We hope to see you there!

First of all we need to examine what tools we can use. There’s of course audio, video and inworld media.

The use of audio.
Of course we can use voice chat in Second Life. It’s an easy way for a roundtable meeting or informal discussion. For a bit larger group it’s not really suited because there’s delay, people talking while the speakers holding its speech and so on.

Secondly we can use an audio stream, a dedicated channel which streams audio from a source input. In the follow up posting we’ll examine more closely how to use an audio stream with a microphone and programs like Skype and a number of music programs.

The use of video.
Currently in Second Life we’re able to stream a certain number of types videos. Aside from actual video, the system also is able to show basic (non-interactive) web pages and Flash videos. The most common types of video used in Second Life today are .mpg (MPEG), .mov(QuickTime) and .mp4 (most known from YouTube). Familiar ‘Microsoft’ video types like .wmv and .avi are unfortunately not supported.

The use of inworld media.
What we basically mean by this is using images (or bits of audio) you uploaded to your inventory to create a slide show.

Most presentations will likely have a mixture of the above types of media so how do you build an easy to use but yet flexible system? Well I’ve tried to come up with an approach specifically with guest speakers in mind who are usually tech skilled but lack a bit SL experience.
The basic requirements that I’ve come up with are:

• A desktop program to use to prepare and control the presentation.
  Easy upload images, control local media stream (webcam/screencast).
• Easy to use inworld HUD to control the live presentation inworld.
  GUI for all functionality so speakers can focus on the topic.
• Ability to switch between different media types and show multiple simultaneously.
  Allowing for easy mixture of video, screencast and slides.
• Workable in Second Life and OpenSim and on group land or self owned.

To achieve this, our presentation system will consist of 5 items:
First a land adaptor is needed. The land adaptor is nothing but a command relay device to switch the video and audio streams on group land without the need of the person controlling the presentation system to be part of the land owner group. The land adaptor can be hidden anywhere and just has to be ‘there’.

Secondly we’ll build a ‘speaker pod’. This can be a podium, a chair, a console, whatever is suitable for the environment. This device will contain some basic notecards as to who is authorized to use the system, and it will contain some notecard data regarding streams and slides.

The third device is the HUD. The HUD is an GUI for the speaker to wear so he can easily control what happens next. For instance he can switch from video stream 1 to video stream 2 or forward to the next slide or invoke a laser pointer.

Of course we’re going to need something to present on, call it a black board, TV screen or whatever you like. On this screen the presentation will be conducted. This screen will be fully controllable through the HUD so a speaker can opt for a 16*9 regular size screen, a 48*27 big screen or two separate screens so (s)he can simultaneously show live video on one and for instance a slide on the other.

Last but definitely not least, we’ll be using a desktop application. Why a desktop application? Well frankly uploading textures, organizing them in inventory and writing notecards can be troublesome to novice SL users. So we are going to code a program that will do this automatically for us. Along the way we might add some little extra features to it, but for starters we’ll just focus on getting a presentation ready.

On the next post we’ll start with the simple stuff and get our land adaptor, speaker pod, screens and HUD ready before diving into the coding. In the meantime feel free to come up with suggestions or idea’s…

First of all we’ll announce some new contributors shortly to keep you up-to-date on current virtual affairs. Secondly we’ve added a new section on the blog called ‘ the Current state of Virtualworlds‘. In this category we’ll keep static pages (so yes you have up-to-date bookmarks) with aggregated information from the web. Why? cause it will probably save you some googling trying to find out, what’s the latest with 3D exports or exciting new feature implementations like Hypergrid.

Thirdly while we had planned on already releasing our business and interfacing focused OpenSim grid, we decided to postpone it’s release until we’ve tackled some issues and have completed our CMS – VW integration.

We’ll keep you (more frequently) updated!

Watch the video here

Think again Ok, first off I opened the manual, 9 pages…eek. Ok, simple approach same distance, same lens, just rotatie 15 degrees. Sure, doesn’t sound to complicated in a digital environment no? Anyway earlier this week I say Torley’s PhotoSynth and things started to seem a whole lot more complicated.

So after two hours fiddling around in Second Life®, by trying to create a PhotoSynth camera device, I gave up. Wouldn’t happen cause as far as I could tell there wasn’t a way to rotate the camera in an easy fashion. So blonde that I am I came up with a qad (quick and dirty) solution. I just build a chair, linked it to a button on my hud which made it rotate 15 degrees everytime and snapped away.

So monday evening I had a little over 90 pictures and finally had time to look at them and sort them out… blonde as I am… I noticed the back of my head in all of them… Yippie.

Anyway, started reshooting today, have about 45 shots already and hopefully will be able to show the end result this weekend.

