Why Open Sim is the Future Metaverse (and why it is not the present)

I have been following the Open Sim development for a couple of years now. Some of the latest developments have convinced me that if there is ever going to be a 3D internet, it will be based on Open Sim. I say this knowing that Open Sim currently has a rather low population of participants, low enough that one could question the sanity of such a statement.  Well here is a brief summary of this conclusion.

What is a 3D internet?
A 3D internet is one that is navigable in 3 dimensions rather than two. Instead of websites, you have explorable regions. Instead of 2D text chatting, you have 3D avatar chats.

Why is a 3D internet inevitable?
Sometimes things can be explained easier visually rather than textually, and 3D often gets visual points across better than 2D. For example if you are a photographer with a website, and you want people to see your photographs and find the ones they like best for purchase, the “slideshow” approach is a bad way to do it. After the 4th or 5th click, people start to wonder if it is worth it. Immerse the visitor into a 3D gallery of your photos and people will venture around, allowing them to find the pictures they most like fast.

Hyperlinks in 3D

The thing that got me interested in talking about the 3D web again is the recent development of  “hypergrid” teleporting.  Teleporting from region to region is easy if your start point and end point are on the same grid, but the 2D World Wide Web is built on the ability to move from page to page, where the pages are often on different sites and different hosts.  The development of a 3D web requires the ability to move from grid to grid, and from host to host.

While far from perfect, that obstacle has been resolved.  It is now possible to move from grid to grid without needing to create accounts on every grid or closing your browser.  The picture above is the OSGrid me meeting the Reaction Grid me after clicking on a “hypergrid” link.

It works similarly to the slurl’s in SL except if your destination is on a different grid, your avatar is uploaded to the new grid and your name changes to firstname.lastname @ gridyoucamefrom to prevent conflicting names. It is really cool when it works, but unfortunately a lot can go wrong.  Instructions can be found here, if you want to try it.

Not all hypergrid enabled regions can reach all other hypergrid regions.  Took me about a dozen tried to find a combo that worked.  To get from OSGrid to Reaction Grid, I found a region called Hypergrid Market Middle on OSGrid (a very boring place BTW), then clicked on this link: secondlife://hypergrid.reactiongrid.com:9009

Eventually all the bugs will get ironed out and an independent 3D web will really start to develop.

Why will the 3D Internet be based on Open Sim?
It wont be Second Life.  There are many reasons. First, a 3D internet cannot be controlled by one company.  Second, it is inappropriate for a 3D internet to be under a virtual economy if it is going to be universally adapted.  Thirdly, the designers of Open Sim are moving away from SL’s strict protocols.  Open Sim regions no longer have to be strictly 256m x 256m, they can be larger.  Researchers have managed to put 200 avatars on a single region, and have run up to 40 regions on a single server.  Open Sim offers a flexibility that SL cannot offer.

It wont Be Blue Mars, IMVU or any other current 3D Virtual World. These all do what they do well enough, but they are all designed to be proprietary.  IMVU is strictly a chat program in 3D, Blue Mars is a gaming platform.

The only real open flexible 3D platform that could be competitive is  OpenCobalt.  It interfaces with Google protocols allowing Sketchup KMZ files used in Google Earth, allowing import of the huge library of 3D objects in Google’s database, as well as in the OBJ format.  This is stuff OpenSim still can not do.  My knowledge of OpenCobalt is small, but there are three reasons why OpenSim will win: 1. it is already proven scalable technology, 2. More developers are working on Open Sim than OpenCobalt, 3. It is a lot easier to add KMZ and OBJ support to OpenSim than it is to add the OpenSim scalable multi-region stuff to OpenCobalt.

Of course, something designed from scratch could be better than OpenSim, but it would take years to develop, and OpenSim has a huge head start.  Network protocols could be designed to replace TCP/IP as well, but would never be implemented because TCP/IP is too well entrenched.  I believe we have reached a point where we are stuck with OpenSim.  Improving the platform is easier than rewriting it.

If OpenSim is the future, why is it not more popular now?
This is a very valid question.  SL has more than three times as many regions (32,000) as all of the OpenSim Grids combined (10,500).  The OpenSim grids are growing at a rate of 10% a month so far this year, while SL has only grown 1.4%.  That’s the best stat comparison.

