An update was also made to the Creator to expose this new functionality and make packaging up a PIMML file a simpler experience.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to create a PIMML file using the Creator (v1.3 required!)

Begin by loading your IMML up into the Creator. For this example I’ll use hello-world-hills.imml. Navigate to the Publish menu and select File.

The first step is to decide how the PIMML file will be used. If you have designed it to be a multi-user environment, choose Offline Use. The difference between Online Use and Offline Use is quite simple; online means that the PIMML can use URI Impersonation to connect to a VastServer whereas offline cannot.

For this example I’ll pretend this file will be used online – in reality the IMML for hello-world.hills hasn’t been designed for online use, so don’t expect anything multi-userish to magically happen if you are following along at home

Next, we need to instruct the PIMML file where the VastServer that will manage the multi-user data is located. In this case I’m using the fictitious example.org as my address.

The benefit of this is that the PIMML file can be shared via email, served via Apache/IIS/VastServer/other, handed out on a USB stick, etc and still have the ability to be multi user. This is known as URI Impersonation.

By default, the Creator will only PIMML assets that are statically referenced in the original IMML.

In our example IMML the only element that really qualifies for packaging is the model called Mountain Terrain.

Often scripting will dynamically source content, so you may wish to add additional assets into the PIMML file. A good example of this is an animation resource as shown in the below example:

URI: The remote URI to map acquisition requests from
File path: The file to resolve the requests for that URI to

The final step is to check the document name is correct (it gets displayed at the bottom left of the Player UI) and choose an encryption level for the package.

I’ve choosen to encrypt in this example using a really thirst quenching password.

That’s all there is to it, hit Next and the Creator will do the rest:

The summary screen tells you where the PIMML was output to (defaults to Documents\VastPark\Creator\PortableIMML), the file can now be opened in the Player and interacted with as per usual:

Note: The title for this post was inspired by http://twitter.com/jokay/status/20869967909

One of the audience offered to record the session remotely so the audio is a little scratchy, but I think it’s come across ok.

The talk covers:

• IMML
• VastScript
• Network enabled elements
• HTML interop
• Video
• Audio
• Textures
• User Profiles
• Plugins

Hopefully this is a useful primer if you are interested in developing with VastPark or are curious to know a little more about the way the system functions.

Download the PDF shown in the video here: VastPark Developer Introduction - Framework v1.3

Many months ago during May of 09, after meeting Ian Hughes at FCVW, I came across an interesting post on his blog discussing an implementation of the flocking algorithm in Unity.

I’d not heard of the term flocking or boids, so proceeded to get stuck into some research, which lead me to Conrad Parker’s page on Boids Pseudocode as well as many others who had implemented the algorithm, I figured it would be a fun little plugin to write for VastPark so gave it a try.

Implementing the algorithm

Thinking about what was required, I came up with the following as the plan for the plugin:

• Any IPositionalElement (Model, Primitive, Sound, Camera, Light, etc) would be supported
• Implement Rule 1 – “Boids try to fly towards the centre of mass of neighbouring boids”
• Implement Rule 2 – “Boids try to keep a small distance away from other objects (including other boids)”
• Implement Rule 3 – “Boids try to match velocity with near boids”
• For bonus points I’d implement “Tendency towards a particular place”, “Limiting the speed”, “Bounding the position”, “Perching” and “Scattering the flock”

In terms of the plugin this translates into these properties:

• SmallDistance
• MaxVelocity
• MinVelocity
• EnableBounds
• MaxBounds
• MinBounds
• EnablePerching
• MinPerchTime
• MaxPerchTime
• PerceivedCentre (get only)

The following callbacks:

• ElementPerched
• ElementLeftPerch

The following methods:

• SetPointOfInterest
• AddPlaceToAvoid
• AddPerch
• Scatter

The class diagrams look like this:

How does it work?

Put quite simply, the plugin works like this:

• AddElement(ImmlElement element) creates a boid instance for the positional element passed
• The plugin Update method (called once each update by the VastPark framework) proceeds to calculate the rules, one at a time for each boid to work out the new velocity and position for the element it represents
• Scatter requests made during runtime are dealt with during the next update

Downloads

Here is some sample IMML and the source code to the plugin, enjoy! Let me know if you decide to implement any of the other rules or do something cool with it

Sample IMML: flocking.imml
Source code to plugin: Plugin.Flocking.zip

Note: The source code will probably complain about some missing references. Install the Player from www.vastpark.com and link against the relevant binaries included with it.

To try drag and drop out for yourself, first download generic-drag-drop-sample.imml (right-click, save as) and open in the Player.

Next, you’ll need to expand the Items list. Do so by clicking on this icon:

By default you are presented with the list of Items of type Video and Document that the currently logged in account has access to (these can be further restricted by the hosting server’s group ACL).

In this case as we are opening the file directly, it will default to showing the most recently published Items without filtering and should look similar to this:

Click to select one of the items from the list (in my example, I’ve chosen “VastPark Logo”) and drag it onto the 3D view. The large rectangle in the centre of the screen will change colour to blue indicating it is a drop target.

