the other day i mentioned how i thought SL peeps are a different breed from pure OpenSim ones

Peyote, Breen, Maria, DreamWalker, Euro, and Bristle all offered up excellent perspectives on this (thank you)

none of it is Earth shattering but it helps frame what virtual worlds are (many things to many people which is many awesome!) =)

OpenSim is a totally different thing for me than Second Life was. i have a very specific outward-facing task i am doing for a use that frames OpenSim as an illustrative tool first – it very much is like using Illustrator to create graphics with the exception that these graphics are 3D and can be experienced by groups

the Reaction Grid team created a concise survey last month and had 96 responses to this exact question of what are people doing in OpenSim

96 is a very small sample size but it does represent some sector of the OpenSim community (they will be mainly Reaction Grid customers since the survey was on their site and a large part of those people are teachers and educators)

their results, and their take on them,  support what many people know/think and may point to the need for a more detailed look at this (well, “need” is a bit strong eh? but it could be interesting)

i think i’ll pull together a Google Doc to look into this issue a bit more deeply (and maybe even with some research methodology applied to the questions!)

i’ll compile questions and place them on the blog for your comments because all of you tend to balance me out and help me shift my pair of dimes (paradigms!) =)

                          

part one of a mini four part series aimed at corporate, public, and educational users seeking an alternative/supplement to Second Life

Second Life is a very good option for many people. for me my pocketbook was getting too thin and my skin was not thick enough to stay with Second Life. while these next few posts focus on those demographics, it also applies to others that may be wanting their own grid

i can only present my opinions and they are coloured by my perceptions, some of which are undoubtedly wrong, but maybe they fill in a few things here and there

it’s been a tad over four years ago that i first tried out Second Life – it was the media star and it seemed like anything was possible. many businesses claimed their sim and waited for the next dot com wave to shower money on them for being early adopters of this incredible “virtual” world

from a simplistic perspective, Second Life is similar a big online document that can be updated by tens of thousands of users at the same time. a 3D file that everyone is working on or perusing through doing this or that. it is a remarkable accomplishment - a real-time rendering globally-shared 3D application! if you thought it was cool to be able to work on Google docs simultaneously, well that is nothing compared to what Linden Lab created

however . . . times change, visions come and go, and companies get so big that things shift, direction alters, and new courses are charted. because Second Life is so great (and it is) whenever these changes happen it can have profound impacts on people, groups, and institutions

this is a time when we see many smaller decisions affecting many different groups. this year seems to have been a banner year for Linden Lab with many of these changes

fortunately, there are options and i can relate what i have found with OpenSim over the last year. albeit, i only dabbled my toes in the OpenSim sea at first; i started “full-time” with it last February. and it was a rough sea for me!

OpenSim comes in many flavours and a great resource to get a thumbnail sketch of the ever expanding selection is the Hypergrid Business hosting list

for a very similar experience to Second Life with land rental, in-world economy, and protection that a “walled garden” can provide content creators then InWorldz seems to be the choice. it is for 18 and older and may not work for some educational or public use. corporate branding could be explored in it and may be a good fit. the cost is far less than Second Life

for a more “open” experience you can look for a larger community-type grid, such as Reaction Grid, which allows hypergridding to the OSGrid. you can do your own thing with a virtual server for $75 a month. while this package can scale to 4 sims, expect the performance of one SL sim and build with that in mind. since it is a virtual server, you will be able to export and import region files (OARs) and inventory files (IARs)

for the sake of options for corporate, public, and educational use it is vital to have server access. this is to protect your intellectual rights and do backups and/or import OAR/IAR files. regardless of what anyone promises, including your own IT department, i strongly suggest you backup your regions and inventory. these files are manageable to work with. our 16 sims are about 120 megs as OAR files. as full grid SQL backups, they are only 4 gigs! incredible easy to backup and archive!

if being part of a specific community is not critical, then a less expensive but very good choice is Dreamland Metaverse. the owner is an expert in OpenSim and seems passionate towards it. i don’t know her, only by reputation and hers is well regarded. i tend to think more highly of providers that are singularly focused and Snoopy seems to be that. her regions allow for OAR backups and can be fully private or hypergridded to the OSgrid

hypergridding is constantly evolving and access control is becoming finely tuned. you can do access lists, turn it on and off, and enjoy the best of both the fully private world and the growing OSGrid community

OSGrid is somewhat analogous to the world wide web with home hosted, privately hosted, and community grids being interconnected. concurrency is very small compared to Second Life with numbers being around 100! but it starts somewhere doesn’t it? =)

Reaction Grid and Dreamland Metaverse offer private grid hosting as do some “bargain” hosting providers listed on the Hypergrid Business hosting list

a private hosting solution like this is similar to website hosting in that no one should really be able to tell that you are using them (our Login URI is http://iliveisl.enclaveharbour.org:8002/). this type of hosting gives you total freedom to create your own terms of service and full backup capability, plus the ability to use the same server for tight integration to server-side applications like MOODLE

our choice for private hosting, for many reasons, is SimHost. they only do OpenSim and the two partners are undoubtedly passionate about OpenSim. one is the lead core developer of OpenSim and the other is an administrator for OSGrid. they have several packages but for this demographic their “dedicated server” one offers the most hardware for the dollar. couple the economy with the talent and this seems like the best hosting provider choice for heavy use by the corporate, public, and/or educational sector

with OpenSim, just like Second Life, hardware is critical. dedicated servers perform better than virtual ones and the more hardware the better to an extent. one CPU core and one gig of RAM is close to a Second Life sim. despite the 45,000 prim limit you see all over the place, that number is just a variable that you can change

the Fashion Institute has a sim (region) with 200,000 prims and i did a test with 54,000 prims. it’s just a number and almost meaningless in itself for performance. the one core/one gig/one sim rule of thumb is a gross generalization (hmm, 1/1/1 – geeky but i likes it). a Second Life sim has that but also has external servers dealing with communication, voice, groups, inventory, and more which results in less load on the sim. with a private grid you carry that overhead, so the one core/one gig actually yields the performance of slightly less than one sim

clearly, i am biased toward SimHost and since no one pays me and i don’t work for any of them, i am free to endorse who i want to. their price simply can’t be beat. the same hardware on another host is five times (5x) more expensive! we priced out our own server at server companies like cari.net and it would cost more than what we have with SimHost!