SL has more than 500 times the number of accounts as OpenSim, and over 100 times the number of active players.  At any given time, about 60 to 70% of all regions in SL are uninhabited. In OpenSim, that percent is closer to 99%.  OpenSims one advantage is cost.  It costs 10 times as much to get a dedicated region in SL as it does to get one on OSGrid, but your SL region is 100 times more likely to get visitors than in OS, so if you want visitors, the premium is probably worth it.

Why the horrible stats?  I like to think of the 2D internet as it existed 20 years ago.  SL is AOL, and the WWW is a couple of years away.  The people who were on the web at that time were students, researchers, hobbyists, some businesses and governments.  So who are the few people on OpenSim?  students, researchers, hobbyists, some businesses and governments.

When it became obvious that the open WWW was superior to AOL, everyone flocked to WWW.  I’m hopeful that history will repeat again with OS and SL.  On the other hand, maybe it is more accurate to think of SL as “Windows” and OS as “Linux”, and OS will be forever stuck as a niche platform despite its parity.

Rezzable’s Fantastic Private Grids

Continuing with posts about Open Sim grids.

Rezzable used to have an amazing showcase of regions in SL. Their offerings in SL are now significantly smaller due to cutbacks, there are only three left last time I checked.  They have been busy making new sites to behold on two Open Sim grids that they own and operate.

Heritage-Key
Website: http://heritage-key.com/
Avatar Registration: http://heritage-key.com/user/register
Login URI: http://login.heritage-key.com/

Heritage Key is an experimental educational grid reminiscent of The Forbidden City where you can explore and interact in 3D simulations of historical settings. Currently you can take historical journeys of Stonehenge in England and The Valley of the Kings in Egypt. There are multiple builds of both places at different time periods.  If you venture towards any of the people, they will tell you their story.  Its a fun and different way to learn.

Heritage Key is not a complete Open Sim grid implementation. There is no building in this grid. Rezzable would prefer you to download their special driver with a more basic interface for first time users, but the loginuri setting above allows you to use Hippo Viewer just fine.  The lack of building means I can’t load my standard hair, but there is a large collection of free hair and costumes to choose from.  I was able to load my shape and skin textures though.

Rezzable Alpha Grid
Website: http://rezzable.com/
Avatar Registration: http://rezzable.com/user/register
Login URI: http://login.rezzable.com/

The Rezzable Private Grid is mostly a showcase for the artists at Rezzable. Their most famous builds like Black Swan and Greenies Living Room and Backyard are here (where’s Carnival of Doom?), but also a couple of new artistic builds by Bryn Oh, builder of Immersiva and The Rabbicorn Story (now closed) in SL, and Madcow Cosmos, whose brain is even stranger than mine.

These two grids are definitely worth the time to register and check out.  The people at Rezzable have been doing quite a bit of great original 3D artwork in this new medium.

Setting up a Simple Open Sim Sandbox on your hard drive

This is an edited repost from last August.

Most people that play Second Life, run into this problem eventually: You want to build stuff, and cant afford a lot of land, so you go to a sand box region, and when you go, its laggy and overcrowded.

Why is it even necessary to build stuff in world anyways? We can make our own textures and animations offline using other programs then import them into SL. Why cant be build objects in a third party program and import them?

There is a solution with OpenSim. You can create a free, lag free personal sandbox island on your own computer and build what you want.

I heard horror stories about setting up an Open Sim server of my own. Unfortunately, instructions to set it up are often overly technical and have the format “if you want to do this, then A, but if you want to do that then B.” A lot of tutorials want you to compile the latest source and set up another database, none of which are really necessary.

All I want to do is set up an Open Sim sandbox on my own hard drive. I’m not looking to connect it to a grid, or invite my friends to connect to it. I just want a free place to play and experiment. How difficult is that?

Its not difficult at all. Here is the process for Windows PC’s in four easy steps:

Note: If you already  have an earlier Open Sim set up, back up your build in an OAR file, and your inventory in an IAR file, so you can reload them later, then completely erase the old files before beginning.

Step 1: Download and unzip the latest Open Sim build. They now have a zip file for PC’s that makes loading Open Sim on your hard drive really easy.  You just need to know where you want to unzip it to.

The download page is here.  The file you want for the PC is http://dist.opensimulator.org/opensim-0.6.8-binaries.zip

Step 2 : Open the directory you installed the program to, and find “opensim.exe” if you have a 32 bit version of windows, or “opensim.32bitlaunch.exe” if you are running a 64 bit version. Right Click and “create a shortcut” and move it to your desktop. (Vista and 7 users only: Right click on the shortcut you just created and go to Properties, then the “Advanced…” button, and check “Run as Administrator”). This is needed to get all the permissions right. Every time you launch the shortcut you may also be asked to “allow” the program to run. Its a very minor inconvenience.

