorized should it be a genuine registraton attempt.

OpenVCE Web Site and Database Backup

TBA

Standard Operating Procedures for Events

These are draft Standard Operating Procedures for OpenVCE Events. There will be different protocols and procedures for different types of meeting, and there could be a big difference depending on whether the events are open to all comers, or closed to nominated attendees or groups.

Videocasting an event into the 3D Space

If you wish to relay and link up a real event to an audience in the 3D Space you should consider the following:

a) How many delegates do you expect to have in the 3D space?  Up to 100 can be handled in a single Second Life region and OpenVCE 3D Space facilities are already set up for that.  beyond that multiple regions are used. We expect to support up to 400 avatars using 4 adjacent regions, but technical facilities to link them need development and testing before they can be operationally used.

b) Can you stream the event as a Quicktime player compatible real time stream?  If so, then direct facilities to support this are available easily in Second Life. You need to ensure there is adequate quality and capacity in the video casting solution used. You would usually set up camera(s) and audio feed(s) and then videocasting that through an encoder (e.g Apple Broadcaster or Telestream Wirecast (as examples) and then "announce" the resulting single real time video/audio stream to a Quicktime Streaming Service. OpenVCE.net facilities can provide some of these elements using University of Edinburgh servers for limited capacity meetings.  Hosted solutions are normally used for larger numbers of streams.

c) If so, how many streams can your video streaming service provide simultaneously? This will dictate how many simultaneous users you can support independently of the number who can be hosted in the Second Life 3D space.  Video is sent from the server directly to users, and is not limited by Second Life constraints.

d) If not, is there a way to get the event video and audio feed into an application that can be screencast?  An example route might be Adobe Connect on HarmonieWeb.

e) Can you provide a two-way linkup? This can easily be done by setting up a large screen or LCD-type display that is visible to your real eve nt participants (perhaps at certain times or perhaps on a side angled screen to one side of the main event screens.  A simple laptop or computer attached to this acting as a window onto the 3D space is then possible and links the audiences very effectively.  Having someone assigned to act as the link person between the real and virtual audiences allows a means for passing questions from the virtual audience to the real event via chat (or twitter can also be used for this).

f) Want to see examples of how this was done for other events?  See

• Guy Kawasaki Talk at Edinburgh - April 2009

• CMU SORASCS'09 Event - May 2009

Setting up event details on OpenVCE.net

1. Make sure your time zone of correctly set (as events are dated/timed for your current time zone and adjusted for anyone else viewing them into their own local time zone).
2. Create Content -> Event   (or when in the Events Calendar - > Add+Event)
3. Set correct dates and times.
4. Put in some content that described the meeting.  You may wish to get some sample content to cut, paste and modify for your use at: http://openvce.net/event-support
5. If you alter the "Book" in which this page is placed to "Events" it is automatically added to other useful indexes.  This is not essential, and can be done afterwards by editing the page.
6. If you give a specific "friendly" "URL Path Setting" and beging it with the word "event", this is by default triggers some useful right-hand event-related content modules (suih as a Twitter feed for tag #openvce). Again, this is not essential, and can be done afterwards by editing the page.
7. You may wish to create a "Short URL" that is easily memorised by event participants at (for example)  http://bit.ly
8. You may wish to consider using a free event management web service such as EventBrite (http://www.eventbrite.com)

9. You may wish to use a free web-based polling mechanism if you need to identify mutually convenient date/time slots.  E.g. Doodle Polls (http://doodle.com).

The show must go on

The virtual audience represents real people spend time attending your event, and you need to think what happens if there are problems of any kind. Backup acess and status communication is important (even if just to keep the audience informed of any technical difficulties) if altheer are so your virtual audience can still access things where feasible, and indeed so people not able to run the Virtual Worldsd viewer client can come in on the meeting.

You can of course just communicate and alow userrs to directly view a Quicktime video/audio stream in Quicktime Player and not interact.  But you can also eaily set up a page (template available at http://openvce.net/3d-space-alt) with 3 things:

1. Video/audio (Quicktime) feed.
2. I-Say (later Google Wave) chat tool between participants linked to 3D Space.

Twitter feed watching a nominated tag.

Harmonie Web Adobe Connect is another alterative means of access and backup (template available at http://openvce.net/3d-space-hw) .

Other SOPs

To be added. 

 

 

 

Second Life Meeting Attendance Procedures

(Don't wait until 10 minutes before the meeting to test this)

Step 1: You'll need to have a Second Life account (which is free) and a Second Life viewer (basically a 3D Web Browser) to attend the conference inside of a virtual world environment.  If you already have both of these, skip to step 5.

Step 2: Signup for a Second Life account at:

• https://join.secondlife.com/
• (NOTE: You are limited to the last names that are available.  If you want to use your real name, we suggest using upper and lower case to put in both your first and last name and then selecting from one of the available last names: i.e. Jane Doe could select an avatar name like JaneDoe Solo)

Step 3: Download a Second Life viewer at:

• http://secondlife.com/support/downloads.php

Step 4: Install the Second Life viewer you just downloaded.

Step 5: Suggest looking at the Second Life Quick Start :

• http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Second-Life-Quickstart/ta-p/1087919

Step 6: Teleport to the virtual meeting by clicking on the event link normally given to launch Second Life with that location preset, e.g.

• http://slurl.com/secondlife/VCE/128/128/22/

Step 7: When the Second Life viewer launches, type in your avatar's first name, last name. and password that you selected when you created your avatar.  Leave the location to the preset one for the IRMC Info Leader. Click on the LOG IN button to start.

Step 8: Ensure that your computer volume is turned on.  If you intend to speak at the conference, you should use a microphone to avoid audio feedback.

Step 9: Once you arrive, you'll want to play media on parcel by clicking on the video play button.  It's a triangle next to a film camera icon on the bottom right of your Second Life viewer.

