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Possible new "look at" feature 

Do you wish to have "X is interested in your av's look" notification ?
Yes ! 36%  36%  [ 8 ]
No way ! 32%  32%  [ 7 ]
Alright, but only with associated look-at distance clamping for self (for reciprocity/fairness). 32%  32%  [ 7 ]
Total votes : 22

Possible new "look at" feature 
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Joined: 2009-03-17 18:42:51
Posts: 5523
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It's been a long time that I started considering what fair option/feature could be implemented to both increase role-play opportunities and avoid drama queens/kings' over-reactions...

The "Show Look At" debug feature that exists in every viewer (it was implemented by LL themselves as an actual debug feature) and which allows to draw crosses on each avatar's camera focus point, has been expanded in many TPVs with avatar names displaying above each cross, thus allowing to know which avatar is "looking at" what in real time.
The problem with such a feature is that it ensued a lot of drama about why one would be able to "spy" your own doings and know what you had your camera focused onto. Beside, the feature encodes the various types of "focus" (be it a simple mouse pointer idle hovering or actual and voluntary camera focus from the user) via the cross colour, which, unless you delve into the viewer code itself, is undocumented (i.e. without looking at the code, you can't know what colour is corresponding to what kind of focus action... and even the ones who did, probably don't even know there's also a priority in the focus actions, meaning the colour might not even reflect the current focus type, but only the one with the highest priority)...

That's why, so far, I refrained from implementing that avatar-name-on-focus-crosses "feature" and even, as a counter-measure, allowed to clamp the maximum focus distance to a configurable limit to avoid broadcasting that "look at" effect to other viewers.

However, there is one legitimate usage for that feature, that would allow to increase your chances to initiate role-plays (something that will become more and more critical as the user base will shrink down over time...). That usage is when a given resident is voluntarily focusing their viewer camera on your avatar for a significant amount of time, thus obviously showing interest or at least curiosity in your own avatar... In these conditions, being notified OOCly (Out Of Character) by the viewer would allow you to react ICly (In Character), just like if your avatar noticed that another was looking at it for some time (i.e. it's a totally IC-compatible feature).

I implemented such a feature which works as follow: when a resident voluntarily (ALT + left mouse click) focuses their camera on your avatar for over 30 seconds straight (that's the default delay, but it's configurable), then one (and only one) notify-tip is displayed, saying "X seems to be showing interest in your avatar's look..." ("X" being the looker's name, of course).
To be totally fair and avoid having people objecting that using the Cool VL Viewer you can get such info but also prevent others from getting it from your avatar (by clamping down the "look at" distance to 0), it would also be possible to prevent the minimum look-at distance clamping to go below a hard-coded amount (say 20m, i.e. the chat distance, which is coherent with the IC-biasing of this feature) when the feature is enabled (i.e. you could still clamp down the "look at" distance below 20m, but then won't be notified when other avatars look at yours).

I'm still undecided about whether to implement this feature or not... What do you think about it ?... Please, vote, and feel free to post about your pros and/or cons.


2015-03-01 14:19:37
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Joined: 2012-02-09 21:01:50
Posts: 284
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Might be a nice feature for many roleplayer.

I personally prefer something like "do not show my look at etc at all", because I am a photographer at events. And I'd really like people not to see where I am looking at, cause it looks really weird, as I am zooming in/out, camming around, resetting camera etc. to get stuff rezzed here and there, taking snaps elsewhere etc etc. :D

I'd vote in though, as it may be a helpful feature like you described.


2015-03-02 18:19:14
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Joined: 2009-03-17 18:42:51
Posts: 5523
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Tillie wrote:
Might be a nice feature for many roleplayer.

I personally prefer something like "do not show my look at etc at all", because I am a photographer at events. And I'd really like people not to see where I am looking at, cause it looks really weird, as I am zooming in/out, camming around, resetting camera etc. to get stuff rezzed here and there, taking snaps elsewhere etc etc. :D

I'd vote in though, as it may be a helpful feature like you described.
Well, like I tried to explain, you would still have that choice of not broadcasting your "look at" to others: if you vote 1, without any condition, if you vote 3, then you won't receive the notification when not broadcasting.


