Re: [realXtend] Re: RealXtend exporter for blender
On ti, 2010-07-06 at 08:33 +0200, Peter Steinlechner wrote: Now I am completly confused. What is the difference between Taiga Server and opensim + modrex ? Either its to early in the morning or I just must have a massive misunderstanding. Based on a quick reading of what Tara was writing below, the distinction here seems to refer to authentication. Taiga is opensim + modrex + cable beach, and CB brings web techs for auth inventory, openid + webdav, which are not connected to any SL like grid but work anywhere on the web. I.e. with vanilla Opensim you have to make a new account, with Taiga you don't. BTW CB is nowadays merged with the VWRAP effort which is otherwise worked on mostly by Linden folks, and Opensim itself has also adopted webdav inventory too, so can well be that vwrap opensim / simiangrid taiga are essentially the same things soon. Or I don't know but we'll see. Of course anyone can still configure their servers to be closed, e.g. accept only accounts created for that game / service , or allow anon access like websites usually, or whatever. I think many of the debates that seem like big political decisions around these things are technically simple configuration setups that don't affect the programming work much. ~Toni On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:43 AM, Tara Desoto tarades...@gmail.com wrote: Hello I was simply giving my opinion to the designer of this project . I fully realise that my point of view is going to be different than yours , simply because of the differences between my project and yours ( if you even have a Rex project ) .. I attempted to present a collaborative viewpoint to the situation . Since the designers' project is about the Integration of Blender and Realxtend , the scope of this discussion is wider than simple asset pipelining ... In brief , I approached this topic from the aspect of community building and collaborative integration , rather than solitary asset pipelining. I am not saying that my points of view are any more possible or probable than the next , given the scope of the mission . I simply presented this to the designer in a cordial manner . IF he thinks that all my ideas are dumb or if he thinks that some of them are good , then so be it , I am happy that he gave me the chance to express those ideas and expect nothing more . An asset creation pipeline is essential for Realxtend , there is no doubt about it . Some Ideas are for solitary or even offline creative environments and other ideas are for collaborative environments . The logical conclusion to make in this case is that the final product will probably be a mix between the two paradigms. You speak of creating appealing contant , offline . Why would there even be an offline situation. Why not just bring a preview grid right there with you and view the content in world as you create it, where ever you are . IF you think that its drama to speak face to face with at least an avatar of a person before you decide if you can work together , then you are Naeve in the extreme as to how collaborative work gets done in this Environment . Why did you use such obviously inflammatory words such as drama , the SL crowd and the SL mindset to me anyways ? Since you directed these comments to me , quite evidently , can you tell me how you know for sure that anything I have ever done has been drama ? Can you tell me how I stand for the SL mindset when I am a strident Taiga supporter while you are not , you openly support vanilla opensim or opensim+modrex which is much closer to basic SL than Taiga could ever be . You said these things in an attempt to debase my points of view and get me all fired up, but you failed miserably because you are clueless . While you are out there, not even running a Taiga world grid of your own at present but rather theorizing and bombastically pontificating your points of view . There are others out there trying to find productive ways in which people can leverage the platform and thus have a means of being here and creating the amazing content that we all enjoy . Be realistic and respectful of others . Especially when its questionable if this is truly your community if you dont support the communities ideals . I am hardly the person that you need to explain the need of an asset pipeline to . We are soo far behind in pipelining content into Rex that We are looking at a years worth of work just to do this .