that covers hosted providers and what is probably the best option is to host yourself. if you are a corporation, a municipality or large public endeavor (like the New Your City parks departments), or a school or university, you more than likely have an IT department and servers. installing OpenSim is not a Herculean task but does require some technical acumen. a sharp IT person could install it in a matter of hours

lacking an IT department install option, you can hire someone to dial into your server and set you up. expect to pay $350 and up for this type of service and $60+ per hour for maintenance

OpenSim 0.7.x seems to be very stable. our server has been running for three months without a mandatory reboot (which is a 180 degree turn from being told to do daily restarts to solve lag). the only time i reboot is for Windows updates and one time for one region that our Lead Scripter threw into an endless loop of scripted voodoo magic =D

having an OpenSim expert do a remote install is, in my opinion, viable because of the stability i have experienced when adequate hardware is in place for your needs (1/1/1 rule)

the main options above – hosting provider and self-hosted – are good if you need to be able to have multiple people access your grid

but some “use cases” may not require this

a local install on your machine or workstation or even sim-on-a-stick may fit the bill. our subQuark uses sim-on-a-stick almost exclusively now

he used it earlier this year for a workshop and uses it for his video work as well as for his day job. he used Second Life as a 3D studio to create video for online training because it was fast and is real-time rendering. compared to using Blender 3D and MakeHuman, Second Life is instant and this became the topic of his conference presentations as a rapid deployment eLearning application. sim-on-a-stick works for that just as well as Second Life (and free) and he avoids the corporate firewall hassles inherent with Second Life or a hosted OpenSim grid

a “community grid”, hosting provider, self-hosted, or local install seem like they would fit the needs of many “big” users as well as “power” users with a specific purpose. for us it is creating virtual assets to illustrate science concepts, for others it could be to create and showcase entire region builds targeted to sell to business users, or for the serious hobbyist or artist who is using OpenSim as a creative outlet

hypergridding opened up the possibility to break out of a “walled garden” and to create your own terms yet still be a part of a global community

browser-based access will further expand the boundaries and lead to greater freedom and it seems, from my myopic perspective, to point to “private” grids on dedicated servers being the solution. both for intranets and internet usage

                          

to those i met in Reaction Grid – thank you for enriching my life

to Phoebe – you are the only person i have ever given my parasol to – thank you for reminding me of the joy of being a kid =)

good luck to the teachers i have met and who have inspired me to look beyond science in my builds

we may be gone from Reaction Grid but we are very much in-world

once everyone gets on the same version of hypergrid, please come visit the ever growing Enclave Harbour and the start of I live in Science Land

namas te

*wipes tears and needs a kleenex!* =)

                          

call me silly, but i have been cleaning up our regions in Reaction Grid this week. it will just all be wiped out on the fourth with probably one command and anyone would see my time as wasted

maybe it’s a spiritual thing (do avatars have spirits?) or an ener-getic thing or just a bonkers thing?

to me it is about treating my things with respect. i can’t just leave my work behind, it is important to me. even though i have an identical copy of all 16 sims on our new private SimHost grid

even the terrain! i had to return it to a more neutral state just to pay homage to my past effort (see, i am bonkers)

fortunately, it does not matter very much if anyone else thinks this is crazy

it’s part of who i am and in a weird way a part of my creativity and persistence. sure, in the few hours i have spent doing this, i could have spent adding to its identical copy on our new grid

or could i?

see, for me it’s part of the same story, the same narrative - my story. if i did not do this, it would affect my new builds. crazy as that sounds

Reaction Grid has been very good to me. i learned so much about OpenSim and am thankful to the Reaction Grid Team. especially Chris and Felix. their caring and attention was evident even as avatars. i am not sure i even met Chris as an avatar, although i did make her a strawberry daiquiri in a coconut shell (ener’s version of a Linden bear). i met Felix and he is a really neat person (good luck in your studies Felix!) =)

cleaning up the sims is like the last paragraph in this chapter. there is still a sentence or two (hint: Dream Walker, get your stuff or it’ll be poofed and same for the Learning Path Nikki – you don’t need to grab it if you don’t want to, just giving you another day or two in case you do)

so as our Reaction Grid estate disappears into the virtual ethers i look forward to it’s continued growth with SimHost

namas te Reaction Grid =)

