Category: Other Worlds and Tech

Versu is reborn!

Posted on by Inara Pey

versuOn Friday June 6th, Emily Short announced through her blog that Versu, the interactive fiction engine she and Richard Evans developed while working at Linden Lab, and which was cancelled as a part of the Lab’s product review in February 2014, will now continue, and that Blood & Laurels, the interactive novel she has been working on for 15 years, will be launched on June 12th.

Following the announcement of Versu’s cancellation by the Lab, many of us speculated whether it  might be allowed to live on separately to the Lab’s involvement, and Emily herself confirmed she was talking to the Lab on matter of IP. However, hopes this might happen seemed to have been completely dashed in March, when the Lab said no to any idea of selling the IP involved. However, they’ve since had a change of heart.

The notification that this is the case came in the form of a blog post which first appeared on the  new Versu wesbite, and then reblogged on Emily’s site, which is where I came across it.

The announcement reads in part:

Nu-versu-1
Versu was lauched to considerable acclaim prior to being cancelled by Linden Lab. Now it is set to continue (image from the Versu website)

Until February of this year, the Versu project had its home at Linden Lab, exploring the possibilities of interactive storytelling with advanced character AI by Richard Evans (Sims 3, Black and White) and dialogue modeling by Emily Short (Galatea, Alabaster), as well as work by authors Jake Forbes (Return to Labyrinth) and Deirdra Kiai (Dominique Pamplemousse).

When the Lab decided to refocus its offerings and cut support for Versu, the project was only three days from launching a Roman political thriller called Blood & Laurels. Blood & Laurels represented a significant step forward in complexity and depth from previous Versu stories: a large cast of characters, a richly branched two-part storyline, and over 240,000 words of interactive content — of which a player is likely to see only about 7% in a given play through. Character behaviour and relationships were modeled with at least as much fidelity as in earlier examples, but in a context with much higher narrative stakes. What other characters think of you affect whether your character lives or dies, thrives or fails — and those relationships are driven by both large and small decisions.

After Versu’s cancellation, it looked for a long time as though neither the underlying technology nor the finished stories had a future. However, we are delighted to be able to announce that Linden Lab has negotiated a new arrangement that will allow us to release these stories and explore a future for the engine.

The Versu blog post reveals that Blood & Laurels has been made possible by a language called Prompter, which is used by Versu and has been designed by Graham Nelson of Inform fame. Graham is also now a part of the new Versu team, joining Emily and Richard Evans.

Emily Short and Richard Evans are joined by Graham Nelson, the man behind the Inform IF language, and the creator of the Promptor language used by Versu
Emily Short and Richard Evans are joined by Graham Nelson, the man behind the Inform IF system, and the creator of the Prompter language used by Versu

Blood & Laurels is set to be followed by Bramble House, an interactive fantasy story written by  Jake T. Forbes, the author of Return to Labyrinth, a four volume graphic novel sequel to the Jim Henson film Labyrinth, and the English-language versions of the best-selling manga series Fullmetal Alchemist, Fruits Basket, One Piece and others.

Bramble House focuses on the character of 15-year-old Penny, who is “bound in service to the witch Stregma, forced to deal with everything from mundane dishwashing to evicting monstrous guests”. In it, the reader takes on the role of Penny, progressing through various situations and events in two stories set within the Bramble House world.

There is no publication date available as yet for the title.

Blood and Laurels (due June 12th) and Bramble House will be the first two titles released under the new Versu banner
Blood and Laurels (due June 12th) and Bramble House will be the first two titles released under the new Versu banner (from the Versu website)

The new titles will be appearing on the iOS platform. At the time of writing, it is not clear as to whether there are still plans to make Versu and its titles available for the Android platform; the website only goes so far as to state, “While we would like to support Android, we do not currently have an Android version available.”

This is excellent news for all with an interest in or passion for interactive fiction. Congratulations are extended to Emily, Richard and Graham with the launch to this new venture, and kudos, as well, goes to Linden Lab for reversing their decision on the Versu IP and allowing the project to continue.

Be sure to listen-in to an upcoming edition of the Drax Files Radio Hour interviews, when Drax will be talking to Emily Short about interactive fiction, Versu and more!

