[Opensim-dev] thinking about a viewer

[Adobe]

Really interesting thread ­ thanks for asking.

Thoughts
     - Humans are at the other end of avatars. People like new toys, but
they hate losing old ones. Are the humans the most important factor?  What
are the implications of revolution for their virtual possessions and their
virtual relationships. Even small changes can threaten and alienate us.
- The current architecture is severely limited. It makes development of
games, interactions, end even clean modern web and app-like content
cumbersome and expensive.
- We still know very little about the potential and best applications of
several key aspects of vw¹s.
1. Avatars (You could compare VW architecture to web architecture, but
Œpresence¹ makes the experience entirely different. This is compounded by
the clearly arriving new technologies in presence centric interfaces. ‹
optical an haptic.)
2. Environmental immersion (We have yet to really explore how immersion can
be leveraged to communicate new ideas, to alter our perception of events or
to enhance our relationships with others.)
3. Persistance (manipulation and creation of virtual things that can Œstay¹
where you put them ­ how does that alter our experience?)

But we know a lot about glossy modern ease of use interfaces and marketing
savvy interactive experiences. The absence of these in virtual worlds leaves
me with a sense that vw technologies are forever trapped in the 90¹s.
Should new viewing technologies seek to match the 2d web norm (eg. HTML5)
while providing a database and 3d foundation for the expectations and
demands of the virtual world?

I suspect that HiFidelity¹s plans have some genuine potential in part
because they mirror a web architecture, they crowdsource massive rendering
demands, they handoff the problems of data ownership liability to server
maintainers (always good to pass your most contentious legal problems
downstream. ‹ ;) ) 

That said, the abandonment of many many terabytes of crowd created content
seems likely to limit the pace of adoption by legacy users ­ but the real
prize isn¹t Œus¹ - the old guard, it¹s those who would not consider
themselves likely to use a virtual world.

I¹m reminded of Steven Regelous¹ brilliant core concept for Massive
Software. Steven constructed the core of each simulated intelligence (actor)
from a core that is essentially a particle system.  The object oriented
architecture combined with the natural language like nature of fuzzy logic
to easily yield things that grow naturally more an more complex. The
structure itself made it possible to create and render insanely large
numbers of complex actors in scenes without overloading the simulation.

In many ways it seems related to the architecture underlying Houdini (not
sure if others remember that one.) But it provided potential to create
heuristically motivated and driven 3d animations.

Are innovations in how we get from small scale simulations to insanely large
simulations fundamental requirements if you want to push the technology into
the mainstream?

Great food for thought, thanks again for prompting the thread,

Allen

From:  Aine <aine.caoimhe at rogers.com>
Reply-To:  <opensim-dev at opensimulator.org>
Date:  Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 9:32 AM
To:  <opensim-dev at opensimulator.org>
Subject:  Re: [Opensim-dev] thinking about a viewer

I would be in the revolutionary camp as well.
 
It seems to me that many issues and a whole host of limitations are spawned
directly from trying to remain fully LLLP compliant and I seriously doubt
that many of LL's choices (made ~15 years ago in the initial design phase)
would be repeated if you were sitting down to design a system of this
nature, today, from scratch, using the technologies of 2014 (not to mention
all the things anticipated in the pipeline).
 
In many respects Opensimulator development has boiled down to only two
things: (1) maintaining "currency" with whatever feature additions LL is
offering; and (2) new unique features that can only be achieved if they fall
within the framework of LLLP. I can't begin to enumerate the number of
excellent ideas I've heard that are instantly shot down only because "that
would require a viewer change and we can't do that". Even using existing
architecture, many things could be added if there was a dedicated Opensim
viewer that could take those steps forward hand in hand with the simulator.
 
I would even suggest that if a revolutionary approach were taken, support
for LLLP and existing content ought to placed relatively low on the list of
design goals to avoid hamstringing the whole process -- LL themselves
obviously agree with that sentiment because they've stated that SL2 is
unlikely to be backwards compatible other than perhaps in a very, very
rudimentary way. I'd follow that lead and design something that meets the
needs and even dreams of the people who will be the anticipated user base of
the future; and then if it's possible to somehow bring in existing content,
super.
 
Honestly, I think any product that satisfies the "needs and dreams" goal
will probably make 90% of existing content obsolete anyway...who would want
to use "old crappy stuff" instead of taking advantage of the shiny new toys?
A radical departure and loss of existing content is certainly going to lose
some users who simply can't bear the thought of starting all over again --
or who decide on another alternate platform when forced to make that change
-- but has just as much if not more potential to expand the user base if
done correctly.
 
All of which is lovely; but the question that arises in my mind almost
immediately, regardless of which avenue is taken, is where the necessary
manpower is going to come from? The number of people actively working on
Opensimulator isn't even enough to address the existing bugs or keep up with
the latest LL additions, let alone take on a project of the sort of
magnitude a new/revamped viewer and simulator would require.
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