Step 10: Additional Help: For additional help getting started in Second Life, see the following websites:

• http://openvce.net/slstart
• http://openvce.net/slchecks

How to get an Avatar in Second Life?

A 3D Virtual Collaboration Environment is under development for your community in Second Life.

Getting started... If you do not already have a Second Life "avatar" please get one first. Some guidance can be found here:

• Sign Up for a Second Life Avatar
• More Guidance and Tutorials from Skye Gears
• Ask Skye Gears for assistance, she can help you do checks and give guidance.

After you have your Second Life avatar, and have completed the orientation tour, please visit the initial collaboration facility at:

VW Platform	Location	URL	Launcher
Second Life	OpenVCE 3D Space - I-Zone	http://slurl.com/secondlife/VCE/128/80/22/

Some Second Life viewers have "Basic" and "Advanced" modes... and default initially to "Basic" mode.  Basic mode is fine to get a feel for the environment, but to use voice, see inventory and other essential things related to collaborative meetings you need to use "Advanced" mode.  This is also the normal mode in many viewers.

If you want to look like a Pro right away, you can check you have the key skills for typical collaboration meetings in Second Life by visiting this web page on Second Life Checks.

Setup and Test Your System

• Network and Firewall Issues: [Second Life] [Opensim]
• Hardware Test - select test for meeting requirements of "Second Life"
• Go further and get ready to attend meetings with this [SL Checks] page

 

Second Life Orientation

Useful Documentation:

• Second Life Quickstart
• Second Life User's Guide - Part I
• Second Life User's Guide - Part II
• Second Life Landowner's Guide
• Content creator's guide (To be added)

Essential Skills - make sure you are prepared (Second Life)

First thing... if you do not yet have an avatar in Second Life, and have not yet entered the environment, please do that now.  See http://openvce.net/slstart for help.

Teleconferences and on-line meetings are plagued by set up problems for participants. This is most often the case with audio. Even experienced users find that their setups, firewalls and equipment changes and previously well set up systems stop working or give echo, feedback and problems for others. Worse... the participant causing the problem is usually the only one who cannot hear it. To help prepare for an event, and so that time is not wasted by all participants, it is suggested that a few simple checks are done by all participants BEFORE taking their place at the designated meeting space.

In some larger events, or where participants may be from many environments, an "Event Reception" area will be designated, at which all participants will be asked to arrive. A few simple checks may be done there, to warn you of issues so you can help others during the meeting, and only use appropriate communications methods for those facilties you know are working.

A good place to start is the Second Life Quickstart Documentation at Linden Labs community site.

Quick Tests

A note may be made of avatars failing one or more tests to guide the meeting organizers and to allow them to propose remedies, e.g. by pointing back at this web page.

1. Can Sit on Designated Seating:

Make sure you can sit down. Select the surface of a specific seat that you wish to occupy, right Click (PC) or ... (Mac) to get the object pie menu, and select the "Sit" action. Note that if are wearing Animation Overriders (AO) or other scripted objecst that contrio your avatar's position, these may override the position you adopt in the seat. Turn AOs off when stiing in chairs, etc.

2. Can Redirect Camera When Seated:

The camera in the Second Life viewer can be moved independently without moving your avatar. The default camera position is usually slightly behind and above the avatrar looking over the avatars shoulders. You can refocus on any position, and swing the camera across or up and down, and zoom in and out for clearer views of screens, posters, or other avatars. Keyboard keys can be used, or there is a camera control panel that can be shown (via View -> Camera Controls). Note that your avatar's head will move to show the direction you are looking.

3. Can Receive Video Streams:

Open the menu item Edit/Preferences at the top of the screen. Open the audio & video tab.

Tick “Play Streaming Music when available…”, “Play Streaming Media when available…” and “Automatically play media…”.

From now on, if you walk into a region where there is music or movie to be played, it will be played automatically for you. If this does not work at times, you can always manually start a movie, using the media bar at the bottom right of your screen. You can also use the same media bar to re-play a movie.

4. Properly Setup for SL Voice:

Unless you are experienced, know the effects of open-to-air microphones, and know that your setup allows for proper sound cancellation (almost all open to air mics do not) do not try to use a separate microphone and speakers, or even separate microphone and headphones. As all sorts of ambient sounds, computer fan noise, your clicks on typing, etc will be very disruptive indeed for the other participants (even though you may not hear them). Use a good headset with close up mic and all should be well.

Check SL Voice settings in Edit -> Preferences -> Voice Chat and enable the voice chat facility if its not already on.

When its on a small white dot apprears over your avatar. If you speak, and your voice levels are set correctly green soud bars will show around this white dot. [Note: If there is no white dot it could indicate that you have either not enabled SL Voice, or the SL Voice services cannot be reached... possibly due to firewall issues.] [Note: you want to achieve the most green bars you can when speaking a little louder than usual... but not see any red bar at all. Then try shouting and it should just go red. If you see red marks near your avatar's white voice dot the your mic is set to too high a level (its "over-attenuated in the jargon"), so you will sound distorted to others]

The default setting is that you must push the "Talk" button (usually near the bottom right of the SL Viewer) to speak. Hold it down while you speak, and make sure you release it when not speaking. Don't lock it except in exceptional circumstances, such as when you are the main speaker in a lecture, and don't check the "Use Push-To-Talk in toggle mode" in the settings, as that may mean you forget to switch off you mic after you havespoken in an event. This is all very important, and failure to do this is the primary cause of communications problems in teleconferences including in Second Life.

If you cannot hear through your headset or see any green marks on your avatar's voice white dot when speaking into your microphone (remember to press the "Talk" button), then your device setup may not be correct. Check or change this via Edit -> Preferences -> Voice Chat -> Device Settings. if necessary select the correct deveice for audio I/O, and you can test the mic levels by speaking and adjusting the slidier bar. Try to achieve a level of about 3 of the 5 available bars when speaking a little louder than user. You do not want to see any red when speaking a little louder than usual, but if you shout it just just go red.