Step 3: Run Opensim for the first time. The scary part is that it will look like a DOS command prompt which you may not be used to. Don’t worry its easy. It will ask you to fill out a bunch of initial settings. You need to make up a first name, a last name, a password, and a server name. The rest of the settings you can just press enter to use defaults.

Step 4: Right click on your Second Life shortcut, and create another shortcut. Right click on this new shortcut, rename it to whatever you want, maybe something clever like “Local Life”. then in the “Target” section add the following info the the end of whatever is there already:

-loginuri 127.0.0.1:9000 -login firstname lastname password

The last three things should of course be whatever you made up in step 3. Launch shortcut!

OR Step 4: Launch the Hippo Viewer (downloadable here) and put your name and password in, then select “local” on Quick Grid Select and sign in. If you plan to do some building, this is better as the Second Life client does not support building with prims bigger than 10 meters on any side.

The first time on you will probably see a puff of smoke on top of a small round dome shaped island. Going into inventory under Body Parts you can create then wear a new shape and new skin. If you still see a puff of smoke press ctrl+shift+R to rebake your texture.

Note some third party viewers do not work in Open Sim, especially the Emerald Viewer.  This may change in the future, but for now stick with the Second Life client or the Hippo Viewer client.

There you are on your new island. There are no shops to buy stuff and you will have to load all your own textures, build your own stuff, and basically start from scratch. But at least there will be no lag. For help you may want to consult the opensim wiki page.

Free Content

If you feel lonely stuck on this tiny atoll with nothing visible in any direction. I found the following free content you can download and load to your private server.

Here is a decent OAR file you can download (read the thread for details).  If you do not know how to import OAR files to your private server, read this page.  It will create a city in the clouds high above your head along with teleporters on the ground so you can easily reach it.  You can edit to your hearts content.

Here is a decent collection of freebies in an IAR file you can download into your inventory. If you do not know how to import IAR files to your private server, read this page.  This should give you a decent collection of props (including trees, campfires, etc) to make your island less barren.

Moving Content from Second Life to Open Sim Using Hippo Viewer

You say you have too much invested in SL to move over to OS?  There is a simple and free way to move your own prim based content, and full perm content from SL to OS without getting a paid program like Second Inventory. This also works with the Meerkat viewer for Macintosh computers.

1. Go to SL and select the object in world. Right click and select “more” then “more” again, then “Export”. Save item as an XML file on your hard drive.

2. Quit Hippo and go to an Open Sim grid of your choice. Click “File” then “Import” then “Upload Textures + Import”, then select the XML file you saved. Instantly the object appears in front of you.

If you can find some nice full perm prim hair or prim shoes in SL to export, you can look stylish in OpenSim. Demo Video.

Have Fun!

I may eventually write about upgrading the database on your home grid and connecting your build to the OS Grid, but these are more complicated, and I have not even figured them all out myself yet.

For now I have a sandbox to play in and build stuff… FREE!

Open Sim Grids

In my last post, I decided to venture in to the untamed islands on the frontier of the Metaverse: The Open Sim Grids.  Today I introduce 4 good grids to start out on, and I will introduce others in the weeks ahead.

A few basics about Open Sim.  Open Sim is to Second Life, what Apache is to IIS.  Both are internet server software that work with a common client.  To the casual visitor they will seem to be the same, but there are underlying differences that will show up when you are building. Open Sim for example does not support vehicles, but does allows prims bigger than 10 meters per side.

If you are used to Second Life, you will find Open Sim grids to be very similar, and you can even use your Second Life program to connect to these Open Sim programs by adding ‘-loginuri’ and the grid web address on the client shortcut target.  The Second Life client was released as open source under the GPL, allowing programmers to play with the code.  The Second Life server was not released as open source, though it is for sale by Linden Labs.  Open Sim is a freeware open source program that works in tandem with the Second Life client. It was built from scratch and released under BSD, and shares no copyrighted code with the Second Life Server, meaning Linden Labs has no control over Open Sims.  So far Linden Labs has fully supported the Open Sim grids, but even if they stopped supporting them, Open Sims can still continue to operate legally.  The upshot is, if Second Life were to suddenly close down like There or Vivaty did in the last month, the Open Sim grids would still be around.  Its a safe bet that as long as there is an internet there will be Open Sim grids available to play in (in the same way that text based MUDs have been around for over 30 years).

