We arrived, all of group, on a wintry welcome region of the Francophone grid, Atlas. It was our second destination for this week, and the tech talk portion of our adventure. Home to Harthelie, Chip and Jeff, it's a grid where ancient architecture hints at supernatural powers...
Cherry Manga: wow both are working, inworld Voice and Mumble, my brain explodes :)
LadyKa 007: lol, Cherry, ou alors, tu entends des voix
Cherry Manga: that's magic! wizardry
Jeff Kelley: Welcome back to Atlas, the grid with technology. Harth, Chip and Jeff are your hosts. We have two topics tonight: A hot one : Mumble (15 minutes). A visit to our new TV studio (40 minutes).
Star Ravenhurst: *-* YeSS! *-*
James Atlloud: ! very nice
Jeff Kelley: There is an extensive coverage of Mumble by Snowbody Cortes here I, at some point, mentioned online that we had a fallback Mumble solution in case Vivox pulls the plug or suffers an outage, which happened weeks ago. Thirza popped and asked me to talk about it. It is a minimalistic Mumble integration. A two-step process : First, click the panel and proceed to the web page. Then click the offered link. If the Mumble client is installed on your computer, you are now connected to the Mumble channel for this region with your avatar's name.
Jeff Kelley: I see many of you has joined This is not a replacement for a fully-integrated solution which, by the way, had existed in the past (2011) but broke thanks to the smart concept of hardware/OSes/APIs/libraries/everything-obsolete next year. See here Ange Menges' blog from 2011
Akata Ocean: Bonsoir tlm
Jeff Kelley: I shut up for now to give you a chance to try / ask questions.
Jeff Kelley: they love it
James Atlloud: The mumble quality is very very good.
Cherry Manga: /me waits for the karaoke version of mumble to experiment
Jeff Kelley: Mumble can be a bit picky to configure at the beginning but once your mic is properly configured, this is a stable solution, very light and simple
Thirza Ember: when Vivox was offline for 2 days, many chose Discord as a solution... what do you think about that?
Jeff Kelley: Discord is a proprietary solution with paranoid secutiry, they may desactivate your account if the see an unusual activity
James Atlloud: oh yes, that is difficult
Jeff Kelley: then you have to solve a CAPTCHA, request a link by maik and blah blah blah
Star Ravenhurst: I don't like Discord
Unadecal Arado: I like discord, but there are too many individual servers and everyone wants you to join their little server where nothing happens, and other servers are so busy I have to mute them.
Jeff Kelley: we control Mumble,
snowbody Cortes: I totally agree Jeff, the important factor is grids control their own server
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| Atlas-Studio |
Jeff Kelley: if we have enough with this, we can head to region Atlas-Studio... time to open your map and search for 'studio'
Cherry Manga: blbllblb
Jeff Kelley: don't be scared by our security team... follow me please
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| Guards on the gate! VIPs only beyond this point (that means you) |
Thirza Ember: wowww hmmm what kind of film do we make here....
Cherry Manga: lol
Jeff Kelley: This is the camera shop. Let me show some of them.
Jeff Kelley: Here is our Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) on rail. Pan, tilt (angular motion), dolly (linear motion on rail, cart, or truck), along with zoom, had been the only camera motions in cinema for decades (and that was a good thing). The camera should never be allowed to roll unless you are filming The Titanic.
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| PTZ camera |
Jeff Kelley: Behind me is a crane. With more degrees of freedom, and also more opportunities for seasickness, you see it in every show nowadays. The crane is not operational yet. But we had a better idea.
Jeff Kelley: Meet our flycam : Total freedom, insane cinematics. Think of it as a camera on a drone. Wait for the flycam to be idle (as it is now). Hit ESC to free your own camera. Click the cam and grant permissions. One avatar at a time, please.
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| Flycam |
Jeff Kelley: over my head... who dares to click ?
