Weekend at Winx 1

 At the end of a long week, what better way to relax than visiting a nice resort in good company.

Off to visit with Bloom Peters, famed throughout Opensim for her funfairs, scripts, castles. mesh, and of course her grid Winxtropia.

Bloom wanted to show me a sim she has been working on. She's a creature of passion when it comes to creating. SHe has several different projects going, but has put much of the planned work on hold to focus on this fun place, the Frutti Music Bar. it's a region and a resort, all in low lag mesh, and just adorable.

Bloom Peters: Welcome to Frutti Music Bar

Thirza Ember: wow love the look

Bloom Peters:  It's designed to push animesh and dining experience, every NPC does their job. Use shared environment, you should see an orange like night

Thirza Ember: the menu is making me hungry!

Bloom Peters:  This bar is located in Gardenia on planet earth in the Winx Club universe

Thirza Ember: oh wow so it's a 'real' fictional place! That orange sun is just lovely.

Bloom Peters:  This is built based on many images from the cartoon to its blueprint, and the animesh npcs are special, they are scripted in world, but their voices are generated by ai and uploaded as temp data

Indeed, the sim is alive with NPCs lounging, singing, serving, walking, drinking, and generally enjoying the holiday atmosphere.

Thirza Ember:  so can you explain what you mean by animesh NPCs?

Bloom Peters:  animesh is scripted controlled avatars that are rigged. They are mesh avatars basically linked to a prim and a script can control them

Thirza Ember: my experience with animesh is there's a limited number of things you can do with the bog standard script that comes with them. Not so here. I see yours are running around for example, and doing things your average animesh character doesn't do.

Bloom Peters:  This one is highly advanced. Yes they have a planned path without tracks but they are capable of changing direction and when you are close to them 

The voice ambience on the region is superb and there's lots to look at, just ordinary everytday life happening here. We watched one of the girls from the restaurant take the trash out to the bins.

Bloom Peters: They can talk to you using ChatGPT. They have a connection to the internet to generate phrases -  up to 500 - based on this bar, and the cartoon. All their actions are automated and all models here are custom made.

Thirza Ember:  it really brings the sim to life... the best I have of interesting animesh is a croc who rotates as he bites

We walked on into the Frutti and sat at one of the special tables - part bun, part flower? wasn't sure.

Wait!! Looking more closely, They are Sliced Oranges with leaf seats ! Of course! (apologies Bloom for not seeing that immediately, it's kind of obvious but I'm slow.)

Oh and Hey - there's even a boom box now! here is the link to see it on YouTube

Bloom Peters: these tables are special... the waitress system is fully programed. When you take a seat a waitress notices it and tries to come take your order in real time

bargirlorder1: Hi welcome to the Frutti Music Bar. Would you like some food? Reply with 'yes' or 'no'. In Local Chat

Thirza Ember:  yes

bargirlorder1: Ok I will be right back with your food, Please Hold.

Bloom Peters: she will go get it... this has been programed with many hours of work! In a moment she will come back with food in the tray, and puts it on the table

prim2-mesh#1: Here is your food. Click on any food item to get a sample to eat!

Bloom Peters:  the food items gives u food items to wear, for rp

Thirza Ember: oh gosh that's neat... "Hot off the Grill  - Plate of  Hotdogs & Hamburgers". Got to go with the mustard. delicious! and plenty of wtermelon. Good mix.

Bloom Peters: and cartoons plays on the tvs... its a real video of the show

Bloom Peters:  this place is about 30% completed... there is still much to program like the bar centers, the concert stage.

Thirza Ember: what do you enjoy most, the scripting or the building, or the concept?

Bloom Peters:  Scripting, cause it brings the place life.

Bloom Peters:  there are many other tables with waitress system, even hard ones for them to come to but they always make it

Thirza Ember: it really does

Bloom Peters: the table waits for us to get up before a cleaner comes take the food but if you click the table u can call a cleaner too

Thirza Ember:  ok will do

prim2-mesh#1: Thank you For Eating At the frutti music bar. we hope to see you again soon!

Bloom Peters: she goes into the pine apple

Thirza Ember:  i see it - so that's the brain of the cafe

Bloom Peters: this place will open in OSGrid for a short time once it is ready... I'll show you the rest of the scenery and the NPCs

The bar will serve some fruit drinks when finished

Bloom Peters:  the head of the bar will be programed soon too, tons of drinks it will have -  fruit ones too

Thirza Ember:  lol just what we need on Jan 1 ready for Dry January!