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Second Annual OpenSim Community Conference announced

Posted on by Inara Pey

2014 banner

On Saturday May 31st, the Overte Foundation and Avacon have announced the Second Annual OpenSimulator Community Conference, with a press release on the announcement being circulated via e-mail on Tuesday June 3rd.

The conference will take place on the OpenSimulator Conference Centre grid on November 8th and 9th, 2014. It will be a celebration of the platform and the large and varied community using it. As such, it will feature two days of talks and presentations across four tracks, keynote speakers, panels and social events.

Anyone who is interested in the OpenSimulator software and the future of the metaverse is invited to attend, as well as OpenSimulator developers, grid administrators, and members of the community who participate on OpenSimulator grids.

The 2013 conference arena
The 2013 conference arena

The four presentation tracks will comprise:

  • Business & Enterprise: sessions will cover a broad range of topics on doing business in and with OpenSimulator. These include grid hosting, third-party development, private entrepreneurs, in-world and enterprise businesses, and also corporations and organizations using the platform for marketing, fundraising, product research, focus groups, etc
  • Content & Community: this track will examine different aspects of content (e.g. large scale immersive art installations, ballet, theatre, performance art, machinima, literary arts, clothing designs, virtual fashions, architecture, music performances and other cultural expressions) and community (e,g, role-playing groups, science fiction communities, virtual towns and interest groups, historical explorations, religious and spiritual communities, book clubs, etc.), within OpenSimulator
  • Developers & Open Source: will encompassing the technical aspects of OpenSimulator, and seeks presentations related to servers, viewers, external components, grid architecture, development, administration, and anything necessary to the installation, operation and use of an OpenSimulator system
  • Research & Education:  seeks presentations regarding the use of OpenSimulator in research applications in computer science, engineering, data visualization, ethnography, psychology, and economics. It will additionally feature sessions that cover a broad range of uses related to teaching and learning in and with OpenSimulator

In addition, the conference will feature  a new Learning Lab area. which will be available for hackerspaces, speed builds, and workshops for hands-on learning experiences guided by experts in the OpenSimulator community.

The Call for Proposals for all four tracks and the Learning Lab is now open, and all proposals should be submitted by July 1st, 2014.

Commenting on the event in the announcement, conference chair and organiser Chris Collins (Feep Tuque in OpenSim) said:

Last year’s conference was a terrific success with over 350 attendees from 45 unique grids and over 1000+ commits to the core code, which made OpenSimulator a much more stable and scalable platform.

This year we hope to build on that success by offering more opportunities for the community to be involved and doing more outreach to attract new users.  With all the hype surrounding the Oculus Rift and other virtual reality technologies, we think this is the perfect time to let the VR community know that OpenSimulator is a great platform for building the open metaverse.

Further information on the conference will be made available in due course – including details of keynote speakers, volunteer registrations, etc. Registrations will open on September 15th, 2014.

Sponsorship and Crowdfunding Campaign

While the conference is being held in virtual space, it does incur some expenses (such as the professionally managed set-up and operation of the conference grid and the streaming and other web services). As such, the organisers are seeking sponsorship from businesses, entrepreneurs,  and community members alike to help support the conference through a range of sponsorship opportunities, which have this year been updated and revised to better meet the needs of sponsors.

In addition, the conference is running a Crowdfunder Campaign to allow those wishing to make smaller donations to do so. Some unique rewards are on offer to those participating in the campaign, the full details of which can be found on the Crowdfunder Campaign page.

About the Organisers

The Overte Foundation is a non-profit organization that manages contribution agreements for the OpenSimulator project.  In the future, it will also act to promote and support both OpenSimulator and the wider open-source 3D virtual environment ecosystem.

AvaCon, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the growth, enhancement, and development of the metaverse, virtual worlds, augmented reality, and 3D immersive and virtual spaces. We hold conventions and meetings to promote educational and scientific inquiry into these spaces, and to support organized fan activities, including performances, lectures, art, music, machinima, and much more. Our primary goal is to connect and support the diverse communities and practitioners involved in co-creating and using virtual worlds, and to educate the public and our constituents about the emerging ecosystem of technologies broadly known as the metaverse.


