User Experience Interest Group/Transcripts/2010-04-22

== Topic ==
User Experience Interest Group Discussion for April 22, 2010.
Topic: How the viewer might evolve if not limited by SL compatibility.
== Summary ==
We met on OSGrid to imagine how the viewer might evolve if it weren't limited by Second Life compatibility. In other words, what the viewer might be like if developers could innovate without worrying about being backwards compatibile with SL as it exists today.
The meeting was interrupted halfway through because of technical issues with OSGrid, so we moved the discussion to IRC.
== Transcript ==
[14:09]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Okay, I think let's get started. The topic today is " How the viewer might evolve if it weren't limited by SL support." It should be a fun and entertaining discussion :)
[14:10]	Nebadon Izumi: 	what do you mean Limited by SL support?
[14:10]	Penny Lane: 	Hehe
[14:10]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Maybe we should have met on RealXtend, though :D
[14:10]	Nebadon Izumi: 	the OpenSIM Dev restrictions?
[14:10]	Nebadon Izumi: 	or something else?
[14:10]	Penny Lane: 	Good Q to clarify, Neb
[14:10]	Frank Northmead: 	well, two areas I personally think are important are arbitrary region shape and sizez and bumpless region crossings.
[14:11]	Jacek Antonelli: 	I mean the fact that viewers are obligated to remain compatible with Second Life. So that puts some constraints on how things work.
[14:11]	Nebadon Izumi: 	ah
[14:11]	Nebadon Izumi: 	ok that makes more sense
[14:11]	Nebadon Izumi: 	Personally im not against it, as long as it doesnt prevent usablity in LL grids
[14:11]	Jacek Antonelli: 	And OpenSim reflects many of the same SL things, so we could also consider this a discussion about how OpenSim might evolve
[14:12]	Justin Clark-Casey:	yes, a viewer not restriceted to LL compatability could use megaregions better
[14:12]	Nebadon Izumi: 	doesnt really matter if they work in SL really
[14:12]	Nebadon Izumi: 	the mods that is
[14:12]	Penny Lane: 	Yep. For example, LL funnels everything through the sim as proxy, which limits sim scalability vastly. If the viewer could take assets by a separate path from asset services, sims could scale much better.
[14:12]	Nebadon Izumi: 	the viewer should still connect
[14:12]	Jacek Antonelli: 	I'm not suggesting that anything break off from SL. This is mostly just a fun, wild imagination type discussion :)
[14:12]	Justin Clark-Casey:	opensim is a like a big gumbo - anybody can put anything in the pot, as long as they don't break compatability with the things that people want to continue working
[14:12]	Justin Clark-Casey:	which does become a bit of a support nightmare :)
[14:12]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Indeed
[14:13]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Let's imagine a situation where developers could innovate however they like, without any concern for compatibility with the things that already exist
[14:13]	Justin Clark-Casey:	jacek: grider would be the big thing for me
[14:13]	Frank Northmead: 	actually, bumpless region crossing would negate most of the need for megaregions
[14:13]	Jacek Antonelli: 	With imaginary users that instantly upgrade to the latest version, and never complain about changes :D
[14:14]	Justin Clark-Casey:	frank: aren't they the same thing? very difficult to do bumpless between regions running on different eservers :)
[14:14]	Armin Weatherwax: 	lol
[14:14]	Justin Clark-Casey:	jacek: ah, so fantasy land! ;)
[14:14]	Frank Northmead: 	Justin - agreed, the security changes int eh client to enable hg2.0
[14:14]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Justin: Exactly!
[14:14]	Vanish Firecaster: 	As far as I understand it, Opensim is a platform-platform, so it might eventually lead to vastly different grids with different restrictions/abilities.
[14:14]	Penny Lane: 	Jacek: adding the ability for a viewer to retrive assets by a non-sim path would be backwards compatible.
[14:14]	Kakurady Drakenar: 	Penny: I've heard in #imprudence about it being almost already possible.
[14:14]	Justin Clark-Casey:	frank: well, major reachitecting - transfer service access from viewer directly to service rather than proxying through the regions
[14:14]	Penny Lane: 	Kakurady: that sound swell!
