Avatar Specification (September/5/1996)

Changes
1996/9/5 The method to determine enable/disable of 'Multiuser- Change Avatar Color' menu is changed.

The followings are the avatar specification as of June 30, 1996.

1. The world author should set what kind of avatars users can use in the world. (Followings describe how to do it.). There is no way for users to have their own avatars and use it in a world.

2. Let's assume that WORLD to be a directory URL where world's main VRML file is placed.
In the directory WORLD/avtimg, you need to have avatar image files:

avatar1.bmp

avatar2.bmp

...

imglist.txt

avatar1, avatar2 are names of avatars (such as boy and girl) and they must be at most eight characters. For the moment we only support BMP file format. The file imglist.txt in the same directory should contain all the names of image files in this directory per line. In this case:
---imglist.txt---

avatar1.bmp

avatar2.bmp

...

---end of imglist.txt---

3. In the directory WORLD/avtwrl , you need to have avatar model files:

avatar1.wrl

avatar2.wrl

...

wrllist.txt

avatar1, avatar2 are names of avatars and they must corresponds to names apeeared in image directory. The file wrllist.txt in the same directory should contain all the names of model files in this direcotry per line. In this case:
---wrllist.txt---

avatar1.bmp

avatar2.bmp

...

---end of wrllist.txt---

The number and order of avatars in imglist.txt and wrllist.txt should match. (If boy.bmp and girl.bmp appears in imglist.txt in this order, boy.wrl and girl.wrl should appear in wrllist.txt in this order).

4. On loading a VRML world, Cyber Passage browser fetches WORLD/avtwrl/wrllist.txt and WORLD/avtimg/imglist.txt, then fetches all bmp files in the image directory.

5. "Select Avatar" menu item of "MultiUser" menu is enabled in case there are one or more avatars for users' choice. On selecting the menu item, bitmaps and filenames (URL) are listed in the menu and once selected one of displayed avatars, the information is sent from the browser to the sever (via changeURL message).

6. Here is how to support avatar color change.

6-1. When 'MultiUser-Change Avatar Color menu is selected, CP browser tries to open WORLD/avtroom.wrl. You need to provide users a way to change the color of the avatar that was used in WORLD/main.wrl. The result color must be stored in Windows95 registry. To assist this process, following three APIs are supported in Java.

void Vscp.setAvtroomAvatarColor(String colorString);
This function stores the color value into the Windows95 registry. The color value must be encoded into a string.
String Vscp.getAvtroomAvatarColor(void);
This function obtains the current color value of the avatar in question.encoded into a string.
String Vscp.getAvtroomAvatarURL(void);
This function obtains the avatar URL.
void Vscp.goFromAvtroomToOriginalWorld(void);
This function changes the displayed world from avatar room to the original world.

6-2. Usually, there is an 'OK' buttom in the avtroom.wrl and when clicked, the function invoked by the "OK" button store the new color by calling the above function Vscp.setAvtroomAvatarColor(String colorString). Then the user gets back to the original world.

6-3. Sony will provide a sample avtroom.wrl file.

6-4. Avatar models stored in WORLD/avtwrl folder must follow the following conventions.

Because avatars are shared, top transform node of an avatar must be specified in transformNode field of a Sony_BindSharedNode{} node. The script node specified for scriptNode field of the Sony_BindSharedNode must be capable of receiving an eventIn SFString sonyAvatarAttribute. The string value of this event is a concatination of "sleep:0 " or "sleep: 1" and the color value string you stored in the Windows95 registry. The additional part of "sleep:0 " or "sleep:1 " means that the avatar is in sleep mode (sleep:1) or not in sleep mode (sleep:0). If the avatar supports sleeping posture, on recieving the eventIn, you can setup the sleep posture of the avatar during the processing of the eventIn.

6-5. Whether 'Multiuser-Change Avatar Color' menu is disabled/enabled is specified in WorldInfo node of the main VRML file of the world. If the file contain:

WorldInfo { info [ "SonyAvatarRoom: TRUE"] }

the menu is enabled. If FALSE is specified instead of TRUE, or there is no WorldInfo node that contains SonyAvatarRoom tag, the menu is disabled. If more than one WorldInfo nodes are specified which contains the tag, the first occurance of such a node in the file is effective and the rest are ignored.

7. Here is how to support avatar actions.

7-1. On pressing one of action buttons provided by the CP browser, an eventIn SFString sonyAvatarPosture is generated on the script node associated with the avatar through Sony_BindSharedNode. The string value of the eventIn specifies the next posture of the avatar, such as "hello", "smile", "wow",,,.

7-2.ü@Avatar action buttons are implemented as separate multiuser control panel in the CP browser. Pressing the buttons sends strings shown above. Future CP browser will support costom avatar action and buttons for them.

7-3. The actual actions triggered by the eventIn SFString sonyAvatarPosture can be implemented in anyway. You can do anything you can implement in VRML2.0 procedure.

7-4. Sony will provide a sample avatar files.