Re: [realXtend] Re: RealXtend exporter for blender
Thanks Toni for bringing the light back into the scene and me back on track :-) The question that now came up is the following and any hints are highly appreciated: Is it possible to have a grid accessible for public access via CB for everyone, but just give the region owners the right to create things in their corresponding region at the same time ? I could see a case where a school would like to keep some persistent public accesible basic installations and at the same time assign to each teacher their own classroom (region), where the teacher could be able to customize it and asign his/her students to access the place? As well as giving the students some rights to create their own things? Another idea just crossed my mind, concerning the backup and restore of the regions and i dont know if that would be a technical sound approach. If the regions could be stored each into its own database instead of having all regions on a server in the opensim db, then it might be easy to make a complete independent and scheduled backup/restore of the regions with all the meshes via the db, instead of creating some oar's and some workaround to keep the meshes. But im affraid that this procedure might break away too far of the opensim build,even if i personaly think, that this would benefit the opensimulator scene as well. Anyhow - keep up the great work - realxtend realy rocks :-) On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Toni Alatalo ant...@kyperjokki.fi wrote: On ti, 2010-07-06 at 08:33 +0200, Peter Steinlechner wrote: Now I am completly confused. What is the difference between Taiga Server and opensim + modrex ? Either its to early in the morning or I just must have a massive misunderstanding. Based on a quick reading of what Tara was writing below, the distinction here seems to refer to authentication. Taiga is opensim + modrex + cable beach, and CB brings web techs for auth inventory, openid + webdav, which are not connected to any SL like grid but work anywhere on the web. I.e. with vanilla Opensim you have to make a new account, with Taiga you don't. BTW CB is nowadays merged with the VWRAP effort which is otherwise worked on mostly by Linden folks, and Opensim itself has also adopted webdav inventory too, so can well be that vwrap opensim / simiangrid taiga are essentially the same things soon. Or I don't know but we'll see. Of course anyone can still configure their servers to be closed, e.g. accept only accounts created for that game / service , or allow anon access like websites usually, or whatever. I think many of the debates that seem like big political decisions around these things are technically simple configuration setups that don't affect the programming work much. ~Toni On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:43 AM, Tara Desoto tarades...@gmail.com wrote: Hello I was simply giving my opinion to the designer of this project . I fully realise that my point of view is going to be different than yours , simply because of the differences between my project and yours ( if you even have a Rex project ) .. I attempted to present a collaborative viewpoint to the situation . Since the designers' project is about the Integration of Blender and Realxtend , the scope of this discussion is wider than simple asset pipelining ... In brief , I approached this topic from the aspect of community building and collaborative integration , rather than solitary asset pipelining. I am not saying that my points of view are any more possible or probable than the next , given the scope of the mission . I simply presented this to the designer in a cordial manner . IF he thinks that all my ideas are dumb or if he thinks that some of them are good , then so be it , I am happy that he gave me the chance to express those ideas and expect nothing more . An asset creation pipeline is essential for Realxtend , there is no doubt about it . Some Ideas are for solitary or even offline creative environments and other ideas are for collaborative environments . The logical conclusion to make in this case is that the final product will probably be a mix between the two paradigms. You speak of creating appealing contant , offline . Why would there even be an offline situation. Why not just bring a preview grid right there with you and view the content in world as you create it, where ever you are . IF you think that its drama to speak face to face with at least an avatar of a person before you decide if you can work together , then you are Naeve in the extreme as to how collaborative work gets done in this Environment . Why did you use such obviously inflammatory
Re: [realXtend] Re: RealXtend exporter for blender