                          

ready to give OpenSim a try? there are options and most are quite affordable

if you want to install it yourself, Maria at Hypergrid just published a detailed post on setting up your own grid. but what if you don’t feel like messing with that (ie, read: ener is really clueless but says “i’m too busy” to sound smarter) =p

setting up your own grid could be a clever way to go (and really is not that horribly hard). for example, our work on Reaction Grid over the last 10 or 11 months could have been carried out privately for no cost. simply have subQuark install it on his mongo machine (pffft, he won’t even customize his avatar) and then allow people to hit it. doing that could allow 2 or 3 people in at any one time. frankly, it’s only been a few times when 3 builders where on at the same time on our Reaction Grid sims

now that Reaction Grid no longer offers individual sims, i thought i’d give a shout out to someone we considered using

when we first started looking, we narrowed it down to two choices very quickly. that was a year ago and much has changed – new hosts are coming online as OpenSim becomes more stable and as more people are looking for less expensive alternatives to Second Life (and alternatives to fill needs that SL can’t – like teaching kids)

subQuark had been wanting to do this educational thing we are doing now but Second Life was just too expensive. OpenSim had caught his attention a year ago and he decided to give it a shot. he made a list of a few hosts and forwarded it to me and i narrowed it down to two – Reaction Grid and SimHost. my choice was SimHost because they had a very clean website and laid out what they offered in an easy to digest way. i also knew that Adam Frisby was huge into OpenSim development (lol, slightly! he is one of the 9 core developers). but to be fair, i did not delve into it too much, i was still trying to keep the iliveisl estate in Second Life afloat

so why didn’t subQuark go with SimHost?

well about a week before subQuark made the decision, Jokay of SLEDwiki fame was served a Take Down notice by Linden Lab. she set up a grid with Reaction Grid as a result

to show his support for Jokay and the place that offered her a great non-SL home, he went with Reaction Grid (plus Jokay really really knows her stuff, so she must have figured that Reaction Grid was the best choice)

Reaction Grid is great for educators and a wonderful choice.  their support is incredible and fast. if you are an educator, for $75 a month you can get a 4 sim grid – either on their grid or as a private grid. as a business it is more ($150). their focus is educators for sure

but what about if you just want one sim?

i revisited SimHost to see what they offer – for a single region it costs $69.95 (or $62.95 with the uber secret Hypergrid Business discount – you really should read Maria’s blog anyway)

SimHost does not have their own grid like Reaction Grid does. the RG grid may offer some benefit to you if you are a teacher. i can’t really speak to it because since i started building in earnest in March i have not had much interaction with anyone, i like to build alone anyway. but it was nice having some teachers come and visit and compliment our sims two weeks ago =)

SimHost will set you up as standalone grid or connected to other grids such as OSGrid, ScienceSim, or v-Business. if you are standalone (a private grid) you can be hypergrid enabled if you like

something that is either new, or that i missed, is a neat page explaining resource usage. coming from Second Life, i had no idea what sims needed resource wise (but that’s another post) =)

another neat thing is that SimHost also donates two servers to OSGrid for the welcome areas and they also donate some of their profits to OpenSimulator (but far more valuable is the time that the two main partners donate in coding OpenSim and running some of the OSGrid)

SimHost is just one of the options out there if you are looking for a single sim

for more options and a short blurb about each, take a look at the OpenSim hosting directory

                          

I apologize in advance if anyone’s posted the links below already.

Hate some (or all) of Viewer 2.x?  You’re not alone.

But…  there are some fixes/tweaks available, none of which are difficult!

Here are some links,  should you want more info. Use at your own risk! I’ve done the “StarLight” tweak and find it improves things a bit for me. I’ve not tried the others listed on the wiki page.

• http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_2_Tweaks
• http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Skins/StarLight_for_2.1_Beta (works fine for me)
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/felineslade/4393320025/

If you LIKE 2.x, or don’t want to hear what I dislike about it… stop reading now.

Like Ener, I’m not a fan of Viewer 2.0 or 2.1.  It’s too dark (even for my Goth blood), and most of the changes and re-wording of old terms (“Local Chat” is now “Nearby”, for example) seem nutso. The pop-up sliding menu dance… awful. The whole sidebar/slide left thing drives me nuts. And the non-transparent widows and changes to chat/IM windows suck. There’s a lot more that I hate. So do many, many others. Granted, some peeps (esp. some noobs I’ve talked to) seem to think that 2.x is just fine. Hmmmm.

Don’t get me wrong. I like NEW. I like EXCITING.  Take me to the mall or an amusement park if you don’t believe me!

I do not, however, like waking up one day to find out that the names of everyday things have been changed, or that my usual direct route to the local S&M shop requires 3 detours, or that someone has posted flyers all over my car’s windshield, obscuring half my view.  It’s like waking up in an alternate universe… one with poorer design than the previous one.  Oh, I was kidding up there… I meant Krispy Kreme shop, not S&M shop ;p

I’ve tried 2.0 and 2.1 for extended periods of time.  It really sucks that so much screen “real estate” gets obscured by the (non-transparent) sidebar and huge menus. It sucks that some of my old keyboard shortcuts are gone, or that I have to go through 3 levels of menus to do what I used to do in 2 clicks. It sucks that basic communication is more difficult (to me), unless I rearrange the default options.

Don’t rename things and make me have to stop and re-learn keystrokes and shortcuts and menus I’ve used hundreds (or thousands) of times. Is that a violation of good rule of design?  “Don’t alienate your existing user base by making changes… unless the change is either necessary, useful, or both.”

In other words, change what needs to change; do not change things that worked quite nicely. Gee, you could at least offer an option to revert to the older menus, like new versions of word-processing apps often do.

Okay, okay, some of those annoyances can be fixed. Kind of.  And the “notification” area in the bottom right is welcome (and long overdue), replacing tons of dialog popups when you first login.  The teleport history is nice as well. And thank goodness I can set the top bar to actually show my (Sim & vector) location… seems pretty dumb to me to not have it there as the default. There is more than one way to accomplish some of the old tasks (hmmm, I’m neutral on that one).

