Unity3D: Where the Metaverse is Going?

A year ago I posted my belief that OpenSim is the future of the Metaverse, because there were no really good competitors.  Well there is a competitor that could quickly take over and replace OpenSim, OR it could enhance OpenSim and give it what it needs to become the 3D web.  I’m not sure which, and a good case could be made for either.

Unity3D is a gaming graphics platform that does not need a powerful computer to run on, can be run as an embed on a web page, or can run on many smart phones.  It efficiently handles complex shadows, water reflections, transparencies, atmospheric effects, and complex mesh objects.  Scripting can be done with javascript, and needed assets can be loaded on the fly, so no need for huge downloads.  3D objects can be imported from practically any source.  While it can’t compete with the latest graphic engines, it looks really good.  Unity3D is NOT an MMO or Virtual World platform, but one can be built to fit in, and some already have.

Currently, I know of at least 6 3D Virtual Worlds that use unity3D graphics: Friendshangout, Frenzoo, Gojiyo, NuVera, RealLifePlus, and ResLive.  All are in the early development stage, and none generating a lot of traffic.  Two of those were developed by The Sine Wave Company which will set up commercial Unity3D virtual worlds for anyone for a price.  Reaction Grid, which runs an OpenSim grid for businesses and educators, has created a Unity3D based grid called Jibe which is still experimental, but offers a place to host your own Unity world.

At least 3 companies are providing avatars for Unity3D based worlds. Evolver, N-Sided, and DigiMi (Daz3D).

So you would think with all of this activity going on with Unity3D that this would mark the beginning of the end for OpenSim/Second Life as a platform for the 3D web wouldn’t you?  While it could be the case, OpenSim has some major advantages of Unity. First, its free. Second, it scales well in that you can (usually) have a hundred avatars in a location at the same time without having issues.  Third, it is a lot easier for players to develop and build stuff in OpenSim.  It seems that if we could combine Unity3D’s low overhead graphics and mesh support with OpenSim’s multiplayer infrastructure, that we would have something really awesome.

Turns out, this is already being done.  For starters, Tipodean Technologies has developed a web based client for SL and OpenSim allowing you to visit Second Life or an OpenSim based location in a web browser, without a client. It works by converting SL/OS objects at a location to be viewable in a Unity3D web embed.   It is still very experimental, but showing a lot of promise.  Secondly, we have the Rezzable people who have figured out how to take whole OpenSim regions and turn them into unity3D regions, and they can do this on the fly, so if something changes on the OpenSim region, it changes in the Unity3D view too. Here is a demo of this at Heritage-Key (you will need a Heritage-Key login to try it).  The bottom line is that Unity3D and OpenSim are very much compatible.

The ultimate OS/U3D integration would have the graphical virtual world built in Unity3D, and have OpenSim handle the MMO/Assets/Inventory/Communication back end.  That way both would service their strengths.

If you are interested in becoming a 3D Virtual World developer of some sort. learning Unity3D is going to be an important step.  Here is a good overview of Unity3D development from an SL perspective, and here is what I have been told is an excellent book for beginners.

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.

Why BUILDERBOT is an Awesome Idea!

The Second Life world seems to have its panties in a bunch over a new 3rd party utility by Rezzable dubbed Builderbot.

Basically, Builderbot can copy every object in an Second Life sim and put it into an OAR file that can be loaded onto any OpenSim server, thus making a near exact copy (scripts as usual are a problem).  They also are creating an OAR editor, and (even more impressively) a way to port OAR files into Second Life, thus making transfers from OpenSim to Second Life possible.

There are two things that are upsetting to the Second Life community: 1. Builderbot does not look at copy permissions or ownership, it just copies everything on the sim. 2. Rezzable was planning to release the SL to OAR part of the Builderbot for free.  These things had the whole community grabbing torches and pitchforks ready to boycot Rezzable. Rezzable finally gave into demand and will not be releasing the SL to OAR part free.

Hate to be the person that disagrees with pretty much everybody on this issue, but maybe I’m the only one who sees the big picture. Builderbot is an awesome idea and a key component to expansion of the 3D web. It is probably the most important 3rd party SL utility ever, and if Rezzable doesn’t release theirs, someone out there should release something similar, including the ignoring copy permissions and ownership part.

Mobile Building

Lets start with the obvious need for Builderbot. Currently, putting a build in Second Life requires that you actually be in Second Life and spend sometimes weeks building there, paying monthly tier as you build. If you want to take your time and do it right it will cost you. Then there is the occasional system hiccup that could cost you hours of work.

Builderbot does two things, it moves the building part of the project off the SL grid. You can now build your server build on your own computer, no system outages to worry about. You can save and backup your work to OAR files as often as you like. If you make a mistake, just load the latest backup. When you are done building and ready to move your build to SL, it can be moved into SL in a matter of minutes, or at most hours. This is the primary design of this program.

Fixing SL’s Design Flaws

Second Life as it was initially concieved is a flawed system. Whoever thought it was a good idea to equate Real Estate with computing power, I hope they have learned a valuable lesson. I have written about this major flaw before. Bottom line, SL runs on thousands of computers, and as many as 80% are not doing anything at any given time.

The obvious fix is to store unused regions in memory and load them up to an available server as needed. Linden Labs could cut their server need by 50-75% with such a system.

They could also bring up mirrored instances of extra busy servers. Want to give a concert that 1,000 people can attand? Just copy the build on 10 different servers that can service 100 people each. If more people want to show up, add more instances.

