Thread: 3D INTERACTIVE CHAT

hi all. I am a 3d game programmer for a small company, and a want to be Lucid dreamer.. I had a thought. the answers im looking for are.. WILL IT HELP AS A TOOL?
WOULD YOU USE IT?

here is the program i want to make(could whip it up in 1 day)

I want to have a 3d dream city.. in this city there will be billboards and such that say things like YOU ARE DREAMING, and ARE YOU DREAMING. parking lots will say things like. DREAM PARKING. and so forth.. also you wil lbe able to choose your avatar, chat with other people online via on overhead bubble of text. Now the purpose is to have a live chat with other LDers, the aid im thining could be that you constatly read these signs and such that say you are dreaming.. the city will be fuuristic so things that arent possible wil be in there... floating signs and such.

the avatats will be simple 3d models.. from faces, to sloating saucers.. things you just dont see every day. I want to also have hotkeys on the keybpad that when pressed your avatar will say(in a voice not text) ARE YOU DREAMING.. and I think this is a dream and such.. This way poeple can say this out loud to each other at random while chatting..

Any other suggestions welcome. most of all please tellme if you think it is a good idea.

some of my work an be found at. http://www.hoverhavok.mmocrafter.com go to the screenshots page i think one of thos shots has the city that i would use in it.

Hey rifraf.. I write games in my spare time myself.
You seem to be more successful at it so far

Its a great idea... and I say that because I had the idea before too. Not for dreaming, but for 3D interactive virtual environments.
Theres some big projects on the go at some university investigating this kind of thing for purposes of therapy, entertainment,etc.
Almost got employed at one of them.

So yeah.. its good.
Not sure what the mods will think of a 3D chat room for DreamViews... but the concept by itself is great.

What I wonder though, I'm assuming you intend using your existing engine/library to do this? Or is it a third party engine?
Your screenshots look good, dude!
How long did it take to build up the engine, if its as configurable as it sounds.. ?

If you need any help on the software development side, let me know. Might be able to help out a bit

ok.. any suggestion son what should accur to help aid in dream sign reconition.. im going to have stop lights that change too fast. peole will be able to float around. fade to semi transparent.. ask each other in verbal form "are you dreaming?" dreamscape from one scene to another. .. anyhting else?

ok.. any suggestion son what should accur to help aid in dream sign reconition.. im going to have stop lights that change too fast. peole will be able to float around. fade to semi transparent.. ask each other in verbal form "are you dreaming?" dreamscape from one scene to another. .. anyhting else?

hrm. well i am currently looking for a chat solution for the board... i'm guessing this prob. won't be implemented in something like flash, thus would be an application that one will need to download?

I was thinking that too, ice, when he mentioned it.
But it very clearly seems like a download-requiring chat app... Java simply can't handle that last time I looked at it

Anyway, Rifraf, I got your PM (and replied)
I'm not sure exactly what sort of flavour you're looking for. As you saw in my PM, I ran across second life, which is *similar* but not quite what we have in mind.
Second life is way more intricate and involved.
We don't intend trying to earn money to pay for our virtual land, for example (I don't think?)

Can we get on some sort of messenger about this?

Yes it will be a downloadable thing.. however free, and small in size. and geared tward LDers.. there will be built in forums too. in the visual form of computer terminals you float up to and click on .. each computer terminal is a thread. you can post on any one or create a new thread(terminal)

some progress.. should have working beta tonight, or early tomorrow if anyone wants to give it a try.

select avatar
http://www.hoverhavok.mmocrafter.com/savatar.jpg
Dream City Chat
http://www.hoverhavok.mmocrafter.com/progress1.jpg
Dream City Chat
http://www.hoverhavok.mmocrafter.com/progress2.jpg

at first it will be asimple VR chat.. but im planning to mod thigns for the LD COMMUNITY .. for example. I have made a dream filter that will make everythign fuzzy once in awhile.. and to clear thigns up you must spin. there are signs throughout the city that read.. "are you dreamins?", and "you are dreaming".. or "its your dream"

You can chat, but muct be in proximity of the person you want to talk to for them to see your chat..