On 05/07/10 21:24, Mark Malewski wrote: Pablo, This sounds extremely exciting, and the ability to use Blender (with OpenSim + ModRex) is really awesome, but is there any possibility to do more than just export to ReX? Would there be any possibility of importing scenes from OpenSim into Blender? Is this something that could be considered? For example could this Blender2Rex be an import/export tool? So that users could import scenes directly from OpenSim into Blender, and make changes/modifications to scenes and then export the finished changes/scenes back out to the server? yes. Also could we have the ability to load a normal Blender scene and then export that scene directly into OpenSim + ModRex? this is basically possible already I think, but a lot of space for improvements and deciding a final scheme for uploading to opensim. */ - Add a button to blender2rex to sync the scene to local Naali directly, as an alternative option in addition to the sending it to server for ModRex to handle. /* I really like the idea of a sync button to send the scene to Naali (locally). Would it be possible to have a Sync to Naali button (that you just press) and then also have a Sync to Server button (that can be toggled on/off) for the finished product. That way 99% of the scene viewing can be done (offline) with just Blender and Naali, and then when a person is ready to sync/export the finished product to the server, they can just press the Sync to Server button? yes, we already talked about this and seems the way to go. p. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [realXtend] Re: RealXtend exporter for blender
* ** instead of creating some oar's and some workaround to * * keep the meshes. * Is there any way to update the original OAR format in OpenSim core to possibly an OAR 3.0 format that would include support for ReX meshes? http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OpenSim_Archives I believe Adam did the work on OAR format 0.2, maybe it could be updated to a 0.3 format that would include native support for backing up ReX meshes? http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OAR_format_0.2 http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OpenSim_Archives On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 3:08 PM, Peter Steinlechner psteinlech...@gmail.comwrote: Thanks Toni for bringing the light back into the scene and me back on track :-) The question that now came up is the following and any hints are highly appreciated: Is it possible to have a grid accessible for public access via CB for everyone, but just give the region owners the right to create things in their corresponding region at the same time ? I could see a case where a school would like to keep some persistent public accesible basic installations and at the same time assign to each teacher their own classroom (region), where the teacher could be able to customize it and asign his/her students to access the place? As well as giving the students some rights to create their own things? Another idea just crossed my mind, concerning the backup and restore of the regions and i dont know if that would be a technical sound approach. If the regions could be stored each into its own database instead of having all regions on a server in the opensim db, then it might be easy to make a complete independent and scheduled backup/restore of the regions with all the meshes via the db, instead of creating some oar's and some workaround to keep the meshes. But im affraid that this procedure might break away too far of the opensim build,even if i personaly think, that this would benefit the opensimulator scene as well. Anyhow - keep up the great work - realxtend realy rocks :-) On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Toni Alatalo ant...@kyperjokki.fi wrote: On ti, 2010-07-06 at 08:33 +0200, Peter Steinlechner wrote: Now I am completly confused. What is the difference between Taiga Server and opensim + modrex ? Either its to early in the morning or I just must have a massive misunderstanding. Based on a quick reading of what Tara was writing below, the distinction here seems to refer to authentication. Taiga is opensim + modrex + cable beach, and CB brings web techs for auth inventory, openid + webdav, which are not connected to any SL like grid but work anywhere on the web. I.e. with vanilla Opensim you have to make a new account, with Taiga you don't. BTW CB is nowadays merged with the VWRAP effort which is otherwise worked on mostly by Linden folks, and Opensim itself has also adopted webdav inventory too, so can well be that vwrap opensim / simiangrid taiga are essentially the same things soon. Or I don't know but we'll see. Of course anyone can still configure their servers to be closed, e.g. accept only accounts created for that game / service , or allow anon access like websites usually, or whatever. I think many of the debates that seem like big political decisions around these things are technically simple configuration setups that don't affect the programming work much. ~Toni On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:43 AM, Tara Desoto tarades...@gmail.com wrote: Hello I was simply giving my opinion to the designer of this project . I fully realise that my point of view is going to be different than yours , simply because of the differences between my project and yours ( if you even have a Rex project ) .. I attempted to present a collaborative viewpoint to the situation . Since the designers' project is about the Integration of Blender and Realxtend , the scope of this discussion is wider than simple asset pipelining ... In brief , I approached this topic from the aspect of community building and collaborative integration , rather than solitary asset pipelining. I am not saying that my points of view are any more possible or probable than the next , given the scope of the mission . I simply presented this to the designer in a cordial manner . IF he thinks that all my ideas are dumb or if he thinks that some of them are good , then so be it , I am happy that he gave me the chance to express those ideas and expect nothing more . An asset creation pipeline is essential for Realxtend , there is no doubt about it . Some Ideas are for solitary or even offline creative environments and other ideas are for collaborative environments . The logical conclusion to make in this case is that the final product will probably be a mix