J.

So what’s so special about blogging about something that’s ‘old news’ ? Well if you’re anything like me, you can’t keep up with everything, so this might have slipped you as well… real shadows in Second Life®.

They’re not prim based, they’re not some trick… it’s possible!

Pretty neat right? So for me, personally, I’d say add this to the mainviewer along with real water and stop progressing the graphical features for a while. They’re good, pretty damn good!

So how do you get this yourself?

• Download the experimental viewer here directly from Kirstenlee Cinquetti‘s website.
• Start the client and press CTRL-ALT-D to access the Advanced menu.
• Click on debug settings.
• In the new pop-up type RenderUseFBO and set it to True.
• and then type RenderDeferred and set it to True.
• Set your graphics settings under Edit >> Preferences to Ultra and give it a few seconds.

Good luck and have fun!.

Ok, actually this post will be twofold. This first will be about a club called Deizha. Deizha’s a full virtual club with reallife music behind it. The second one is the Koola, a virtual representation of a reallife club. We’ll take a look at their differences, their strong points and their unique experience while they’re trying to entice their audience.

Lets first take a look at house music inside of SL™, it’s rockin! The 5 biggest clubs (Anjunja, Deizha, Koola, Sleek and Truehouse Cafe) are all competing over the audience and all have a fast amount of followers. While some hop clubs to come to listen to specific DJ’s, others remain true to their favorite places. Ofcourse a Second Life® club isn’t as big as any reallife clubbing experience, the numbers aren’t as big as one would expect in reallife, but considering  SL™ limitations they are impressive.

Deizha beach bar is the unofficial home of HedKandi and Stereo Sushi, two world known names for house music lovers. They offer a virtual beach bar experience with a gorgeous pool, lounge area’s and an open spaced environment.

The club’s been build by two of its owners, Devee Voom and Jolinja Mills. He being the man with the plan and she added her unique fine taste to bring us a truly beautiful experience. Deizha’s biggest strongpoints how ever are saturdays and sundays when their two (rl) master DJ’s perform live on what’s called ‘Deck-a-licious’ saturdays with Devee spinning HedKandi flavored tracks and ‘Stereo-sushi Sundaze’ with Serdan Mendes.

There probably isn’t a more versatile and popular DJ couple in SL then these two. While Devee has no trouble putting his 15years of vinyl spinning at work to bring the audience sometimes soulfull and sometimes elektro sets, Serdan combines his latin love with vocal house and his deep sexy voice to get the crowd going.

So what makes this club so special? They’ve realized the most important thing… House music is a feeling. Nothing compares to a real night out clubbing, but sometimes the good vibes, friendly and enthused people and the comfort and privacy of home just can’t be beaten. And if you ever get to experience one of their special parties, like stereo sushi’s pre-launch party a week ago, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the Koola klub and try to go in a little deeper into their virtual experiences.

Let’s go over the basic necessities:
• Gridnaut membership.
• LindenLab’s OpenGrid Viewer.
• The latest OGP patched Installation.

Gridnaut membership.
First join the Mailing list. This will automatically invite you to the inworld Gridnaut group. Remember to join this group on both the maingrid and the betagrid. To visit the betagrid just launch your SL™ viewer and on the login screen hit ctrl+shift+g and select ‘Aditi’ from the pulldown menu.

OpenGrid Viewer.
So after having joined the elite gridnaut’s group it’s time to do some grid hopping. Before we install our own local installation, take 5 minutes to test if the OpenGrid Viewer is working and we can teleport towards someone else’s region. Why? Simple, if this step works then anything which can go wrong hereafter is your own fault

Start the OpenGrid Viewer, you’ll notice a region pulldown menu on the right side. Type the following grid address there http://sim1.vaak.lindenlab.com:13000 and if everything goes as planned you’ll have successfully logged in to TinaTina’s Flowerland (yes I know…).

Click on the ‘World’ pulldown menu at the top of the screen and notice the new option called ‘Teleport Region’. Click it to open a new pop up which asks you for a sim to teleport to.
Type in this address: http://ascent.bluewallgroup.com:9300 to teleport towards the BlueWallGroup’s OpenSim region.
(We’ll be installing our own Sim on a new and separate server saturday, once that’s up and running we’ll post the uri for 24/7 access).

If for whatever reason you’re not ruthed but still covered in a cloud, don’t worry it’s a mere glitch in the system. So you’ve successfully survived your first jump. Wohoo! Now let’s get your region up and running.

OGP Package.
Unzip the downloaded OGP package to a folder you’d like. Run the OpenSim program located in the bin folder and follow it’s questions. Remember to fill in the correct ip addresses for external and internal use, and to configure portforwarding in your router.

