moving from Second Life to OpenSim was terribly painful for me and i knew i would never rebuild what i had in Second Life. as painful and challenging as i found that move, at least it was also a change in the way i use virtual worlds. inSL i had an estate business and while i did have many places where i created for residents to play - under street catacombs, the Eville Atomic Lounge, underground skate park – i knew that i would not try doing an estate business in OpenSim. rather, my virtual partner in crime subQuark, decided that his education project that would have been too expensive inSl was perfect for OpenSim. having an entirely new focus made the move much easier for me
however, over the years, we have seen many wonderful and pretty awesome regions close in Second Life (like the Myst-themed Numbakulla last year). many were built over a period of years with great detail and would be too large a task to recreate in OpenSim. plus many beautiful builds used third party objects whose creators are long gone, so the option of seeing if you could get permissions to export those objects might be impossible to accomplish
i am saddened to the point of tears about the closing of Hosoi Ichiba’s four Second Life regions. Amiryu Hosoi spent years building up these beautiful sims and paid for them with their store sales. store sales have declined as Second Life has and have reached the point where $1,200 a month is just too much. the loss of these four sims is permanent – no archive will remain and photos simply don’t do justice. i look back at some of my flickr photos and even i have forgotten some of the things i built . . .
i wish you the best Amiryu Hosoi and hope some day you build something new in OpenSim because your work is absolutely beautiful
Hai Ener,
What a terrible shame! This was my favourite place in SL and i visited it so many times over the Years. So beautifully created and it had such a tangible peacefulness about it. Thank-you to the people who created it and shared it with us!!
WiLo_B11
18 Aug 12 at 11:57 am
Pathfinding sure as heck didn’t do squat for them, eh.
-ls/cm
Crap Mariner
18 Aug 12 at 12:24 pm
What a loss for SL… That looks really beautiful!
Sunny
18 Aug 12 at 12:35 pm
Well, it’s still there for the moment. Those pictures were so good, I went to have a look. Really quite amazing. Probably the best I’ve seen. And I only saw a small part.
keith selmes
18 Aug 12 at 5:14 pm
Very Beautiful sims… But its not japan. looks like China.
John
18 Aug 12 at 5:27 pm
I really hope that some of the designers of these places are starting to export their stuff to OpenSim — at the very least, to local Divas, Sim-on-a-Sticks or New World Studios.
Another option — especially now, with megaregions — is to export to Kitely.
Every Kitely user gets one free region and two free hours a month (six hours the first month). You can upload a single region for free, and anybody can visit it and look at it, with no cost to you at all. (Unless you voluntarily choose to pay for the visitors’ time.)
And if you’ve got a multi-region build… $35 a month gives unlimited time in-world and 20 regions — five four-region megaregions, if you want to arrange them that way, or one sixteen-region megaregion and one four-region one, or whatever combination you want…
Compared to $1,200 in SL for a four-region build, this is a huge bargain for artists who just want to be able to share their creativity with the world.
And Kitely lets you export your entire regions as OAR files (including the megaregions), so if a better offer comes along from another OpenSim hosting company (and there are a lot of alternatives out there), you can just download everything and move it over in a couple of minutes.
On the other hand, maybe the Steam deal, and pathfinding, and the other improvements SL is making will work, and new customers will come in and spend more money, and allow region owners to be able to afford their tier prices again.
Maria Korolov
18 Aug 12 at 6:17 pm
@Maria “the Steam deal”
The Steam Deal?
I had a quick google and I see what that is now. I am familiar with Steam. It surprises me that Linden is going with this. Marcus Persson(maker of Minecraft) could not see eye to eye with Valve and their Steam platform.
He said its not bad per sey, but there were rules to live by he found too constraining.
@Ener “have reached the point where $1,200 a month is just too much”
The old days are certainly over. People are prepared to pay $10-35 per month. Upto maybe $100 for semi commercial activity.
Hmmm, the social approach(facebook) like kitely, or the hardcore gamer approach thru Steam. Gamers get the sweats and cant sleep if they get stuttering( intermittent frame rate loss).
Linden Labs best have their ducks in a row, or they wont last in the Steam Gamers World.
Breen Whitman
19 Aug 12 at 5:13 am
I know how gut wrenching painful it is to take down all that you created. I did it in SL when I moved to InWorldz.
