Category Archives: OpenSIM

Universal Market Place

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Daniel Voyager and Hypergrid Business (HB) both have articles out about the Kitely Grid’s market place going live. This is news and a good step forward for the OpenSim grid. You’ll find the Kitely Market here. But, I am reading all these articles on how great this is going to be and going: Really!?!

New Kitely Market Opens - Image by: travelourplanet.com

New Kitely Market Opens – Image by: travelourplanet.com

I’m not up on the in’s and out’s of this new market. I am not using it. While I watch advances in OpenSim I haven’t been logging into OpenSim grid much during the last year. But, I do know some of the problems regarding merchandise sales in OpenSim and I’m not seeing them discussed or reported. So, I’m going to take some shots.  Continue reading →

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Second Life in a Browser?

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We have all heard about people putting text only viewers for SL and OpenSim in web browsers. The idea of using a browser to visit virtual worlds is to avoid having to download and install a viewer, thus making it much easier to get people into virtual worlds.

Well, it seems there is a full viewer being built on HTML5. It is being tested with OpenSim now.

Maria Korolov has an article up about it on Hypergrid Business: PixieViewer puts OpenSim in Browser. Now that is something.

Maria says, “Because it uses standard HTML 5 technology, it should be accessible on mobile devices such as Android tablets and iPads, though users were having problems getting it to work today.”

So, that could give us a 3D viewer for SL on mobile devices.

Maria says a special module is needed for Pixie Viewer to work. She says this module is server side. Whatever, she speculates it will not be compatible with Second Life unless Linden Lab adapts the module to SL. I would think that would be something the Lab would do. But, that probably depends on how much work it would require.

An interesting aspect of the technology is that a 3D scene in a browser can be sent to a 3D Printer to generate a RL model. Now isn’t that fun?

Handy OpenSim Scripting Page

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I don’t spend as much time as I once did in OpenSim, actually OSGrid. Most of the time I would spend there is spent in Blender. I do try to keep up with some of the happenings in the OpenSim community. One is of course how OpenSim scripting copes with Pathfinding additions the Lindens have added.

OpenSim does not support Pathfinding. As Linden Lab implemented it, it is dependent on the Havok Physics Engine, a proprietary engine. But, in an effort to maintain some compatibility between Second Life and OpenSim they have looked at helping scripters keep things sorted.

In that effort they have made a page: LSL Status/Functions. This page shows the status of LSL functions in OpenSim. If you script there, this can be handy.

Second Life Viewer Comparison

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Most viewer reviews are written for those using Second Life®. However, more grids are opening. For the people using alternate grids there is another blog looking at viewers: Excelsior Station. The author, Sarge Misfit, does a Second Life® style VIEWERS COMPARISON. SL users will gain some benefit from the comparison,

The most recent comparison is dated May 3, 2012.

Viewer Comparisons

The comparison is a cross between a viewer list and a feature comparison. One of the valuable points in the comparison is whether the viewer is multi-grid ready, does it have a grid manager, handy comparison point.

Continue reading →

Imprudence and Kokua Deciding…

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Today a new post appeared on the Imprudence-Kokua Viewer site. It gives us some insight into what is going on with Imprudence & Kokua viewer development. From a users perspective it seems pretty well stalled to me. But, now we know what’s up and that some decision is going to be made. So, is this the end of Imprudence?

Imprudence

For a long time Imprudence was my viewer of choice for use on OSGrid. With the arrival of mesh that changed.

Imprudence was the viewer of choice for builders in OSGrid and Second Life. For many it still is. But, it is getting old and the team is going to have to decide if they can keep supporting it.

Kokua

This is the newer follow on to Imprudence. It allowed the team to regroup and start from a fresh beginning. It was said this would be a viewer for OpenSim and the Aurora branches of the OpenSim grids.

Continue reading →

Astra Viewer 1.6.0.2 Download Review

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I haven’t kept up with the Astra Viewer nor do I know much about it. I did a review of the viewer in March of this year. (OpenSim Astra Viewer Review). I saw in my net reading that Astra Viewer has mesh render ability. Hmmmm. Maybe it is worth an update.

If you don’t know, the viewer is targeted at Aurora-Sim and OpenSim. It is said to work with Second Life too. I haven’t tried it in SL.

Astra Viewer

Yellow Arrow Points to Mesh Object

Finding It

A quick search of my blog reveals the download link, oops it’s broken. So, I back off the URL to the just the web site… Oh! It gone too. Dang. A Google search for the viewer download takes me into the Google Code repositories and shows a number of Astra Viewer download sites… ummm well… some of those are AstroViewer.

Continue reading →

Blender 2.5 Exporting Height Maps Tutorial – Part 2

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The previous part of this tutorial is OpenSim Terrain Tutorial via Blender – Part 1. The previous part is about getting terrain from Second Life and OpenSim into Blender. This part is about exporting  the terrain from Blender 2.59 as a height map image.

Height Maps via Blender Nodes

Terrain

By the time you start this tutorial you should have a completed terrain or at least have a test terrain to try.

Also, you should have a backup of your region. Loading the tutorial can mess up your region. So, a backup is a good idea. In OpenSim I make OAR file backups. (save oar [filename.oar] – save to OpenSim’s working folder. You can specify a path.)

Now is a good time to back up your Blender file too. It is a great idea to work in a copy of the file.

Continue reading →

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