Wednesday, October 29, 2014

2014 HELP: OPENSIM: The ideal Hypergrid address form--almost there in Firestorm

The ideal Hypergrid address form,
almost there in Firestorm  
The ideal Hypergrid address form would do what a SLurl does in Second Life.  I can put it in a blog article or a post on social media.  You can click on it or drag it onto your viewer screen and the system would take you to that location, including the coordinates.  The method in Firestorm does not do all that, but I can put it in a blog article, you can paste it into the address bar, and it will take you to that location, including the coordinates. 

  • If we of the Hypergrid generation want to attract normal people,
  • we need to make Hypergrid addresses more useful and user friendly.
  • I report on an undocumented Firestorm feature that is a big step that way.

  • Thanks to Ed Merryman for verifying that it is undocumented.
  • Since this feature is undocumented, it may change or vanish in the future.
  • This or a similar feature may be available in other viewers.

Who would care about this?

  • Bloggers who want to give easy directions to the places they write about.
  • Store owners who want to give easy directions to their stores.
  • Venue managers who want to give easy directions to their events.
  • Anyone who wants to bring Hypergrid traffic to their parcel with a web post.  

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Standard address specs

  • Current HG address specs cover grid, port, and (optionally) region:
  • Addresses on the Hypergrid
  • They do not take you to a specified place/parcel in the region.
  • Example: (no region)  grid.kitely.com:8002  (To Kitely Welcome Center)
  • Example: (region= Cookie II) grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II
  • You arrive at the center of the region (128,128,nn) 
  • Or at the center of the Southwest corner of a megaregion
  • Probably always at 128,128,nn. 
  • To get hypergrid traffic to any other place, you can put a TP panel at 128,128
  • Or give a landmark there.  Or give complicated instructions.

The Firestorm feature: preliminary testing

  • The Firestorm address bar is at the top of the screen, under the top menu.
  • All tests below were made by pasting the address into that bar.
  • Transport requests may get "does not exist" report on the first try
  • Always make a second try.  
  • grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II:/246/244/24  
  • This form worked in Kitely and from other grids.
  • grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II:/137/366/22  
  • Megaregion test, worked in Kitely, not from Metropolis. 
  • Probably not yet reliable in megaregions beyond coordinates 256,256
  • These tests were made with Firestorm 4.6.7 (42398) Aug 12 2014
  • Hypergrid addresses may fail to work in their own destination grid.
  • Region names with multiple space characters may not work.
  • They may work if you replace the space characters with %20
  • sanctuary.homelinux.org:8012:The%20Spirit%20of%20Arcadia%205
  • instead of
  • sanctuary.homelinux.org:8012:The Spirit of Arcadia 5

How do I get the HG address to use this way?

  • On Kitely, the HG address is in the right column of the Kitely world page.
  • Google search on Kitely and region name will probably get the page you want.
  • Example: Kitely Cookie II
  • Hint: it is the item at Kitely.com.
  • Other grids may offer a similar feature. 
  • Also Hyperica gives hypergrid addresses for the places listed there
  • You just append the coordinates in this form:
  • :/246/244/24 
  • Other syntax may work, but I have not tested it.
  • This is a preliminary report.  A more complete report should come later.
  • Use the comment section for corrections or more information.  

Illustration

Nara Malone has a valuable script for Non-Playing Characters at Nara's Nook.  I will be reporting on it and want to tell pepple how to find it.  The standard hypergate address I could give is: world.narasnook.com:8900:Greyville
That address takes you here:

-
The thing you want is in a blue box with floating text: "Gift."  You can see the box from the arrival point, but not the floating text. To accommodate people using the standard address I will use the image above, with text pointing out the box.  
-
I will also give the Firestorm form, with instructions on how to use it:
  • world.narasnook.com:8900:Greyville:/130/138/22  
  • Paste the line above into the address bar (top) of Firestorm and press enter.  
This address will take people to:
-
Much better.  Right to the box. Just like an inworld teleport   You should see the floating text from there.   You can't miss the box.  Thanks to on-the-spot hyper TP.

Why do I make so much of an extra step or two?

  • Every step loses a significant fraction of the people that get there
  • My readers are my guests.  I want to make things as easy for them as I can.
  • All successful promoters think this way

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Contests and dated calls/invitations/events

***************

The Machinima 48 Hour Film Project

Weekend of 14 - 16 November 2014
Filmmakers from all over the variety of virtual worlds and games will compete to see who can make the best short film in only 48 hours. The winning film will go up against films from around the world.
*******************
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Entries Close at Midnight SLT 31st October 2014. Winners will be announced in December 2014.   
Visit the UWA Challenge Gallery  to view the submissions so far:
    Note:I am running some submitted videos in this blog, but only those posted on YouTube.  Vimeo sometimes removes videos and so ruins the post. 

    Events 

      ***********************

      Newcomer Help in Virtual Worlds

      Education

      How to handle a Hypergrid address 

      From any Hypergrid-enabled grid, paste the address into the address bar of Firestorm and press enter. Or paste it into the world map search bar of any viewer, search, and click Teleport when the destination is found. If it doesn't work, don't give up. Try again later. Some hypergrid destinations are offline part of the day. 
      If you get a address that looks like this: 
      hg.francogrid.org:80:Residence-09:/119/128/190  it may take you to the exact coordinates if you paste it into the address bar of Firestorm. 

      Entrepreneurs call

      ******

      Video-Machinima in virtual worlds
      *****


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      2 comments:

      1. Wizzy GynoidOctober 29, 2014 at 4:28 PM

        There is an Open Sim bug involving Nara's NPC script. I don't think it has been fixed yet. It will lock up your sim and stop all scripts and script updates. I would wait to distribute the NPC scripts until that is fixed.

        ReplyDelete
      2. Selby EvansOctober 30, 2014 at 12:18 PM

        Thanks. I am glad to hear that before I publish and article about it. New Media Arts has been using it a lot without incident and with very satisfactory results, so I thought it was ready for prime time. The bug may have been patched in Kitely but not in the current release of OS. I will research the matter--I expect that Oren Hurvitz will know about it.

        ReplyDelete

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