Remedy: Temporary muting of SL voice by other participants for the participant causing feedback or who is over attenuated. Right Click (PC) or ... (Mac) on an avatar to get the avatar Pie menu, and then select "Mute". Near the end of the meeting you might wish to select "Unmute", so that the next time you meet this person they can be heard again. [Note that "Mute" also means you will not see chat or hear IM form the participant involved - to be checked.]

More information on setting up and using SL Voice:

• Linden Labs Getting Started With Voice Guide
• Voice test facility at Voice Echo Canyon at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Voice%20Echo%20Canyon - for help on using this see Torley Linden's Video

Ai Austin's Tips for Getting More from Second Life and Opensim

 

• SL Command Line Options - e.g., run multiple viewers (-multiple), log in with specific users (-login first last password), etc.
• Enable Advanced menu in SL Viewer with Ctrl/Alt/D, on a Mac use Cmd/Opt/Shift/D
  • 10 debug options you should know about
  • Advanced -> Disable Camera Constraints and Advanced -> Limit Camera Distance=Off
  • Advanced -> Debug Settings -> ZoomTime=4.00 to have cinematic transitions (0.4 is default)
  • Turn off typing animation and sounds... Advanced -> Debug Settings -> PlayTypingAnim=false
  • Turn UI/user interface elements off and back on - e.g. for machinima - with Ctrl/Alt/F1
  • Turn on lip sync for your avatar via Advanced -> Character -> Enable Lip Sync
  • Some faults with the Nvidia FX Graphics card - e.g. overlay of media texture across areas of the land - may be reduced by using... Advanced -> Debug Settings -> RenderUseFBO=true
  • To use a 3D mouse such as 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator - Edit ->Preferences -> Input and Camera -> Setup Joystick -> Enable Joystick
• Linden Labs Tips
  • SL high-quality photography and cranking up Nividia graphics card settings for SL.
    Long Distance High Quality Snapshots: Advanced menu > Debug Settings and type the setting's name in the top box and press Enter. You'll see its parameters appear, and some help text to guide you on your way.
    RenderDynamicLOD = FALSE
    RenderFarClip = 1024
    RenderUseFarClip = FALSE
• Rebake avatar textures if necessary with Ctrl/Alt/R
• Hide objects on land to see underlying land and propertly lines - Ctrl/Shift/Alt+1
• Duplicate objects in situ with Shift+Left Mouse Click
• Beta Grid Access: the normal Second Life viewer is used. At the login screen, hit Ctrl/Shift/G. At the bottom of the screen to the right of the "Quit" button, you will see a dropdown widget that allows you to select the grid that you want to log in to. Select "Agni" to log into Second Life. Select "Aditi" to log into the Preview Grid. Others are Linden Labs development grids not available for public access.
• Freeview - How to stream video into Second Life
  • Convert YouTube video format to MP4 - to allow its use in Second Life
  • Merlin Rocket
  • AIAI Streaming Tests from Merlin Rocket
  • Origin Digital's Odaptor platform for Second Life added video capabilities
  Designing a T-Shirt by Robin Wood
• SLFace - Face, Body and Clothing based on real photos
• FaceGen - from Singular Inversions (as used in Twinity)
• Importing 3D Models into Second Life
  • Importing 3D Models into Second Life
  • AutoCAD Comes to Second Life
  • SLTk Pro Brings Maya Objects into Second Life
  • COLLADA - 3D Model importing - e.g. Playstation 3, PSP, Google Earth. Can be created by Sketchup, etc.
• How to give a PowerPoint briefing in Second Life
• Augmented Virtual Reality
• Second Life Futures
  • Scaling Second Life for Richer Experience - chat with Zero Linden - 18-Sep-2007
  • Second Life Future Architecture Working Group
• Open Source Second Life Web Services API/Libaries
• Example XML-RPC Code for communications to and from Second Life
• Ajax Client for Second Life
• Indication of Second Life Server to go open source - 25-Aug-2007
• SimTeach - education related LSL scripts
• Scripting Recipies for Second Life - Jeff Heaton [Download Scripts]
• Openmetaverse - including LibOpenmetaverse - replacement for the frozen libsecondlife
  • Meerkat Open Source Viewer - for Second Life and Cross-Grids
  • LibSecondLife - final release 0.5.0
  • LibSecondLife - Wikipedia Entry
  • LibSecondLife-Java
• SL Trip Tips - Second Life tips, secrets and touring guides

 

How to get high quality views in Second Life?

In the Second Life Viewer

1. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Graphics and then move the bar for "quality and performance" to "High" or even "Ultra" if your graphics card allows it.
2. Tick the "custom" tickbox to get more options. Try sliding the "Draw Distance" higher to see further.
3. Enable the "Advanced" menu with Ctrl/Alt/D on Windows systems, on a Mac use Cmd/Opt/Shift/D;
4. Select Advanced -> Disable Camera Constraints to disable camera constraints and allow the camera to be drawn back further;
5. Select Advanced -> High-res Snapshot to get higher resolution snapshots.

 

Guidance for OpenVCE Event Organizers

The following protocol is proposed to assist an event organzer in preparing for an event to be held using the OpenVCE.

Real Life Event linked to a Virtual World Audience

• Prepare a web page to describe the event, and give details. A Stabdard Operating procedure fro this can be found at http://openvce.net/sop. Examples can be seen on the Events menu at http://openvce.net
• Decide on whether you will just relay the video/audio into the virtual world, or provider more interaction. Typical provisions are:
  • Video/audio as a Quicktime compatible stream from the live event.
  • Display of a screen onto the virtual world space onto a large screen adjacent to the stage/speaker area/panel.
  • Use of a link facilitator logged into the virtual world and able to interact with the virtual participants but who can relay questions into the live event and assist with issues.
• Decide how to handle backups for over capacity entrants into the virtual 3D space, (typically by using an adjacent backup 3D space, or relay spaces, or limit attendancve to specific users or groups).
• Decide how to handle the situation where users cannot acces the 3D Soace for any reason (firewall, unavailability of the service, etc.) provide information, and in some cases a simpler but functional access route on the event web page.