As much as I love InWorldz, the move was emotional, with a lot of sentimental value, good times and meeting of friends.
I took great care in making a peaceful haven in the corner of SL and had many people come and visit and enjoy the place, it was my baby.
Nevertheless the astronomical fees made sure that I seek an alternative world (InWorldz) to exercise my love and creativity. 2 years later and I don’t regret moving, instead it has been an inspired move.
Moving away from SL to OpenSim and InWorldz for many must be emotional too and thus are not keen on the move, but with freebie stores and mentors we can atleast make it easy for them.
Eros Deus
19 Aug 12 at 9:19 am
I’m sad because I know what is lost a project in SL. But let me think that is SL wich has losed this marvellous place.
SL borrows the user’s work, really is his blood to survive as “world”. Considering the great number of porno places in that grid, lose again another beautifull place seems a drama.
Kind regards. And R.I.P Japan Kanto.
Montnegre
19 Aug 12 at 12:27 pm
Kanto is not lost.
A creator of Amiryu Hosoi’s calibre just cannot stop. He’ll build again, he cannot help himself. And when you consider the limits he was under in SL, both in cost and prim allowance, what he builds next will be truly fantastic.
I look forward to seeing a Kanto Reborn.
Sarge Misfit
19 Aug 12 at 8:51 pm
I have emailed this link to the creator of these regions.
About(on Linden Labs site, so its above board)
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory/Stored_Inventory
Download link:
http://www.storedinventory.com/files/details.php
I would suggest people bookmark it, and if they see a story like above, they get this link to the region builder.
Breen Whitman
20 Aug 12 at 2:36 pm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zzbottom/sets/72157631189507038/show/
ZZ Bottom
22 Aug 12 at 4:16 am
beautiful pics ZZ!
Ener Hax
22 Aug 12 at 8:36 am
I felt so sad, cause the regions are really wonderful!
And the pics are not amazing, its how Niran’s let me see SL every sec i’m in as well as my soul mate that uses the same version on same settings all the times! (V1.47 on ultra graphics option, shadows set to high,dr, hp gamma and tone mapping to linear mode, Reg Linden day cycle, Niran’s own default tone mapping water set and draw distance set to 252 at all times, that gives us both around 35 pfs in any sims we go!
ZZ Bottom
22 Aug 12 at 9:11 am
Hey guys, thank you so much for your support. I am investigating export to other grids but I dont have to much time for such a project.
@Ron, ONly China Sichuan sim is Chinese based, Japan Kanto, Japan Kansai and Japan Chubu are Japanese Edo period themed
@ZZ, wonderful pictures;-) Please feel free to add your flickr pics to our Flickr stream, labeled “Hosoi Ichiba” I would feel honored: http://www.flickr.com/groups/685024@N20/pool/ and for my own set please check out :http://www.flickr.com/photos/89687636@N00/
Hugs to all
Amiryu
Amiryu Hosoi
27 Aug 12 at 5:55 am
Checking out Stored Inventory, is there anyone out there who can tell me if this product realy works like advcertised?
Amiryu
Amiryu Hosoi
27 Aug 12 at 5:57 am
My honor and uploaded:)
Hope you can find a answer for your question, perhaps someome will reply asap!
ZZ Bottom
30 Aug 12 at 4:21 am
i don’t know how well Stored Inventory works (is that a renaming of the $30 Second Inventory?)
there used to be an “illegal” viewer that allowed entire OAR exports from SL but i don’t know if they are still around. their old url no longer works (not that i condone stealing content)
Ener Hax
30 Aug 12 at 8:22 am
If all was build in world full perms, by Amir, i can’t see how it will be stealing?
ZZ Bottom
30 Aug 12 at 9:07 am
in that case, it would not be stealing but is probably against LL’s TOS
if it were me and it was all my work – pfft, i’d see about exporting it all
what’s LL going to do? ban you? they effectively have banned Amiryu once their sims poof!
Ener Hax
31 Aug 12 at 8:35 am
[...] for every successful person inSL, there are hundreds that have awesome “stuff” but simply can’t cover land costs (like SL Japan Kanto) [...]
breaking the free model with OpenSim at i live in science land
18 Nov 12 at 11:31 am