I know, I know, it’s all been said before.  I don’t DESPISE 2.x, but I am not feeling any ♥.  I’ll use it. Someday.  IF I have to.  But so far, it just gives me a headache. One day, after a few more versions, I may actually like it. But for now, it kinda does less.. with more.  *Giggle*

Feel free to post your loves and hates of 2.x. Or just google it and read what others say. Hmmm, you’re probably wishing I’d taken that route!

*sigh*  I miss the pie wheel already. I have a feeling his time in the virtual universe is limited.

By the way… I mostly use Snowglobe. It has some unique stuff not in the old 1.2x viewers. And it doesn’t make me learn to brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand (I can do it.. but I dribble a bit). Oh… and I can also use SnowGlobe as an OpenSim viewer (for Reaction Grid and so forth).

                          

a neat thing about OpenSim is that anyone can use it. many people setup their own grid (like Breen who has encouraged me to try again) and there are many grids from all sorts of groups, companies, and universities

all this variety leads to some lighthearted and fun events. Second Life used to have this “fun” vibe four years ago before it became so corporate. by that i don’t mean corporations but the success that Linden Lab has had and all the money that changes hands everyday has forced them to become more corporate as a business

have you ever worked at a place where people tell you “a few years ago we used to have barbecues every friday and a keg of beer” but now they have dress codes, sexual harassment training, and a general corporate vibe?

when companies are small they can get away with that. but as they grow they get scared of lawsuits, offending people, and no longer trust their employees as friends. that’s the case for some companies anyway and i think that happened to LL a little bit. i mean when you get big enough that the FCC investigates you and congress wonders how they can tax user transactions, then you are in a way different league than a handful of friends sharing a dream to make some money (and sharing some beer!)

but there are many OpenSim grids out there that are very small and can still have some silly fun. Reaction Grid does that by having movie nights and showing some really awful science fiction movies. the type of movies that MST3K used to do and that are so bad you just have to watch them (as you can tell, i love those)

when i fired up Hippo tonight, this was the login screen (below). any knock-off Godzilla movies are for sure great ones to watch! i have never even heard of this movie and how the RG Team found it, who knows!

but it looks like fun and is just an example of some of the open nature that many OpenSim grids have =)

                          

leaving second life was a huge change for me. from worrying about 60-100 residents, converting Lindens to dollars, and always having stuff to fuss with. i was in-world anywhere from 10 to 30 hours a week on top of a 40+ hour a week job and my blackberry constantly blinked with IMs forwarded from in-world issues “so and so has ban lines up”, “my music won’t stream”, “can i pay a week late”, “i fell through the road”, and on and on . . .

i did like that pace, i am pretty manic at times, but if i took an entire day off, there would be a pile of things to deal with the next day. i loved helping people but hated doing things like the occasional Hippo tier box update. i was also lucky to have very little drama. in the 26 months of owning sims, i think we only banned 6 people from the estate

that's subQuark - but what is he?

but now, over in Reaction Grid, the pace has slowed way down. only a few IMs get forwarded to the blackberry per week and they are all helpful ones, not emergencies. and i can do what i like – building

that suits me fine, i am doing builds for subQuark to be used for teaching science and that draws on my rl education. i’ll be building an oil rig soon *makes note not to call it the Deepwater Horizon* =p

subQuark is writing out a field activity kind of book for middle school kids that will use my builds and he is hardly in-world except when i am having a nervous breakdown because my inventory won’t load or some other minor OpenSim hiccup

it’s just as well because i think his avatar would scare off people, i can’t figure out if he is serious or the BP tar ball poster child? (he never was one to do anything with his avatar)

DW scripting or needing the bathroom?

Dream Walker is still active in Second Life (she is crushing on a certain sl builder but also loves helping n00bs, which are few and far between in Reaction Grid) and is our expert senior scripter guru can-script-anything-in-my-eyes person. she also has an online store she is working on that has goods for both Second Life and OpenSim (recently mentioned here along with Sunny)

Krissi is in Second Life and Reaction Grid and is honing her furniture skills, something that is needed in OpenSim

Nickola is a fine scripter who continues to build in second life and, along with Micheil, has an exhibit for the SL7B party. Nickola built our Learning Path which is designed to help new people build in-world skills. she also liked Reaction Grid so much that she got her own sim! (we didn’t make anything off of you Nickola, if we had we would have bought you a poutine – yum) =D

Micheil is quietly working on who knows what in Reaction Grid in his secret private lab, we have yet to tap his in-depth scripting skills. he does contribute his scripting insight here on the iliveisl blog

Sunnygirl is busy in Second Life, Inworldz, and probably several other worlds plus has a shop in Enclave Harbour – she is an industrious clothing maker who truly has talent

together, we loosely make up what i call the iliveisl team of Enclave Harbour and i think we embody what collaboration is =) have fun in-world!

                          

10,800 word Ener

they say a picture paints a thousand words and if you want to paint that picture with a second life snapshot, you have to read 10,800 words

that’s how long the current TOS is and that does not include the 2,500 word XStreetSOL TOS

10,800 words – who says size does not matter?

did you read them all? i have not for sure but we all agreed to them when we set up accounts. sure, second life is very complicated, deals with money, is international, blah, blah, blah

so what? i dunno =p

all i know is that, to me, the wordier something is, the more ways “they” are likely to be able to mess with me

ever buy a house? holy cow, talk about fine print! all of it geared to protect “them” and leave you with the minimal rights mandated by law

with all the talk about those last second life TOS changes i decided to look at other immersive community type things where you can create content

blogging is immersive and communal, you typically can have conversations via commenting, flickr is collaborative and has groups and all its content is user generated, facebook is way larger than second life, and world of warcraft is a far bigger cash cow than sl

how do they stack up? certainly facepoo with all it’s latest scrutiny must have beefed up their TOS, right?

