Category Archives: OpenSIM

OSGrid Down

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Hypergrid Business has an article up on problems over at OSGrid, my favorite OpenSim grid. It seems that Tuesday or maybe Monday some time the asset servers went down. The word coming from OSGrid peeps is that the RAID drives in the asset system failed.

The content of the asset servers will have to be restored from backups. There is typically a huge amount of data in an asset system for a virtual world. So, this will take some time. They are giving no estimates of when they think OSGrid will be back online.

Not knowing how big the data collection is for OSGrid or what the backup media is or how it is connected we can’t guess at the time needed to move the data. But, it could be days, hopefully way less.

OpenSim with 1200 Avatar Regions

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That is the goal. Justine has an article up providing details on the latest testing. See: OpenSimulator Load Test 5 Report. The current tests are up to 400 avatars, which I think is pretty awesome.

It seems the new Bullet Physics is much more efficient than ODE. But, it is currently running as a single thread. This means that when they see frames rates dropping it isn’t from CPU overload. The bottleneck is in the Bullet Engine. Changing to multi-threaded would use more of the CPU and help keep frame rates up. But, changing to multi-threaded is a significant task and will be handled somewhere in the future.

They do load testing on Tuesdays. They need more human testers. Testing happens on the Conference Grid.

 

OpenSim 0.8 Released

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If you run an OpenSim, this is big news. This release of the server software changes the ‘default’ physics engine from ODE to Bullet. I’ve never really liked how ODE worked but it was easy to set up. For some time Bullet has been developed for use with OpenSim.

Developers are expecting some differences and say behavior will possibly be enough different from Second Life’s engine (Havok) that ODE will keep as a fall back engine, likely forever.

This version of OpenSim also provides ‘varible regions’ or varregion as they call it. This will allow those running simulators to set region size and reduce the number of region crossings. Instead of just the basic 256×256 region regions of 512, 1024, etc. can be built. Continue reading →

OpenSim Physics 2014-18

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The OpenSim people are working to get a better physics engine for their worlds. Work is coming a long nicely. This video shows a prim torus,made physical, with a vehicle animation script. The track is made from cubes made to look like a steel framework and they are made  physical too.

This works amazingly well.

OpenSim: Kitely’s Market Place Second Look

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My recent article OpenSim News: Hypergrid Market 2014-12 drew more comments than most of my posts. Maria Korolov, WhiteStar Magic, and Ilan Tochner commented making good points I feel worth further consideration in regard to Kitely’s new market place.

Kitely Market in Android S4

Kitely Market in Android S4

Maria believes the Kitely market will help with the DMCA problems. Her thinking, if I understood, is that having a single market for many OpenSim grids it reduces the work one needs to do to file a DMCA take down notice. Rather than keeping track of all the grids and filing with each, a merchant/creative can file with just Kitely. This is a good point and addresses the concern I raised about the added complexity of the Hypergrid spreading products across a number of virtual worlds.

If each grid has its own market, we have to deal with all those markets and defend content in all those markets. I see that as a big problem. Maria is likely right that a concentrated market would simplify the problem and not present the massive work load I foresaw.

Filing only with Kitely does not get things removed from all the grids. But, that may be a temporary thing. They hope to be able to implement that feature with cooperation from grid owners. For now once an item is in a grid’s asset database it is there until the grid manager removes it. A DCMA take-down will stop sales from Kitely and that may be all one really needs to worry about. More about this farther on. Continue reading →

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OpenSim News: Hypergrid Market 2014-12

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You probably know that in the Open source world of OpenSim they have a thing called Hypergrid. The basic idea is one can live in a grid and visit other OpenSim grids. The really neat thing is your avatar and it’s stuff go with you. So, if I put on my red dress in OSGrid and go to Kitely I look the same in both grids. My dress, skin, etc. came with me to the other grid.

OpenSim - OSGrid - By: Linux-Screenshots, Flickr

OpenSim – OSGrid – By: Linux-Screenshots, Flickr

IBM and Linden Lab were cooperating on building the Hypergrid. The problem was they could not find a way to protect Intellectual Property Rights. So, they gave up. As much as novices think: there must be a way, there isn’t. After 25+ years the movie and music industry have not been able to find a way to protect digital content from theft. They have spen millions trying to figure out a protection scheme. They have failed.  Continue reading →

OpenSim eBook Questions

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Maria Korolov has a post up on Hypergrid Business titled: One-Question eBook Survey. It looks like Maria is planning to publish a couple of eBooks that deal with setting up an OpenSim grid and another on using OpenSim grids.

If you have an interest in OpenSim, click over and place your vote for which you think is a more important and useful book.

I will also point out that OpenSim is a great place for having a test sim. The SL Preview Grid is great for last minute testing just before uploading into Second Life™. For most of us the areas of the SL Preview grid we can use have short ‘return times.’ For some testing that can be a serious limitation. Having a region in an OpenSim grid can give one a permanent base for long term testing. Running a grid on your personal computer is basically free.

 

Oculus Rift and Sex

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Sinful Robot - A project Designed for the Oculus Rift

Sinful Robot – A project Designed for the Oculus Rift

You had to know this was coming… no pun intended. I think it is basic human nature to wonder how sex would be with or if… and add your whatever here…  It’s like which is more fun peanut butter, Nutella, or chocolate syrup? And if you include an ice cube and …

So, the question has to have run through some minds regarding how sex would be with the Oculus Rift. A lot of people seem to play the game of ‘breaking in’ new things. When I first thought of it I guessed people would be dodging when Tango Lolas went by.

Well it is not just running through some minds. A company in Irvine, California named Sinful Robot is developing a ‘sex’ game for the Oculus Rift: Sinful Robot is hiring people and moving ahead in developing an erotic game that will have as its basic quest as sexual gratification. AND this has been in progress for almost a year. Nobody told me…  Continue reading →