Philip Rosedale has posted on the HF blog: High Fidelity Open Alpha. He is announcing the opening of the Alpha testing phase to the general public.
While this may sound exciting, and it is, it isn’t what you may be expecting. But, you can download the server and client now and get a region running. You are going to need to be a little geeky to get an install running. But, installing and running the Interface is as easy as installing and running a Second Life Viewer.
Stack Manager Starting
The downloads are here. There are flavors for Linux, Mac, and Windows. For Windows it is about a 75mb download. The documents are here. There are instructions for compiling your own client and server. The directions are not for the novice. Your going to need some experience.
The Stack Manager installs in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\High Fidelity\Stack Manager
You don’t need this to get into HF, AFAIK. But to build you will. When started it download 4 more services. You then have to work your way through creating an account and setting up the Stack Manager. That is about a 10 to 15 minute process if your reading the details.
The Interface (viewer) installs in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\High Fidelity\Interface
Once installed, as easy as any viewer to install, it is basically like the SL Viewer, using similar keys. Instead of using the Alt-Left-Click and Left-Click steering use the right-mouse-button and drag while using the WASD-E-C keys.
Login with your account and you are in…
The Cafe/Bar
Chat is by voice, not text, or I don’t know how to use it.
Avatar animation and physics are not complete. But, there are avatars with facial expressions… 3D audio is active. You can import models. You can use JavaScript to animate the models. You can do things using an Oculus Rift HMD and/or Razer Hydra and/or LEAP Motion.
A basic marketplace in operating. There is no payment system in place yet. So, this is primarily for developers to share things; scripts, models, educational stuff…
Various Starting Points
For now there is no server sharing, meaning you have to run your region on your computer. No load sharing with other machines in the net.
Level of Detail (LoD) is not functional, yet. So, in busy places with lots of stuff and many avatars frame rates WILL DROP.
There will be lots of updates going forward. Expect to be frequently upgrading your install. As soon as I started my 5 minute old download I needed to update.
While this is a very early release, you can get in and build. I was thinking it is too early for any other than developers working on the core software. Also those building worlds and stuff may want to go in now. But, anyone can help with finding problems in the current system. So, if it is interesting to you try it out.
There is a Directory, somewhat like SL’s Destination Guide. You can click on those paces once the Interface is installed and teleport to them, or may be log into them is more accurate.
High Fidelity Directory
This world is farther along than I first thought. It is worth checking out. There are 34 regions to check out.
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If there is no text chat, it is already a failure.
‘There are flavors for Linux, Mac, and Windows.’
I’m afraid that the Linux flavour is missing (for now ?), even though there’s a small TUX icon there, that would hint it should/could be available…
PS: for a few days, the fonts on your blog became ENORMOUS (like twice too big): will you fix that, Nalates ?
I am looking for a new theme… I’ll see if I can tweak this one.
There’s actually a text chat, but not a inbuilt one. Just run the script “chat.js” and you’ll have a domain-wide chat.
Thanks!!!
I downloaded everything and even bought a place name but I couldn’t get anything to work. But then, I don’t understand any of it. I got all those things to load and some of the screens showed up as in the instructions like the green button START SERVER and I did find my avatar was in some kind of empty space but I couldn’t get the floating island to \show up someplace\. I also kept getting 404 pages on all there domain registration pages. I tried turning off the AVG — that didn’t work either. Anyway, I will come back when I have more time to figure out what’s going on.
Many of the regions are running on private computers and will be up or down at the owner’s whim.