Despite the number of grids being more then 300, the total combined regions, players, and traffic on these grids is considerably lower than Second Life.  Second Life is more than twice as big as all the Open Sim regions combined.  The people that run these grids do not always have the resources to make sure the grids are stable and always online, so sometimes logging in is a problem.  Inventory can suddenly disappear as well occasionally.  Luckily its all free.

Before you begin, you are probably going to want to get a dedicated client.  The Hippo Viewer is designed primarily for Open Sim use, and allows you to log in automatically to many different grids.  Decide on a name as well and use it on each grid.  I am Ariane Barnes on all of these grids. A common name makes switching grids easier.

You may notice that I am wearing nearly the same thing in each picture.  These are the nicest hair and clothes I have available in my Second Inventory program to upload.  When you first join these Open Sims, you will look like “Ruth”, as they call the default avatar.  All of these grids have freebie avatars available if you don’t have your own hair, skin, or clothing textures to upload.  Second Inventory allows you to move stuff that is free and full perm or stuff that you made yourself to other grids, but the program itself is not free. There are free and legal ways to move inventory between Open Sim grids by “hypergridding” but that is a topic for later.

The four Open Sim grids I have chosen to post about first are all free, all allow free uploads (textures, animations etc.),  have free sandboxes that allow Second Inventory uploads,  and all have English as a primary language.  These four also are representative of many different kinds of grids out there.

Inworldz
Website: http://inworldz.com/
Account Registration:  http://inworldz.com/register.php
Login URI:  http://inworldz.com:8002/ (in Hippo Viewer you will have to add this to the grid list)

Inworldz is the smallest of the grids I am visiting. I picked this one first as it is the most SL like. They host some mainland regions as well as offer private grids at considerably lower than SL costs. They also have their own in world currency the Iz exchangeable at $1 = 500 Iz.  Inworldz reminds me of SL as it once was: small, friendly, and very experimental. Its a place to build and play, and hang out in the welcome center and chat.  The picture above was taken at the Inworldz welcome center.

OSGrid
Website:  http://www.osgrid.org/elgg/
Account Registration: http://www.osgrid.org/elgg/account/register.php
Login URI: http://osgrid.org:8002/

OSGrid is by far the largest of the Open Sim grids, it is sort of the closest thing there is to an “official” Open Sim grid, though there really isn’t such a thing. OSGrid.org is a non-profit organization and maintains a small core of regions and the grids main asset servers via donations. They do not sell or rent space.  Instead, they provide a service where you can attach your own private region up to the  grid for free if you have your own web server.  I have seen hosting services offer your own private OS region hooked up to the OSGrid for as cheap as $15 a month.  Dedicated core regions with 15,000 prims can be obtained for $30 a month with no initial setup costs.  A real bargain!

The downside is that the OSGrid is made up of hundreds of different providers, including many regions hosted on home computers connected with home broadband.  No telling what regions are up or down at any given time, and no central authority to go to for troubleshooting, or reporting bad behavior of other players.  It is very close to a 3D internet in that regards.  No central authority also means no central economy. Sales of in world items are done through PayPal usually.

Reaction Grid
Website: http://reactiongrid.com/
Account Registration: http://reactiongrid.com/Register.aspx
Login URI: http://reactiongrid.com:8008/ (in Hippo Viewer you will have to add this to the grid list)

Reaction Grid is a PG rated business friendly grid designed to be a place to host company meetings and conferences.  It is also used by schools and colleges for online courses in a 3D environment, which means you can expect to run into student created builds as you explore.  Many companies and colleges that used to be in SL have moved here for budget reasons.  Like OSGrid, Reaction Grid allows independently hosted grids (meaning there is no in world economy), but unlike OSGrid, Reaction Grid maintains some control over the grid so they can troubleshoot problems.  Reaction Grid has a good reputation as a result and an impressive list of clients.

New World Grid
Website: http://www.newworldgrid.com/
Account Registration: http://www.newworldgrid.com/lang/en-us/register/account
Login URI:  http://grid.newworldgrid.com:8002/

New World Grid is an artistic community sponsored by multiple non profit charities based in England, France, and Canada.  The primary one being Virtus France.  The grid is completely bilingual, everything labeled in English and French.  There is no in world economy, but because it is primarily an artist community, there are lots of freebies to be found.  Some lands are rentable, but you can also petition for a free land grant if you have something worthwhile to build and share with the community.  The latest addition was a region dedicated to “Life After There” for former therians.  If you go there, an incomplete Saja like platform hovers in the sky.

