Tag Archives: opensim

Second Life and OpenSim mobile clients

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Two mobile grid clients are available for Second Life or OpenSim virtual worlds :

Pocket Metaverse (for iOS ; version 1.8.0 ; $4.99)
The following features are provided :

  • Instant Messaging & Chat
  • Friends List with Who’s Online
  • World Map and Teleporting
  • MiniMap with Who’s Nearby
  • Profiles, Groups, Search
  • Giving, Receiving, and Managing Inventory
  • Read Notecards and view Snapshots and Textures
  • Upload and Download from the Photo Album and Camera (iPhone only)
  • Payments
  • and more

The app does not show a 3D world view.

Mobile Grid Client (for Android ; version 1.19 ; monthly fee L$250)

The following features are provided :

  • messaging client/viewer with local chat
  • IM
  • group chat
  • people search
  • mini map
  • the ability to teleport
  • inventory support
  • and more

The app does not show a 3D world view.

Linden Lab, the company that created Second Life and grew that online community into one of the most colorful, varied online social networks in the world, recently launched some new products. One is Creatorverse, an app for Apple and Android phones and tablets that is designed around a very different type of collaborative, creative play from Second Life.

Aurora-Sim Metaverse

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Aurora-Sim is the next generation of the OpenSimulator Project.

Aurora-Sim is a community based project consisting of individuals with a variety of technical and non-technical talents and has been developed with emphasis on security, speed and performance.

The architecture is designed to be as flexible as possible, so that third parties can create modules by pluging into Aurora-Sim’s modular design. By using the .NET framework and Mono, Aurora-Sim can be run on many platforms.

The Aurora-Sim software is still in alpha. There are 3 components :

  • Aurora Simulator (virtual world server ; version 5.0.1)
  • Aurora Web UI
  • Aurora Joomla interface

The source code is available at Github.

Hypergrid Business and Grid Press

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Hypergrid Business is the magazine for enterprise users of virtual worlds.

Hypergrid Business is published by Trombly International, a Massachusetts-based communications firm with key staff in Boston, Belgium, Shanghai and Mumbai. Subsidiaries include the China Speakers Bureau. Hypergrid Business offers in-depth and up-to-date coverage of the OpenSim technology and community, which is currently the leading contender to be the hyperlinked 3D Web, with news, case studies, opinion, and feature stories. They cover also alternative open source platforms like Open Wonderland, and proprietary enterprise platforms like ProtoSphere.

The Editor in Chief and publisher of the Hypergrid Business Magazine is Maria Korolov. She has been a journalist for more than twenty years and has worked for the Chicago Tribune, Reuters, and Computerworld.

Another source for news and views from around the OpenSim is Grid Press, covering also the new Aurora-Sim metaverse. Grid Press says to be dedicated to bringing you factual news, reliable information and honest opinions. It promotes the free and open exchange of ideas and opinions in a fashion that is respectful of all persons. Grid Press operates on a not-for-profit basis, though it is not a registered non-profit. Grid Press is supported and hosted by Zetamax, an OpenSim hosting company, claiming to offer a truely managed OpenSim solution.

Modrex: integrate realXtend features in OpenSim

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Modrex is a project to integrate all of the realXtend features with the mainline OpenSim code by incorporating them in a optional regionmodule – hence the project name modrex. The work is being done by Adam Frisby. The stability of the code is surprisingly good.

The RealXtend viewer employs the open source OGRE game engine and differs from the Linden Lab viewer (LLviewer) in several ways. The most distinct difference is in the new rendering potential offered by OGRE. When using RealXtend as a viewer for OpenSim, one obtains real-time shadows, improved lighting simulation, and more importantly, the OGRE mesh. The mesh is hierarchical (multiple meshes and sub-meshes) and can include a skeleton for defining avatar motion and dynamics.

ModRex (source code) while not part of the viewer, is the glue that connects the viewer to the opensim trunk code. Version 0.5 of  realXtend released on 30.6.2009 is featuring ModreX for the first time.

OSgrid : the largest running OpenSimulator grid

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Last update : April 10, 2013

OSgrid logo

OSgrid logo

OSgrid is the largest running OpenSimulator grid, run by OSGrid Inc., a Californian Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation. Users can connect their own Sim-regions to the grid for free. OSgrid recommends the Hippo Viewer provided by MJM Labs. This viewer includes a list of public OSgrids.

End november 2009, OSgrid countet 34 inworlds, 3,105 regions and 28,546 accounts. Mid April 2013, there are 8696 regions and 88.381 total users.