I also want to add some evertainment objects , so that chatters have somthign to do while talking. I might add a soccer ball or 2 that you can bounce around.. this might make some interesting soccer games.. and perhaps a capture the flag type thing .. was thinking of adding a few differnt color flags, that when touched you pck up.. and when you are touched by another avatar you drop it. No in game scoring system at least not to start with.. just some little things to play with if a group wanted to..

Thoughts on this.. ayone interested in helping test the beta tonight? around 11pm Central USA time. ?

Dude, this sounds awesome!

Im in, send me the beta when you get it!

Feature Creep or perhaps "You can't make something this fantastic without having to pay in the end". Don't worry, I usually am this grumpy.

ok tested it this morning.. works jsut fine.. just need some more avatars.. right now i have afew floating heads.. i would like about 20 dream oriented avatars .. need a stress test too.. ill be posting a link to the program.. later and running server all day for those who want to check it out.. its very beta.. so keep that in mind

ok a little later than promised but here it is.. BETA version. This does not reflect the quality of the final product.

http://www.hoverhavok.mmocrafter.com/dchat.zip

The server is up and running for anyone who wants to join in and chat. .jsut download the file, unzip and run dreamchat.exe.

I appreciate all who give it a try.. i really need alot of people in there to test the network code. thanks!

Oh and you must be floating close to a person to talk ot them.. otherwise they will not see what you type.. This is so that if you want a provate conversation with someone.. you and that person float over to your own area and chat away.. nobody else too far away will hear you.

screenshot

Awesome, sorry I left, my computer gave out on me

i think i screwed something up because i downloaded it, then extracted all of the files and ended up with lots of cool pictures, but still no dchat servers or anything, very cool idea though

Hey rifraf... not bad for a prototype...
Didn't find anyone around though, except an elusive 'Host' under the floor

Personally, I would still like to attempt this in C++ with my library.
Its incomplete, so its a hellova lot of effort... but I would like to try

After all this is in fact something I've been wanting to do for a long time now.

not a prototype, its a beta, but thank you. and there is alot of C++ in it at this stage, as ive gotten alot of C++ external libs plugged into it.

How did I miss this topic?

Thats some cool progress on this you got going.

I had thought of something like this before. I wanted to make a place where people could chat in 3D except they could walk around in a 3D city or building place as characters they made from certain preset character features etc.

What do you use to model the avatars and the city?

i use cinima4d+ anim8or+lithunwrap

Cool.

Is 4D any good? I've used the others but I heard 4D was Ok.

i like it. intuitive control scheme, small learning curve when compared to progams like 3dsmax. powerfull creation ability..

This thing's pretty cool. I had a lucid dream last night where my dream dad pointed to a sign that, in flashing colours, said, "!!!You are dreaming!!!," which I attribute to the signs in this program. On a side not the second line read, "(in association with Gothlark Inc.)," or at least I think it said Gothlark, something similar to that anyways. Even then I had to do a clock RC. It sadly only lasted about one minute from the start of lucidity (I normally have pretty decent time, but I layed down in bed which probably reminded me of my body.)

please stop by and ty it out
http://www.hoverhavok.mmocrafter.com/dchat.zip

im updating the file all the time.. the program included in game messaging.. so you can leave messages for your chat buddies when they are away.. Like the PM system here.

Ill be adding avatar social behaviors such as laughing.. crying.. ect.
and other dream related content

How do you run this chatroom? All I have are a bunch or files, mostly pics. No .exe file or anything. Any help would be appreciated

THE EXE IS IN THE ZIP FILE.. try redownloading it. the exe is called DREAMCHAT.EXE

WOW! this is awesome, cant believe you made this all on your own, only issue is said host was there and didnt see anyone else