Next, drop the Item onto the blue rectangle, which will cause it to change colour to green. Shortly the VastPark logo will appear on it.

How does this work?

Behind the scenes is a plugin (called MetaforikAdapter) which currently supports adapting Items of type “Document” and “Video” to a Model or Primitive element. The code to do this is quite simple.

First, reference the Plugin:

<Plugin Enabled="True" Source="http://id.vastpark.com/VastParkWS/get.vpws?name=MetaforikAdapter&amp;publisher=craigomatic&amp;domain=vastpark&amp;context=park" Name="MetaforikAdapter">
    <Element Name="InvalidRequestHandler" />
    <Parameter Key="InvalidRequestEvent" Value="InvalidRequestHandler" />    
  </Plugin>   
  
  <Script Name="InvalidRequestHandler">
    function main(obj, args)
      scene.ui:writeline('invalid request')          
    end
  </Script>

<Trigger Event="DragDrop" Target="OnDragDrop" />
<Trigger Event="DragEnter" Target="OnDragEnter" />
<Trigger Event="DragLeave" Target="OnDragLeave" />

In you script for the drop, pass the Item along with the element you want to adapt it to into the load method on the plugin. You may choose to inspect the Item before the drop to give user feedback as is done in the sample IMML.

<Script Name="OnDragDrop">
    function main(obj, args)            
      --args.data contains the Item which was dragged in
      
      --load returns a controller object
      c = metaforikadapter:load(args.data, obj)      
    
      scene.ui:writeline('item name: '..c.item.name)
      scene.ui:writeline('id: '..c.id)
      scene.ui:writeline('is first: '..tostring(c.isfirst))
      scene.ui:writeline('is last: '..tostring(c.islast))
      scene.ui:writeline('total pages: '..tostring(c.pages))
      scene.ui:writeline('current page: '..tostring(c.currentpage))
    end
</Script>
  
<Script Name="OnDragEnter">
    function main(obj, args)
        scene.ui:writeline('drag enter on: '..obj.name..' of type: '..args.data.assets[0].type)     
    end
</Script>
  
<Script Name="OnDragLeave">
    function main(obj, args)
      scene.ui:writeline('drag leave on: '..obj.name)
    end
</Script>

Working with elements other than Document or Video

One thing to be aware of is that you don’t necessarily have to use the MetaforikAdapter plugin to benefit from drag and drop. If you want to allow for models or sounds to be dropped in, you can use the item.updateuri as the source for the element and add it into the scene, like this:

<Script Name="OnDragDrop">
    function main(obj, args)    
      item = args.data
      if(item.assets[0].type == 'Model') then       
          m = model()
          m.source = args.data.updateuri
      
          scene:add(m)     
      end
    end
</Script>

Final Note

That’s really all there is to it, you may want to craft different UI depending on the state of the controller properties in the MetaforikAdapter plugin sample, ie: to handle a multi-page document differently to a video or single page document, or in the model example to only allow certain users to drop models into a specific region of your space.

If you haven’t already read the original article and are interested in how it works, be sure to have a read before continuing.

Define Element

The Define element is a declarative way of expressing a variable in IMML. It’s equivalent to doing element:set(‘variableName’, variableValue) but doesn’t require interpretation via the scripting engine which results in much better performance. It’s also a much nicer way to store global variables as they can be placed in more a easily identifiable location in the IMML rather than being buried within a script.

My Define in the sample looks similar to this (truncated for brevity):

<!--Use any Yahoo stock codes in the below define to control the stocks being generated and updated-->
 <Define Key="stocks" Value="IPL.AX,VIL.AX,FMG.AX,RIO.AX,BHP.AX,BOQ.AX" />

To change the ticker to show different stocks, replace any of the entries in the Value of the Define with the appropriate Yahoo ticker code for the relevant stock.

Tooltip Plugin

Note: To use the Tooltip plugin, you’ll need to be running either the most recent Player snapshot or version 0.98+ as it uses the Handle property that was added recently to the IRenderEngine interface.

The tooltip concept has been around for quite a while and is used by just about every modern desktop application. Ever wondered what that big red button does and hovered your mouse to find out? If yes, you’ve seen a tooltip. This plugin extends the concept to allow developers to associate a tip with an element in world.

To do so is quite simple, the following functions are provided with the plugin:

int Add(string text, ImmlElement element)
void Remove(int id)
void SetText(int id, string text)

To make use of these, I’ve added 2 lines to _updateStock in the UpdateStocks script:

--update the volume tooltip	
id = lastTradeVisual:get('tooltipId')
tooltipplugin:settext(id, 'Volume: '..volume)

…and 3 lines to _generateStock in the GenerateStocks script:

--store a define value on the last trade to represent volume for the tooltip
lastTradePrim:set('volume', volume)
id = tooltipplugin:add('Volume: '..volume, lastTradePrim)
lastTradePrim:set('tooltipId', id)

The end result still looks similar to before, but we now get tooltips when hovering:

Download the updated IMML here: stock-ticker.imml

What’s included in 0.98?

Drag and Drop

Drag and Drop allows the user to drag an Item from the Items list into the 3D space. This Item can then be interrogated via script or plugin and an action can occur based on the developer listening to the DragEnter, DragDrop, DragLeave triggers in IMML.