Virtual World Event

To be added.

Video Streaming Formats

See Video Formats Article

 

I-Tag - Avatar Id Tag

Identification | Instrumented | Integrated

A Second Life tag which you "wear" and which can give a range of identification, communication, instrumentation options, etc.

Work is underway to use of this for:

• Avatar labelling with real name, organization, and other details for appropriate events. Joomla and Drupal CMS linkup so that users can (selectively) display their real name and organization on their avatar if they choose to. (using Wene Chke's sl_contact_xt module  in Joomla and his SlUser module in Drupal)
• Twitter post and status updates
• Twitter "bubbler" notifications of new tweets incoming on a search tag (e.g. #openvce) and whether to have llOwnerSay through the I-Tag of Tweets
• Chat logging with ability to turn off and on the authorisation of logs
• hand raise/lower animations
• polling/voting support
• Anti-idler enable/disable
• I-X technology and I-Room meeting and event support facilities
• SL position reporting to web services and the ability to turn it on and off
• A way to better inform external systems and meeting participants about the presence of avatar, their position in the meeting space, and to provide access to the most common forms of information, such as real world persona and link to their user profile, could be useful. Consider an instrumented "I-Seat" connected to the I-X Services and I-Room helper.

 

I-Room Helper, I-Seat, I-HUD and I-Tag

4 items may be used in combination:

1. I-Room Helper: a single location specific facility/meeting space/I-Room object to link the VW to external services (like I-X, Twitter and Joomla/Drupal).
2. I-Seat: multiple seat position specific places which can be taken/sat upon by avatars. These sense the avatar, can get the avatar UUID and use that and avatar name to authenticate and report presence. This device might use communication with the I-Room helper, and be controllable via chat on a dedicated channel number announced to the avatar (and the I-Room helper) on seat occupancy.
3. I-HUD: A way to assist users, and especially new users, to select suitable camera angles, or focus on specific screens, displays or in-world objects under discussion would be useful. Consider an "I-HUD"- perhaps associated with the "I-Tag" - to allow the current media feed, or specific in-world textures in posters, screens, etc (all displayed via changing the texture UUID of a part of the HUD) without the user having to select specific camera positions or media screens. Support for presenters in event to preview slides and conrol what is display.
4. I-Tag: an avatar attachment worn or used as a HUD which can provide avatar services, linkups with external services such as Twitter, Blogs, I-X, etc.

I-Seat

An "I-Seat" might be a useful way to populate a positional map (in the I-X JPEG background maps facility) but also shown to the I-Room similar to BuddySpace maps with positional avatar presence indicators... like you might draw a meeting room table and write on avatars/real names as people introduce themselves... but done automatically as people sit down, and using data held in the 2D web profiles.

Second Life OpenVCE.net Terminals

http://openvce.net/sluser/terminals/ gives a list of in-world terminals where you can link your Second Life avatar to your OpenVCE.net account.

---

If you are already registered at http://openvce.net/

Obtain your unique  "registration key" via the "My profile" page and look at the "Second Life" tab.

[ Note that you can renew this key at any time if you need to re-register for any reason via My profile -> Edit -> Second Life settings -> Renew Reg Key]

1. Go to a Second Life OpenVCE.net Terminal
2. Left click on the terminal and choose "Check Key" in the menu
3. When promoted type the reg key into the open chat window
4. The terminal checks the values against the website and should respond that everything went fine

[Note that that it does not matter if it is seen by others during the registration process, as it is uniquely  tied to your avatar after its use]

---

If you are NOT already registered at http://openvce.net/ and if in-world registration is allowed (currently it is not):

1. Go to a Second Life OpenVCE.net Terminal
2. Left click on the terminal and look to see if the option "Reg User" and "Get reg card" is available. If not, the website does not allow for registration from inworld.  If it does, choose "Get reg card" in the menu
3. The terminal gives you a notecard called "register" containing:
    username =
    password =
    email =
4. Fill in the notecard with the values needed
5. Click on the terminal and choose "Reg User"
6. The terminal says : "You have 30 seconds to drag your notecard onto this terminal"
7. Drag the "registered" notecard from your inventory  and drop it onto the terminal
8. The terminal checks the values against the website and should respond that everything went fine
9. Note that you may have to check your e-mail to authenticate the e-mail address prior to using your account

---

Note that public parts of your Linden Labs Second Life profile made public when you link your avatar to your real name .  See an example for Austin tate/Ai Austin at: http://openvce.net/user/3

Within Second Life, you need to tick the box to say make to your profile elements public and put in a picture that has full perms.

---

Thanks: Second Life Terminal LSL and and Drupal Server Code by smm2017 Binder
http://drupal.org/node/358551

Improving Links between Real and Virtual Participants in an Event

1) Set up a decent sized LCD/plasma screen perhaps at 45 deg. to the main stage, so its to one side, but can be seen by audience and obliquely by speaker. fed by a laptop (Mac or Windows) that has a good (Nvidia?) GPU so SL looks good on it. Set up for ULTRA visuals. Add an anti-idle device to the avatar logged in, so its not logged out for inactivity. Set camera so all the Venue is in view. Just leave it feeding the screen. No attention necessary all day after that.

2a) Nominate a person/avatar to act as relay for questions between SL audience in chat mode or IM to nominated avatar to the RL venue. Make sure the chairperson knows that this person is representing the whole virtual audience when they ask a question, and can state it as such, and recognize the person as representing many others.

