#realxtend

There's been some talk recently about converting the RealXtend WebTundra client into a Opensim web viewer.  This has many, very attractive attributes that are definitely worth pursuing.  The question remains: What is the critical path to such a conversion?

Continuing along with my earlier post about the need for a new baseline viewer, I felt it would be a good idea to list out some of the key goals (as I see them, feel free to add your own): We need a viewer...

That's easier to use

Tailored to the realities of an open Metaverse

With a license which is compatible with that of Opensim (i.e. not a viral GPL license)

That allows the experience to be taken to other, non-desktop platforms

That allows developers to focus on pushing the boundaries of what's possible, not forcing them to polish existing features

Allows for rapid evolution of what the Metaverse experience can be

That makes developers and users' lives easier

That makes it easier for non-programmers to participate in the development process

Like I mentioned in the earlier post, I think I've found a good fit.  It's a young, actively developed game engine that uses the MIT license.  It's powerful and flexible (capable of running on android and iOS along with the Big Three desktop OS's), and the brainchild of one of the developers of the RealXtend platform*. I'd like to introduce you to Urho3d (Hero for those who aren't up to speed on their Finnish). The page doesn't do a particularly good job selling it's potential, especially to those without a technical background (a tragic commonality among young, promising open source projects). In summary for those who don't want to wade through the details, Urho3d is already incredibly well-featured, with many of the features already present in current viewers.  In addition to those features, Urho3d has some which have been on the wish-list of many Opensim users for some time, including AngelScript and client-side physics (courtesy of the Bullet physics engine, includes ragdoll!).

I've taken the liberty of making some screenshots of the very simple demo scenes included with the engine to give you a flavor of it's capabilities, even at this early state.

So after posting a question to the RealXtend Google Groups forum about OpenSim and Naali because Tundra just really isn't yet up to doing what I need, I get this response: http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend/browse_thread/thread/61cc550442bea0a8

Here's a snippet that pretty much covers the post.

The bottom line is that for the purposes that the realXtend companies wanted to develop realXtend technologies towards, OpenSim/Second Life, and therefore Naali and Taiga were deemed inadequate. The way that system was architected, it became clear that OS/SL is not the platform that solves the challenges realXtend developers are facing.

Currently, every developer inside realXtend has migrated to the Tundra platform, which is a ground-up development that does not share any legacy or history with OpenSim or Second Life. It it a completely separate platform for different purposes, and should not be compared 1:1 against SL/OS.

Tundra is not an application intended directly to be consumed by end-users, but it is a development platform for content creators.

Please visit the above link for full update details of RealXtend.

Here's a screen shot of OpenSim through a regular Second Life third party client.

Compared to the previous post with the RealXtend Naali client, it's pretty darn good.

I wonder if the people at RealXtend gave up on Naali, or figured it was good enough? Perhaps there's some sort of switch I need to flip on the OpenSim server?

Playing around with RealXtend's Naali OpenSim viewer a bit. Was easy to connect to the server with the client. Not everything renders, but mostly everything has. Doesn't seem to support sculpted objects, not an issue since it seems that it supports Mesh. Avatar is basic, though working with the Evolver.com site to see if I can create a new avatar for myself. Hopefully the rendering issue can be resolved, and hopefully it won't be like getting teeth pulled.