[14:14]	Nebadon Izumi: 	heh well considering HG 2.0 doesnt really exist yet does it? that could be tough one
[14:14]	Frank Northmead: 	Justin - bumpless, like cell phones between cells. And yes, very difficult.
[14:15]	Dale Glass: 	here are some things I'd like: extra arbitrary metadata attached to prims, viewer/SL communication, and a "average texture color" attribute on prims
[14:15]	Frank Northmead: 	Neb, hg 2.0 needs client support, that is why diva stopped at 1.5
[14:16]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i thought it could use Gridder
[14:16]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i dont think thats totally true Frank
[14:16]	Justin Clark-Casey:	dale: yay on arbitrary metadata - opensim really needs that
[14:16]	Penny Lane: 	And that's what we're discussing here, client support for such things
[14:16]	Dale Glass: 	SL could be much less ugly if every prim started as the average color of the texture instead of grey
[14:16]	Justin Clark-Casey:	uh oh
[14:16]	Justin Clark-Casey:	ping
[14:16]	Jacek Antonelli: 	For example, consider RealXtend. From what I understand, they decided to shatter many of the assumptions in SL. Different avatar meshes, for example.
[14:16]	Penny Lane: 	Region going down?
[14:16]	Latha Serevi: 	Dale, what do those last two out of three mean?
[14:16]	Latha Serevi: 	(got the 3rd, ok)
[14:16]	Nebadon Izumi: 	I was told that to go to HG 2.0
[14:16]	Nebadon Izumi: 	everyone would either have to launch with Gridder
[14:16]	Nebadon Izumi: 	or have a modded viewer
[14:17]	Penny Lane: 	Neb: that's what we're discussing here, viewer mods
[14:17]	Justin Clark-Casey:	modded viewer would be the way to go, which would be a really exciting compatabilty break
[14:17]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i know but frank said viewer mod is required
[14:17]	Kakurady Drakenar: 	w/r/t prim attributes, one thing that even Lindens wished they had in SL is multi-level linking.
[14:17]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i dont think it really is
[14:17]	Dale Glass: 	viewer/SL communication: a way to have the viewer talk to an in-world LSL script, bidirectionally
[14:17]	Justin Clark-Casey:	give you the true ability to cross between different viortual environments
[14:17]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Multi-level linking is a good example
[14:17]	Frank Northmead: 	Neb, understand. Sorry, I don't consider gridder a alternative - average people would consider it to complicated.
[14:17]	Justin Clark-Casey:	jacek: man, that would be so nice
[14:17]	Nebadon Izumi: 	personally i think that if HG2.0 has to have a new viewer to work
[14:17]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i dont see it ever happening
[14:18]	Penny Lane: 	Viewer mods can be backwards compatible too. Asset/inventory services like SimianGrid's can be accessed DIRECTLY, in addition to supporting the proxying through sim.
[14:18]	Justin Clark-Casey:	we-ell, we are in fantasy land :)
[14:18]	Latha Serevi: 	A priority for me is tearing apart distinct modules of the viewer so they can be mix 'n matched. Maintenance of 3d scenegraph, one or more renderers, UI components...
[14:18]	Justin Clark-Casey:	but I think hg 2.0 could be so good that people would make the leap
[14:18]	Jacek Antonelli: 	In fantasy land, there can be a new viewer and everyone updates to it with no complaints ;)
[14:18]	Nebadon Izumi: 	hehe
[14:18]	Jacek Antonelli: 	What would the new viewer be like?
[14:18]	Kakurady Drakenar: 	And it would be immersive with anaglyphic 3D!
[14:19]	Justin Clark-Casey:	it would have an address bar where you could type in arbitrary urls to go to arbitrary regions across the net
[14:19]	Penny Lane: 	Jeez Neb, don't be so negative! "I don't see it ever happening" is of no use for this discussion.
[14:19]	Nebadon Izumi: 	it would be BSD!
