[Opensim-dev] Reducing the plugin mechanisms

[Diva Canto]

Yes, that dragon needs to be slayed. See note #1 on my "Future of 
OpenSimulator" message.It would be nice to actually see the concrete 
struggles of those other clients, though.

On 8/16/2015 9:14 PM, Dahlia Trimble wrote:
> Awww you had me excited for a moment there....
>
> Regardless, it would be helpful to be able to create presences via 
> region modules and have them be full-fledged presences from the 
> perspective of grid services. This is currently a big stumbling block 
> for implementing client protocols in region modules. There are also LL 
> client dependencies which also make it difficult, or even impossible 
> to create a fully capable grid managed presence in another IClientAPI 
> implementation beside llClientView, so something eventually needs to 
> happen here if anyone wants to get really serious about OpenSimulator 
> supporting other protocol implementations besides the LL protocols. 
> Without such, web-based and other clients are doomed to be second 
> class citizens unless they use a proxy which translates to LL protocols.
>
> On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Diva Canto <diva at metaverseink.com 
> <mailto:diva at metaverseink.com>> wrote:
>
>     I'm not suggesting getting rid of IClientAPI...
>     I mean I *wish* we would get rid of it, but that's not what I'm
>     proposing here. I'm just proposing replacing the ad-hoc reflective
>     instantiation of IClientNetworkServer that ClientStackManager is
>     currently doing with a more in-style Region Module.
>
>
>     On 8/16/2015 6:55 PM, Dahlia Trimble wrote:
>>     I like this idea. I have done some physics via the region module
>>     interface and had pretty good luck. I've also done client
>>     protocol implementations in region modules and I can say that the
>>     available interfaces are incomplete for the purposes of the
>>     entire LL protocol suite. I use EventManager for tracking scene
>>     changes and this seems to work ok for the most part but I don't
>>     believe events exist for all events a normal viewer would care
>>     about. There is also the issue of managing presences, teleports
>>     and region border crossings. I've done some workarounds here but
>>     it's not pretty. I suspect a lot of changes to related framework
>>     code would need to be done to be successful. I'm also not sure if
>>     EventManager events are as efficient and CPU friendly as the
>>     direct calls which go thru IClientAPI but I can't say I've seen
>>     anything to suggest (yet) that this could be a problem. There are
>>     also some efficiency hacks in llClientView and related code (lazy
>>     packet initialization for one) which might not easily translate
>>     to a region module.
>>
>>     Regardless, it sounds like a good experiment to try :)
>>
>>     On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 6:44 PM, Diva Canto
>>     <diva at metaverseink.com <mailto:diva at metaverseink.com>> wrote:
>>
>>         We had this conversation today in the IRC about the several
>>         plugin mechanisms currently being used by assorted parts of
>>         OpenSim. A couple of years ago, we made a big push towards
>>         the [new] Region Modules mechanism, and that placed about 95%
>>         of simulator plugins in that bandwagon. However, a couple of
>>         them are still using their own raw "pluginning," and that
>>         makes them hard to (1) explain and (2) distribute as 3rd
>>         party packages. They were left behind.
>>
>>         One of them is Physics, the other is the client
>>         implementations. I would like to propose that we move these
>>         last 2 renegades to the Region Module plugin mechanism, so to
>>         reduce entropy and to make them easier to package. From our
>>         conversation, moving the Physics plugins to region modules is
>>         peaceful. I haven't looked at the client dll yet, but I've
>>         been told that people experimenting with other client
>>         protocols are using region modules anyway.
>>
>>         This affects the MOSES group developing the PhysX plugin, but
>>         it should be straightforward to adjust and it has advantages.
>>         Once we move the existing physics plugins to this new
>>         mechanism, you should be able to do exactly the same to yours
>>         -- the changes aren't that big, and it doesn't affect the
>>         Physics interface at all; it's just the way of connecting the
>>         physics implementation to the interface. Plus it will make it
>>         somewhat easier for you to make your physics plugin available
>>         for external testers at intermediate (early) times, if you want.
>>
>>         Any objections?
>>
>>         _______________________________________________
>>         Opensim-dev mailing list
>>         Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org
>>         <mailto:Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org>
>>         http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Opensim-dev mailing list
>>     Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org <mailto:Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org>
>>     http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Opensim-dev mailing list
>     Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org <mailto:Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org>
>     http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Opensim-dev mailing list
> Opensim-dev at opensimulator.org
> http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://opensimulator.org/pipermail/opensim-dev/attachments/20150816/088d10e3/attachment-0001.html>