[realXtend] Suggestions and Improvements (was: Re: RealXtend exporter for blender)
Peter, I'm going to change the subject line (and start a new thread) because it seems that we're hijacking Pablo's thread here (with issues not pertaining directly to Blender2Rex), but they're certainly good points that do need to be addressed. I do agree that the OAR format should probably be updated (to an OAR 3.0) in OpenSim core and that ReX mesh formats are included in the core. That way users that are running OpenSim vanilla, or OpenSim + ModRex (or even full Taiga) could simply just use the updated OAR format for backing up and restoring regions. I believe Adam would know more about this, as I believe he did the original OAR 2.0 changes, and he'd probably have a good idea of how to create a format that could be used for BOTH OpenSim and OpenSim + ModRex backups. Hopefully the OAR format could possibly just be extended (in OpenSim core) to include the ReX mesh formats. I don't really know enough about this subject to comment, but Adam (and Toni) would probably know more about it, but it's certainly a topic that should be brought up for discussion. I believe extending the OAR format to an OAR 3.0 format with ModRex interoperability would be good so that we can still use the OAR format for full region backups. I'm just not familiar enough with the differences between the asset server stores to even comment on this. Hopefully this could be addressed in the OpenSim core, and an updated OAR 3.0 backup (format) could possibly add mesh support and do backups for both native OpenSim and OpenSim + ModRex regions. http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OAR_Format_0.2 Maybe some form of region format settings could be added to OpenSim core to extend/support an OAR 3.0 file format, which would store new region-type information (about whether it's native OpenSim vanilla region backup format or an OpenSim + ModRex backup format). So that the OAR backup format could be an inter-operable format. As far as the differences between the backup formats, and creating interoperability in OpenSim core, I believe either Adam or Toni could probably answer this question in much better detail. * Is it possible to have a grid accessible for public access * * via CB for everyone, but just give the region owners the right * * to create things in their corresponding region at the same time ? * * I could see a case where a school would like to keep some * * persistent public accesible basic installations and at the same * * time assign to each teacher their own classroom (region), where * * the teacher could be able to customize it and asign his/her* * students **to access the place? As well as giving the students * * some rights **to create their own things? * User region/grid permissions, group permissions and land rights is another good topic for discussion. It might be nice to create a nice Admin GUI (possibly an Admin Control Panel? from within Naali?) for setting/controlling regions/objects/land User and Group permissions. I'm not sure on the status of this, or whether group permissions is even in that latest Taiga 0.0.2. I would need to familiarize myself with the latest Taiga (based on SciSim) before I made a comment, but I would hope that Group region/objects/land permissions have been implemented in the latest Taiga. (I'm not familiar enough with the latest 0.0.2 Taiga to confirm whether or not group region/objects/land permissions are functioning properly yet). It may not hurt to possibly have a nice standard QT-based admin control panel GUI (for the server console) that can be installed on the server as well (for user/land/group rights administration). It might not be a bad idea to have an In-World Console Application from within the Naali viewer (since some things like terrain manipulations, statistics and some SIM administration related tasks are not available using the Viewer and are only available on the command line application console where OpenSim is running). It might be nice to have a pop-up console window (in Naali, under the Admin Control Panel group) to have remote access to this same console available in-world. Possibly use some type of Instant Messaging window with the simulator itself (as they did with those old command line terminals). [So admins don't have to open ports on the firewall for remote desktop or VNC, and setup Remote Desktop or VNC, etc.] Would be nice to just have a remote-admin console window available in Naali (even if it's just based on some simple Instant Messaging window with the simulator itself). Information on Group permissions for objects and land can be found here: http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OpenSim:Permissions(Server) I'm not sure about authentication or interoperability issues or even how permissions currently work in the latest Taiga 0.0.2 or between a vanilla OpenSim and an OpenSim + ModRex + CableBeach (SciSim-based 0.0.2 Taiga) server. * Another idea just crossed my mind, concerning the** * * backup and restore of the regions and i dont know if** * *
