Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Is OpenSim Racist ?

 By Avatar JayR Cela

     This is a serious question, why is everyone in OpenSim White ? Think about it for a minute or two. It is not only a serious question, it is a serious problem. 


Saturday, July 4, 2020

OpenSim HyperGrid and building a new computer : Your thoughts please

    Hi there everyone, today I am posting to hopefully get some feed back and or advice about my next computer build, it has been 7 years since I put together my current rig it's getting really long in the tooth these days and will be put into a reserve state soon, this time around I will be going with AMD for the CPU, I'm undecided on the GPU, and MotherBoard. I am a Linux user and I was wondering if anyone has some comments or advice they would like to pass along.

JayR Cela _)

Friday, July 3, 2020

OpenSim : HyperGrid : are any of you into Retro Game Racing ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

     I was just wondering if anyone that happens to be reading this blog is into old school retro games that are devoted to some sort of race event's ?

     The past several months I have been exploring numerous, race game's via emulators for the most popular console platforms at that  time of relevance. It is fascinating to say the least. The Physics Engines used, the pro's and con's.
 
     Currently we have Bullet Sim and ubODE, I was just wondering about  your thought's and perhaps get a discussion started.

JauR Cela

Sunday, June 21, 2020

OpenSim : HyperGrid : Speed Boat Realism Effect Part 4 : My First Video

By Avatar JayR Cela

     This is one of many test's I am planning in order to promote the Motor Sport of Speed Boat Racing in OpenSIm. Check out this video.



    This is working out well so far.

STAY TUNED  / Lol

JayR Cela :_)

Saturday, June 20, 2020

 By Avatar JayR Cela

     Appearing Jun 20 - 3RD Rock Grid - Great Central Lake Region
The Fabulous Wailers - 60's Rock & Roll Special Event
Power Boat Demolition Derby
10:00am PB Driving Lessons and Practice runs
11:00am "The Fabulous Wailers"
12:00-2:00pm 70's-80's Live Rock Music
along with "INSANE Power Boat Madness

! Bring Your Friends and !
CRASH into Any and All Fellow Boaters
3x3 Var Region and a "No Holds Barred"
"POWERBOAT BRAWL"

Power Boat Demolition Derby event, starting at 10:00am grid time featuring the Fabulous Wailers 1960's band at 11:00 then 2 hours of Live Rock from the 70's and 80's afterwards featuring : Byran Ferry, Eurythmics, REO Speedwagon, Head East, Night Ranger, April Wine, Joan Jett, The Bangles, George Clinton, The Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, Kansas, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Bachman-Turner, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Stevie Ray Vaughn-(with)-Jeff Beck, Foghat, Brian Setzer, Allman Brothers, Blues Brothers. These are all unique live performances, so stop on by if you can.

JayR Cela :_)

OpenSim : HyperGrid : Power Boats, Speed Boats and the "Realism Effect" Part 3

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok so my last 2 posts I was talking about all the Free Full Perm boats and scripts, this time around I'll explain the environment I pieced together, by using large (256m in some cases) Torus shapes cut in half, then placed in various locations around the region linked together to what I call the height adjustment prim allowing for extra fine tuning the event's performance characteristics difficulty level.



 

          The next step was to make the linked prim set transparent, then layering wave effects on the water,  So far this has worked out well, as you can see in the pictures below.







It's not a perfect system, but it sure beat the heck out or trying to terraform the entire 3x3 Var exactly right.  My next step was to add some surrounding mountain terrain along with some transparent barrier prims where necessary.  If you want to see this all in action please feel free to stop by 3rd Rock Grid the Great Central Lake region. This Grid Map hypergrid jump point will get you directly to the region 

grid.3rdrockgrid.com:8002:Great Central Lake








     There are numerous Rezz Boards around the dock, touching one of them presents you with a menu selection to choose a boat to pilot and it will appear along the dockside



    As previously mentioned the boats and scripts are all full perm, however not on this region, I decided to make these No Copy, if your interested in any of what I have managed to collect so far. Just contact me and I'll take you over to the Boat Works sim and you may help yourself to what ever you like, minus a few things that are not ful prerm.