• facebook – 3,700
• world of warcraft – 4,700
• Flickr – 5,600
• worspress.com – 2,900
• second life – 10,800

269 word Ener

dang! second life wins the prize for wordsmithing!

oh by the way, here is another thing that i love about being in Reaction Grid, their TOS is actually written in normal English and to the point

reaction grid – 269

i think i will submit Reaction Grid’s TOS to the award nominations at the Center for Plain English!

ps – if any reaction grid big shots read this, what does the upcoming “economy system” mentioned in your TOS  look like? that’s the kind of thing that will attract second life refugees at this very moment

                          

this is the first time we have tried to do music in Enclave Harbour. the Haxor Lunar Lounge was a fun place in Second Life and is just coming back to life now in Reaction Grid. the lounge was imported into Reaction Grid six month’s ago but sat incomplete while making stuff for subQuark’s virtual science field trips. the Second Life version had a great dance floor and a sound system setup so that anyone could select from several streaming radio stations

the dance floor is not in yet and may be a big project for Dream Walker (hint) =)

i needed a fun break today so decided to mess with the Haxor Lunar Lounge and made all the dance floor seating VIP and added tables for two in the more private rooftop deck. then i thought i’d just try the old script i had from the Second Life sound system. i figured it probably would not work – there are differences to how OpenSim does code works, although a lot of LSL does work

well, call me surprised – it worked right off the bat! and here is just a quick video to show it and, in person, it sounds and acts just like it did when it was in Second Life

i am most pleased! have fun in-world! =)

                          

this week has been grueling in virtual worlds =(

even though i don’t log into Second Life anymore, it is still an important part of who i am. it showed me a way to express my creativity in a place where i could work on projects with people from all over the world

but . . . second life suffers from a few stumbling blocks for bigger adoption by some groups. this week we blogged about some options out there, including the one we are using – Reaction Grid

Reaction Grid, or another OpenSim solution, is very good for people like you and me. sure it can be pretty wonky, but it keeps getting better =)

however, what if you are a university or big company (heck, even a band) that wants to look at virtual worlds again but the limitations that Second Life and OpenSim just don’t cut it?

concurrency per sim is a big issue. second life only holds 40-50 before lagging out and hosted OpenSim holds fewer (it’s a different architecture – like our estate – it’s based on the server and not number of sims)

that won’t cut it if you want to hold a conference, teach a big class, or hold a concert

also, downloading the viewer (even though that is really easy imo) is seen as an obstacle and so is creating an account

these are big issues: concurrency per sim, browser-based access, and universal login

well . . . tada . . . Jibe!

Reaction Grid has been working on a project that uses the Unity 3D player (like a flash player, it’s a browser plugin) and it connects to facebook and LinkedIn to handle logging in. check out the Unity site, install the plugin and look at their gallery, i was impressed at how fast it is (of course, it is playing in a small window so that makes it fast too)

subQuark told me about its amazing graphics last January after logging into it from facebook in a secret sneak peek! i wish i had some screenshots to show you (ya would think that the person that taught me how to pimp myself online with zillions of flickr pics would have taken one screenshot? and i can’t find any from Reaction Grid, bah) =p

screenshot from Unity 3D gallery

and you can also access it via phone and iPad!

how much does it cost?

the version that allows up to 1000 peeps runs $675 a month

o_O well, this is for big power users and two sims in second life will cost $600 and only hold 100 +/-

if you are curious and think this may make virtual worlds viable for your business or school, check it out and if you are in the Big Apple, there is a launch party Monday

here is a YouTube video showing Unity 3D for a game =)

                          

it’s been a heck of a week for second life, especially for the Lindens. it is very tempting to say “screw you guys, i’m going home” and leave second life. no doubt, many will leave and this may be the reason you do leave, but make a plan, and set your expectations to match where you might go

like i say a lot on this blog, OpenSim is not Second Life. it looks just like it, but it is not as stable. as i write this i am fighting with getting onto Reaction Grid and stay for more than a few minutes without crashing. i don’t know why this happens, but once a month or so i experience really crappy performance

serendipitously, this is perfect to explain how OpenSim is not like Second Life and to be ready for frustration from time to time. it is beta and it is much less expensive after all

here are details of what is going on right now:

i saw that Dream Walker just posted on the blog and fire up Hippo to see if she is in-world, she is and i talk with her for about 4 minutes and try to rez a vending machine i am making. my inventory only loaded 123 items, so i TP to Core1 (the Reaction Grid welcome sim) and load my stuff. i try to TP back but her sim won’t let me in. so i TP home (next sim over). i fly to her sim and rez my vending machine which makes me crash. i log back in and still can’t hit her sim. i go home (i had logged into Core1 this time) then fly over and make it. i try to rez my vending machine, but it’s not in my inventory. i decide to just copy it because it’s in the sim south of hers. i then rez it on her sim and crash again. i log back in to Core1 and still can’t hit her sims, so i go home and fly over but this time i get stuck in the sim crossing and keep going down forever. i try to map TP but i am stuck, then appear on the ocean floor, but i can’t move, TP, or get chat from Dream Walker, so i quit and wait a minute

now i try to log in to Core1 but hang on the connecting to Reaction Grid screen for over 2 minutes. so i hit quit. i wait a minute and try to log in again

this time i get stuck on the same screen for the 5 minutes it takes me to type this! ugh . . . now i try Core1 again and . . . voila!  i make it to her sim via my sim and try to rez my vending machine, but it’s not in my inventory again! this time i dupe it and slide it over to her sim. i try chatting with her but she does not respond, then i get that “your session has ended” screen and quit

so i log into Core1 again and head home. fortunately, she is smart and is waiting for me at my home and i get to chat with her as she scripts a pose ball for me that lets you drop in as many animations as you like and then arrow trough them as you please. i see that my skirt is not on and open my inventory but my inventory is partially loaded and i can’t put on my skirt and now Dream Walker is stuck in a tripping gesture – it’s just one of those nights

luckily, this only happens once a month and oops, there i go, i crashed again! it’s enough to make you drink a martini!

