[Opensim-dev] thinking about a viewer

Thu Aug 7 14:48:20 UTC 2014

Mister Blue, I would very much prefer a "new" renderer for avatars - if
using the existing one means we are stuck with the SL avatar mesh/model.
Something much more modular and modern that would work with more
"standard". In fact, the renderer, I think, should be modular and pluggable
and designed so when you visit a foreign grid/region/sim you automatically
get a copy of the renderer required to display that grid if you don't
already have it.

On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Frank Nichols <j.frank.nichols at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Mister Blue, I would very much prefer a "new" renderer for avatars - if
> using the existing one means we are stuck with the SL avatar mesh/model.
> Something much more modular and modern that would work with more
> "standard". In fact, the renderer, I think, should be modular and pluggable
> and designed so when you visit a foreign grid/region/sim you automatically
> get a copy of the renderer required to display that grid if you don't
> already have it.
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 10:38 AM, Mister Blue <misterblue at misterblue.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Good stuff.
>>
>> @Gunther: I have toyed with building an OpenSim module that adds an
>> OpenSim region to the HiFi hierarchical object tree. Then I spent a week
>> trying to build the HiFi viewer to conclude that they are creating a new
>> integrated viewer in the same sort of form as the SL viewer. While I like a
>> lot of their grid and object system, I'm not happy with the viewer.
>>
>> @Tochner: RealXtend contains a lot of good work and it is now wrapped
>> into the Fi-Ware European project which will provide it funding and
>> momentum. Like OpenSim, there are companies using RealXtend and, for
>> smaller worlds, it works pretty well.
>>
>> You are right that starting from scratch would be a long road. But, since
>> we are in the open-source world and many necessary parts are available to
>> build on.
>>
>> I've been thinking along the lines of building a browser based renderer
>> using asm.js for performance and borrowing rendering logic from HiFi (they
>> seem to have people who know about rendering arch) and three.js (which has
>> an efficient, generalized renderer) and Radegast. RealXtend has developed a
>> flexible WebSockets transport system (protocol versioning and
>> multi-channels, ...). Add to that a 'space management' system like
>> Sirikata's or the hierarchical tree of HiFi but with a generalization for
>> girds and different authentication systems. I like Macaroons for bearer
>> certificates or passing around permissions. Avatar renderers would come
>> from HiFi and Radegast although I wonder if avatar rendering could be cut
>> out of the LL viewer as a separate LGPL'ed library. The interface to the
>> backend would be cloud-ish -- all REST interfaces that can use all the
>> scaling tech of modern web applications (notifications, CDNs, managed APIs,
>> versioning, ...).
>>
>> An eventual research project would be the storage and manipulation of
>> objects in spaces. I wonder if only 'digested' objects can be sent to
>> viewers? 'Digested' in the sense that they have been combined, formatted,
>> enhanced for viewing (added light maps or occlusion maps) or merged to
>> build views of that city in the distance. If intermediate processors
>> (between the client and the object stores) can make 'views' for the client,
>> what would they do? What is the 'map/reduce' operation for 3d world
>> objects? Now could procedural rendering fit into this?
>>
>> Anyway, that's a long way of saying that starting from scratch would be
>> hard. Not only in the amount of work but also in building both new
>> developer and user communities. As @Justin pointed out, I am being very
>> optimistic on the amount of work involved.
>>
>> A first step would be a simple viewer that shows promise and connects to
>> existing grids. A baby step.
>>
>> -- mb
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 6:49 AM, Frank Nichols <j.frank.nichols at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> "make it in a way it can better support functionality for handicapt
>>> people."
>>>
>>> Absolutely - this will go a long way towards gaining acceptance!
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 7:16 AM, R.Gunther <rigun at rigutech.nl> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Afree with this, i think its just a bit to early for a viewer.
>>>> Its better if possible to adjust opensim to make it High Fidelity
>>>> compatible.
>>>> And als use there viewer, or write one thats based on high fidelity
>>>> code.
>>>> If you now write a viewer for opensim you possible have to many
>>>> bandages needed later to adjust it for High Fidelity.
>>>> High Fidelity can give a few parts that openmsim is now missing.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2014-08-07 09:05, Ilan Tochner wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I highly recommend that we avoid trying to start a viewer project from
>>>>> scratch. Doing so without a dedicated group working full time for an
>>>>> extended period of time will result in the viewer project's failure and the
>>>>> growing irrelevance of the OpenSim project that will pend the availability
>>>>> of this modern viewer.
>>>>>
>>>>> I suggest we either adopt and extend the realXtend project for our
>>>>> needs (with or without its server architecture) or invest our collective
>>>>> R&D resources towards pushing High Fidelity in the direction we want it to
>>>>> evolve to. These liberally-licensed open source projects have already had
>>>>> many developer-years worth of effort invested in them and are actively
>>>>> developed by more people than are currently contributing to the OpenSim
>>>>> codebase. It would be very unwise IMO to spend years reimplementing the
>>>>> type of viewer they already have working.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>
>>>>> Ilan Tochner
>>>>> Co-Founder and CEO
>>>>> Kitely Ltd.
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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