Cloud Party Still Developing

Cloud Party is advancing. New stuff is being added. There is a video out that shows a hover-bike in operation. Looks fun.

I still think vehicles in Cloud Party, Second Life, and OpenSim are lame. But, they can be fun.

One thought on “Cloud Party Still Developing

  1. Some features added since your post on Animated Attachments if you haven’t seen:

    Events – http://blog.cloudparty.com/2013/10/02/new-feature-release-events-and-a-new-contest-for-halloween/

    Essentially the same as Second Life’s events. Brings Cloud Party closer to feature parity to Second Life for searchable things. Still missing Groups, Classified and Land Sales though. Land Sales don’t apply, Classifieds I’m not sure anyone ever asked for, but Groups are on the way.

    Video Streaming – http://blog.cloudparty.com/2013/09/26/new-feature-release-play-video-in-cloud-party/

    Similar to streaming video on the face of an object in Second Life, except its per object instead of per parcel. Second Life has Shared Media as a per object solution for video and many other things, Cloud Party doesn’t have a way to embed webpages on world objects (but does for HUD objects).

    Another difference is video can be uploaded to Cloud Party as an asset type, or a stream URL can be provided.

    This feature compliments audio/music streaming that came a few months ago. I’m not sure many people know Cloud Party has had music streaming for awhile as well.

    Procedural Skies – http://blog.cloudparty.com/2013/09/18/new-feature-release-gorgeous-customizable-skies/

    Cloud Party always had a “Sky” asset that was assignable to entire builds, and it had a bunch of atmospheric controls comparable to what was found in WindLight, but it lacked things like a default sun and clouds which one would have to bake into textures meant for materials of their skydome mesh created in a separate program.

    This gives Cloud Party moving, procedurally generated sun and clouds. There’s fine-grain controls akin to the Sky Preset in Second Life. The differences in how things are done beyond that diverge wildly again though.

    If one wanted stars in Second Life for night, there’s a default star map. For Cloud Party, one would replace the sky mesh and have its materials include stars, constellations and whatever else included in textures. So while Second Life has 1 default system sky, a sky is an asset type in Cloud Party so it will vary based on the creator.

    Another difference is while Second Life has automated cycles in time of day, Cloud Party doesn’t, and there’s no way to attach a script to a Sky asset presently to simulate similar. So while clouds are in motion and a sun or moon’s position can manually be changed, the time of day is static.

    Lastly, on a good note for Cloud Party, there’s no mysterious discrepancies between what’s client-side and what’s shareable server-side with sky and other environment settings. It’s all server-side so everyone sees every change.

    Cloud Party is still advancing at a rapid rate. I still wish it was gaining feature parity with Second Life in areas it needs to moreso than continuing to outpace Second Life in areas like content creation and pricing which, while lovely, isn’t going to gain Cloud Party a population. Basic things like vicinity-based chat, groups, a return of cashing out, better trade of currency and objects in-world, etc. while all more or less promised are still missing.

    Still, looking back at the first time any of us ever heard about Cloud Party, with the Facebook-only logins, no currency, no marketplace, and a plethora of other small issues a Second Life user would have gripes with, I’d say they’re very much moving in the right direction. Half a year from now all my personal gripes might be gone at this pace.

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