OR

2b) As an alternative (which we are now starting to prefer as it allows for multiple modalities, some people in SL and some on other virtual participant mechanism, and allows for the envisaged participation via mobile phones, iPods, etc), monitor a Twitter feed on a nominated search tag (e.g. #openvce) and take questions and issues from virtual participants on that. AV people can monitor the same channel to see if there are issues for their feeds to the virtual participants too. Use your favourite Twitter client on any platform, even you iPhone, iPod or cell phone... or just open this page which shows last 6 messages with tag #openvce refreshed very 30 seconds.

http://openvce.net/custom/twitter-feed-json-openvce.html

Multiple Facilities Multiple Logins

In this early virtual collaboration environment, we are using quite a mixture of facilities provided by a number of different platforms and systems such as Joomla, Second Life, Media Wiki and Ning Groups. Some are commercially provided, others are based on open source solutions. Unfortunately, at present a number of the key elements require their own login usernames and passwords, and some have their own unique requirements on those.

The suggestions is that you adopt the following style: for the Openvce.net site use your usual name e.g. "Austin Tate". You can link that to a Second Life avatar name you have already created via the Second Life contact mechanism in Openvce.net that will show when you log on as a registered user. Second Life avatar names have to be in the style required by Linden Labs. For other elements try to use your real name where you can, or some version of it without spaces where that is necessary. Where the service requires its own style you will have to go with that.

We are very aware of this problem, and there are ways in which some systems can be jointly authenticatd. We are investivgating those for later versions. Also, we are looking at the use of aseparate single authentication methods such as OpenID for those systems which allow it.

 

OpenVCE Blogger

Usage

Currently only works for owner of object. It is currently being modified to allow any user.

1. User can click on the object.
2. They will have a period (30 seconds usually) during which they can drop a blog notecard onto the object.
3. The blog poster object will then parse the notecard and if valid show it to the user, who can verify its details before confirming the post.
4. If the blog poster object can then successfully log onto the relevant site and post the blog entry it will report that it has done so.

Simple Blog Post Template for OpenVCE.net

title = My title from sl for my drupal website
cms = drupal
url = http://openvce.net
username = toto
password = mypass
content_type = blog
publish_status = 1
<!--body-->
Here is my article body

Blog Post with Read More Extension Template for OpenVCE.net

title = My title from sl for my drupal website
cms = drupal
url = http://openvce.net
username = toto
password = mypass
content_type = blog
publish_status = 1
<!--body-->
Here is my article teaser
<!--break-->
and here is my article body

Introduction Blog Post Template for OpenVCE.net

title = My title from sl for my drupal website
cms = drupal
url = http://openvce.net
username = toto
password = mypass
content_type = blog
publish_status = 1
<!--body-->
<H2>Introducting me and toto.</H2>
Avatar: alterme
Real name: me
Organization: myorg
You can including web links and image links and HTML markup.

Implementation and More Details

Object in 3D which allows blog entries to be made to Drupal, Joomla or Wordpress accounts (Blog Poster LSL Scripts by S. Massiaux - Wene Chke - smm2017 Binder - http://code.google.com/p/ssm2017binder/wiki/ssmBlogPosterEng )

OpenVCE Presenter

Usage

Click here for page to upload new presentation

Create your presentation as PDF (e.g. using Create PDF or print from from Microsoft PowerPoint) and upload it using the web page above.  Zip uploads are also supported where the zip contains a set of images in PNG, JPG or GIF formats. Note that you can overwrite an older version by uploading a presentation with the same name once again. In all cases the presnetation is converted to an image format that can be viewed in Second Life and Opensim via the standard media URL mechanism for plots.  The presentations you upload are associated with your avatar name.

In Second Life or Opensim, touch the OpenVCE Presenter screen to get a list of all your uploaded presentations (by avatar name), and select the one you wish to give.  The details are sent to the screen and you can then move through the presentation using the Next or Previous buttons, or return to the start of the presentation with the reset button.  Settings (the cogs icon) can be used to turn the screen on and off, to jump to a specific slide number, and other things.

Managing Your Presentations

At the moment, other than overwriting old versions with new versions, there is no facility to view, rename, delete or copy your uploaded presentations. For now, ask OpenVCE.net admin to do that for you.  Send an e-mail with your instructions to presenter@openvce.net  

In-World Screen Setup

The presenter screen object in Second Life or Opensim must be owned by plot owner to be able to change the media URL for the plot. On group owned land, deed the screen to the group.

Release

OpenVCE.net and AIAI has made the presenter screen upload module for Drupal, and the in-world screen presenter LSL scripts available as open source assets at http://openvce.net/resources/downloads/drupal-6.x-module-openvce-aiai-presenter.zip

Presentation Methods in Second Life

There are several ways to show presentations in Second Life. The methods are outlined here.

In-world Images: Create images of slides which can be uploaded and used within Second Life directly.

Media URL: Use URLs for the content to be shown, whether it is an image, movie or any web page.

Webcast: Use a web accessible program or script to display content on a single dynamically updated webcast URL. Changing the content can be done by a presenter using a control web page, or tools in-world that make the changes. [ Demonstration PowerPoint Show: audience, presenter ] [ Demonstration Dynamically Set URL: audience, presenter ]

Screencast: Arrange for a computer screen (the whole desktop, a specific application window or a selected rectangular area) to be fed into a video streaming system. e,.g. using Telestream's "Wirecast" and their "Desktop Presenter" programs, and then use the resulting stream as a media URL in Second Life.