JayR Cela :_)



Friday, June 19, 2020

OpenSim : HyperGrid : Power Boats, Speed Boats and the "Realism Effect" Part 2

By Avatar JayR Cela

    My last post I was about to explain what I did with all of these wonderful free full perm boats. Well I am back to explain further, The first thing was tracking down varios scripts, lots of testing with them, eliminating to ones I did not care for, and then 2 other things.

     The terrain, and how would the boats react to the various environments I was experimenting with? Was it a River Run Race I wanted to create, or an Open Lake environment ? After quite a bit of testing I decided that in order that a truly competitive RIver Race event would require at least a 4x4 Var sim. and it proved  more of a job than I was willing to take on.  Eventually I decided on getting the 3RD Rock Grid Foundation to allow me to finnish up a 3x3 Region Zinnia Frenzy and I first hatched as an idea for Sailing, Kataramans, Kyacks and Jet Ski's.  a number of years ago.


    The key thing I have found with all of the testing I have done so far, it is the shape of the ROOT Prim as well as the boat you are trying to make behave realistically. The 2 of them have to be fine tuned to your particular environment. And not all Boats work properly with identically configured Root Prims. You have to fine tune each boat. The key is create a constant stable environment and adjust each boat accordingly to that stable environment.

    I got a few more things to say about this, I'll be back later on today to explain further...

 Stayed Tuned

JayR Cela :_)


Thursday, June 18, 2020

OpenSim : HyperGrid : Power Boats, Speed Boats and the "Realism Effect" Part 1

By Avatar JayR Cela

    As a very young boy in RL growing up 2 streets away from the Detroit River in the State of Michigan, USA. I was always fascinated by boats and ships of all kinds, from the gigantic Lake Freighters, to the motorized fishing and pleasure craft, there was never a shortage of fascinating things to view off the shoreline.

     There was one thing that really stood out to me and that was the Hydroplane races each summer up and down the river, from the Gold Cup in Detroit to the races taking place further south and north of the city throughout the season. These were in my mind, "the must see event's" of the entire year.  Some family and friends were boat owners, so as I was growing up  I quickly fell in love with ability to actually be able to drive some of them. So when I joined SecondLife back in 2005 one of the first thing I did was purchase several boats, and the experience was horrible, an absolute disaster when it came to physic engine performance, not to mention sim border crossings or the dreaded corner sim crossings.

     Eventually I gradually started migrating to OpenSim and found my home on 3rdRock Grid, a great grid, some wonderful people and it's STABLE! meaning we rarely have problems. So I started collecting powerboats from all over the hypergrid, mostly OSGrid and found all of these.






























    Which was great except very few of them were actually scripted with anything good or at all. So what did I do with them ?

     Stop by for my next post and find out.

JayR Cela :_)

Thursday, June 4, 2020

OpenSim ~ HyperGrid : Blender Users now have a LTS Release 2.83

By Avatar JayR Cela

     I woke up this morning to some surprising news about the wildly popular Free an Open Source graphics software package used by many OpenSim content creators. That's right Blender v. 2.83 is now a Long Term Support release or LTS, this means it will be pretty much feature frozen for a period of 2 years. This is good news for everyone interested in either learning, currently using, or teaching with this fantastic piece of software. You can read the official announcement here.
Blender Home Page

JayR Cela :_)

Saturday, May 30, 2020

OpenSim ~ HyperGrid : Echo Voice a drop in Replacement for Vivox Is On It's Way

By Avatar JayR Cela

    EchoVoice is another project coming from the IMA Infinite Metaverse Alliance ) the same folks that have brought us the SceneGate for OpenSim only viewer. It is based on the Mumble and Murmur, open source Voice communication protocols, a closed testing period is just about ready to begin. I will be keeping you informed of the progress, if all goes well there should be an open Beta happening sometime later this year.

    Ya know what this is going to be very kool indeed, I am so sick and tired of making the Vivox Voice Service work in Linux via WINE, ( a Windows compatibly layer that allows Linux users to run native Windows programs in the Linux environment ) and this has been good for me because I can actually get voice to work again and I do not need to boot into the horrid piece of garbage Windows10.