[14:19]	Nebadon Izumi: 	lol
[14:19]	Dale Glass: 	Kakurady: there's a patch for that
[14:19]	Nebadon Izumi: 	well the fact the OpenSIM devs cant work on it
[14:19]	Dale Glass: 	eh, not so interested in BSD :-P
[14:19]	Armin Weatherwax: 	oh - not gpl 3 :(
[14:19]	Nebadon Izumi: 	it seems unlikely that it would get done in a timely manner
[14:19]	Frank Northmead: 	Well, without hg2.0 I don't see how an ecconomy is going to develop, and with out money and the implied content security things will never replace web 1.0
[14:19]	Pete Atolia: 	same here
[14:19]	Kakurady Drakenar: 	Viewer2.0 already have an address bar, why not make it an omnibar?
[14:19]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i really dont think HG2.0 solves the money issues
[14:19]	Nebadon Izumi: 	not at all
[14:20]	Justin Clark-Casey:	katurady: yeah
[14:20]	Dale Glass: 	Nebadon, I don't see anything stopping you from working on the viewer as it is right now
[14:20]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Can someone describe HG2.0 briefly? For those of us who have no clue about it?
[14:20]	Nebadon Izumi: 	yes there is
[14:20]	Kakurady Drakenar: 	Just call me Katurday.
[14:20]	Dale Glass: 	The GPL is about copyright, and so long you don't copy you're fine
[14:20]	Justin Clark-Casey:	yeah, I think money has to be handled externally - the existing mechanisms are pretty good
[14:20]	Nebadon Izumi: 	OpenSIm devs can not look at the GPL code
[14:20]	Dale Glass: 	and you couldn't really copy if you tried
[14:20]	Nebadon Izumi: 	we all agreed to it
[14:20]	Justin Clark-Casey:	jacek: I would say that HG 2.0 is where the viewer contacts services directly
[14:20]	Nebadon Izumi: 	our laywers dont agree with you Dale
[14:20]	Dale Glass: 	the LL viewer is full of LLThis and LLThat to such an extent none of it could be pasted into opensim
[14:20]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Rather than relaying things through the sim?
[14:20]	Justin Clark-Casey:	so if you want to get your inventory, it doesn't have to be hosted by any grid, you just use any inventory service completely independent of regions
[14:21]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Ah
[14:21]	Penny Lane: 	Nonsense, all the "assets" that make the web work are free, and yet it exploded. It's pure FUD to say that the metaverse won't work unless SL's all-content-paid-for model is supported. Not necessary at all.
[14:21]	Nebadon Izumi: 	ya
[14:21]	Justin Clark-Casey:	then you can go to any grid and use your inventory anywhere (which is where it gets tricky due to scripting and other artbirary behaviour)
[14:21]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i dont agree wiht that either
[14:21]	Pete Atolia: 	JCC : agreed. Inventories shjould be stored in user's private spaces (S3 whatever)
[14:21]	Justin Clark-Casey:	you definitely need payment mechanisms, but I think paypal et all are good enough
[14:21]	Latha Serevi: 	I'd like to see a world-agnostic micropayment service with the kind of hooks that would make in-world transactions feasible...
[14:21]	Nebadon Izumi: 	heh i guess my imagination is limited on traveling between grids
[14:21]	Justin Clark-Casey:	pete: yep - and assets would be drawn directly from webser vers, not through regions
[14:21]	Nebadon Izumi: 	i never leave OSGrid
[14:22]	Nebadon Izumi: 	everythintg i need is here
[14:22]	Justin Clark-Casey:	nebadon: when a man is tired of osgrid, he is tired of life ;)
[14:22]	Jacek Antonelli: 	So the imaginary new viewer would get rid of the SL model of how the servers are arranged and communicate with each other and the viewer
[14:22]	Pete Atolia: 	YES
[14:22]	Penny Lane: 	JC++ --- "inventory" should be a private resource, client-side, which simply organizes references to assets (remote or local) into a personal tree.
[14:22]	Vanish Firecaster: 	Yes.
[14:22]	Justin Clark-Casey:	jacek: oh yes
[14:22]	Penny Lane: 	JCC++
[14:23]	Dale Glass: 	Nebadon: honestly I think your lawyers are overly paranoid. I looked at both codebases, and if they somehow could be made compatible enough to copy code from one to the other, hell would freeze over
[14:23]	Nebadon Izumi: 	is that what Vwrap is all about
[14:23]	Vanish Firecaster: 	Actually, wouldn't it be best to store your assets locally?