2015-03-02 19:41:40
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Joined: 2010-03-14 21:12:58
Posts: 86
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Henri Beauchamp wrote:
... However, there is one legitimate usage for that feature, that would allow to increase your chances to initiate role-plays (something that will become more and more critical as the user base will shrink down over time...). That usage is when a given resident is voluntarily focusing their viewer camera on your avatar for a significant amount of time, thus obviously showing interest or at least curiosity in your own avatar....


After alt-click, look-at is not updated when the camera is moved, say by ctl-alt-shift-click and mouse movememt. Nor does the camera popup change look-at. Likewise flycam never changes the look-at position.

I often use alt-click to quickly move my camera closer to what I wish to look at, then use the other mouse controls or flycam (I use a spaceball which works nicely) to move my camera exactly where I want it, which is rarely on what I first clicked on. And often the easiest thing to alt click on is a random avatar near what I want to see. This has, of course, caused drama in the past when i'd focused on someone just to sail off with flycam for a few minutes. I'd like to be fair and let people know what I'm looking at if they are interested and close enough to tell, but I'd rather not have the all too often drama. "Hey! Why are you staring at me?"

Still, I really do like the idea of the popup saying "so-and-so is checking you out." As for the drama, there's probably nothing you can do to stop it. It's not the tools, it's the tool users that either don't know how to use these features, including their limitations. Or it's the drama queens.


2015-03-07 21:16:00
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Joined: 2009-03-17 18:42:51
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Ibrew Meads wrote:
After alt-click, look-at is not updated when the camera is moved, say by ctl-alt-shift-click and mouse movememt. Nor does the camera popup change look-at. Likewise flycam never changes the look-at position.

I often use alt-click to quickly move my camera closer to what I wish to look at, then use the other mouse controls or flycam (I use a spaceball which works nicely) to move my camera exactly where I want it, which is rarely on what I first clicked on. And often the easiest thing to alt click on is a random avatar near what I want to see.
I too use ALT-click quite often, but focusing on an avatar to get a global look from a given angle/point of view is a rather poor choice since as soon as the avatar moves, the camera would then move with it... That's why, while it's still possible to accidentally focus on an avatar that was too close to the point you really wanted to focus onto, this kind of mistake is unlikely to happen often... Not to mention, you will still be entitled to choose not to broadcast your "look-at" beyond a configurable distance, so it will be nothing different than what it always has been...


2015-03-07 21:49:06
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Joined: 2011-02-12 04:08:52
Posts: 46
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As you're asking for input, I'll explain why I voted "No way!"

Where my camera is focused and where I'm actually looking usually have very little in common. Like Spider-Man slinging webs to wherever they'll stick on the way to his destination, I alt-click with abandon while moving the camera around. Often enough I realize that I've alt-clicked on a person when they move and my POV unexpectedly shifts.

If you were to implement the feature found in other TPVs, of providing avatar names with "look-at" crosshairs, I wouldn't use it myself, but I wouldn't care if others did. I consider it to be useless data, but it's presented as neutral data; any meaning a person (wrongly) assigns to it is their own problem.

This, on the other hand, strikes me as much more problematic. It takes a neutral action (where X's camera happens to be) and assigns an explicit meaning to it—"X seems to be showing interest in your avatar's look." That is not what it usually means; suggesting that it does—indeed, turning the act of holding one's camera on somebody into an act of RP—is asking for drama.

(If you were to provide that information through a pop-up, I think it would be better presented more neutrally: "X has their camera focused on you." But that still strikes me as much more intrusive and drama-stirring than just putting the names on the crosshairs, or leaving the information out entirely.)


2015-03-07 22:40:01
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Samantha Poindexter wrote:
As you're asking for input, I'll explain why I voted "No way!"

Where my camera is focused and where I'm actually looking usually have very little in common. Like Spider-Man slinging webs to wherever they'll stick on the way to his destination, I alt-click with abandon while moving the camera around. Often enough I realize that I've alt-clicked on a person when they move and my POV unexpectedly shifts.