Notes

• "Second Life Viewer 2" provides more media presentation facilities.  Essentially anything that can be shown in a Mozilla Browser can be displayed on any face of any object.  This includes Flash, javaScript and other web pages.  Java applets do not work (as at March 2011). Up to 10-12 such displays may be possible concurrently.
• The following notes apply to the older "Second Life Viewer 1" (e.g. version 1.23.5)
• Second Life only permits one "media texture" which can be a URL in any Quicktime compatible format using http:// or rtsp:// protocols for video/audio file or live or recorded streamed video/audio. [Opensim is more capable in ths respect]
• Objects in-world (such as a screen or presenter console) can be programmed to change the media URL in any area, so long as it has appropriate ownership and permisisons.
• Images can be uploaded at a cost of $L10 each time (File -> Upload Image). Bulk upload with a single command is possible (File -> Bulk Upload). The images can be used on posters, or on screens that allow next and previous sdelectiosn to be made.
• Resolution can be quite high, but file sizes and media stream bandwidth can then mean it is unacceptably slow to load for some users.
• Images in world are resized to a power of 2 on each side, and if not already a power of 2 will be rounded down to the nearest one. So a 1024x768 image will become 1024x512. Larger images take longer to load for all users, so try to use a size sufficient for the content rather than having all slides be very large. The images keep their aspect ratyio when put on a suitably sized screen or object. So use for exmaple a 4:3 ratio image resized to 512x512 as a good target.
• The Freeview script by CrystalShard Foo in Second Life is freely available as a basis for media presentors in Second Life. Later modifications by Raina Andel 04-16-09 can relay Youtube videos, etc. [ Available on XstreetSL ] [ Freeview Help ]
• PowerPoint slides can be saved into an image format via File -> Save As -> and select "Save as type" to be one of the image formats. E.g. PNG and JPG can be uploaded to Second Life.
• Consider use of Scribd (http://www.scribd.com) for uploading and sharing Powerpoint, PDF, etc. Formats Suppported: http://support.scribd.com/forums/35566/entries/25092

Converting Rich HTML Web Pages into Simple Image Files

• Web pages with richer content than can be displayed directly within Second Life as a media URL can be transformed to a simple image via a range of web services.
• E.g. the service at http://pici.picidae.net/ can produce PNGs from URLs. More details at http://www.picidae.net. Example URL for a direct translation as a demomstration is http://pici.picidae.net/browse.php?c=0&f=&u=http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk

Handling YouTube Videos

Youtube videos are normally played back in web pages using Flash. This cannot (yet) be handled via the media URL and playback mechanism in Second Life which essentially are Quciktime Player compatible formats, and a simple web renderer (based on a Mozilla library). Hence, Youtube screens in Second Life usually use MP4 versions of the Youtube videos, some of which are stored at youtube, or some are converted and used from the conversion URL. E.g. using http://www.youtubemp4.com just use the Youtube video code as follows:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LQEDN-S8Pw
• http://www.youtubemp4.com/video/5LQEDN-S8Pw.mp4

Handling Flickr Images

Flickr images and all Flickr images with a given tag or category are usually presented via a URL fetched from Flickr or an intermediate service and used as the Second Life media URL.

See for example: http://www.freeslscripts.gendersquare.org/communication/45-images/34-flickr-screen.html

A default image that may be suitable when not showing a specific image is: http://www.flickr.com/images/flickr_logo.gif (or http://www.flickr.com/images/flickr_logo_gamma.gif.v1.2 )

PDF Presentatiion in Second Life via SLoodle Presenter and Image Magick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYavbka6gIA 

Screencasting via Telestream Wirecast and Desktop Presenter

Telestream's Desktop presenter is a small application which runs on a PC or Mac, and allows a full screen or selected window to be relayed to Wirecast (a commercially licenced product) for onwards streaming via its built in streaming mechanism, via your own streaming server, or via a range of commercial or freely available streaming services. When Desktop Presenter runs, it needs firewall port 7272 to be open for inward connections on the system whose screen will be relayed. The URL used within Wirecast for the relay is http://IP address of presenter computer:7272

• Desktop Presenter (freely available) and Wirecast (broadcasts are watermarked and H.264 codec only operates for 30 days) is available at: http://www.telestream.net (you have to create a username/password to get in to their downloads page).
• Also available at: http://www.telestream.net/update-check/wirecast/wirecast-update-main.htm
• Local copy of the freely available Desktop Presenter is available for PC (.exe) and Mac (.dmg) via http://openvce.net/resources/wirecast/
• The computer on which Desktop Presenter runs needs to allow incoming connections on port 7272 through the firewalls at the computer, router, broadband modem and ISP levels. One way to set this up is to confuigure your ISP/broadband modem and route to do "port forwarding" for ANY incoming request to one nominated computer which you will use Desktop Presenter on and then ONLY using that computer's firewall management to decide what you do and don't want to allow through... so you can have it ASK you if an coming connection is okay.  Otherwise your router usually blocks the incoming call and you never know it was rejected.

Suggestion for a short project to provide an easy way to present a slide show into a Virtual World

http://openvce.net/openvce-dev-present

Dealing with Audience Inputs and Questions

There are basically have several methods that can be used in some combination and some do more than others if used in a suitable environment and with appropriate management and expectation of the participants on their mode of use.

1. Local spatial voice, everyone can speak and hear with a radius of each speaker.  Works only on within a single sim. Suitable for small meetings.
2. "Group" voice.  Anyone in group and online can join conversation, speak and hear.  Moderators (all officers of the group) have controls to mute and activate people.  Works SL wide and therefore across multiple sims.  No fade off with distance.  This site primary method used in larger meetings.
3. Video feed, which allows for audo stream within it.  Good or a single speaker feed, but needs media streaming faclities and does not scale as well as (a) and (b).
4. Separate audio stream that can be used with suitable audio streaming facilities.  Its more often used for background music.
5. Local text chat (20m range, or 100m if "shouted") - works across sim boundaries.  Good for questions.
6. Group text chat - works SL wide and therefore in larger facilities and meetings. Good for questions.