[14:23]	Nebadon Izumi: 	webdav will do exactly what you guys are saying
[14:23]	Justin Clark-Casey:	I doubt vwrap goes far enough
[14:23]	Nebadon Izumi: 	you sure about that?
[14:23]	Pete Atolia: 	vwrap, HG2, whatever works first ;)
[14:23]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Let's talk about some things that affect the user more directly and visibly
[14:23]	Justin Clark-Casey:	because hg 2.0 does pretty much dispense with content security - much more like the web
[14:23]	Nebadon Izumi: 	have you looked at webdav?
[14:23]	Penny Lane: 	Let's stick to Jacek's topic. The Opensim contrib licensing thing is not going to get resolved here.
[14:23]	Justin Clark-Casey:	and the lindens just can't go down that road without being castrated
[14:24]	Latha Serevi: 	With the federated assets model, we have some interesting new failure modes (this half of the people in a region can't see the other half except as clouds; .??? I'd like a list)
[14:24]	Justin Clark-Casey:	jacek: ok - graphically?
[14:24]	Penny Lane: 	JCC++ again
[14:24]	Justin Clark-Casey:	latha: yeah, lots of cool new problems :)
[14:24]	Dale Glass: 	LL viewer is very LL specific. It's all full of LL's own classes used as a base. Until not very long they had their own string class. It heavily uses the STL too. And there's little separation, GUI code directly assembles grid messages
[14:24]	Jacek Antonelli: 	For example, the multi-level linking would be an important change that would affect the user in a very direct way
[14:24]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Or new avatar meshes
[14:25]	Jacek Antonelli: 	(Or *arbitrary* avatar meshes)
[14:25]	Penny Lane: 	As JCC says, Lindens have a noose around their necks, the residents would lynch them. Open grids do not have that noose
[14:25]	Justin Clark-Casey:	penny: yes, vastly more freedom to experiment
[14:25]	Frank Northmead: 	Well, mesh supposrt is coming, mulitple level linking would be excellent.
[14:25]	Latha Serevi: 	"Darn, I have to download plugin XYZ before I can see your avatar."
[14:25]	Penny Lane: 	And so we're free to make viewers work better by not having SL's restrictions.
[14:25]	Dale Glass: 	For many things like parcels where's no parcel.Banlist, there's a list loaded into the parcel floater. Which is why you can only have one, and the data is lost if you deselect the parcel
[14:26]	nurbsPlane9: 	DynamicTextureModule: Error preparing image using URL http://osgrid.org/cgi-bin/random512.cgi
[14:26]	Vanish Firecaster: 	Personally, I'd love to have my assets on my machine and/or on an external web service, but not on a grid basis.
[14:26]	Kakurady Drakenar: 	Latha: That I kinda worry about, Torley and LL's first hour experience is already using Flash heavily.
[14:26]	Pete Atolia: 	YES
[14:26]	Penny Lane: 	Yeah, Vanish
[14:26]	Nebadon Izumi: 	the Vwrap Webdave
[14:26]	Pete Atolia: 	firecaster++
[14:26]	Nebadon Izumi: 	Webdav does just that
[14:26]	Nebadon Izumi: 	you can view your invnetory in IE
[14:26]	Nebadon Izumi: 	or any webdav cleint
[14:26]	Pete Atolia: 	yup, reason why i tend to love vwrap
[14:27]	Nebadon Izumi: 	eventually move content between any grid
[14:27]	Nebadon Izumi: 	just like drag and drop files on your hard drive
[14:27]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Think from a viewer user perspective. When you're using the imaginary ideal new viewer, what is it like? How does it differ from the current state?
[14:27]	nurbsPlane9: 	DynamicTextureModule: Error preparing image using URL http://osgrid.org/cgi-bin/random512.cgi
[14:27]	Penny Lane: 	The WebDAV model (which Hurli is merging with VWRAP) is exactly the way to go.
[14:27]	Nebadon Izumi: 	http://webdav.onikenkon.dnsdojo.com
[14:27]	Nebadon Izumi: 	you can create an account on my grid
[14:27]	Nebadon Izumi: 	http://onikenkon.com
[14:27]	Pete Atolia: 	can we ?
[14:27]	Vanish Firecaster: 	My imaginary new viewer doesn't think in terms of 'grids' or such.
