[Opensim-dev] thinking about a viewer

Wed Aug 6 00:19:02 UTC 2014

In my opinion, revolution can work if you have lots of resources and are in a position to learn from previous efforts. 
High Fidelity is interesting in this regard in that they can learn from both Second Life and us.

However, I think that people vastly underestimate both the sheer amount of man-hours required to create a whole new 
system.  It's not just writing code but also co-ordinating changes with other parties and writing documentation, if one 
ultimately wants to be successful.  The problem is too big for things to be done on the hoof or purely by individuals.

I also think there's also not enough appreciation of the value of having a diverse community using and improving 
existing software.  The novelty of what we're doing (bringing a metaverse into being, not building a game engine) 
requires a huge amount of experimentation, both technical and social.

For these reasons, I don't think revolution is viable unless a funded project paves the way.  I think the only way 
forward in community open-source land is gradual evolution, messy as it is.  I do think there is a lot of scope to 
incrementally improve the OpenSimulator system - it's quite possible (albeit a lot of work) to add different client 
stacks, ways of storing arbitrary data, perhaps an entity-component system for greater flexibility, etc.).  I also think 
there's scope for very interesting experiments in asset organization, such as storing http addresses for textures in 
OARs instead of data and having them pulled from the cloud on demand (and then cached).

Regarding viewers, in the same vein I would love to see someone take the existing LL codebase and not worry about LL 
compatibility, so one could discard the bits that aren't relevant to OpenSimulator and slowly mould it to be more 
modular, etc. whilst still having a project that is useful.  I occasionally think about doing it myself though it's just 
not realistic for me bearing in mind the sheer amount of work that OpenSimulator requires.

On 05/08/14 02:08, Mister Blue wrote:
> I've been seriously thinking about creating a new viewer project. But with Maria's survey[1] and all the different
> virtual world announcements happening and the lively OpenSimulator vs Unity discussion on the opensim-user list, I'd
> like to open up the discussion to the OpenSimulator development community[2].
>
> LL is making a new world and viewer (closed and proprietary as far as I know). HighFidelity is making a new world and
> viewer (open source with commercial 'grid services'). Unity 5 will have a multi-platform web viewer and a new multi-user
> backend (pricing not announced). There are various wonderful open source virtual world projects (realXtend, Virtual
> World Framework, ...) as well as many emerging technologies (xml3d, html5, asm.js). There are several forks of
> OpenSimulator (Aurora, ArribaSim, ...) that have made many enhancements to the base system. Add to that several
> successful virtual worlds build on OpenSimulator (inWorldz, Anvination, Kitely, ...) as well as a few packaged
> distributions of OpenSimulator (Diva, ...). Add to that the many SL/OpenSim third party viewers based on the LL viewer.
> And that's just in our sphere. There is much more happening in the gaming and education and training communities.
>
> So, what could a new viewer add to the mix? Whatever a new view does, it approaches the question of what OpenSimulator
> should be three years from now.
>
> For me, there are two basic choices[3]: evolutionary change or revolutionary change.
>
> Evolutionary change says to build on existing OpenSimulator. Make due with the existing LLLP (Linden Lab Legacy
> Protocol) and improve vehicles, make installation and use easier and add an easier to use and improve viewer.
>
> Revolutionary change would be striking off on a new virtual world architecture. It could have LLLP support but only for
> downward compatibility and to keep that community and content. But other questions arise: How would one build a
> viewer/virtual world where a HiFi avatar could stand next to a SL avatar? How could content be delivered to a viewer so
> it is displayable but is not in the original, copyable form? How to leverage the distribution and power of 'the
> cloud'[4]? How could one make hypergridable grids across the many virtual worlds?
>
> What do you  think? Evolution or revolution?
>
> -- mb
>
> [1] http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2014/08/survey-better-vehicles-search-most-wanted-in-opensim/
> [2] I see this expanding to other forums eventually.
> [3] With a lot of gray area in between
> [4] I'm always amazed by Google Maps -- it displays the map with traffic overlays and I can zoom in and out with almost
> immediate response. Why can't a virtual world viewer do that?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Opensim-dev mailing list
> Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org
> http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>

-- 
Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
OSVW Consulting
http://justincc.org
http://twitter.com/justincc