We now have a road leading in from our main campus sim into the field school sim. As avatars walk from campus into the village, there will be a media presentation on the geographical and cultural transition one makes when going from Texas to northern New Mexico, which Dr. Brock Brown is working on.
Emin made a few changes to the interactive media display cones that allows them to work better. They now close automatically when there is no longer an avatar within the vicinity. He also included a script that makes it easy for instructors to load the cones with their own media presentations. They simply copy and paste the URLs into the description box of the display panel, and the new content automatically appears.
We also completed our information booth about the field school project on the main campus sim. It is located at the entrance to the field school and contains information and instructions on how to access the content of the sim, as well as information about the project itself.
The most exciting development for me is the addition of a simulated villager. She is an animated mannequin that looks quite similar to an avatar, and she is loaded with an AIML brain. With the addition of a free text to speech script provided by Second Life User, Fred Gandt, Maria is now able to hold conversations about the village in both text chat and voice. Maria Villager's brain resides here on the web if you would like to try chatting with her. Her knowledge base is limited to the village and she is very new and still learning. The more you talk with her the smarter she gets, so feel free to chat her up.
So that is it for now. Back to work!