[14:27]	Nebadon Izumi: 	then pull up your inventory in any webdav client basiclly
[14:27]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Are there still groups? Are there still distinct sims? Do you still walk and fly and teleport?
[14:27]	Nebadon Izumi: 	its read only at the moment though
[14:27]	Justin Clark-Casey:	jacek: multiscreen support
At this point, the OSGrid experienced severe technical difficulties, so we moved the discussion to IRC.
[14:41]	peteatolia: 	irc always aves our asses :)
[14:41]	peteatolia: 	saves
[14:41]	jjacek: 	hehe
[14:41]	justincc: 	ah, back to flatland :)
[14:41]	jjacek: 	Always good to have a backup plan :D
[14:41]	ArminWeatherwax: 	maybe our phatasy viewer then needs irc :D
[14:42]	ArminWeatherwax: 	phantasy*
[14:42]	jjacek: 	hehe
[14:42]	justincc: 	if chat was more separate fromt he region it would at least survive such a crash
[14:42]	peteatolia: 	yup
[14:42]	justincc: 	a bit like voice sometimes survives
[14:42]	jjacek: 	First assumption to get rid of from the SL era: the instability ;)
[14:42]	Bwild: 	weee
[14:42]	ArminWeatherwax: 	i'd prefere jabber though ....
[14:43]	justincc: 	gonna be a while. even if os were perfect mono isn't
[14:43]	justincc: 	and so is very far from perfect
[14:43]	justincc: 	of course, could just run everything on windows..... mmm
[14:43]	jjacek: 	I know all the users would be dazed and confused if things weren't as unstable as SL, but...
[14:43]	jjacek: 	}:)
[14:44]	jjacek: 	Okay, so
[14:44]	jjacek: 	As justincc commented, it's hard to imagine far-out different things
[14:44]	justincc: 	is multi-link really a builder experience rather than user? Or are users assumed to be builders too?
[14:44]	Bwild: 	why is SL the measure for Opesim? no other cool MMOs?
[14:45]	FrankNichols: 	justin, I think users - in the masses - are consumers and not creators.
[14:45]	peteatolia: 	phantasy viewer : split screen, differetn camera angles
[14:45]	jjacek: 	Building is part of the user experience, though. At least in the current viewer model, where objects are created in-world.
[14:45]	justincc: 	that comes back to the interesting question of build tools in the viewer
[14:45]	justincc: 	jjacek: the fantasy viewer might contain an easy way of editing and creating meshes ;)
[14:46]	jjacek: 	For something like Blue Mars, where they are created in other tools and then imported, it wouldn't really be a user experience issue as much
[14:46]	FrankNichols: 	building is only part of the user experience in the SL model.
[14:46]	justincc: 	some people really get a lot of value out of co-operative building
[14:46]	jjacek: 	Indeed. Personally, co-op building would be something I would keep
[14:46]	FrankNichols: 	some yes, but MASSES - are not techie. Think farmville mentality.
[14:46]	peteatolia: 	without builders, no content
[14:47]	justincc: 	I think that virtual worlds are all about events - it's a logical waypoint for the social web, 5 years down the road
[14:47]	FrankNichols: 	80+ million playing farmville, how many in SL?
[14:47]	jjacek: 	FrankNichols: No reason to limit the discussion to user experience for the "masses"
[14:47]	peteatolia: 	i think that if builder tools were more intuitive, much more people in SL would go into building
[14:47]	FrankNichols: 	jjacek - agreed.
[14:48]	peteatolia: 	people who are not used to 3Dsmax, maya or whatever
[14:48]	peteatolia: 	sketchup people
[14:48]	jjacek: 	Everyone who uses the viewer is a user. (Duh, hehe). So it's valid to imagine all different ways it might evolve
[14:49]	jjacek: 	Scripting would be another aspect of the experience -- assuming scripts are still written (or at least pasted) in the viewer
[14:49]	jjacek: 	That's one area where OpenSim is casting off some of the assumptions already.
[14:50]	FrankNichols: 	I dont think one viewer fits all. possibly a modular design allowing plugin's so content creators can add build tools, developers can add debug tools, etc...
