Presented By: Chaz Maloney & Krysta Kelley

Multiple-Reality Mashing:

Teleconferencing in Second Life

Can an avatar in a virtual reality

environment co-participate in a traditional teleconference?

Yes!

HOW? … and WHY would you want to do that?

I’ll get to the how soon I’ll get to the how soon enough, as for the why, enough, as for the why, you probably can find you probably can find you own reasons why you own reasons why

you would or wouldn’t do you would or wouldn’t do this, but we’ll happily this, but we’ll happily

share ours…share ours…

Why avatars should get

involved in a traditional teleconference…

See the ‘Teleconference monitor’ behind me…

I can easily fit video from multiple sites on the screen. This leaves a huge space for

display of computer data (PPT, code samples, 3d objects,

whatever) within this virtual ‘glass building’.

Also, it is really easy to shift attention away from the video monitor to the ‘data’ display. Now, the

big monitor is behind me (almost out of view) and replaced with a small one. Participant

attention ‘naturally’ shifts to the wheel chair.

Or… I could easily shift attention to a PowerPoint slide...

Here is Chaz Maloney pictured with Krysta

Kelley (avatars). Also in the conference are

Krista Terry and Charley Cosmato (the real

people). Two people, multiple paths to

participation A very versatile meeting space!

Want to know how

we did this?

What you need

Participants need: Second Life accounts (avatars) and the

Second Life Client (world viewer). An H.323 client for their computer (and

camera/mic) or access to a videoconferencing facility that uses H.323

We used…

As participants: Our Second Life accounts (avatars)

Chaz Maloney Krysta Kelley

An H.323 client for our computers (xmeeting.sourceforge.net)

Built-in iSight cameras on our computers USB Headphones/microphone

We used…

As Hosts: A small plot of Second Life land outfitted with:

A two BFTV monitors (search in-world) Slide fader script (search in-world)

A Codian IP Recorder/Streamer This device connects to a videoconference bridge and

joins the video of multiple participants into a single QuickTime video/audio stream.

There is a freebie way to create the QuickTime stream. –We just happen to have a 60k Codian. The free way is on the next slide.

Meeting Conduct

Participants login to SecondLife and meet at a location that has a video display and slide display installed.

Participants launch an h.323 client on their computer and contact the conference bridge/QuickTime streamer. (then minimize the client)

The SecondLife video display is ‘tuned’ to the QuickTime stream.

Poof! --You are now joining a videoconference and SecondLife sim!

Talk/behave normally and use the SL environment to display media or virtual objects.

A Free VideoStream to

SecondLife?

Not everyone has a fancy h.323 mcu that also can stream from h.323 to Quicktime. A low-rent partial-solution:

Get a free account at veodia.com Forget about the xmeeting client (you don’t need it) Start a live session at veodia (pc+IE only… ughh!) Go to the URL for viewing the ‘live broadcast’ and look at the

page code. Copy the URL beginning with rtsp://… and use this as the in-world video source for your Second Life TV monitor.

The limit here is that only one person in the conference will have video and audio. However, your avatar guests can still chat and see the ‘leaders’ video and hear his/her voice. I suppose you could mute the veodia audio and everyone could use Skype for voice. Let us know if you figure it out

Cheers!

Doing similar experiments? Know of a way to improve this or do it cheaper? More efficiently? Have better usage ideas? Other? Chaz Maloney - ccosmato@radford.edu Krysta Kelley - kpterry@radford.edu