i run a speedtest online and get a download speed of 38.50 Mb/s and upload of 9.77 Mb/s (that seems adequate eh?) =D

so i log in again to Core1 and try to TP home, but it says i can’t TP to that location. i try again and make it. Dream Walker is still there but i can’t see her hair and her face is gray and she is not chatting – i have a feeling i am crashing in a minute. yep, my hair just poofed and any second i will get that “your session ended” message again . . .

okay, so logging back in (how many times is this now?). well it is stuck on the Connecting to region screen again. i will wait 5 minutes. i fix typos here as i wait, and now it has been at least 7 minutes on that connecting to region screen and i hit quit

as you can imagine, this is very frustrating and i ponder RDPing into the server and restarting the sims. but Dream Walker is still on there and scripting away. i don’t want to restart without telling her, but i can’t log in

so here we go, i try logging into Core1 and make it! good thing i did not shut them down, Krissi is there with Dream Walker now. the sims are fine for them. i don’t think it’s my connection (as seen above), i am on fibre optic and never had connection issues in the three years isl

i resign to chatting from Core1 because i know i will poop out on our sims. i ask Dream Walker how long it has been since i first logged in. she has our chat record and it says 45 minutes. but i do get my skirt back on =D

i sure would love to visit with them both but am so frustrated that i will go to bed and restart the server in the morning. likely it will work fine; like i said this only happens once a month

i am not bashing Reaction Grid, they are a great team and will likely offer suggestions (but putting a ticket in at 1 AM won’t help me now, so why bother. the morning will bring renewed hope)

if i had known there would be issues like this, i would have been a bit better prepared for the switch from Second Life to an OpenSim host. considering the price and OpenSim being very young, this type of behavior is acceptable to me (but still a drag)

so if you leave Second Life – don’t run screaming, take a breath, and explore your options and remember:
if your biggest problem is having your skirt poof in a virtual world, life is pretty darn good! =)

lol, i was also invisible for much of tonight's fun

                          

okay, so with the stuff that has happened since Mark Kingdon became CEO of Linden Lab, many people have left sl. some big creative people left after the XStreetSOL (Sh*t Out of Luck) policy changes and then another wave left after the latest TOS changes. add to that the semi-flop of viewer 2.0 and it would drive many people nuts. but now with Linden Lab canning 100 peeps or so, it’s just another straw on the proverbial camel’s back

if this happened two years ago, you pretty much would just have to bend over and take it. but now some viable options are out there and growing fast!

Second Life is made by a for-profit company that had over 300 people on its payroll working on making Second Life a great experience (too bad it just takes one to screw that up). OpenSim has a small but passionate group of volunteers using their own machines, on their own time, and at their own expense who continually improve OpenSim

as compared to two years ago, now there are OpenSim hosting companies with very reasonable prices. for example, we are in Reaction Grid and you can get your own sim for $25 a month! our Nickola used to be a resident of the iliveisl estate and paid about $36-38 a month for 1451 prims on a ninth of a sim. now she has an entire sim with 16,000 prims =) (one assumes that with her monthly savings, she is enjoying a relaxing lunch of poutine and Labatt’s)

we love Reaction Grid and the talented RG team was a huge help when we first started out (lol, when i was freaking out).  while we talk a lot about reaction grid (like wannabe mini Torleys), we are not compensated in any way or treated specially, we simply speak about it because it’s the only option we have used (gee, i do go on and on about RG don’t i? *makes mental note to be more open* derr, open like opensim?) =D

BUT . . . you should look at all the different options if you go the hosted route. fortunately, the most incredible and awesome Maria at Hypergrid Business has an up-to-date hosting directory

AND . . . if you are techie enough, you may want to put OpenSim on your own box and maybe connect to the OSGrid or even use a good webhost that allows root access so that you can make your own grid that others could use. for ways to install it yourself, you can check out Adam Frisby’s automated grid launcher or the Diva Distribution dealio

that covers some alternatives but how do you extract yourself from Second Life without going nuts?

for me, i found it painful to move from SL to OpenSim. on two fronts. the first was emotionally. i really like Second Life, it works very, very well and i love so many people as dear friends isl (lol, as i write this, i have been trying to log into reaction grid but my viewer has hung five times on the “connecting to region” screen! so don’t expect perfection yet!). secondly, starting new was harder than i thought. i was so used to being able to just focus on making buildings, roads, landscaping, and terraforming, and then being able to buy furniture, clothes, plants, trees, cars, and helicopters (i miss my helicopters like mad) =(

Total Avatar Shop

the first month in OpenSim was painful for me. because it looks and acts a lot like second life, i thought it must be very close to second life. but it is still in beta and there are weird little quirks. like your feet bend funny and physics is kind of dumpy (for example, Dream Walker scripted a bot for me that drops nuts, bolts, tires, and beer cans when it gets scared, but in OpenSim, those things kinda fall slowly and into the ground!)