[14:50]	jjacek: 	For example, by allowing other languages besides LSL. And providing functions to give greater control to the region owners
[14:50]	justincc: 	nebadon says the grid is back
[14:50]	jjacek: 	One of the core assumptions of SL is that all regions will behave more or less the same
[14:50]	ArminWeatherwax: 	yay
[14:51]	justincc: 	what do you mean?
[14:51]	jjacek: 	For example, they will all have the same physics engine, the same rules for what can be built and where, the same rules for land management, etc.
[14:52]	FrankNichols: 	boring
[14:52]	jjacek: 	That puts some significant limitations on content creators who want to do something different. For example, to make an MMORPG using OpenSim.
[14:52]	justincc: 	jjacek: artbirary decisions might require an arbitrary client ui
[14:52]	Bwild: 	bwild deploys an array of photon torpidos and blows up 10,000 legions of demons
[14:53]	justincc: 	if the viewer made much more use of embedded html for such interfaces, then you could get more flexibilty at the expense of a very tight ui experience
[14:53]	Bwild: 	Alas, no footage available inworld
[14:53]	peteatolia: 	a pluggable APi for the viewer would be great. Custom plugins extending viewer functionalities. Part time developers could try and implement thiungs ;)
[14:54]	justincc: 	media on a prim starts to allow scripts to present better html interfaces, not just through the old janky media browser
[14:54]	justincc: 	I think html ui would be a very interesting way to go, rather than require the user to install plugins :)
[14:54]	peteatolia: 	yes html UI, definitely
[14:54]	jjacek: 	Yeah, plugins/addons would be a game changer. We did some preliminary design for that with Imprudence over a year ago, but alas, more urgent things started to demand our attention.
[14:55]	jjacek: 	(And never stopped demanding it.)
[14:55]	justincc: 	jjacek: what are you working on right now?
[14:56]	FrankNichols: 	firefox or chrome plugins for viewing, building, debugging, scripting, etc...
[14:56]	jjacek: 	Me personally, nothing (to my dismay). Just maintenance and keeping the project rolling. For the project in general, we're mostly doing maintenance and ports from other viewers. Not very fun. Hopefully we can break out of it soon.
[14:57]	FrankNichols: 	crazy idea #2 - iPad client...
[14:57]	peteatolia: 	not cray... sound
[14:57]	justincc: 	there was/is a client for the iphone
[14:57]	peteatolia: 	a text one yes.
[14:57]	FrankNichols: 	there is a naali client for the n900
[14:57]	peteatolia: 	:))
[14:57]	FrankNichols: 	graphical.
[14:57]	justincc: 	ah yeah, maybe it was text...
[14:58]	FrankNichols: 	yes, iPhone client is text.
[14:58]	jjacek: 	So, to get back to the topic.
[14:59]	ArminWeatherwax: 	<maybe a short mail on the ML for those who got lost?>
[14:59]	Bwild: 	jjacek, ive got a broken mvc viewer if you are interested :)
[14:59]	FrankNichols: 	modular cleint arch
[15:00]	jjacek: 	Yes, a more modular design would be a necessary part of the dream viewer.
[15:00]	jjacek: 	Getting rid of that assumption from SL that everything will always be the same, wherever you go.
[15:01]	justincc: 	right, but how far does that go? You need some base standards, like html and javascript
[15:01]	jjacek: 	True
[15:01]	justincc: 	does infinite variation became too expensive to develop for?
[15:02]	peteatolia: 	html5 ? c3dl ?
[15:02]	peteatolia: 	(base standards)
[15:03]	justincc: 	well, even higher than that. At least since everythnig is the same in SL there' s a pool of regions you can develop content for
[15:03]	justincc: 	if everybody has a different way of doing things then that could be very good for experimentation but poor for mass adoption
[15:03]	peteatolia: 	can only agree
[15:03]	ZauberExonar: 	o hai!
[15:03]	Bwild: 	the other side of the coin is Does Opensim really want to be tied to rearranging deck chairs of the Titanic?
[15:04]	peteatolia: 	i mean does it ?
[15:04]	justincc: 	opensim implements a lot of sl because that's the only thing with real momentum
[15:04]	Bwild: 	iirc SL one of many mmo's
[15:05]	justincc: 	but the others are either massively different architecturally or don't have open clients and libraries
[15:05]	justincc: 	for instance, opensim relies a lot on libnpenmetaverse. Where is the equivalent for other MMOs?