I include this grid as a good example of the majority of the grids out there.  Most of the grids I researched have a primary language other than English, providing a 3D multiplayer environment for people that speak something other than English.  There are at least 4 grids for German speakers, and they are working out a common currency between them. I have also seen Spanish, Italian, Korean, Japanese, and Portuguese grids, probably others.

There are many more grids out there to explore.  The grid list maintained at OpenSimulator.org is unfortunately out of date, with a lot of closed grids.  I have a list of 30 grids known to work on my 3D Virtual Worlds page (under the RealXtend / Open Sim Project section). This page lists 40 grids, with a note that there are over 300.

The next few posts will also be about Open Sim.  Next, I will revisit setting up your own private grid (it keeps getting easier) with links to free content, then take a tour of a couple of really impressive private grids, then walk through the hypergrid process which shows promise to join all the grids together in a single 3D world wide web.

“New Era” of Second Life: Role Play Getting Screwed!

It seems every few months, I write yet another post about how SL is going in the wrong direction.  Here I am again.

In the last few weeks, Linden Labs has released a new “SL 2.0″ viewer,  has introduced new welcome centers, new starter avatars, a new 3rd party viewer policy that essentially has killed all third party viewer development, and new terms of service designed to protect LL liability from merchants that use the service.

I’m generally OK with the changes making SL easier to use, especially for new players (it’s about time!).  The client changes are a mixed bag, the new client looks better, but many useful tools are buried deep in the menus and are hard to find.  There are serious bugs that still need to be addressed as well.

The other changes I am not OK with. Yes, Linden Labs has the right to allow or disallow third party viewers as it sees fit, and has the right to change the rules of use as it sees fit.  That does not mean it should.

I will not go into details about these changes, plenty has been written about them elsewhere.  My concern is with the overall pattern of change.  They are not changing the technology in any way to protect merchants from theft, meaning theft will continue, by those who do not care about the rules.  Instead, they are making it more difficult for us rule abiding players from doing what we want to do with the service.

I see what is going on as a conflict of three visions:

1. The Merchant Vision: “We want SL to have strict submission rules and built in protection for our merchandise.”

2. The Linden Vision: “We want SL to be a 3D Facebook with tens of millions players.”

3. The Artisan/Role Play Vision: “We want Our World, Our Imagination back, we want a place to play and have fun the way we want.”

I’m one of the people in the third category.

On the Merchant Vision: Rules that go in place to protect merchants from thieves also restrict those of us that are not thieves from doing what we want.  Among the artisan/role player class, there is a general “liberal” share and share alike, take what you need and do what you will attitude.  We are artists who create for fun, not profit.  We want an environment to play in and we are willing to pay for it or create it ourselves, but worrying about the origin of textures, who created what prim etc, and what permissions are in place just distracts from the fun.  Its all an unnecessary burden on the players.

On the Linden Vision: As Linden Labs reaches out to the more “mainstream” audience that come in from places like Facebook, the more trouble they will cause all the goreans, furbies, nekos, age players, gender benders, cos players, and everyone else the mainstream doesn’t “get”.  Misunderstanding leads to unnecessary drama.

Role Players built Second Life.  Yet, every change LL has made in the last two or three years has had at least a small negative effect on the RP community.

I still love Second Life, but I no longer see a future for me there.  The “cutting edginess” has dulled.  It is still a gold mine of virtual places, that I will continue to explore, but my metaverse interests are moving elsewhere.

That elsewhere is OpenSim, a small but growing community on the frontiers of the metaverse that welcomes the “liberal” artisan/role players.

And, that is the topic of my next few posts…  (to be continued)

Dating Sim 6.3: Nothing But Fixes

I uploaded a new dating sim download.  You can get it here.  It fixes the bugs pointed out in the 6.2 post back in January. The hardest to fix was a bug involving dance / make out interaction.  New to 6.2, I added a small feature that would occasionally cause Ariane to remove an item of clothing while dancing.  If you were making out on the couch, then danced and she removed some clothes, then went back to the couch, it would crash.  Fixing it required some new code on several pages, which I have tested with no issues.  Another bug involving the convenience store changes has also been fixed.

If you find any new issues, or know of any old unfixed issues, put them in the comments.  I’m looking to finally wrap this project up and start on something new.