How do I enable movies and media to be played for me automatically?

Open the menu item Edit/Preferences at the top of the screen. Open the audio & video tab.

Tick “Play Streaming Music when available…”, “Play Streaming Media when available…” and “Automatically play media…”.

From now on, if you walk into a region where there is music or movie to be played, it will be played automatically for you. If this does not work at times, you can always manually start a movie, using the media bar at the bottom right of your screen. You can also use the same media bar to re-play a movie.

Video Formats

Video Streaming Formats - Real Time

• rtsp://media.aiai.ed.ac.uk:554/vue.sdp

We have successfully used the following encoding specs in Wirecast for live broadcasts for example:

• Video: encoded Quicktime H.264 Full Dolour 640x480 medium quality 10 frames per second keyframe every 45 frames, limit data rate to 220kbps.
• Audio: MPEG-4 44.10 stereo AAC low complexity 64kbits.sec sample rate: 32000bps (for some reason 44,100 is greyed out) Quality Best.

Video Formats - Saved and Steamed

• HD1080 (1920x1080) 16:9
• HD720 (1280x720) 16:9
• PSP (480x272) 16:9
• SD (768x576) 4:3 (Preserve Ratio via Crop)
• Hi (640x480, VGA) 4:3 (Preserve Ratio via Crop)

• Lo (320x240, QVGA) 4:3 (Preserve Ratio via Crop)

Quicktime Video

• Compression: H.264
• Quality: High (not Best)
• Frame rate: 15
• Key Frame rate: use 24
• Frame Re-ordering: Yes
• Encoding Mode: Multi-pass
• Dimensions: (set to one needed - see above)
• Data rate: Automatic used (hence will alter for each size)
• Hinted for Streaming

Quicktime Audio

• Encoding: MPEG-4
• Audio Format: AAC (Low Complexity)
• Sample rate: 44.1kHz
• Quality: Better
• Channels : Mono (21 Channel)
• Bit rate limit: 64 Kbps

---

WMV Video - Cannot be used in Second Life - Use on Web Only

• Profile: Camtasia Studio Best Quality and File Size (recommended)
• Default Profile: This profile is ideal for delivery from a web server. The settings will maintain quality while only using as much file size as necessary. These settings are compatible with Microsoft Silverlight.
• Audio encoding mode: CBR
• Video encoding mode: Quality VBR
• Audio codec: Windows Media Audio 9.1
• Audio format: 48 kbps, 44 kHz, mono
• Video codec: Windows Media Video 9
• Video bit rate: Quality based

 

Moving Second Life Objects to Opensim

At present anyone can take OpenVCE 3D Assets and other Second Life large and multi-part builds over from a BUILT version in Second Life to Opensim via Second Inventory.  The OpenVCE release box and its unpack mechanism cannot be taken over directly via that route.  It will take a few days work to restore the packaging mechanism using slightly modified scripts in Opensim.  All things we plan to do when we have time.

For now, route is:

1. Build in SL.
2. Choose one part as a core item.
3. Note or change part names (some may have component names that are not helpful) , relative locations and rotations for each part (unfortunately some may be rotated with respect to one another and at arbitrary offsets).   [Note that for the OpenVCE 3D Assets, the OpenVCE.net team we will be improving part names, removing relative rotations and adjusting the root prims to be on a very simple whole meter grid at some stage]
4. Move into Second Inventory. 
5. Transfer to Opensim.
6. Rez chosen core item and set it to a simple whole meter location with zero rotation.
7. Rez all other parts and move them to their original relative locations and rotations.

OpenVCE Fonts

Orientation Signs

The orientation signs on VCE and included with the OpenVCE Second Life Assets use the following fonts:

Title: Changeling Regular - a commercially available font (€29 in August 2009) from http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/mark_simonson/changeling/

Body Text: Century Gothic - available on most systems by default.

Other Signs and Create Your Own Signs

Templates: Photoshop templates and simple JPEG backgrounds are provided as an aid to making your own signs.

Titles: You could purchase Changeling as above, or use a close variant - Neuropol X Free - that is available free from http://www.dafont.com/neuropol-x-free.font

Has a Photoshop layer style with the following settings:

Outer Glow:

• Blend Mode = Screen
• Opacity = 35%
• Noise = 0
• Color = ffffff
• Technique = Softer
• Spread = 14
• Size = 20
• Contour = first choice (default)
• Anti-Aliased = (unchecked)
• Range = 50
• Jitter = 0

Stroke:

• Size = 2
• Position = Outside
• Blend Mode = Normal
• Opacity = 100%
• Fill Type = Color
• Color = 000000

Body Text: Century Gothic 

Has a Photoshop drop shadow layer style with the following settings:

• Blend Mode = Multiply
• Opacity = 45%
• Angle = 125
• Distance = 5
• Spread = 0
• Size = 5
• Noise = 0

NOTE: Use +25 for the tracking on both the title and body text to give the lettering a bit more breathing room for easier reading.

How to Install Fonts

Windows PC: http://www.myfonts.com/support/help_install_win.html

Apple Macintosh: http://www.myfonts.com/support/help_install_mac.html

 

If you need assistance in using Second Life contact Skye Gears

Skye Gears is a virtual personality who can help you if you need assistance in using Second Life or other Virtual Worlds and OpenVCE facilities. IM "Skye Gears" in world, or e-mail her at skye.gears@googlemail.com to make an appointment, or look out for her in OpenVCE events.

 

Troubleshooting - Event Facility Not Available at this Time

The facility you have tried to access is not available at this time. This could be due to a range of reasons:

• The event has not yet started, and the URL for the media to be provided is not yet available, or not yet live.
• The event is meant to be in progress, but there is some interuption or change of media URL. [ If the default event status mechanism is in use, you can see current information via Twitter with search tag #openvce or as otherwise notofied on your main event page. ]
• The event is already over, and the media URL is no longer in use.