Bloom Peters:  ya haha

One of the loft spaces where you can get some cozy privacy overlooking the beach.

There are  all sorts of little cozy spots in the resort, some up stairs so you get a great view of the beach and a 'wine colored sea', as the ancient Greeks say. As I walked past one NPC she was saying something about all the dirt that needs to be cleaned up.

Bloom Peters:  they clean all trash cans. the AI scans for 'em and if i add a new one they will add it to the list

Thirza Ember:  hehe they really are efficient!

Walking around the sim can be a slow business because every time you stand in the path of one of these animesh NPCs, they will chat to you, and Bloom is right, there are a whole load of phrases they say, so it feels like a  real interaction with the resort staff.

Thirza Ember:  Do you think these kinds of intelligently interactive NPCs will be the new norm in opensim in the end?

Bloom Peters:  I hope so. but they need the bugs sorted on the animations on them, animations set to them don't clear out. I think Ubit needs to clear out animations when ones are finished or requested.

Bloom Peters: These animesh are linked to a complex kind of box with a giant circle around them, which is the Volume Detection, if you show hidden prims and edit them, you can see it... you can trigger many anims... the beach still needs people and more content but it still cute, the npc walkers and talkers was the hardest work even harder then the tables

Thirza Ember:  the coordination between talking and when they stop is so perfect and the seaside  the sounds too are very soothing. 

We walked through the umbrellas and cold boxes and towels on the sand until we got down to the water's edge.

Bloom Peters:  jet racers hehe, they don't follow tracks either... and the other side of the beach will have mini water rides.

Bloom Peters:  The jet skiers use preset coordinates

Thirza Ember:  they're so fast!  Will you have jet ski rezzers for visitors?

Bloom Peters:  yes, funny you asked cause I already made it haha!

Thirza Ember:  so even more interaction! haha if they stop and talk that would be even funnier!

Riding around with the animesh jet ski lads.

Thirza Ember:  ahaha wow what a ride!

Bloom Peters: haha it is fun...  i plan on having almost 60 walkers they will be all over here. One thing I see, when I go all over Opensim, is how quiet things are. So to help people, i will create a kit. It won't  be free but it will help people make AI NPCs that will be able to do all sorts of things, like ski

Thirza Ember:  that would really revolutionize regions.  How did you come up with all this?

Bloom Peters: I created a recorder. I'll give you a demo if you like, it is easy to use. It's a hud you wear, and what it does is record everything you do

Bloom rezzed the recorder box, and then she walked a simple circuit up and down the beach.

Bloom Peters: when u get back to the box that rezzes the recording stops and the HUD sends you a position notecard

Thirza Ember:  so that makes setting the track for the NPCs more intuitive

Bloom Peters: for demonstration, I will make the NPC system visible, so you can see it. That center box is were you will link an animesh mesh.

Tose white prims are usually transparent. Any rigged and unscripted mesh figure will do, here you see one made by Bloom being moved to the center of the setup.

Bloom Peters:  The moment you link her, she becomes the NPC that will walk the path created.  Since it recorded me, this animesh will follow the path I made. I added a Z offset, so you can adjust the height, to fix feet to ground ratios. 

All we do is put the notecard inside it and then you push AI Start button

Bloom Peters:  a control at the front of the bar, but ill rez it - notice there is a big white circle... that's the activator for chatting to you. If you walk into it she will talk... and now she has become part of the sim haha.

As you can see, the proximity perimeter is activated when they touch a regular avatar, and that's what triggers the speech. On a regular NPC this is of course invisible, creating the impression of a chance encounter.

Thirza Ember:  so each one is hand crafted, you could say?  wow that is very clever and so efficient! 

Bloom Peters: yes. And the cool thing is it can't mess up. It's hard coded... they can also survive when the sim crash or reboot. Won't mess 'em up

Thirza Ember:  which is always the problem with regular old NPCs, they always end up going bad in my experience. This is something loads of people would love to have, I know

Bloom Peters: by the time the sim is done the NPCs will have a randomizer to choose if to talk or not but for now they talk all the time... I am even making them ride the rides haha

Bloom Peters: The idea is to show what can be done if patience is exercised.

This sim isn't finished yet, so access to it is probably not easy, at least at the moment.... that will all change as soon as she can get the rest of the work done! But I'm happy to say Bloom has invited us to come here on January 1 for the Season premiere of Safari 2025. Now that's what I call a Happy new Year!

But wait, there's more...