I’ve taken on the task of porting Aurora’s variable region feature into OpenSimulator.

This port will use Aurora’s protocol extensions so the existing Firestorm and Singularity Aurora support will now work for OpenSimulator. The larger regions size will be restricted to multiples of 256 meters and adjacent regions (the ability to have other regions spacially next to larger regions) will not be implemented and will not work. Additionally, the larger regions must be square. This latter restriction is because the viewers currently (20131101) only use the X size dimension for both X and Y size. These restrictions are enforced by code in RegionInfo.cs which truncates and rounds values and output warning log messages.

The size is be specified in the Region.ini file:

[MyRegionName]
RegionUUID = 95ec77ec-58c5-4ce2-9ff3-b6d1900d78a2
Location = 1000,1000
SizeX = 1024
SizeY = 1024
InternalAddress = 0.0.0.0
InternalPort = 9200
AllowAlternatePorts = False
ExternalHostName = SYSTEMIP

If size is not specified, it will, of course, default to the legacy size of 256.

Since this will be a major change to OpenSimulator that touches a lot of different parts, subsequent posts, will discuss the changes I’m making.

I use Chrome as my browser and I added the Hangouts extension so I can stay connected to friends. But, when I click the green button on the toolbar, I get the Hangout’s popup dialog but I keeps repeating “Unable to connect to Google. Check your internet. Retrying in xxx seconds”. Over and over.

Well, today I fixed this for the second time and I thought to write the solution down.

I run with JavaScript disabled (Settings->Advanced Settings->Content Settings->Do Not Allow Any Site to run Javascript). Call me paranoid but there you are. This setting allows me to turn on the sites I want to be running whatever on my computer (Chrome supports an allow/block list) and keeps stray folks from doing any nasties.

It turns out that the Hangouts extension works by creating a hidden resource html page that includes some JavaScript!. (You probably saw that coming).

The solution to my “Unable to connect to Google” problem was to add the Hangouts extension to the JavaScript allow list.  Navigate to Settings->Advanced->Privacy->Content Settings->JavaScript->Manage Exceptions. There, add an ‘allow’ for “chrome-extension://nckgahadagoaajjgafhacjanaoiihapd/”. That mess of letters is the ID of the extension which can be found on the Extensions page (navigate to “Settings->Extensions” or browse to “chrome://extensions”.

Happy hanging out.

I have some ideas for data coding (more on that in a later post) but it required me to do some heavy weight math. It has been a long time since I did math so I needed some refreshers. One amazing resource is the online MIT classes at MIT Open Course Ware. They have video lectures, class notes and exercises for freshman to graduate.

I’m making my way through freshman calculus. Have to begin somewhere and I’ve forgotten a lot. It’s like a foreign language – if you don’t use it, you loose it.

The updates for LookingGlass have been happening over at the official web site.

Camera and avatar movement is MUCH smoother because of finding bugs and adding position and rotation animation code. That also means that movement of animated objects is now smooth. LG works great in OSGrid/Lbsa Plaza but larger sims like OSGrid/Wright Plaza stretch the bounds of memory. SkyX now works with OpenGL although the shaders aren’t all together for the sun and moon lighting. Avatars are still stuck in T-pose and attachments are at the feet. Sitting avatars now are near the sit location and not at the sim’s 0,0. Also upgraded to the latest libomv. A new Windows 32-bit installation package is in the download section.

I’ve been working on LookingGlass which is a stand-alone, you-have-to-download-it viewer for the OpenSimulator virtual worlds. I really wish one didn’t have to download the viewer. Viewing should just happen as part of the web.

I’ve looked at this several times and it looks like the infrastructure is maturing. WebGL is appearing or will soon appear in most browsers. This provides the basis for getting accelerated, 3D graphics on the screen. Additionally, it is standard in the browsers (IE is a problem, Microsoft being who they are, but Google has a plugin to fix that).

Recently, Google has decided to move their O3D project to being a scene graph wrapper for WebGL. This makes JavaScript connect to the 3D world reasonably while keeping all the 3D technology in the standard browser.

The new O3D is early in its development but it is coming. 3D on the web is just around the corner.