i then realized that i had to pretty much make anything i needed – like trees, furniture, hair, and clothes. i never made that stuff so it was a learning experience. i had been using a bought skin isl, so i had to make my own for OpenSim. fortunately, i found some awesome photoshop creative commons skins that i could modify and i learned something new. but now there are more and more shopping options as creative people leave second life and set up in OpenSim

Tasteless Designs

Sunnygirl has a shop on our sims plus she has an online store, Total Avatar Shop, where you can buy clothes, furniture, shoes, and more for Reaction Grid. Dream Walker has also started a store online called Tasteless Designs, and if i ever get my act together, i have some free office furniture. Maria lists shopping destinations on Hyperica and the website rexxed is another online shop you can check out (that’s where i got my nifty free skins) =)

more options are coming all the time (the creative entrepreneurs from sl see the potential) =)

okay, enough rambling! on to getting out of second life!

you will need a Second Life compliant viewer that supports exporting. the imprudence viewer works very well

you can only export things that are yours or that have full permissions. for little things, you can put them in a box and import the box – make sure to label your boxes. unless i did something wrong, the scripts in objects won’t come over. i went into things like doors and radar balls and copied the scripts into notepad and named them accordingly – yes, it was a pain, but now i have a library of scripts on my machine, which has come in handy)

once you have packed your boxes and your builds, right click and select export in the pie menu (more > more > export)

i saved all my exports to a folder and you will see an xml file with the whatever name you gave your object while exporting and the textures for that object labelled with their UUID (like ffb4220f-ee56-4f00-ddcd-ef2a2b4d3e45) o_O

when you get to your OpenSim destination after fleeing safely from second life,  go to the top menu and file > import + upload to import the object. depending on how many prims your object is, it could take a few seconds to 30 seconds for it all to rez in-world. and don’t do like i first did – i was just doing import object and not uploading its textures! derrr!  =p

the only big drag i found in doing this was that all my textures are just UUID numbers in my inventory =(

if you own sims in second life, be sure to download your RAW terrain files (world > region/estate > terrain > download RAW terrain). it takes a few minutes to both download and then upload terrain files

that’s another quirky thing in OpenSim, the land tools are not as good as isl. smooth is a bit diff and it generally takes me a little longer to terraform (what took 10 minutes isl might take me 15 in Reaction Grid). terraforming across sim borders can be a pretty frustrating thing. in Second Life that works very well, but from my experience in Reaction Grid, sim borders take a lot of time to eventually get right (if ever)

OpenSim is very “pioneer like” and if you are into shopping and clubbing, then it may not be right for you yet

although do take the time to make an account on OSGrid and check out the places listed in Hyperica. what do you have to lose?

set UI size to 1.40 to make menus look big under preferences > general

                          

actually, i am not sure about our time in reaction grid, subQuark started in it before i did while i was dealing with closing the iliveisl estate in february

but . . . it’s been at least 6 months and here is the best way of summing up my thoughts about Reaction Grid and OpenSim

i have only logged into second life for an hour since the end of february and not at all in the last 6-8 weeks

wow! what a change for Ener Hax!!!

from having 19 sims, posting over 7000 second life flickr pics, and this blog that used to only talk about second life to not renewing my yearly sl membership which is up on june 28th

reaction grid has been a satisfying alternative for me. at first it was tough, i was so used to being in second life 20-30 hours a week and i fully expected opensim to run just like sl. because it looks identical, it’s hard to keep in mind that it is open source code worked on by volunteers. there are not 300 paid employees, company owned hardware, or even an office for OpenSim

but i adapted and now don’t miss much from sl. i do miss being able to find just about anything i can imagine. i miss all the furniture i had in the Eville Atomic Lounge as well as the uber cool dance floor in the Haxor Lunar Lounge (btw, fab foam party irl at the pearl nightclub this past friday nite!! a real life foam party that was uber fun, except if you happen to lose a labret! w00t!)

hint: maybe my bestest friend and ultra smart scripter can make a fun dance floor like that for Enclave Harbour!  weeeee =D

another thing that helps for making reaction grid great is that i don’t worry about the money side (it’s good to have a sugar daddy).  but that’s not all – i actually really like the PG nature of it and that little kids get to explore things. maybe cuz i feel like i am 14 (pffft, try 9!) when i am in virtual worlds. it’s fun to build things knowing that school kids might see them (hint – come check out the Enaxia art gallery)

so Reaction Grid after six months has been wonderful, the RG Team cares about their customers, the grid is very stable, it’s neat being a little bit of a pioneer and being part of the OpenSim growth

Therese Brown's pinhole photography exhibit

                          

holy cow! i had to read it a few times, but over on the Reaction Grid blog (it’s a bit buried –> reactiongrid.com > about > reactiongrid blog) they have a post up about the new OpenSim build which is to be deployed in the next month

and that post mentions a new thing that is really exciting – inventory archive files!!! in OpenSim, you can already do full sim backups called OAR files which will backup your sim, the terrain, and everything on it into a file you can safely keep. our 16 sims take about 100 MB and that delivers a lot of peace of mind to yours truly. now Reaction Grid also does backups of everyone’s sims, but it is nice to make your own (plus they have a super easy online tool that makes backups with a single click) =)

so that is, in itself, a pretty cool thing that you don’t have in Second Life . . .