The OSgrid website provides statistics, forums, chats, photos, news, a general store with free items, a wiki, a region lists with connected Sims and a list with the coordinates of free spots. OSGrid “map tiles” are only reserved while a region is online, if a region is offline it risks having it’s location taken by another user. OSGrid Admins may help resolve map position disputes, however this is not her responsibility.

A detailed documentation how to connect a Simulator to the OSgrid and how to configure the .ini-file is available on the OSgrid website.

Hypergrid : what is the best grid ?

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Maria Korolov, Editor in Chief of Hypergrid Business, published by Trombly Ltd., a Hong Kong-based communications firm with offices in Boston, Shanghai and Mumbai, is the author of the contribution “What is the best grid ?“.

Maria Korolov is president of Trombly Ltd. Subsidiaries include the China Speakers Bureau, the largest speakers bureau for greater China, providing China experts to speak at conferences and events around the world.

One of the columnists of Hypergrid Business is Adam Frisby, head of Research and Development at DeepThinkLabs, an international company headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. Adam Frisby  has been using and developing for Virtual Worlds since 1997, he is a recognized industry professional and has been influential in the development of several key virtual world technologies including OpenSimulator, OpenViewer, Xenki, libsecondlife. Adam is also a member of several Virtual World standards bodies including the Linden Lab® Architecture Working Group.

Maria Korolov says that besides the isolated virtual worlds in cyberspace like Second Life, World of Warcraft, OpenLifeGrid and others, there are a few worlds which are on the hypergrid — accessible to travelers from other worlds via hyperlinks ( hypergrid teleports). The main are OSGrid, ReactionGrid, ScienceSim, FrancoGrid and Grid4Us.

OSGrid is the place for OpenSim developers and hobbyists running regions on their home computers or on spare servers. All the cool new features get tested first at OSgrid, like voice and vehicle physics.

If you like teachers, you need to be on ReactionGrid. Intel has a conference center here. ReactionGrid runs stable, older versions of OpenSim, tested and debugged, making it good for teachers or small businesses looking for a nice, reliable place to meet with students or clients.

If you want to do experiments, or watching them done, goto ScienceSim. Check out Galileo, Einstein, Kepler and other interesting builds.

FrancoGrid is the top French-speaking grid on the hypergrid and Grid4Us is best for hanging out with Germans.

Maria Korolov concludes that the best grid is the grid you build yourself and she gives an overview about OpenSim Hosting Providers.

FrancoGrid : Metavers 3D Francophone Libre

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Last update : April 10,2013

Logo Francogrid

Logo Francogrid

FrancoGrid est un espace virtuel en trois dimensions, un metavers libre et francophone. Le logiciel Open Source OpenSimulator est le « moteur » de Francogrid, il est compatible avec le client de Second Life ™. L’équipe de Francogrid maintient une grille où chacun est libre de connecter son propre simulateur et ainsi, d’agrandir l’espace avec de nouvelles régions virtuelles !

L’objectif est d’exploiter au mieux ce nouveau support de communication et d’organiser la collaboration entre les membres. L’équipe de Francogrid veut soutenir activement le projet OpenSimulator par le rapport de bugs, le développement de “patch”, des expérimentations, et la réalisation de tutoriels.

Le site web de Francogrid comprend plusieurs blogs avec une liste d’évenements, des partenaires, des statistiques et des nouvelles.

OpenSimulator : create a virtual environment similar to Second Life™

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Last update : January 22, 2013

logo by Adam Frisby

OpenSimulator logo by Adam Frisby

OpenSimulator (OpenSim) is a 3D Application Server that can be used to create a virtual environment (or world) similar to Second Life™. OpenSimulator is released under a BSD License, making it both open source, and commercially friendly to embed in products. Environments, protocols and features are supported via add on modules. The available modules (alternative gridservers, plugins and region modules, etc) are hosted on OpenSim Forge. OpenSimulator is powered by the community members that devote time and energy to the effort.

OpenSim is still at an alpha code maturity stage, the current latest releases is 0.7.6  released on October 4, 2013 (git source repository). OpenSimulator requires either the .Net Framework version 3.5, or Mono 2.4.3 or newer.

The OpenSimulator website provides documentation, FAQ’s, grid lists, bug reports, wish lists, forums, configuration files, news, blogs, rss feeds, technical reference, IRC channels, links, support and other informations concerning the development of the OpenSim project.

The following 3D Viewers are known to work with OpenSim : Official Second Life ™ Viewer, Hippo Viewer, Imprudence Viewer, realXtend Viewer and Meerkat Viewer.

An up-to-date coverage of the OpenSim technology is offered in-depth by the Hypergrid Business magazine.

Some commercial providers of OpenSim virtual worlds are listed hereafter :