[Opensim-users] Hoping for a fearless comparison of opensim vs unity 3D

Sun Jul 20 13:44:13 UTC 2014

Hi Ramesh,

Both of those examples can be done in Unity. Is it worth spending the time and money to convert them to Unity? Maybe not. It just depends on whether your students can accomplish what they need to accomplish on the platform you've chosen.

I spent several years trying to run 200 medical students through simulations in SL. It took so much time just managing their problems and helping them deal with the complexity of the SL UI that I gave up and switched to Unity. I now just give them a web link and off they go. I can embed that link into eLearning Modules and create an incredibly portable and easily manageable experience. I can deliver that via the web or as an app.

Collaboratively creating new things (that didn't exist in world) is pretty difficult in Unity. Collaboratively manipulating things that already exist is much easier, and the basis of almost every multiplayer Unity game. You work with or against your collaborator to whack the head off of some villain or uncover the secrets of the story.

My only point was that most of what I saw in SL with regards to education did not require the user (student) to create things that did not exist previously. Rather it involved interacting with interpretations of classic stories, traveling through recreations of existing structures, etc. Those educational sims that required student to work together to create things related to the lesson being taught, truly leveraged the power of SL. Those that didn't might be good candidates for Unity, if the developer has the time, talent, and resources to create the experience. 

Indeed, that is where it gets difficult because there is no question that it requires much greater skill to create in Unity. If we are honest with ourselves, most of what exists in SL was created by amateurs (like me). We learned how to build and script but most had little if any actual formal training in 3-D design, sophisticated programming, or game theory. Switching to Unity almost forces one to employ (or become) a professional designer or programmer. In my opinion (and it is just that - an opinion), it will become increasingly difficult to justify to granting agencies the continued use of platforms such as SL or OpenSim because they are not viewed as professional gaming platforms, and with few exceptions reviewers consider the use of avatars in virtual spaces as "games". 

Doug

> On Jul 19, 2014, at 11:03 PM, Dr Ramesh Ramloll <r.ramloll at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I thought, just to clarify the 'malleability' of linksets I mentioned to point to two examples, because I do realize it might be confusing. So clarify, when I mention 'tailorability of objects', I mean tailorability of linksets. Here are two examples, 
> example 1 : http://youtu.be/Hm-VhY_Fi24?list=UUhVKXSwoxC524IGHl-F1wPw
> There is a house and objects in it. You will find that I open the fridge, remove a cake and place it on a plate, and then proceed to feed an NPC with the cake. The house and the contents in it, sofa beds, food ..etc... all are linked into one object. That is why I can rez it as one object from the RezMela library.
> example 2: http://youtu.be/9ZYHvJiVzp4?list=UUhVKXSwoxC524IGHl-F1wPw
> This is a ludo like board game, here again, everything is linked ... 
> Sorry for any confusion.
> R
> 
> 
>> On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 9:14 PM, Dr Ramesh Ramloll <r.ramloll at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Doug,
>> It also depends on what we mean by malleability of objects, for basic applications such a game board, where the whole object is complex of linked object.... the parts are not changed in itself e.g. game pieces or cards, but the whole is.  Another example I have is an application that generate shapes of molecules, or that students can assemble on their own, and even have a whole chemical reaction play out infront of them ... again there is one object,will linked subparts e.g. atoms, bonds, and so forth ... from this perspective, before we have any really meaningful discussion, we must first establish the boundary between objects, in my case, this boundary is between scripted linksets. With this background, I have yet to find one application that does not benefit from the ability to change each linkset state. Just my two cents.
>> Ramesh
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 8:28 PM, DrDoug Pennell <drdoug.pennell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I am with Tom on this one. For many educational uses, adapting and changing objects is not needed. Of course there are educational uses where adapting and changing objects is critical, however many (most?) educational sims I visited in SL did not rely on students working together to create things, and there are plenty of uses where it is simply not needed. Simulations are a perfect example and an area where Unity excels over SL or OpenSim. I built some fairly involved simulations in SL and have since essentially abandoned the platform and switched to Unity. 
>>> 
>>> As has been said many times, SL/OpenSim is great for collaborative content creation. If you are doing that then sticking with SL/OpenSim makes perfect sense. If you don't need your students to work together and make widgets on the fly, then Unity might be a better choice. 
>>> 
>>> It is all about using the right tool for the job.
>>> 
>>> Doug Danforth
>>> 
>>>> On Jul 19, 2014, at 1:02 PM, Dr Ramesh Ramloll <r.ramloll at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 12:45 PM, Tom <tom.willans at bessacarr.com> wrote:
>>>>> For many educational uses adapting and changing objects is not needed.
>>>> 
>>>> I respectfully beg to differ. This is the core of the my research efforts. A learning environment needs to provide user level tailorability from the core. The fact that it is not available does not mean that it is not needed. I cannot count how many times, subject matter experts felt that their teaching is being canned by the environment, or that students find their expression (through actions) limited. This is the result of extensive evaluation on the ground, both from an ethnographic evaluation perspective and for a user level evaluation perspective. I hope to publish these findings soon (well after I get some time away from writing grant proposals or doing actual building work)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> 'Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin.'
>>>> Rameshsharma Ramloll PhD, CEO CTO DeepSemaphore LLC, Affiliate Research Associate Professor, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209 Tel: 208-240-0040
>>>> LinkedIn, DeepSemaphore LLC, RezMela, Google+ profile
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> 'Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin.'
>> Rameshsharma Ramloll PhD, CEO CTO DeepSemaphore LLC, Affiliate Research Associate Professor, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209 Tel: 208-240-0040
>> LinkedIn, DeepSemaphore LLC, RezMela, Google+ profile
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 'Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin.'
> Rameshsharma Ramloll PhD, CEO CTO DeepSemaphore LLC, Affiliate Research Associate Professor, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209 Tel: 208-240-0040
> LinkedIn, DeepSemaphore LLC, RezMela, Google+ profile
> _______________________________________________
> Opensim-users mailing list
> Opensim-users at opensimulator.org
> http://opensimulator.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opensim-users
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