None of this is possible without a reliable backup system. OpenSim has OAR files, SL has got copybot (basically nothing). What Rezzable is doing is creating a tool to save SL regions as OAR files that can be stored when not in use, quickly loaded when needed, quickly mirrored on multiple servers. Obviously there is some extra programming involved to do all this, but considering the cost savings it is definitely something worth doing.

Why it is necessary to ignore permissions

The biggest concern from most of the Second Life players, is that Builderbot ignores permission. Copy a region, move to OpenSim, and everything in that region has no permissions at all. Anything in Second Life could be quickly copied, permissions be damned.

Rezzable argues that there is nothing in SL that cant be copied already. Players argue “True, but you shouldn’t make it so easy.”

Building a region is like building a website. I build websites myself and anyone can steal my code by right clicking and click “view source”, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. It is super easy.

What most Second Life players  are asking for is DRM management for SL content!

DRM has been a failure everywhere it is tried. Music, video, ebooks, the case against DRM is pretty clear. Read boingboing.net to find out why. How many of you asking for DRM for SL have stripped DRM off a music or video file so you can play it in the format you want?

A Future Marketplace

I come from the 3D Artist community where people build and sell detailed models for use in other people’s projects. All of these models are distributed DRM free and fully copyable and sharable. Yes, there is piracy in 3D models, but it is part of the cost of doing business. But since I do artwork I may want to sell, I pay for all my models and commercial licenses.  This business model is where the 3D web (SL and Opensim) will eventually go.

Most SL players are thinking in L$ economic terms without seeing the big picture. Eventually there will be an xstreet for all grids, and the ability to buy a pre built full region builds (OAR files) to load on to your personal server or hosted server is likely to be a new popular alternative method to static build exploring.

There is much money to be made in building custom regions.  Especially commercial clients who would not dare copy other people’s work. Individual objects and props have their place in the new marketplace as well, especially if they include commercial licenses that will allow the objects to be put into other builds.

I believe this could be a huge market. If I could explore lag free by loading OAR downloads to my computer based open sim server, I would love it! If I could edit them and share with others to show my edits, that would be really awesome as well. I’m quite certain I am not the only one.

The possibilities for Second Life are numerous as well. Can you imagine the fun of going to an SL club that has a different build for every event? Random combat locales? Roleplay setting that can be brought up as needed?

Like it or not this is the future! Second Life is just the early primitive beginning. In a few years we will probably wonder what all the fuss was about.

Halloween Places in SL

Hey, its October, its Autumn, and the traditional Halloween festivities are under way. So I thought I’d post about some of my favorite scary themed places I have run into in SL. There are of course some classics like Transylvania to check out, but also some new masterpieces like the above New Relic which I mentioned before.

You might start your Halloween by looking for costumes. One of the more adventurous places is Grendel’s Children which has all sorts of interesting avatars.

There are plenty of “Haunted” places to choose from. Halloween events are an annual event at Octoberville, a haunted town. Check out Rezzable’s Carnival of Doom sim, for more campy spooky fun. Then there is the very popular haunted house Bentham Manor to visit.

Halloween is a very popular theme in Second Life. I have not even mentioned any of the hundred goth themed places, or any of the role play sims.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Surreal Places in SL: Twilight Zone

So the theme is “Twilight Zone”, builds based on obscured reality. I recently found a cool street scene, colored entirely in black and white like some old noir film

Unfortunately, when I finally get around to blogging about it, its gone. It was on the Silent server, but the owners are starting over working on something else. I thought it was cool, but oh well.

 

Speaking of disappearing sims, The above picture was taken at a temporary build, an incredibly cool flower build that was only up for a day. Here’s the story with more pictures. According to the latest, the build will be put up somewhere else soon. I’ll keep an eye out for where.

 

So one obscured reality you can visit is the Greenies Backyard sim, a followup to the Greenies Living Room sim. In these two sims, everything is about 10 times bigger than normal and populated by small alien like creatures. These are two pretty original builds. Part of the Rezzable group of builds.

I try to blog about cool places to visit, this entry is kind of a tease as two of the three don’t exist anymore. Hey, not every blog entry can be perfect.

Surreal Places in SL: Part 1

After doing a few blogs on real places in SL, why not do a few unreal places. To get you in a surreal state of mind, I included a bizarre Machinima video called Chameleon.

Now for a few surreal links. I find places that qualify as Surreal all the time, and don’t always bookmark them. So I’m going to start off with a few that I have bookmarked.

The place that inspired me to start this post is a place called Culturegion, a server filled with strange sights and sounds. I liked the Sound Art display the best, make sure you turn on the radio and video when prompted. This goes for the whole island as there are “hot spots” of sound and music.

One of my all time favorite surreal builds is on the Svarga Server build. This one is a must see if you never have been. I like to take new people here to show them the potential of Second Life, and this is as good as any to show off.

Before Svarga was opened, the cool build of choice was The Lost Gardens of Apollo. Still a fantastic and beautiful build. A few other beautiful builds along these lines:

Botanical Gardens at Straylight
Creative Fantasy at Serenity Falls
Dragon Moon Resort
T&C Designs and Gardens

Surreal does not necessarily mean artistic and strange. Surreal can also mean reality taken to an extreme or hyperreal. So here are a couple of examples of that.

Above is an example of an industrial wasteland called Hobo Island. Train cars, grafitti covered walls, broken overpasses, and a complex sewer system are here to explore.

On the opposite extreme would be a build I acidentally discovered called the Palace of Yaximixche (website) which probably ranks as one of the most pretentious builds I have ever come across. And why not, if you are going to build yourself a house, may as well make it a big one.

There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of surreal builds out there. Watch for more of these from time to time. Next up are a few TV, Movie, and Video Game themed builds.