Flycam: shouts: Controlling Kelso.Uxlay @hg.creanovale.ca:8052's camera
Flycam: shouts: Controlling Cherry.Manga @hg.osgrid.org's camera
James Atlloud: OOoooo
Cherry Manga: hit escape... if you're like me focused already, hit escape twice
Jeff Kelley: motion may be jerky , that's because there is an unusual number of avatars and some lag.
Thirza Ember: this is a scripted item we can use to make machinima?
Jeff Kelley: yes, Thirza. These cams are intended for cinema, where camera motion is part of the show. The TV studio we will visit in a second uses a set of motionless, switchable cameras. The studio is currently on-air, so by crossing this door you agree to be part of a live broadcast. You are welcome to join at http://atlasgrid.fr/stream/ Thanks Chip for handling the broadcast.
James Atlloud: Yes, I live on film!
snowbody Cortes: please smile:) no nicotina Cherry, they watch you
Cherry Manga: /me sticks out her tongue at Snowy... merci Snowy, now I want nicotine, lool
Jeff Kelley: One last note before entering : We make extensive use a scripted media, so make sure they are enabled. See instructions here.
After the muted tones of the photo store area the studio was a riot of color and movement with lots of 'TV presenters' in action, illustrating the sort of effects that are possible with Jeff's setup.
thirza ember: your presenters have familiar faces...
Jeff Kelley: Please, buy a copy of the HUD from this box over my head. If it sits too high on your screen, detach and reattach at screen center, then move at your will. Here is how this thing work ...
Dabici Straulino: ouin cela n'afait que déplacer ma caméra d'un coup
Jeff Kelley: if you wear the HUD, here are the instructions : Left button if free camera. Four red buttons are cam 1/2/3/4. Don't forget to hit ESC to let the HUD control your own camera. Plus and minus button are zoom setting. Target button chooses an avatar to look at (overrides camera placement). Arrow button does nothing for now.
Jeff Kelley: Does it work for you ?
Flycam: shouts: Controlling Dabici.Straulino @hg.creanovale.ca:8052's camera
Jeff Kelley: Chip is wearing the HUD and broadcasting the content of his Firestorm window with OBS Studio... the stream goes to our web server and voila, vous êtes à la télévision
James Atlloud: Are the camera position stored on a notecard for editing?
Jeff Kelley: no James, camera are sensed dynamically, so if you move them, the picture will move too
James Atlloud: OH! I see. very cool
Kelso Uxlay: URL ?
Jeff Kelley: shouts: http://atlasgrid.fr/stream/
Kelso Uxlay: Cool... I am on TV!
LadyKa 007: lol
Thirza Ember: it's a confession program Kelso.... now you must tell all your secrets
snowbody Cortes: ahahah Kelso... confess, and look at the camera.
Cherry Manga: Breath deeeep Kelso and smile
Kelso Uxlay: All my sins
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| Kelso on the couch for a Tell-All exclusive |
Jeff Kelley: different show can be programmed... that's backdrop for a opensim talk for example, or for the weather report
snowbody Cortes: I love it Jeff!
Kelso Uxlay: Bravo
James Atlloud: How fun!
Kelso Uxlay: There is a substantial delay
Dabici Straulino: it is a very nice studio
Jeff Kelley: the studio is a 3d model from sketchup; it was modified by Chip
Kelso Uxlay: chip chip chip hourra!
Chip Atlas: :))
Jeff Kelley: styles, lights are controlled by script, as are the 6 screens
James Atlloud: I have my camera FOV set to 420 (giggle) and so what I stream would look different.
Jeff Kelley: unfortunately, James, FOV cannot be controlled by script
James Atlloud: I sure wish there were an OSSL for FOV. That's my mantra now.
Roffellos Kisses: are your cameras set to here or can you ..go out and do open broadcast?
Jeff Kelley: yes Roffellos, cameras can be setup outside
Roffellos Kisses: very good!
