Scripting a robot

[Faux Macbain]

Hello Second Life community.

I am a college student from Denmark about to start my Masters Speciale in computer science. Im am going to make a project about programming robots. The problem is that advanced robot programming is almost impossible when having it run around in the real world, because of crappy sensor technology.

This is why i have decided to take a crack at developing a robot in a software invironment, and i think second life would work very well.

To get to the question. Is it possible to use the Linden Scripting Language to communicate between an avatar in second life and a computer running a host program?

-Martin

[Ann Otoole]

Yes it is. LSL can communicate out to web servers and bring the responses back in. Of course internet latency will be a factor. Also the robot could function as a web server itself which may be quite useful for remote control purposes.

Start here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:LSL_HTTP

Also consider joining the mailing list: https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/secondlifescripters

There are numerous in world scripting groups that represent a ton of knowledge. Just have to find them. I'll try to find some of these groups and list them here. Or perhaps others can chime in with the groups before I can list them.

[Faux Macbain]

Thanks for the swift and precise ansver.

You wouldnt happen to know if there is some leagal issue with doing this would you? I havent been able to find anywhere detailing the amount of automation you can have in an avatar, and the support tickets are limited to account specific subjects for basic users it seems.

 

It would suck to go half way thorugh the project only to have it canceled because my accout was deleted on account of it being a bot.

[Ann Otoole]

lmao. tell you what. Have your robot join the group called Bots of Second Life. http://world.secondlife.com/group/74382421-b05a-b3cb-f059-411b7dafd81f

Group: Bots of SecondLife

           

(139 members)

                    

Charter: A group for all the bot accounts in Second Life. If an avatar is a member of this group, it is likely a bot.

                                

                    Open Enrollment                                             

                              

With an open declaration that an account is a bot in the profile and being a member of such an esteemed group then how could anyone hold it against you? If your going to have a lot of these robots on a parcel then don't opt in for show parcel in search and nobody can say you are "gaming search with bots". One, two, or even three bots on a parcel that is shown in search would hardly boost it by any worrisome amount anyway which is why people are generally not penalized for having a few models or bouncer bots around.

[Ann Otoole]

This link will bring up a list of groups to peruse for possible groups to join for scripting knowledge sharing: http://search.secondlife.com/web/search/groups/?q=script

[Faux Macbain]

lol. Nice ansver.

Well i guess i can go ahead with the preperations then.

Thanks a lot.

[Indeterminate Schism]

Confusion Ann!  Whether it's yours or mine I'm not sure but please clarify as you know more about this than I do.

a) If you're going to program an avatar as a 'bot this is a local issue for your PC.  You're quite right to say bots are allowed in SL and that by 'self-declaring' any arguments are prevented.  On the other hand, there is not much LSL can do to control an avatar, so you wouldn't need to script in-world to make your bot.

b) If you wish instead to use LSL to script objects in-world then bots are irrelevant but everything else you've said is quite true.

Either way, I'd have thought "crappy sensors" would apply even more to SL than RL when it came to robot control.  A fun project, to say the least!

[Thaumata Strangelove]

Sounds like a cool project.  It's not against the rules to have an avatar bot.  It's frowned upon to use the bot to do unfair things like game traffic statistics or trick people.

 

I was thinking that you might find it interesting to see what other people have already done with bots in SL, just to give you an idea of what is possible.  There is an animation company called Sine Wave that has an interesting bot program.  Maybe you should check them out.  They've got an FAQ about them here:

 

http://www.sinewaverobots.com/home/support.php

 

Basically, they can be programmed to interact with people nearby and do all kinds of fun things. 

 

 

I think that's what you're after.