[realXtend] Feature Request: Smart Regions - Idle Region Timeouts and On The Fly loading/unloading of inactive idle regions
OpenSim/RealXtend, Another thought is the issue of scalability with the current OpenSim and/or realXtend Architecture. Running hundreds (or thousands) of IDLE regions require too many system resources (RAM, CPU cycles, etc.) I believe that the basic server core (OpenSim) should eventually be modified so that ALL regions should have a configurable timeout option field (in the regions.ini file). http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Configuring_Regions That way an idle region timeout can be set (on a region per region basis), and this would allow the OpenSim server to shut down idle regions (based on the idle timeout configured in the regions.ini file). So if a region were completely empty for a particular number of minutes (let's say a region were empty and idle for 5 minutes, then the idle region could be shut down automatically after the set idle timeout period for that particular region). This way idle (and empty) regions are not consuming valuable system resources. Then as a user attempts to teleport to an idle (empty) region, the server would simply start that idle region (on-the-fly) so that the user could teleport into the idle region. It may create a little bit of a slight pause (as an idle region is started) while teleporting, but you normally experience a pause anyways while teleporting, so a few additional two or three seconds shouldn't make that much of a difference when teleporting to an empty or idle region. A second improvement upon this, would be a smart idle regions grid option (configurable at the grid and/or region level). The smart idle regions grid option would take things one step further, and would automatically allow the configuration option to bring nearby idle regions out of sleep mode, and start them automatically (if an avatar is within a certain number of meters from a nearby neighboring region). For example this number could be configurable at the Grid and/or region level to be anything from 1 meter, to 100 meters, or even 256 meters (thus automatically loading the idle region to the North, the idle region to the South, the idle region to the East and the idle region to the West). So that nearby regions could be loaded (as an avatar gets close to the border of another nearby region). This way if avatars are using high speed vehicles (aircraft, boats, trains, etc.) and they are getting close to a region crossing (to another region that may be idle) that region could automatically be started (if smart regions was enabled), thus making the region crossing seamless (and in real-time). So that flight simulators and ship simulators could be developed (with large global high resolution land region maps of the whole world) that could easily be stored on any single server. (The idle regions would simply load on-demand as needed). This way OpenSim core could be used for Science, Educational, Flight/Train/Ship simulation or even gaming purposes. So that way an OpenSim/realXtend server could technically store thousands of regions all on a single server instance (possibly even 50-60GB's of high resolution GIS/terrain/region maps of the whole world). So that things like high resolution Global Scenery could be created (and downloaded) under a Creative Commons license for high resolution scenery (stored in Mega regions) for OpenSim. http://www.global-scenery.org/ I do have a military GIS (Imagery Analysis/Intelligence) background, and don't mind working on things like basic high resolution OpenSim/realXtend region content creation (empty regions based on high resolution GIS/DTED data). DTED data could be used to create elevation maps, and high resolution imagery could be used for terrain textures. I believe an OpenSim GIS project would be a very good basis for other projects (educational, gaming, city planning, development, architectural development and multi-person Flight/Train/Ship simulation training development) since terrain/region modules would be available free for download. The reason Smart Regions (idle region timeouts) would be necessary, is so things like modeling rural areas like Yellowstone National Park could easily be possible on a small single server (or even a small single workstation running a single OpenSim/osgrid/realXtend server instance), since the majority of those regions would usually remain idle/empty (and with the idle regions shutting down they would consume NO CPU clock cycles or RAM, thus making idle regions identical to idle web pages that take up nothing more than hard drive space). Certain regions (like a lobby, main Plaza, or high-traffic regions) would need to remain active (no idle timeout) and would simply have a idle timeout value of . (Which would equate to requiring the region to be completely idle and empty for a minimum of minutes, or about 7 days) before going into a sleep or idle shutdown mode. I supposed a timeout value of could also be used for an infinite time (no idle timeout or idle shut down) so that regions