but an inventory backup???  wow! so no need to buy Second Inventory, you will simply be able to make a back up of your inventory folders and save them to your hard drive! how awesome is that? =)

read more about IAR files at OpenSim with this link

this is HUGE! so now let’s say we (subQuark and i) decide to build an identical copy of Enclave Harbour on our own box (lol, that would be subbie’s cuz i tried to install Diva Distro and Adam Frisby’s one click sim dealio and all i got was zip, not even any fail errors, so yours truly for sure won’t be deploying OpenSim) =p all we would need to do is load the sim backup files and presto – instant Enclave Harbour and then for our avatars just upload the inventory and instant clone! lol, two Eners are better than one! =D

*buys stock in aspirin companies and gonna make a killing once the army of cloned Eners goes out into virtual worlds*

anyway, this is a game changer and such a positive step! thanks OpenSim developers and thanks Chris for adding this to us  =)

eville Ener clones - unseen exploit of inventory backups

                          

if you are in Reaction Grid and have your own sim, you may run into what happens to me often – inventory loading very slowly (or not at all). over the last month it seems that my inventory only loads like 147 items and then stops, that can also include my hair and parasol (don’t mess with my parasol!)  =)

i used to just open my inventory and then open all the folders to force everything to load but lately that does not seem to work (it will actually crash me – but this is not such a big deal to me, this is alpha software after all)

now i do have beaucoup textures and i am sure that is part of it but here is a trick i have been using that seems to work. rather than fight it, i simply log onto RG’s Core1 sim by typing that as my start location. once there, i open all my folders and stuff loads in seconds. i bet they have lots of resources up for that one sim since it’s their welcome sim (i think)

once they are loaded, i close all folders and TP home to go about my merry little way  =)

hope that helps a bit and maybe the new opensim server update will clear this minor annoyance up. have fun in-world!

maybe all my crap crashes me? =p

                          

reaction grid only rolls out the latest build of opensim after it has been out in the community a while and the bugs worked out. and then Chris from reaction grid does her own testing, including putting up a beta grid for users to try. read how to log in here

it’s a great chance for serious scripters like Dream Walker to go see what’s new. i went in and built a spinney thing and it seemed to work fine (like i would know what to look for?) o_O

you can terraform, build, script, and even mess with clothes (they put some in a vendor just in case you can’t cope).  you’re a Ruth and don’t have your inventory but since it’s just for testing, who cares?

it’s kinda fun to be a Ruth imo  =)

spinning, glowing - looks good to go to me?

i guess if you freak or something?

                          

Or is it… “Virtual Dreams and Lucid Worlds” ?

Do you find that being in a Open Sim world like Reaction Grid, or Second Life, to be like a waking dream?

Have you ever dreamed about your avatar?  Have you ever had a lucid dream? Or has a virtual world at least influenced your dream? Some peeps report having dreams of flying more often after being in SL, for example.

Can virtual worlds — or maybe even violent video games — help one cope with nightmares, or even with real life?

Check out this article from GameSpy: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/109/1093219p1.html

or see the original MSNBC source:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37342086/ns/technology_and_science-games/

On the flip side:  Building & scripting in virtual worlds is a way to shape an idea or vision into reality. If you’ve limited yourself to shopping, clubbing, and socializing, you are missing out on the fun of creation… and it might also spill over into your dreams (for better or worse!)

Now, if you find yourself dreaming that you are a blue-haired “furry”  of the alternate sex… I’ll leave that to you to analyze. ;p

                          

second life and opensim worlds are social networks. you can form groups, have friends in a list, IM, chat, talk, share stuff and so on. they are very social networks, almost hyper social. most networks, like facebook, share specific media – photos, videos, wall posts, farmville invites, and offer instant messaging. but do avatars need these? i liked being in facebook and touching base with lots of people. facebook was really good for this blog because people would more readily comment on a blog post in fb (sometimes starting conversations between fb peeps). and that makes sense, you are already logged in and it’s easy to comment

on a blog, you have to enter your name, an email address, and then you can comment. it may not sound like a big deal, but additional steps lead to less participation. that’s one reason fb and twitter do so well.  you can be fairly passive and still participate. in the blogosphere, in order to have a unified identity, you have to get a gravatar account, maybe have a blogger account, and possibly other accounts. then their is OpenID, disqus, or some other options to attach your identity with your comments. frankly, it can be a pain. and i am pretty much registered in every and all accounts out there – even a yahoo and google id thing

but there are too many accounts. if it does not use gravatar, i am often at a loss as to which account shows me when i comment

why does that even matter?

well, most people develop an affinity with their online identification and want to carry that forward in any social online interaction. thus the success of fb. it’s easy, it works, and it offers many ways to share your interests

since i was so rudely smacked down by fartbook, i have turned to twitter. it’s very easy and a great source of the latest news on just about anything 9even Lady Gaga) =D

but what about other networks?

like Avatars United? or any Ning groups that might be scrambling for free alternatives (wordpress with buddypress rocks) ;)

since virtual worlds are networks themselves, maybe just a few like facebook fill in any gaps (like keeping touch when not able to log into a vw)

when virtual worlds do become browser-based will there be a need for the number of choices out there? ($100 linden says opensim will connect before second life does – actually with the Unity browser plugin, you can hit a virtual world)

if you could hit your virtual world via a browser without any business firewalls, would you remain as active in other networks? networking is important to users like you and me, but they are vital to the success of any virtual world. personally, i think a strong central forum (blog) is important to any marketing efforts (inbound marketing is what everyone does now)

Linden Lab has an effective forum that allows for good two way conversations and that is key to most businesses today. i wish opensim had a strong central place, rather than a bunch of yahoos like us with blogs that are simply trying to share what we like about our choice of worlds

i flip for social networking