[Opensim-users] objects undergoing continuous change

[Diva Canto]

I have written a region module that does traffic simulation. Here's a 
video produced by my students:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kJNDcurLP1w

That was back in late August; the opensim API has changed considerably 
since then and I haven't had time to update my module yet. I didn't use 
physics; it was all done with periodic updates to the objects' state, 
just like in traditional simulation. It works pretty well, only starting 
to break when there are more than 2 avatars in scene; the breakage is 
because we have the server behind a home DSL, so packets start getting lost.

In general, for doing tradional simulations forget about using inworld 
scripting. Even if the scripting engine was already working well, which 
is not, that introduces a lot of unnecessary overhead. Moreover, it also 
imposes a programming model that is an obstacle to simulations (for 
example, not being able to hold references to objects and having to 
interact with them via llSay functions). The opensim API, on the other 
hand, is a joy to work with (how many times have I said this? :-)

Diva / Crista

Paul Fishwick wrote:
> Justin Clark-Casey wrote:
>   
>> Yes, things are stored in memory with a regular flush to database that occurs every 15 seconds.  However, I suspect that 
>> objects with the physics attribute are not currently persisted (from a recent thread on opensim-dev).
>>
>>   
>>     
>
> I am curious as to whether it could become possible (in a standalone 
> server or
> in a grid with only one person) to do continuous visual updates for moving
> objects (physical or otherwise). I have tried a few experiments, such as a
> continuously moving block using LSL (setpos) and after a few seconds, the
> behavior becomes erratic (for example, the box shoots off somewhere or
> disappears entirely from the region).
>
> I realize that having fast moving visual objects does not lend itself 
> well to sharing
> state, but there are some instances where one wishes to simply launch a 
> region
> or grid and do more traditional simulation (as one might do in OpenGL) 
> whether
> or not the object states are shared, or on the frequency of sharing. It 
> would be nice
> to have this "standalone continuous object motion" as a switch-based or
> deltatime-specified capability.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -p
>
>   
>>>  * Would it (or is it) useful to have some scripts run on the client 
>>> rather than the
>>>     server for less server loading? For example, could ODE run on the 
>>> client
>>>     
>>>       
>> I think that some minor stuff is done client side already (such as flexiprims).  However, I suspect one runs into 
>> difficulties when objects can affect each other, since you would have to start communicating all this information back 
>> to the server and somehow synchronizing it with changes from other clients.
>>
>> However, I am not an expert in this area.
>>
>>   
>>     
>
>
>   

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