Gource visualisation posted by nebadon2025 charting the growth of the OpenSimulator project by code commits from core developers up until the time of the 2013 conference

Enter the Dragon V2

Posted on by Inara Pey

Thursday May 28th saw SpaceX, the private sector space company founded by Elon Musk, unveil the next iteration of their Dragon space vehicle, the Dragon V2.

Dragon has been in operation in an unmanned mode since 2010,  and was the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to be recovered successfully from orbit. In May 2012, it commenced uncrewed resupply flights to the International Space Station (which I covered here) as a part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) development programme.

Elon Musk unveils the Dragon V2 capsule, May 29th, 2014
Elon Musk unveils the Dragon V2 capsule, May 29th, 2014 (image: SpaceX)

Dragon V2 (which had previously been called Dragon Rider by the company) is a natural progression of the Dragon spacecraft, and while always in Spacex’s plans, having been originally announced in 2006, it has been part-funded by two US Government contracts, the Commercial Crew Development 2 (CCDev 2) in April 2011, and the Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) in August 2012, both of which are focused on developing crewed vehicles capable of supporting the International Space Station (ISS) and of operating in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Dragon V2 is capable of carrying up to seven crew, or a combination of crew and cargo. The vehicle is intended to be reusable, and capable of landing almost anywhere in the world using propulsive-landing via its eight SuperDraco engines (Dragon 1 is only capable of making splash downs). However, Dragon V2 will retain a parachute descent system for use as a back-up, although it can still make a safe touch-down even if two of its eight descent engines fail. Also, unlike Dragon 1, which makes a close rendezvous with the ISS before being grabbed by one of the station’s robot arms and manoeuvred into a docking position, Dragon 2 will be able to undertake fully automated dockings with the ISS.

Dragon 2 making a control landing, post-mission (image: SpaceX)
Dragon 2 making a control landing, post-mission (image: SpaceX)

Nor does it end there. There are some ambitious plans for Dragon. The head shield, for example, is already capable of protecting the vehicle during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at velocities equivalent to those of a vehicle returning from the Moon or from Mars – and SpaceX has been working with NASA Ames Centre, California, on a conceptual uncrewed Mars mission evolution called Red Dragon.

Artist’s visualisation of how Red Dragon might appear when landing on Mars were the project to go ahead (image: SpaceX)

Potentially funded under NASA’s Discovery mission programme, Red Dragon, if given the green light, would provide a cost-effective means for NASA to undertake a sample return mission to Mars, allowing up to two tonnes of samples to be returned to Earth for detailed investigation and analysis in 2022, ahead of NASA’s goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Other have even more ambitious plans for Dragon and Mars. Dutch-based Mars One plans to kick-start a permanent, self-sufficient human colony on Mars from the mid-2020, with crews leaving Earth on a one-way trip every two years. According to the Mars One website, they hope to be able to use the Dragon vehicle and its associated Falcon 9 heavy launch vehicle also constructed by SpaceX, although there has been no public confirmation as to whether formal discussions with SpaceX have taken place.

Such plans aside, however, the first actual crewed mission for Dragon V2 is unlikely to occur prior to 2016. The next major milestone for the vehicle is a launchpad abort test, scheduled for later in 2014.

This will see the vehicle positioned at pad height and then launched to simulate an emergency in which the crew must escape their launch vehicle. After this, in 2015, there should be a high altitude abort test at Max Q, the period in the vehicle’s ascent when it is exposed to the maximum dynamic pressure. Both tests will feature the use of the vehicle’s SuperDraco engines, which form a part of the escape system as well as powering the craft during descent and landing. Capable of multiple re-starts and what is called “deep throttling”, the engines are themselves unique – the first ever fully printed rocket engines ever flown, produced by a direct metal laser sintering process.

If both of these tests are successful then it is conceivable that Dragon V2 could make an initial uncrewed orbital flight towards the end of 2015, and its first crewed flight in 2016.

Continue reading “Enter the Dragon V2” →

Loki: using the Xbox Controller with the Oculus Rift

Posted on by Inara Pey

Earlier in May I reported on Dave Rowe’s work integrating the Xbox 360 controller with his CtrlAltStudio viewer, allowing it to be used with the Oculus Rift or Stereoscopic 3D viewing options in that viewer, as well as with the normal display mode.

