Travels through OZ
Exploring the OZONE
OZ has created some of the best-looking worlds ever built using
VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). OZ artists are real
masters in light, texture, and mood. High-quality sound and music
also fills OZ worlds. The OZONE is the best OZ world yet, and
it is the world you enter first when you start OZ Virtual. Earlier
in this chapter, in the section, ìDocking at the Dark Star,î
I began to explore the OZONE. In this section, I will tell you
a little more about this large, futuristic virtual world.
What can you do in the OZONE? This world features virtual reality
music concerts, nightclubs, multi-user games, and music listening
areas. OZ will be hosting live music and performance avatar events
in the OZONE, so watch for announcements on their home page at
http://www.oz.com.
OZONE is a spaceship floating in 3D cyberspace with the following
virtual entertainment areas to explore:
The Centrum is the public commons of the community, and is a meeting
place for people (or their avatars) on their way to music events,
games, or nightclubs in other parts of world.
The Club features events such as motion-captured concerts presented
by OZ, and other entertainment providers. The performer appears
in real-time as an avatar on the Club stage, while the concerts
are broadcast using streaming audio.
The Arcade is a VRML game room created by OZ, featuring multi-user
games such as chess, Reversi, and backgammon.
More games will be provided in this space soon including action
multi-player adventures.
The Soundroom is an environment filled with spatialized
(sound cast into space) sound surprises and vocal delights.
As the Soundroom is empty of all visual stimuli, it's a cool
place for visitors to hang out and rest their eyes while exploring
with their ears.
Other OZ Worlds
OZONE is not the only OZ world out there. There are many others,
each with different themes. You can visit these OZ worlds by following
the instructions in the section, ìHot OZ Worlds,î
later in this chapter.
Figure: 13.12 oz3e.jpg
Docking
with Sputnik Space Station in OZ
OZ has created space stations like Sputnik and Orion. I navigated
my avatar into Sputnik (see the preceding figure), and then went
on to explore Orion, where I met my date (a guide from OZ) to
go dancing in the disco. Disco did not die in Iceland, so it is
reborn in the virtual worlds, complete with real avatar dancing
moves and CD quality sound. The following figure shows me on the
disco floor with my date…move that avatar!
Figure: 13.13 oz3b.jpg
See
me boogie in the Orion Station Disco.
My date then took me to the bright and cheery Kidscape world which
features a Farmer John type of setting.
When you get close to the cows in this world they start mooing,
Ditto for the farmhouse cat. The cat is a type of automatic avatar
in a virtual world I like to call a biot, that is, it is like
a robot trying to be like something from biology. Biots, like
bots (faithful agents at your service), pay attention to you.
Another class of thing in virtual worlds I term biota are one
more step removed; they are artificial life forms in virtual worlds
which may or may not pay any heed to you. Farmer John needs a
nice tall crop of biota corn in his fields!
Figure: 13.14 Oz2g.jpg
I
Explore the Kidscape world with my date.
The community
As OZ is a brand new world, at the time I wrote this chapter,
there was no strongly developed community. I did meet some interesting
characters on The Street, one of the oldest OZ worlds. By the
time you read this book, there should be many more people in the
world.
Figure: 13.15 Oz2b.jpg
Greeting
avvies in the OZ Virtual street.
Meeting and chatting with the natives
Figure: 13.16 Oz4k.jpg
The
OZ chat manager window.
In order to chat, you must start the chat manager from the Communication
menu. If the chat manager is able to connect to a chat server
(it sometimes cannot, so keep retrying), then it should come up
with a window like the one in the preceding figure. As you can
see, there are two groups of people present; all (including everyone
in this OZ world at the time), and a separate chat group called,
ëhello, please join.í You can create your own chat
groups and name them anything you like.
The following figure shows the live chat for the group called
ëhello….î
Figure: 13.17 Oz4l.jpg
The
OZ chat interface.
The chat interface is pretty simple, with the nicknames of the
people listed in front of the chat they type in the Submit area.
You must press the Submit button or Enter on your keyboard to
send chat into the chat stream.
Private chat
To request a private chat session with another user, select the
icon for the person in the chat manager window, press the right
mouse button, and select Request Private Chat from the pop-up
menu.
When you request a private chat, the other user will be notified
of the request for chat. To accept the chat request and establish
a chat session, the other person must double-click on your icon
or right-click and select Answer Chat Request in the pop-up menu.
Group chat
To use group chat, you can either join an existing group, or create
a new one. To create a chat group, simple right-click in the chat
manager window (not on a user), and select New Group from the
pop-up menu. You will then be prompted to enter the name of the
group, and if the name is accepted, a group chat window will open,
with you as the only group member. Other people can join the group,
by right-clicking on the group icon in the chat manager and selecting
Join Group. To leave a group text chat, just close the chat window.
More about chat: who is in my space?
If you turn off Auto Answer Chat in the Multi-user menu on the
OZ Virtual dashboard, you can force another user to specifically
get your approval to open a private chat. If you are being bothered
by someone, you can right click on their avatar and ignore them,
which will thereafter screen out all their chat.
Another tip: you can launch a chat session in a separate window
by selecting Tear Off from the Split menu in the chat manager.
Audio chat
OZ Virtual supports audio chat (which you can use only if your
PC has a sound card, speakers, and a microphone). Microsoft DirectSound
3.0 has to be installed in order to have the full-duplex audio
chat functionality. The DirectSound 3.0 drivers for full-duplex
are only available for Windows 95, and can be found on the Microsoft
Web site at http://www.microsoft.com.
If the person with whom you want to audio chat has an older version
of DirectSound, you will not hear their voice. They could hear
your voice if you have DirectSound 3.0 installed.
To request an audio chat with another user, select the icon for
the person in the chat manager, press the right mouse button and
select Request Audio Chat in the pop-up menu. When you request
an audio chat, the icon for the person will get a phone hook (shown
in the chat manager window) and the other user will be notified
of your request. To accept an audio chat request and establish
an audio session, the user must select the icon for the person
requesting the chat, press the right mouse button, and select
Answer Audio Chat in the pop-up menu. When an audio chat session
has been established, a pop-up window appears with a volume control
for the audio session.
To end an audio chat, either close the dialogue, or select the
icon for the person with whom you are chatting, press the right
mouse button, and select Close Audio Chat in the right button
pop-up menu.
Buttons and controls
Figure: 13.18 Oz4zh.jpg
The
OZ Virtual window controls.
In the top right corner of the OZ Virtual window there are several
buttons. This section describes what these buttons do. Most controls
on the main window have a tool-tip (a short help description which
pops up beside the control when you leave your mouse over it for
a second).
Window control buttons
The button in the top left corner of the main window (not shown
in the preceding figure), blacks out the background and removes
any distracting items. Clicking it again brings the background
back. The remaining buttons perform the same actions as the window
controls in your computerís operating system: to minimize
or maximize the window, and close the application.
News of the world
The first button will launch a Web page (inside OZ Virtual if
you have Internet Explorer 3.0, outside in your Web browser if
not) with the latest news of the world.
Moving quickly between worlds or scenes
The next four buttons control scene loading. These are like the
forward and backward buttons in your Web browser. The first button
moves back a scene (the last world you loaded). The second button
moves forward to the next scene you had previously loaded. The
last two buttons on the right will stop loading a world or reload
a world.