Ok after the initial questions and a load of messages it’ll stop at the region # prompt. Type shutdown to exit it and open the file OpenSim.ini in a text editor. Below is a sample OpenSim.ini file. Check the 3 lines beginning with >> at the top of the file. These will set the location where to store some data. The bottom 4 lines marked with >> should hold your internal ip-adress, if not please correct them.

[Startup]
gridmode = False
physics = basicphysics
physical_prim = True
see_into_this_sim_from_neighbor = True
serverside_object_permissions = False
storage_plugin = OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll
storage_connection_string = URI=file:OpenSim.db,version=3
storage_prim_inventories = True
startup_console_commands_file =
shutdown_console_commands_file =
script_engine = OpenSim.Region.ScriptEngine.DotNetEngine.dll
asset_database = sqlite
clientstack_plugin = OpenSim.Region.ClientStack.LindenUDP.dll
[StandAlone]
accounts_authenticate = False
welcome_message = Welcome to the Metaversebuilders OGP
inventory_plugin = OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll
>>inventory_source = URI=file:Inventory.db,version=3
userDatabase_plugin = OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll
>>user_source = URI=file:User.db,version=3
asset_plugin = OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll
>>asset_source = URI=file:Asset.db,version=3
dump_assets_to_file = False
[Network]
default_location_x = 9472
default_location_y = 9472
http_listener_port = 9000
remoting_listener_port = 8895
>>grid_server_url = http://192.168.0.3:8001
grid_send_key = null
grid_recv_key = null
>>user_server_url = http://192.168.0.3:8002
user_send_key = null
user_recv_key = null
>>asset_server_url = http://192.168.0.3:8003
>>inventory_server_url = http://192.168.0.3:8004
secure_inventory_server = true
[RemoteAdmin]
enabled = false
[Voice]
enabled = false

Save and Exit and start your server again by typing OpenSim at the command prompt. That’s it
Start the Open Grid Viewer to jump to a region inworld and type the external url followed by the port name.

Best of Luck!.

First of all, it is a major step forward. LindenLab has unlocked the door to it’s grid. It’s not open yet, but the bolts are off. Under the ‘Open Grid Public Beta’ program everyone’s invited to join and help improve this new and exciting developement program.  Is it practical yet? No unfortunately they’re not that far already. At the moment an avatar (called ‘gridnaut’) can teleport from the SecondLife® Preview Grid into a patched standalone OpenSim server.

The biggest thing this program brings us today, is the clear sign that LindenLab is actively reshaping it’s backoffice infrastructure to accomodate to the user demands and become, perhaps one of the most important, virtual service providers. If they succeed to seperate the actual grid from their backbone services and provide these trusted and secure services to independent grid operators they’ve most likely succeeded their ‘media foretold’ demise.

Anyway, let’s get back to business.
First, whatever you do, DON’T try to patch your gridmode OpenSim installation, nor use MS SQL as a dataprovider. These options won’t work (yet) so unless you’re happy to throw away your current grid or spent a few hours trying to get things running again, please don’t do it.

Easiest way to be able to teleport from SL™ into your own OpenSim installation is to download a pre-patched local installation. The current pre-patched installation is from revision 5767 and can be downloaded here. After that you’ll have to join the Gridnauts group in SecondLife®. Easiest way to do that is just follow the steps on the Wiki.

One tiny tip: After having joined the Gridnauts group on the Main Grid, log in on the Preview Grid with the normal viewer to join the gridnauts group there as well.

It works! I’ve managed to TP from SecondLife onto the empty OGP patched OpenSim. This weekend we’ll be transfering our grid and will have a seperate OGP installation next to it.

So for now you’re on your own exploring cyberspace…

Habbo Hotel: 50 million members
Neopets: 70 million+ virtual pet owners
Coke Studios: 8+ million registered users
Virtual Magic Kingdom: 1+ million registered users
Goonzu: (Korea): 3 million members
Guild Wars: 2 million members
Project Entropia: 400,000 members
Ragnarok Online: 17 million members
Second Life: 290,000 members
World of Warcraft: 5.5 million members

and semi-Youniverses like
MySpace: 68 million members
MSN Spaces: 30+ million members
Cyworld: 17 million members in Korea (= 33% of population).
Lunarstorm: 1.2+ million members in Sweden (= 10% of population)
Hyves: 1.6 million members in NL (=10% of population);
MSN Messenger: 100+ million users
Yahoo! Messenger: 63+ million users
QQ Messenger: 150+ million users in China
AOL Messenger: 43 million users in the USA

*sighhh* The mainstream media is starting another Virtual Hype.