If you were to implement the feature found in other TPVs, of providing avatar names with "look-at" crosshairs, I wouldn't use it myself, but I wouldn't care if others did. I consider it to be useless data, but it's presented as neutral data; any meaning a person (wrongly) assigns to it is their own problem.
I disagree entirely... When people see crosshairs on their avatar, they will 95% of the time assume the avatar to which that crosshair pertains is looking at their avatar. At least, my proposal removes the issue of the casual/random hovering, since the notice would not appear until an actual focus is done, and also provides a filter via the delay (30s is quite a significant delay and filters out the accidental/transitory focuses).

Quote:
This, on the other hand, strikes me as much more problematic. It takes a neutral action (where X's camera happens to be) and assigns an explicit meaning to it—"X seems to be showing interest in your avatar's look."
You will notice I used "seems", because things are indeed not always like they seem to be like...

Quote:
That is not what it usually means; suggesting that it does
I suggest that it *could be*. Period.

Quote:
—indeed, turning the act of holding one's camera on somebody into an act of RP—is asking for drama.
I don't expect more drama than what the name-labelled crosshairs did, much to the contrary... Plus, this feature is not for the benefit of drama queens/kings, but for the benefit of genuine role-players who will be smart enough to use this info as a clue to whom they could RP with.

Quote:
(If you were to provide that information through a pop-up, I think it would be better presented more neutrally: "X has their camera focused on you."
That would be a much worst wording, IMHO, since it suggests that the focus has been proven as voluntary... At least with my wording, there is no assertion, just an hypothesis.

Quote:
But that still strikes me as much more intrusive and drama-stirring than just putting the names on the crosshairs, or leaving the information out entirely.)
I really don't think so. This said, I still didn't make a definitive decision, so feel free to vote and give your opinions.


2015-03-07 23:07:10
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Joined: 2012-01-19 03:18:40
Posts: 196
Location: Sydney, Australia (UTC +10)
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I voted: "Alright, but only with associated look-at distance clamping for self (for reciprocity/fairness)." on the assumption that this feature would be an option that one could turn off entirely. If it could not, I'd say "No way!".

I do not, personally, ever use the look-at beacons, because I don't care who is looking at me, or for how long they look; they can stare until their eyeballs dry up like raisins as far as I am concerned. Normally I have my own viewer's "look at" radius set to 5m so that I can look naturally at objects close to me, without gazing around like a yokel if I let my mouse-pointer pause over some random object further away.

I can see that this feature might be useful in RP, but only if the players are sophisticated enough really to OOCly drive their their viewer in an IC way. Otherwise, I think one would get a lot of false-positives, and therefore false-starts in RP. Suppose I swagger into the space-port cantina, take a stool, and order a Rigellian martini. I think I'd rather wait until the cyborg at the end of the bar explicitly initiates RP, than launch into RP myself ("What are you looking at, tin-face?") on the basis that his camera is locked on me, when he's possibly just OOCly checking out the nifty mesh blaster on my hip.


2015-03-15 23:01:50
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Joined: 2016-11-19 17:34:41
Posts: 10
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It seems to me today that I'm using one of the last viewer not offering this feature, very useful indeed everyday for RP reasons.
I can't be sure about other viewers, because Cool VL is the only viewer I use. yes.. I'm such a fan ! ^^

But I'm pretty sure almost every of my friends is able to see who is "watching" me . In fact, when I'm with a friend, and see the pink crosshairs on me, I ask the friend to tell me the name of who has his eyes on me.

And that's only natural. When in RL, in a large room, you very quickly notice, as if by intuition, that someone is watching you, then you can lock gazes, and start an exchange. and that's what SL is about, meet, and exchange.

I see no reason to have this feature kept in the cardboards today ^^.
I think the ideas in the initial proposal were very reasonable.

Can we have it in 2017 ? ^^


2017-03-24 22:34:03
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Joined: 2014-11-29 21:47:31
Posts: 29
Location: Japan
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Regardless of the distance, you will not need to visualize things you can not see.
My sight is not behind me.
If it is in a visible position, that person should be pointing in my direction.


2017-03-25 02:00:46
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