![]() There is actually software that allows the computer to help with that task. Imagine trying to put new changes from the Lab into your copy of the program. There are 110 ‘cmake’ files, the files that tell the compiler program how to put the viewer together. I estimate there is something like 10 million lines of code. The code takes up 290mb on my hard disk, 17,756 files in 484 folders… actual code I can find to edit takes up 82mb, 7,924 files in 218 folders. While I think there are cheap ways to do that I don’t see third party viewers posting news or acquiring Havok licenses of their own, so there is some problem. Any viewer developer that wants to do otherwise has to license Havok Physics directly from Havok. Any viewer that uses the Havok License and Linden Lab’s distributed code can only be used on the SL Grid. The Havok Licensing for Pathfinding has created a divide in the viewer world. Nor do I see the Lab as having incentive to keep the viewer compatible with other grids. That places the load on OpenSim, Aurora, and other grid hosting systems to handle compatibility issues. ( Reference) On the Lab’s side the process for baking avatars is changing, the HTTP/UDP data flow is changing, Pathfinding was added, the dependence on the proprietary Havok Physics Engine is growing, a materials system is coming…Īs best I can tell the Lab sees little or no incentive to remain compatible with other virtual worlds. OpenSim is moving toward the Bullet Physics Engine, adopting Hypergrid technology, extending the scripting language, and a type ‘sharding’ from Intel that allows a high number of avatars in a single region. The directions of development on the virtual worlds’ server side seem to be diverging. If you are waiting on a specific fix, it seems like it may seem like it is taking for forever. If you are trying to keep up with the changes, it is moving pretty fast. It is hard to understand how fast the Lab is or isn’t moving. What is happening is the fast pace of development by the Lab is continuing. But, it may be as much work as I previously thought, ‘fatiguing’. I still thought it would be work, but my impression of how much work changed to ‘easier’. Henri B, Cool VL Viewer, convinced me earlier this year it was not that hard to keep up. ![]() For some time I have thought that third parties developing SL compatible viewers were going to have a hard time keeping up with the Lab. I think the conversation denotes a problem in the viewer development area. What do you think: Should we continue making a viewer of our own, or would the users be served better if Kokua devs spread out to other viewers and help them improve their OpenSimulator compatibility, like Armin did?” Boroondas Gupte asked, “ Existential question time. Basically, release of a production viewer carries so many additional managements tasks required by Linden Lab that developers find it easier to skip production releases.Īt a recent meeting for the Kokua Team the problem of moving the Kokua Viewer forward was being discussed. See: Kokua is still beta - why? for the full story. In mid October NickyP explained why the viewer was staying in Beta. I still have hopes for it and OpenSim, but may be that is not to be. OpenSim was to be another beneficiary of the Kokua viewer. The latest example of Aurora-Sim I could find is from April 2011. Last time I looked at Aurora was in June 2011 and it was version 0.3.0. Links from there lead to the github repository, which is active. I got the impression there was a goal to develop viewer and server dependent features more quickly and lower the wall between the viewer and server.īut, Aurora-Sim is not something I hear much about. ![]() I had hoped to see Aurora and Kokua offer some competition to Second Life™ by providing combined viewer and server features creators could use. Kokua was to be the primary OpenSim viewer. But, I think it is so far behind it is no longer usable. ![]() There is a small effort to update Imprudence. I still have it installed… I’m not sure why. Then it fell so far behind I stopped using it. Soon it slipped to being my choice just for OpenSim. Imprudence Viewer was for some time my favorite viewer for both SL and OpenSim. I don’t keep up with Kokua and Imprudence as much as I might and certainly not as much as I used to.
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