The prim parts of my NPC, Pandora Bot, are almost complete.Clicking its head sends it from sleeping ('Away' mode) to being awake and back again. And while it's awake it blinks, sways slightly (in a robotic kind of way) and shuffles its feet regularly. Pandora Bot is pretty primitive (excuse the pun) but good enough I think.
Note: this prim avatar won't fool anyone into thinking it is real for two reasons (well, ignoring the quality of the chat for now - which is a pretty major third reason! :-) ). Firstly, the name above the head isn't presented in quite the same format as avatar names are normally presented - as far as I know I can't replicate the exact way that avatar names are presented just using prims. Secondly, whenever Pandora Bot chats, a swirling mass of stars is emitted, as with any prim-based chat - as far as I know I can't turn these off.
At the moment, Pandora Bot wakes up and sleeps only in response to clicks on the head. In due course I'll make it sense its surroundings and sleep or wake depending on whether anyone is around.
The last thing I have to do on the prim front is to make its arms make a typing movement whenever it is chatting. Should be pretty easy. Then I'll have to focus on configuring the backend PandoraBot AIML correctly - so that Pandora Bot can actually talk some sense about something. That'll be a lot harder I suspect!
1 comment:
You might find a single particle texture will work for people that don't use speech bubbles and let you present your name over your head convincingly.
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