Don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of Scoble, but a guy who compares WoW with SL™ (isn’t that like we shouldn’t use Outlook no more cause Flash is way more entertaining to look at?) isn’t really the right person to make statement like these is he?

It’s too early to claim they’ve nailed it (they haven’t yet, especially because they haven’t gotten a Mac client out yet) but they get very close to building something really interesting that’ll get a lot of corporate types interested.

Haven’t tried Vivaty yet so can’t judge on it but let’s take a down-to-earth look at Lively then, isn’t it more like an extensive Widget? A ‘closed’ room where we can cartoonishly represent our own Flickr & Youtube stuff in a 3D way ?

(Sorry for the negative tone perhaps, but it just doesn’t get me hyped.  And Yes I know, I am a huge fan of SecondLife® and OpenSim. And it’s not that I’m not open to good alternatives, I just haven’t found them. ).

Now let’s quickly build our 3D rooms and link it to our MySpace and Facebook profiles! Yippiee….

Maybe I’m missing something here, maybe I’ve spent to much time on SecondLife® and OpenSim but what’s the big fuzz all about? First of all I don’t see the ‘must’ for Virtual Environments or experiences to be accessible from the web, I see them replacing the web in the future. Google could become a starting point(library) to search for destinations and directions. Google Maps or Microsoft’s Virtual Earth technology will map out the digital world for us and we’ll have some sort of avatar who will become our digital representative.

A 3D representation of the same stuff we already have in 2D webpages isn’t what I need nor would like to have. I’m not looking for another passive approach, I’d like to experience to engage, be part of something and meet other like minded people.

Sure down the road there will be many competitors, maybe we’ll loose SecondLife® or OpenSim and trade it in for something bigger, better and more engaging.. but please don’t tell me this is the best Google can come up with…

Inside the file LoginService.cs around line 560 you’ll find the code. Initially it checks to see if a file named http_loginform.html exsists. If not, it’ll create a sample page on the fly.

With the newest build, there is already a http_loginform.html.example included. Short in time that I am, I knew from the start I wouldn’t have the time to come up with a new and solid design so I checked out the Second Life® loginscreen, which can be found here.

Browsing through it, I noticed the nifty on-time-changing backgrounds and the rss feed it pulls in, the version checker and advisory…

As I was saying, stressed for time, so for my own Grid I just added a nice background, re-arranged the input fiels and added the LiveID login button (50% working), and the rest is up to someone who’s reading this I guess…
 

So here we go, let’s build some push buttons. First of all we need textures. Beneath are the 4 we used, feel free to use them.

After uploading these we’re ready to build our button.

First create a prim, a cube. Make all textures like the blank texure and then create the script that makes its state change…

string btn_on;
string btn_off;
string current_state;
default
{
  state_entry()
  {
    btn_on = "txtr_button_on";
    btn_off = "txtr_button_off";
  }
  touch_start(integer total_number)
  {
    if (current_state == "on")
    {
      llSetTexture(btn_off, 0);
      current_state = "off";
      llSetPos(llGetPos() + <0, 0, 0.002>);
      llWhisper(0, "switched off.");
    }
    else
    {
      llSetTexture(btn_on, 0);
      current_state = "on";
      llSetPos(llGetPos() + <0, 0, -0.002>);
      llWhisper(0, "switched on.");
    }
  }
  on_rez(integer i)
  {
    llSetTexture(btn_off, 0);
    llResetScript();
    current_state = "off";
  }
}

That’s the basic script to make it work. So let’s drop it in our new button. Add two textures to the prim’s inventory as well. One for the ‘off’ state named txtr_button_off and a second for the ‘on’ state named txtr_button_on.

Inside of the IF THEN statement there’s a llSetPos command purely added for cosmetic features. It will make the button appear pushed down in ‘on’ state.

There, a real quickie… have fun with them.

How do we handle 3D virtual environments inside a 2D representation ?

It still doesn’t make sense does it? Well let me give you an example. We all use calendars, we have one on our desk, on our phone, there’s one in Outlook and we all universally understand how to use them. They are basically a table layout with colums and rows representing the days of the week and the day numbers. So what happens if we added depth to the rows and columns ? Would would be a natural 3D way of using a 2D object ?

Maybe a barchart will make things more clear. We all know them, either vertically or horizontally, yes there is ‘some depth’ in them, but a real 3D barchart could hold much more information no? I mean we don’t print it out and just look at it from one side… we’ll be able to walk around it, see it’s back or walk deeper in the back…

How do we go about that? Who makes the standard for it? Should I blonde that I am, come up with the first 3D calendar representation and be blamed by generations to come?

 Enjoy,

Jim.