    Hopefully all will go as planned and Linux users will once again be able to use in-world Voice again without having to rip your hair out of your head trying to get WINE to work propelry, and BTW EchoVoice will work with Mac & Windows as well.

JayR Cela :_)

Friday, May 29, 2020

OpenSim ~ HyperGrid : A New Firestorm release for OpenSim v6.3.9.58205

    The recently announced Firestorm viewer v.6.3.8.58205 for OS is on par with the SL version again and it works fantastically with OpenSim both older 0.8.2.x and 0.9.x based grids. Hat's off to the FireStorm team & FS project manager Jessica Lyon, for pulling off a feat that some people, including myself thought to be impossible, heck it even works with SecondLife *(in a pinch) you can read all about it here https://www.firestormviewer.org/

JayR Cela :_)

Thursday, May 28, 2020

OpenSim : HyperGrid : Just a Reminder that the new Singularity Viewer Does Not Work, with OS 0.8.2.x Grids

By Avatar JayR Cela

      Just an extra heads up for everyone out there using the Singularity viewer as their main HyperGrid jumping tool of choice.

     IT DOES NOT WORK WITH OPENSIM 0.8.2.x Grids !!!!!  / Period, Nada, Zip, Zilch.

    If you are currently using the Singularity viewer on you home grid that is running OpenSim 0.9.x and having a wonderful experience, that's fantastic, personally I prefer Singularity for a number of reasons depending on what I am doing while in-world. However if you enjoy grid hopping, you will find a large number of OS Grids that are sticking with OpenSim OS 0.8.2.x, and if you TP to one of these numerous grids, your avatar will appear to be invisible to other resident's. You will look just fine on your screen, but to everyone else the only thing they will be able to see is your clothing.

JayR Cela :_(

Saturday, March 7, 2020

OpenSim : HyperGrid : We have a new OS Viewer - SceneGate

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Hi there everyone, yes there is a new OpenSim viewer available and it is designed specifically for OS and not SecondLife, and I tell ya it's about time. The SceneGate Viewer is based off of the fully opensource code Alchemy viewer, a much improved version if I do say so myself, it is not my favorite and I doubt if I will use it every day, but it clearly has some advantages over other viewers.

    #1 A vastly improved render engine over let's say FireStorm or Singularity or anything else I have             tried.
    #2 Really nice camera controls, very smooth and again, beats the hell out of Singularity while                   nudging Firestorm back into 2nd or 3rd place, at least in my mind.
    #3 Some sanity restored to Voice, it defaults to allowing you to hear all people within a reasonable           distance at the same volume level ( FireStorm used to have this feature at one time but nixed it           way back when
    #4 It has basic and advanced modes for the user interface or ( Simplified - Extended ) you                     can find this setting in the preferences menu, bottom tab labeled MODES
    #5 Also the inclusion of an updated StarLight Skin system, and this is great for people with vision             problems.

    I know several people involved on this project, and it is being backed by some major universities as a teaching tool, and let me tell ya these folks have their act together "Big Time!" They have a road map all laid out and in writing along with some excellent documentation on the download website.
http://downloads.infinitemetaverse.org/index.php/downloads


     Ok it's a good viewer but I do have a few gripes, it is missing some features I regularly use in FS and SIngularity, and that's OK I can live with that. What I cant live with and absolutely refuse to tolerate is the User Chat Interface or C.H.U.I, yep you have heard me complain about this horrid piece of crap before, developed internally by Linden Lab(s) very own Grumipty Product Engine ( Now Grumpity Linden ) It is an overly confusing mess and should have been tossed in the trash years ago. But hey to each their own, you may like it.

      Is it worth the download and drive around the block ? Hell Yes It Is !