The benefits of this can be extensive, from dynamic presentations with multiple presenters able to drag out their presentation on demand to injecting new content into the scene.

Note: This Items list is populated by the Metaforik index. You can get content into this index using the Publisher application (you must have a publisher account!) which supports Models, Video, Audio, etc, but currently doesn’t support the type “Document”.

Simplified UI

Feedback was received that the UI for the Player was a little complex, so we’ve introduced a menu and removed much of the clutter from the tray area. All of the functionality previously accessible from the tray is now found under the menu at the top of the application.

The address bar now has back, forward and refresh buttons as well as a new icon that indicates the health of the current document and an icon that appears when content is loading in the background.

The debug dialog has been slightly tweaked and simplified also, note that debug rendering options now appear under the menu View -> Render. By default, the LoadQueue tab is now displayed which is useful in working out what is occurring while you are waiting for a document to complete loading.

More of a focus on capture

Along with the support for Continuum capture, the Player now supports capture of screenshots.

Screenshot and Continuum captures default to being stored in your Documents folder under the subfolders “Continuum” and “Screenshots”. This can be customised by visiting the Options menu (Tools -> Options) and selecting a new capture path.

In a future release video capture support is likely to make an appearance as we aim to provide a variety of ways to capture the experience within the Player.

Search Syntax

Some slightly more advanced searching ability is included in the Player’s Item list and follows this syntax:

[type:itemType] [publisher:nameOfPublisher] [tags:tag1, tag2, etc]

Some valid searches that follow this syntax are:

Crate type:Model publisher:craigomatic
- Finds all Model items published by craigomatic that have a name like “Crate”

Crate
- Finds all items that have a name like “Crate”

type:Document
- Finds all items of the type Document

0.98 Platform Changelog

• Improved reliability and performance in all libraries that use threaded queueing
• Improved reliability of connection code in server libraries
• DragDrop, DragEnter, DragLeave events added to IMML
• Handle property added to IRenderEngine, plugins can now mix winforms/WPF overlays into the experience
• Added access to CacheProvider, ContentAcquirer and ContentLoader via ParkEngine. Plugins can now download content using the common download system and take advantage of the user’s cache
• Added concept of NetworkChannel, shifted mutex acquisition to a dedicated channel
• Added concept of Behaviours to IMML
• Fixed bug where texture source change didn’t work during runtime
• Fixed bug where video source change didn’t work during runtime
• Changed behaviour of Groups property in script scene.user:groups, now uses cached data. Use scene.user:GetProfile(“alias”) for live data
• Added support for constraints between bones on separate models
• Misc. bug fixes

Download link: http://www.vastpark.com/resources/downloads.html

As I sit here at the VastPark booth during the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds during one of the few quiet periods I’m able to do both!

If you’re at home and wanting to get in on the action as well, jump onto this link:

http://fcvw.vastpark.com/

It’s nearing the end of the day here in Washington but the feed will be live again tomorrow and you can certainly follow the twitter feeds post conference.

In it’s simplest form the IMML for the VNC Plugin will look something like this:

<Plugin Name="VncPlugin" Enabled="True" 
Source="http://content.vastpark.com/VastParkWS/get.vpws?publisher=craigomatic&amp;name=VncPlugin&amp;domain=vastpark&amp;context=park">
	<Element Name="TargetElement"/>
	<Element Name="OnPasswordRequired"/>
	<Parameter Key="Uri" Value="the-vnc-server-address.com"/>
	<Parameter Key="Port" Value="5900"/>
 	<Parameter Key="PasswordRequired" Value="OnPasswordRequired"/>
</Plugin>
<Script Name="OnPasswordRequired">
    function main(obj, args)
        vncplugin:setpassword('pass') --hardcoding password is bad, you should ask the user to enter one!
    end
</Script>
<Primitive Type="Box" Name="TargetElement" Size="1,1,1"/>

Here’s one I prepared earlier (well, Adrian did most of the work…):

Plugin Parameters

Uri

The host address of the VNC server. You should avoid using the scheme at the start of this address (ie: don’t put the http://)

Port

Defaults to the VNC default of 5900

ConnectionFailed

Name of a Script/Timeline/other ITimelineExecutable element to execute when a VNC connection has failed

PasswordRequired

Name of a Script/Timeline/other ITimelineExecutable element to execute when a password is required to connect to the VNC server

UpdateFrequency

The number of milliseconds to wait before automatically refreshing the remote screen when ManualUpdate is false. Defaults to 500.

ManualUpdate

True/False. When true, you need to call the vncplugin:requestupdate(true) for a fullscreen update. Defaults to False

You can download an example IMML document here: basic-vnc.imml and view the source code for the VNC Plugin over here: http://vastpark-svn.cvsdude.com/public/trunk/Plugins/Plugin.VNC/

A good free windows VNC Server is TightVNC

Virtual Worlds Down Under – Part 4 of 4 – Masterclass 2 from VastPark on Vimeo.

VastPark Masterclass1 from VastPark on Vimeo.