 

Troubleshooting - Fixing Voice Feedback and Echo in SL Voice

If one or more participants in an event cause feedback or echo through a mic left open, or through poor echo cancellation at their end, then you can stop that via:

1. Tell them via private chat/IM somethimg like "I am sorry, you seem to have an open mic, or when your mic is on I am hearing echo. You probably will not hear the problem yourself. So for now I will mute you and will not hear you again in this event".
2. Right click on the avatar and select "Mute".
3. The avatar will show as "Muted" in their status/group label.
4. At the end of the meeting you could unmute them in case they fix the problem for next time.

Troubleshooting: I cannot use alt+left click to enable mouse look, what can I do to get it back?

Use control+Alt+D to open the Advanced menu at the top of your screen (SL viewer). Tick mouse smoothing (or un-tick it, just to make it different from its previous setting). This should reset your mouse look keys. Try again to see if it works now. You can restore you camera smoothing option after the test.

If this does not resolve your problem, try to download a newer version of the SL from the web site below: http://get.secondlife.com and this problem should be resolved. This is a known bug in SL, but should be resolved now from Secod Life Viewer version 1.23 onwards.

See SL bug report for more info: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-6436;jsessionid=0D748E95148E23AE2517934AE4A27F68.

Troubleshooting: I do not have a firewall problem, but I cannot see a movie, why?

1. First, make sure that you have the most up-to-date Quicktime Player.
2. Second, make sure that when you hover your mouse over the “camera” icon at the bottom of your screen you can see a text description “There is a movie to play here”. This indicates that your system recognises that there is a movie to be played for you.
3. Third, click on the small triangle button, so to play the movie.
4. If you still can not see the movie, use a different movie theatre that plays the same movie (that is provided in a different region in SL). Sometimes, an update/upgrade of the underlying simulator that renders a region in Second Life may cause some users to have problems.

Blue Mars 2150

Notes from David Fliesen, 29-Jun-2009, Amended by Austin Tate 21-Aug-2009

Blue Mars is currently in a Beta-test state.  The information here is publicly available.

BETA RELEASE & OPERATING SYSTEMS

 

SOME FEATURES

URLS

 

DEVELOPERS

HOW TO UPLOAD OBJECTS

Forterra OLIVE

Forterra OLIVE - See http://www.forterrainc.com/

Document on AI capablities projects in Forterra OLIVE attached.

 

 

IBM Virtual World Guidelines

Questions arise as to the choice of avatar names, appearance, and whether to use multiple avatars for different purposes across the many virtual worlds that are appearing. Some of these are restruicted by the virtual world platform in use , or by policies in operation in your own organization.  General Internet use guidelines are generally the ones to follow.  You shoud treat virtual worlds as just another Internet technlogy, and it is likely you will be using it in the future as widely as you use the 2D browser today for many purposes.

IBM have produced a useful set of guidelines for ther own employees which you may find helpful (archive as at 1-Sep-2009 attached):

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/virtualworlds.IBMVirtualWorldGuidelines.html

 

 

Second Life Meeting Spaces - Capacity and Layout

Capacity

• A single Second Life region on a full power simulator can support 40 avatars normally, or up to 80 if you take steps to reduce the lag via technology in use in te region and ask avatars to reduce high lag attachments (like sensors, and certain high load wearables). The limit can be set by estate managers... and we normally have the recommended 40 avatars as the default. After that avatars cannot log into a region.
• It is possible to use adjacent regions to place other avatars who can see the action and events. It can be set up top relay screens, etc. So one way to get more avatars in a meeting is to use the corner of several regions (up to 4).
• Beyond that it is necessary to use relays of the content to other regions, and then the sky is the limit. Normally having one person/avatar in each region to assist the users in that region in maintaining contact is helpful.

Types of Meeting Space

The meeting itself must be in a suitable space and must be managed. We are envisaging three types of space (+ overflow) for VCE:

• Small meeting room... up to 8 people. Also suitable for breakout rooms in larger meetings
• Round table discussion - up to about 25 people. An I-Room is typically arranged in this configuration.
• Larger workshop area with lecture theatre style and plinth/stage/main screen layout. Up to 80 people. This is also suitable for relaying a real life event from the stage.
• Secondary and beyond relays or adjacent spaces for larger meetings.

Social Conventions for Virtual Meetings

Second Life Terms of Service

Second Life Terms of Service are at: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php

Second Life FAQ at: https://join.secondlife.com/faq.php

US Nexus - Virtual World for Training and Simulation

Engineering and Computer Simulations (ECS) creates virtual worlds based training and simlation aids such as US Nexus. Demonstration videos for projects such as the US Joint State Response Training System (JSRTS) are available online.

http://www.ecsorl.com/

Videos: http://www.ecsorl.com/gallery/video/EmNexusVideo.html (e.g. check out JSRTS Video on left hand menu)

US government uses and lead: http://www.fcw.com/Articles/2009/05/04/Feature-virtual-learning.aspx

Presentation on US government uses: http://www.simulationinformation.com/Gametech09/presentations/Panel_WorldsofPromise.pdf [PDF File]

2009-08-26 OpenVCE 3D Virtual Worlds Assets Released

The OpenVCE.net community in association with Clever Zebra is pleased to announce the first public release of its 3D buildings assets and related facilities for any community and anyone to use to quickly create Virtual Collaboration Environments in Second Life.

 

 

The assets are released under the open source LGPL licence to encourage maximum usability and provide flexibility in use. See the downloads link or visit the Central Plaza to pick up the assets.

VW Platform	Location	URL	Launcher
Second Life	Central Plaza	http://slurl.com/secondlife/VCE/128/128/22

The Press Release between OpenVCE.net, the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI)at the School of Informatics at the The University of Edinburgh and Clever Zebra is available here.