[15:05]	peteatolia: 	yup, but SL user base is good for OpenSim. Most of us come from SL not wow
[15:05]	peteatolia: 	(for the mo)
[15:05]	Bwild: 	naali uses orge, and that's already working in opensi
[15:06]	Bwild: 	the upstream sources of my mvc vieweer also uses ogre
[15:06]	justincc: 	it works via taiga, which tacks on various code via region module to make that work
[15:07]	Bwild: 	k, well i would say Rex has been proving that the code works with opensim :)
[15:08]	jjacek: 	Okay, let's step back a bit, and approach things from a different angle.
[15:08]	jjacek: 	Using SL as a starting point, what are things you would change?
[15:08]	jjacek: 	(Or current OpenSim as a starting point)
[15:09]	ZauberExonar: 	improve stability and performance :P
[15:09]	jjacek: 	heh
[15:09]	Bwild: 	how is that possible if not contributing code to that base?
[15:09]	jjacek: 	Okay, that one is obvious ;) What else?
[15:09]	ZauberExonar: 	improved builder capabilities
[15:09]	ZauberExonar: 	I don't know of any viewers that let you rez a blank sculpty
[15:10]	jjacek: 	This is just a thought experiment, really. Don't worry about practicalities like access to the SL server code
[15:10]	Bwild: 	_viewer code_
[15:11]	Bwild: 	it is untouchable
[15:11]	peteatolia: 	Terrain tools : "à la" Terragen
[15:11]	ZauberExonar: 	what about setting terrain textures by directly painting the textures on? That's industry standard
[15:11]	jjacek: 	Bwild: For OpenSim developers, perhaps. But that's still a practicality. Ignore it. :)
[15:11]	peteatolia: 	yup
[15:11]	jjacek: 	Interesting idea, ZauberExonar
[15:11]	ZauberExonar: 	yah :D
[15:12]	ZauberExonar: 	an overhang terrain manager would be nice too
[15:12]	justincc: 	multiple variable water levels
[15:12]	jjacek: 	In fact, the whole terrain model of SL is pretty backwards
[15:12]	justincc: 	or effectively programmable/simulated terrain
[15:12]	jjacek: 	(old fashioned)
[15:12]	justincc: 	yes
[15:12]	peteatolia: 	it's prehistoric
[15:12]	ZauberExonar: 	a overhang terrain manager would let let you dig tunnels and caves into the terrain
[15:12]	justincc: 	it's a pain for anybody wanting to experiment with gis data
[15:13]	jjacek: 	Yes, something more like voxels, or whatever. Being able to carve and mold the terrain in all dimensions, not just height
[15:13]	* Key_Gruin has quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer) 	* Key_Gruin has quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
[15:13]	ZauberExonar: 	multiple variable water levels is something I've asked about before, Justin
[15:13]	ArminWeatherwax: 	terraform caves, tunnels, etc
[15:14]	jjacek: 	OpenSim sculpties with meshmerizer almost achieves it. At least, you can replace the terrain with true 3D meshes of a sort.
[15:14]	jjacek: 	But they're not so easy to manipulate
[15:14]	justincc: 	and results in terrrible viewer performance, I hear
[15:15]	ZauberExonar: 	sculpties aren't really true 3d meshes. more like pretend meshes :-(
[15:15]	ArminWeatherwax: 	hehe ... then maybe "terraform" sculpties :D ?
[15:15]	ZauberExonar: 	yah :D
[15:15]	Bwild: 	why not code the viewer using gpgpu like OpenCL?
[15:15]	Bwild: 	after all the bottlenecks are the graphics
[15:15]	ZauberExonar: 	seriously, being able to mold sculpties in the viewer would be awesome
[15:16]	ZauberExonar: 	you could do it using Emerald's temporary texture uploads feature
[15:16]	ZauberExonar: 	you'd probably need to throttle it somewhat to limit bandwidth use, though
[15:17]	jjacek: 	It would be interesting to have mesh tools on par with Blender or Maya. Like being able to walk around inside a Blender scene and edit it.
