Tom, I've implemented: o. speech synthesis (text-to-speech and singing voices) o. simple gestures synthesis (2D faces, SouthPark-like toons) o. 3D facial animation (the Waters' muscles model) I haven't released it yet, but if you want anything of this just e-mail me and I will send you a changeset. I think this stuff might be useful for you if you want to implement avatars.
Cheers, Luciano.-
-----Original Message----- From: Tom Morgan tmorgan@acm.org To: squeak@cs.uiuc.edu Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 07:58:02 -0400 Subject: An image is a lonely place
I've been noticing how lonesome it is inside an image.
There are lots of strong place based/community elements which surround Squeak. These are currently formed by the basic networked apps of email, the discussion Swiki, the mail archives, and so on.
There is now lots of machinery which is available which would allow basic collaborative support right inside a running image (and there are some spacey ones imagineable using the 3D stuff that feel like 'Snowcrash')
The kinds of things that I have in mind revolve around establishing a sense of 'place', which is shared, 'embodiment' of you the user explicitly some how in the interface and some amount of 'awareness' of the presence of others in the shared place, all done with a light enough touch that we don't end up with avatar fashion shows.
In this picture, an Morphic book wouldn't be found by reaching out across the network and loading it; instead, there'd be a more or less far away part of your image (maybe dressed up as an Alice world) that would let you wander around and find the book you wanted. Perahaps the author would hand it to you, if he happened to be around.
While working, instead of the discussion Swiki, there'd be small knots of others, gathered around places of interest to them. You could glance around and see if anyone was nearby, possibly interested in what you were up to.
Over the course of a few years, I have seen naive users comfortably navigate incredibly complex graph structures, when they are presented with a place based metaphor.
I am not sure how universally appealing these interface metaphors are, but they seem to be captivating for at least some portion of the population.
I remember one posting about trying to incorporate the ICQ protocols into Squeak.
Are there others padding around this collaborative territory?
...Tom M
We have implemented a working MOO prototype in VisualWorks, mostly just a framework with limited functionality. We are now designing another version, possibly to be functional around the end of the year.
Ivan
Date forwarded: 29 Sep 1999 20:49:07 -0000 From: "Luciano Notarfrancesco" luciano2@mail.ru To: Tom Morgan tmorgan@acm.org Copies to: squeak@cs.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: An image is a lonely place Date sent: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 00:47:33 +0400 Forwarded by: squeak@cs.uiuc.edu Send reply to: squeak@cs.uiuc.edu
Tom, I've implemented: o. speech synthesis (text-to-speech and singing voices) o. simple gestures synthesis (2D faces, SouthPark-like toons) o. 3D facial animation (the Waters' muscles model) I haven't released it yet, but if you want anything of this just e-mail me and I will send you a changeset. I think this stuff might be useful for you if you want to implement avatars.
Cheers, Luciano.-
-----Original Message----- From: Tom Morgan tmorgan@acm.org To: squeak@cs.uiuc.edu Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 07:58:02 -0400 Subject: An image is a lonely place
I've been noticing how lonesome it is inside an image.
There are lots of strong place based/community elements which surround Squeak. These are currently formed by the basic networked apps of email, the discussion Swiki, the mail archives, and so on.
There is now lots of machinery which is available which would allow basic collaborative support right inside a running image (and there are some spacey ones imagineable using the 3D stuff that feel like 'Snowcrash')
The kinds of things that I have in mind revolve around establishing a sense of 'place', which is shared, 'embodiment' of you the user explicitly some how in the interface and some amount of 'awareness' of the presence of others in the shared place, all done with a light enough touch that we don't end up with avatar fashion shows.
In this picture, an Morphic book wouldn't be found by reaching out across the network and loading it; instead, there'd be a more or less far away part of your image (maybe dressed up as an Alice world) that would let you wander around and find the book you wanted. Perahaps the author would hand it to you, if he happened to be around.
While working, instead of the discussion Swiki, there'd be small knots of others, gathered around places of interest to them. You could glance around and see if anyone was nearby, possibly interested in what you were up to.
Over the course of a few years, I have seen naive users comfortably navigate incredibly complex graph structures, when they are presented with a place based metaphor.
I am not sure how universally appealing these interface metaphors are, but they seem to be captivating for at least some portion of the population.
I remember one posting about trying to incorporate the ICQ protocols into Squeak.
Are there others padding around this collaborative territory?
...Tom M
Dr. Ivan Tomek, Jodrey School of Computer Science Acadia University Nova Scotia, Canada fax: (902) 585-1067 voice: (902) 585-1467
An admiring comment:
The extent to which people are developing and proposing visionary solutions in Smalltalk is mind-boggling. No other software invention in my memory has inspired such a flood of innovations. If not for the fact that the inventors participate in this mailing list, I would think they were gods or aliens instead of "merely" talented human beings. Maybe it's the close collaboration they maintained over the years that allows them to create something greater than they would have as individuals. If so, creating a collaborative morphic world in Squeak is the most important project any of us can work on. My congratulations and encouragement to those of you who are already engaged!
Ed
We have implemented a working MOO prototype in VisualWorks, mostly just a framework with limited functionality. We are now designing another version, possibly to be functional around the end of the year.
I've implemented: o. speech synthesis (text-to-speech and singing voices) o. simple gestures synthesis (2D faces, SouthPark-like toons) o. 3D facial animation (the Waters' muscles model)
In this picture, an Morphic book wouldn't be found by reaching out across the network and loading it; instead, there'd be a more or less far away part of your image (maybe dressed up as an Alice world) that would let you wander around and find the book you wanted. Perahaps the author would hand it to you, if he happened to be around.
While working, instead of the discussion Swiki, there'd be small knots of others, gathered around places of interest to them. You could glance around and see if anyone was nearby, possibly interested in what you were up to.
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org