Unadecal Arado: my youngest is in college (in the uk college is different from US), and they have a media studio similar to this, where they practice interviews, talk shows, news, et
snowbody Cortes: cool
Jeff Kelley: it is still under construction, there are many details to fix, lights, animations
Jeff Kelley: James, no, that is too soon for that
Thirza Ember: anyway, it's already very lovely! congratulations!
Dabici Straulino: yep very classy
Jeff Kelley: first build the tools, then design content
James Atlloud: I hear that!
Jeff Kelley: the studio fits a talk show or a newslike event
Cherry Manga: il y a du potentiel
Kelso Uxlay: En effet
Ange Menges: Bientot Mal va pouvoir le louer pour ses emissions, hehe
Cherry Manga: je vois les usages par extension... le big art show possible
James Atlloud: just make sure if it's y-engine or x-engine!
Jeff Kelley: James : YEngine
rebecca cartauld: en tant que femme je dirais aussi Y
Kelso Uxlay: XEngine is on its way out
James Atlloud: oh - my camera script breaks between the two option so now I have a version for each, depending on where I need to use it.
Jeff Kelley: we totally deprecated XEngine here... wait for Z :) Y has hiddent options that are to X what the nuclear bomb is to weapons
Cherry Manga: bien joué la team, le jouet est impressionnant, hâte de voir ce qu'il génèrera
Thirza Ember: only... the presenters need some help with their coiffure
Jeff Kelley: Thirza : we hire a makeup artist
Kelso Uxlay: Merci à nos hôtes pour la visite et les démonstrations|
Thirza Ember: you have Harth she is a fabulous person for all that, always stylish. This has been a real surprise and a great visit
Jeff Kelley: glad you liked it
Star Ravenhurst: It has been interesting indeed.
Thirza Ember: and thanks for letting us try Mumble here, it's the way of the future maybe for opensim... independent and opensource
snowbody Cortes: yea thank you so much Jeff, it is amazing and big potential in the future
James Atlloud: Yes, it's very intuitive and will allow many volunteers to produce a program. That is a challenge.
Jeff Kelley: thanks snowbody, i liked your Mumble presentation a lot
Jeff Kelley: Roffellos : in this studio, we wanted the cam control to be the simplest... just select 1,2,3,4; no motion
Roffellos Kisses: yes i see, its really clever I like it
Jeff Kelley: but scripted motion is possible for other kind os shows... fits well a sim tour, for example, with drone-like cam
Roffellos Kisses: or scene shooting in a location
Jeff Kelley: exactly, so it is, there a whole topic about broadcasting from a computer, we use OBS Studio for now, it may be picky to set it up for smooth, crisp picture
Thirza Ember: Roff do you think you would use this tool in the future?
Roffellos Kisses: i can see the potential in this ...put 4 camera on a street party and ....just let them all loose, or film though ..can you record with it for post edit?
Jeff Kelley: Roffellos: yes, once you have captured Firestorm output, you can either stream or record, then go to traditional video edit... OBS Studio is not a professional too but it is surprisingly powerful for an opensource software, you get a lot for free
James Atlloud: I really like OBS for both streaming and for screen recording.
Roffellos Kisses: the potential is enormous ......fixed camera points on a race for instance ..great tool ...well done to you all... i use other things to film inworld but combining both in post edit would be ....interesting! lol
rebecca cartauld: question pour jeff - les scripts sont opensources ou faut une licence ?
Jeff Kelley: rebecca : les script sont évidemment free, une fois qu'ils seront dans un état propre pour être distribués
rebecca cartauld: ah cooL
Thirza Ember: I think it is a very optimistic and wonderful visit we have had today
James Atlloud: Jeff, thank you for the tour and the demo. How exciting! Work is calling me away - this have been great fun.
Star Ravenhurst: Thank you for sharing this with us.
Jeff Kelley: thank you for visiting us
Wow this is a very ambitious project and it looks like it's accomplishing the dream. I found this particularly interesting as a way to educate those new to the concepts of production IRL. The design is very user-friendly and should support a wide-range of levels of experience. Great work Jeff and Team.
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