On Saturday May 24th, Loki Eliot tweeted that he’d been working on a similar approach, using the Xbox 360 controller and a dictation feature of OSX Mavericks to provide greater control over his avatar when using the Oculus Rift.

loki-tweet

Since tweeting, Loki has produced a blog post on his work, including links to the software he’s used and tutorials to help get things sorted out. his original video was posted to Telly, which WordPress.com doesn’t like, embedding-wise. However, Draxtor has, with Loki’s permission, reposted it to You tube, and so it’s that version I’ve embedded here.

Loki is the first to admit this approach doesn’t solve all of the Oculus related issues when using Second Life – he has a few wry observations as to where things will “suck” (his expression – not mine!). He also gives some musings on how technology might further assist things in the future.

Loki's work on integrating the Xbox 360 controller for use with SL and the Oculus Rift (image via Loki Eliot)
Loki’s work on integrating the Xbox 360 controller for use with SL and the Oculus Rift (image via Loki Eliot)

The use of HMDs brings with it a lot of challenges – some of which, the Lab freely admits in releasing its Oculus Rift project viewer, it has yet to really tackle. Seeing experiments like this is therefore interesting, as they demonstrate potential alternative (and not necessarily hyper-expensive) means of providing control over basic aspects of using SL with a headset which are not reliant on the keyboard and mouse and, in this case at least, also not dependent upon in-world voice (which many people don’t like to use for a wide variety of reasons). I wonder if approaches like this and Dave Rowe’s work with CtrlAltStudio might raise an eyebrow or two of interest at the Lab …?

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Oculus VR sued over alleged “misappropriated trade secrets”

Posted on by Inara Pey

On the day Linden Lab announced the arrival of the Oculus Rift capable project viewer, news also came that ZeniMax Media has pulled the trigger on a lawsuit against Oculus VR and company founder Palmer Luckey alleging, among other things, the misappropriation of trade secrets by Oculus VR.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has been widely reported in the on-line tech media, makes some heavy reading. As well as the claim of misappropriation of trade secrets relating to virtual reality technology, the Maryland-based company also alleges infringement of ZeniMax copyrights and trademarks and asserts claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition against the defendants.

The move is the latest in a war of words which initially erupted in the form of public correspondence between ZeniMax and  Oculus VR – who obviously strenuously deny all claims made by ZeniMax. The latter first informed Engadget of their intentions at the start of May, 2014, and in which they specifically pointed at John Carmack’s involvement in the development of Oculus Rift at a time when he was working for ZeniMax subsidiary id Software, as well as pointing to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) signed by Palmer Luckey in 2012, relating to the use of ZeniMax technology.

Oculus Rift: ZeniMax lawsuit specifically related to the early development of the headset, alleged use of their technology, possible IP infringements and breach of contract (image courtesy of BGR.com)

Cormack himself took to Twitter in an immediate rebuttal of the ZeniMax allegations, noting that while he recognises that any code he wrote while under ZeniMax’s employment is clearly theirs, at the same time the company never once patented any ideas arising from his work – placing the burden of proof on ZeniMax to demonstrate trade secrets / IP has been misappropriated where no patents exist.

John Carmack, Oculus VR’s CTO used Twitter in an immediate rebuttal of ZeniMax’s claims at the start of the month.

With the claims following on the heel of Facebook acquiring Oculus VR, the latter also commented on the ZeniMax allegations, framing them in terms of the Faceback acquisition, stating:

It’s unfortunate, but when there’s this type of transaction, people come out of the woodwork with ridiculous and absurd claims. We intend to vigorously defend Oculus and its investors to the fullest extent.

Daniel Nye Griffiths, writing for Forbes Online provides a solid examination of the initial claims made by ZeniMax and the response by Oculus VR,  which although somewhat superseded by the lawsuit’s filing, help frame the two companies respective positions. In their response to the claims by ZeniMax, and without using the actual words, Oculus VR pretty much demanded ZeniMax to put up or shut up.