JayR Cela :_)

Saturday, February 15, 2020

OpenSim HyperGrid : Is the HypeGrid in Danger of being Fragmented into the Have's and Have not's ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

       I don't mean to sound gloomy, however the HyperGrid is currently facing a very serious dilemma. With the recent introduction of OS 0.9.1.x there is a HUGE incompatibility issue dealing with Viewers and wither or not you will be able to travel freely between 1 grid to another successfully. Let me rephrase that, yes you can still travel about, however how people see your Avatar when you arrive at your destination can be troublesome to say the least. I have been doing some testing using Singularity v.1.8.7.8193 as an example.

      I am able to log into my home grid 3rd Rock Grid with this viewer just fine, 3RG is based on OS 0.8.2.x and things work well for me as long as I remain in 3RG, (or travel to another OS 0.8.2.x grid) however if I HG out to another grid running OS 0.9.1.x and return to 3RG, that's when the trouble starts, my avatar (witch is non-mesh) simply will not rezz, it's gone!!! POOF!!!, you can see all of my mesh clothing but not my avatar and neither can anyone else. Conversely if I log into another home grid that is running OS 0.9.1.x and travel to another grid running OS 0.8.2.x I can see my avatar just fine, but to other people, they can see my mesh clothing only, I have coined the term as "The Hollow Man Effect" just like the old "Invisible Man" movie as he removes his bandage's. And it doesn't stop there, I have found my avatar to be completely trashed a few time's after experiencing this problem, and it has been an unnecessary pain in the ass to fix afterwards.

    Now we get the one of the most troubling aspect's of this, and that is the decision of the viewer developers, should they choose to support OS 0.8.x or 0.9.1.x ? or can they actually support both, that may or may not be possible, *note* the FireStorm viewer's project manager clearly pointing out this issue a few months ago with her decision to place OS FireStorm future development into a holding pattern at the 6.0.2.56680 version.

    The bad news is this problem may not be solvable, the good news is some of the major players in the OpenSim Dev field are aware of this, and OS 0.8.2.x proponent Shelenn Aires of Metaversedepot Grid  and uBit Marmanov the current lead dev of OS 0.9.1.x team are talking with one in other to hopefully find a solution.

     If this problem ends up be an unsolvable one, then I think we can kiss the HyperGrid goodbye as a usable platform.

    Unless every grid out there decides to upgrade to OS 0.9.1.x, and I seriously doubt that is going to happen any time soon.

JayR Cela :_)

OpenSim HyperGrid : Singularity Viewer Beta "Voice is now working" "YAY !!!"

By avatar JayR Cela

     I'm back back again with another update on the Singularity viewers current Beta status, as of version 1.8.7.8193, the Vivox Voice service functionality has been restored. LOL / I guess some folks actually read this rag from time to time after all :_))))


JayR Cela :_)


Saturday, January 25, 2020

OpenSim : HyperGrid : Singularity Viewer Update

Hey there everyone.

     I'm back today to hopefully get some attention from the Dev's currently working on the Singularity Viewer.

     Vivox Voice Service is broken. It does not work, plain and simple, cut and dry, it does not work at all.

     And hey look everyone that ever reads my blog knows darn well I am a died in wool Linux person, and everyone also knows that Vivox dropped Linux support a long time ago, well screw that, I make it work using the WINE Windows compatibility layer via the Win64 .exe installer. I have previous versions of Singularity running just fine in this environment, and FireStorm, and CoolVL, they all work just fine, and if God Forbid  I actually boot into Windows10 for some stupid reason  Voice will work there also, but not with the current version of Singularity, it is broken.

    I sincerely hope someone on the Singularity Dev team reads this post.

JayR Cela

Friday, January 24, 2020

Open Sim HyperGrid : Windows 7 is Dead / Should you switch to Linux ?

Hi there everyone,

     I have to say this because I feel it is important for any Open Sim users. personally I am not a Windows user, I much prefer Linux as my Operating System. However Linux is not for everyone, if you are currently or until recently been using Windows 7, my recommendation is just take the FREE Upgrade to Windows 10, figure out how to turn off all the telemetry spy on you bullshit and install either Virtual Box or VMWare on your system in order to test various Linux distributions until you find one you feel comfortable with. If you take your time learning Linux ( and it's not really all that hard to do ) you will not find yourself in PANIC MODE when shit don't work.

JayR Cela :_)