[15:17]	ArminWeatherwax: 	and of course manipulate animations inworld (penny is missing) - e.g using a blender plugin
[15:18]	ZauberExonar: 	oh, and something else I mentioned to Armin the other day when he was at InWorldz was how the terrain height map is using lossy compression. This leads to jagged spots around sharp changes in elevation. Would it be possible to code in support for lossless compression?
[15:19]	justincc: 	ok, I need to go. Good conversation, pity about the wright plaza crash but these things happen on the frontier
[15:19]	jjacek: 	Take care justincc
[15:19]	* justincc waves 	* justincc waves
[15:19]	peteatolia: 	yes for terrain, that would be great : lossless
[15:19]	ZauberExonar: 	yah
[15:19]	jjacek: 	Yes, that's definitely worth looking into
[15:19]	ZauberExonar: 	those jagged spots are actually image artefacts
[15:20]	jjacek: 	Interesting
[15:20]	peteatolia: 	jumping back to maya/blender : intuitive bridges with existing 3D apps would help builders tremendously
[15:21]	Bwild: 	its an incredible waste of space haing one terrain and 10,000 meters empty sky
[15:21]	ZauberExonar: 	brb
[15:23]	peteatolia: 	this is almost sci-fi for the time being but what about the next generation UIs ? (project natal & such) ; and support for 3D displays ?
[15:23]	jjacek: 	Hrm, some other crazy ideas: spherical regions (inside or outside). Ringworld regions. :D
[15:24]	Bwild: 	those have been done
[15:24]	Bwild: 	based on bubble regions
[15:24]	jjacek: 	Bubble regions?
[15:24]	Bwild: 	something like that
[15:24]	Bwild: 	there's demos on the internets
[15:24]	jjacek: 	Based on OpenSim?
[15:25]	Bwild: 	bubblecloud.org
[15:27]	ArminWeatherwax: 	(btw login at osgrid just append to work again)
[15:28]	jjacek: 	Interesting. They seem to still be "flat" regions, though. I'm thinking of a planetoid you could run around.
[15:28]	Bwild: 	ah
[15:29]	peteatolia: 	yes, or just a spaceship : no ground
[15:29]	Bwild: 	oh ive seen that
[15:29]	Bwild: 	based on Cube3
[15:29]	Bwild: 	Cubd2
[15:29]	Bwild: 	oops
[15:29]	jjacek: 	Something like Mario Galaxy, hehe
[15:29]	Bwild: 	there's demos online
[15:29]	Bwild: 	iirc its like EarthSim
[15:29]	Bwild: 	they have roaming dynasaurs on distant planets
[15:30]	ZauberExonar: 	back
[15:30]	jjacek: 	Yeah, Cube 2 is interesting. Especially its geometry model and build-in edit mode.
[15:31]	Bwild: 	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUGIcSBY8w8
[15:32]	jjacek: 	Ah. Qube.
[15:32]	jjacek: 	I thought you meant Cube: http://cubeengine.com/
[15:32]	Bwild: 	they use Octrees to get the detail
[15:32]	Bwild: 	that's right
[15:32]	Bwild: 	they used that engine
[15:32]	Bwild: 	btw SL viewer seems to have octree support mentioned
[15:33]	ZauberExonar: 	a friend of mine tried experimenting with a VW based on Cube2, but found that the source code was extremely difficult to modify
[15:33]	Bwild: 	bbtw.. Id Tech 6 is going to use octrees
[15:33]	ZauberExonar: 	also, Cube2 makes it almost impossible to use curved surfaces
[15:33]	Bwild: 	?
[15:33]	Bwild: 	the worlds look pretty curvvey
[15:33]	jjacek: 	Qube/Q2 and Cube2 are different things :)
[15:35]	Bwild: 	one is a fps
[15:36]	jjacek: 	Yes. And completely different engines, I'm sure
[15:38]	* jjacek stretches. Hm. Seems our discussion has slowed to a halt? :)	* jjacek stretches. Hm. Seems our discussion has slowed to a halt? :)
[15:38]	ZauberExonar: 	Is Qube a cross-platform engine?
[15:41]	jjacek: 	Okay, I think I'll consider the meeting done. Feel free to continue chatter, though
[15:41]	ZauberExonar: 	PANCAKES
[15:41]	jjacek: 	Profound!