Continue reading “Oculus VR sued over alleged “misappropriated trade secrets”” →

Lab releases Oculus Rift project viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn Wednesday May 21st, Linden Lab publicly released the Oculus Rift project viewer. Version 3.7.8.289834 of the viewer offers initial support for Oculus Rift, and is focused on getting started with the Oculus Headset (which has yet to be commercially released, although there are currently some 75,000 SDK 1 models in the world, and shipping will commence soon on the updated SDK 2 version).

For Windows, Oculus Rift requires Windows Vista or later, and with Mac OS X, version 10.7 or later is required.

The blog post announcing the release reads in part:

The early beta testers of our integration have provided some valuable feedback, identifying bugs as well as providing suggestions for additional features and options that would improve the experience of using the Oculus Rift with Second Life. Today we’re pleased to announce that our Oculus Rift integration is now available as a Project Viewer, the first step toward becoming a part of the default Second Life Viewer.

Like our initial beta release, this Project Viewer is more about making it easy to get started using the Oculus Rift to view Second Life than it is about optimizing the UI for headset users. We’ve made some minor adjustments to the regular Second Life UI in order to present it in head-mounted display (HMD) mode, but the UI headset users will experience with this project Viewer is still essentially the same as you’d see without an Oculus Rift.

A new Toolbar button makes toggling the Oculus Rift on / off easy
A new Toolbar button makes toggling the Oculus Rift on / off easy

Features in the viewer include:

  • Full Oculus Rift Hardware Support – includes automatic hardware detection and display calibration for quick and easy setup
  • HMD Mode – activated via Me > Display Select or via CTRL-SHIFT-D / CMD-SHIFT-D or via the HMD Mode toolbar button. This command also allows one to display the stereo rendering output intended for the Oculus Rift on their primary display
  • HMD configuration via Preferences > Move and View > click the HMD calibration button
Display A new Preferences pop-up provides additional display configuration options
Display A new Preferences pop-up provides additional display configuration options
  • Full UI Support – users can access the entire Second Life UI and HUDs while in Oculus Rift mode, so there are no limitations on what a user can do in-world while using the headset
  • Avatar Head Motion – Oculus Rift head-tracking data is mapped to the avatar, so users’ avatars look where they do
  • “Align to Look” [Q]  –  allows users to quickly start moving the direction they are looking
  • New First-Person View – allows users to enjoy the immersion previously available with Mouselook mode, but allows the mouse to be used to control the cursor, allowing for interaction with the UI and objects in-world

  • Action Key – [“X”] It is now possible to activate action items (i.e. Opening Doors) from Mouselook mode. Aim the crosshairs at the item you’d like to activate, and press the “X” key. In First-Person mode, the Action Key [“X”] will have the same functionality as clicking the mouse button in Mouselook mode (i.e. it will “trigger” guns or other held items).

To display the viewer with the best results, Linden Lab recommend that the Oculus Rift is configured as an Extended Desktop in Windows (do not Duplicate Displays), and that Mirroring Mode (Settings > Displays) is enabled on Mac OS X.

There are some known issues with the viewer, as noted in the release notes. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Alt+Tabbing out of the viewer confuses the Rift – RIFT-22
  • Build Tool’s Translation plane is opaque – RIFT-4
  • File Browsers cannot function in HMD mode – RIFT-20
  • Snapshots disabled while in HMD mode because:
  • HUD and UI elements always drawn in snapshots –RIFT-30
  • Save to my Computer adds a blank screen between refreshes when trying to take snapshots – RIFT-31
  • Toggling HMD mode sets the focus wrong and you have to click in world before doing anything else, on Macs – RIFT-110

There are also known limitations with the Action Key [“X”] – please refer to the release notes for a list of known issues and to JIRA raised under the RIFT project.

To go with the project viewer launch, the Lab has also created a new Oculus category in the Destination Guide, which is intended to list “places that are particularly compelling with the Oculus Rift.”

The blog post includes an introductory video, embedded below. Please note, this video refers to downloading the release version of the SL viewer – this is incorrect. The Oculus Rift capabilities are only available via the Oculus Rift project viewer, which is correctly linked-to in the blog post.

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