THIS CAN BE SOLVED!!

[Kaiser Bogomil]

The Problem

The veritical space of any sim extends to a height of 4096 meters.  Getting the most out of that space can be done by using rezzers.  The rezzers, however, are a pain to use.  None of them record all prim changes ( e.g., linking, unlinking, resizing, texture changes etc. ) and because they run server side they consume both sim CPU and bandwidth which leads to lag.  Additionally if the rezzers rez content within your drawing distance you will again be forced to download & render content that you may not want to see.  This is particularly annoying in skybox communities.

I'm sure it goes without saying that if the visitor is wearing lots of hires textures, glow, face lights,  and scripted attachments - the load is much worse.  And A successful SL business needs lots of visitors. 

A business setting up a shop in a busy mall might seems like a good idea.  The problem though is that the performance of your business will suffer because rather than dedicating bandwidth to your customers and rendering only your prims your visitors will be forced to download the prims at neighboring stores.  Furthermore, if you spend money on classified ads - you are not only paying for your traffic you are also paying to advertise for your neighbors.  Some ppl actively exploit  this by setting up shop next to parcels who have paid to get that top spot in the classifieds.  The parasite has his signs up to draw traffic to his business and will even IM your visitors to try to sell them on his stuff.   Some ppl will send ad bots (automated avatars) to places that rank high in the classifieds hoping that the picks in the ad bots will bring them traffic.

Solutions?

A partial solution is to use that vertical space to separate the visible prims and require that visitors set their draw distance to say 64m.   That would reduce the load on the sim and help speed up prim rendering.  If you live in a skybox that might be adequate.  Its worth mentioning that viewers like phoenix and imprudence and kokua have an adaptive step size that scales the draw distance incrementally so that, initially, you only download and render prims near you.  Not the best solution since after the draw distance has been scaled to the full distance set in your preferences, say 512m, you still end up with the same problem - it just happens slower. 

Another solution is to divide your sim or parcel into two "use types".   The upper area say from 300m up for your sub spaces where people download and rez only the content that you define for you and your visitors - pretty much like having your own personal island sim. And leave the ground for your communal area.

This seemed like a reasonable solution to me so I implemented it ... I created a "microsim" to manage the private content and the "Slim Prim" as the private content.  And to make this idea work I used the Imprudence viewer as the context controller.  When a visitor enters a private volume only the content defined for the volume is rezed.  And because the real rendering power is in the viewer I extended the build area to 4 times the Linden's 64K.  I could have gone even further since today's technology is up to the task.  Furthermore I have divided my own sim up into 317 of these volumes where each one can render up to 10,000 Slim Prims.  And because each volume behaves like an island sim you don't see the content rezed around you.  Well almost - there is a small bug :(  ... its technical so I won't elaborate.  But if you walk to the edge of the volume you can see sky junk if its less than 64m from you.   Its fixable :)

I have done a simple benchmark to compare frame rates for 3 viewers: the Linden's 2.x, the latest Phoenix and my own "Moreland Grove".

 

Moreland Grove:	50 FPS
Phoenix:	35 FPS
Second Life:	30 FPS

 

Note that I started each client individually all on ultra.  Set the FOV to the middle position (slightly wider than the default).  Before recording the numbers I let each viewer settle for 10 mins.  To get them I watched the stats bar for about min and estimated where the average was. Note that the numbers are kind of rough and will vary depending on your hardware.

You can verify these results yourself if you like - the source code and executable are100% free and open source and if you like you can host your own slim prims on your own servers.  The server I'm using costs me about $15 a month and I'm currently hosting about 50k slim prims... though I have only had it up to serving 100 ppl .. still it did fine.  (well there were a few bugs ... still are :( ... something about an RC3032 @%$)  but not performance related.  

That said you should know that there is a decent solution to some of the lag problems - I do have a complete solution though I haven't implemented it yet - kind of seems pointless given that my implementation is 100% in compliance with the supposedly self certifying TPV listing requirements.  And has been rejected anyway on the subjective grounds "That it breaks the shared experience" ... well... of course it does... who really wants to share lag & a sky full of junk?.

There are others who have objected to my idea as well, obviously some are going to be competitors and VR real estate speculators and oddly enough even though they can host their own slim prims they still object.  The most common complaint is that my viewer is not Linden approved.   As if that really means that much.  I can see the need for a white list for viewers but I can also see a need a list for "not approved but in compliance" - which of course would mean "The really good stuff is on this list".

And whats seems devious is that the Lindens invited us here to build our creations and offer their services  & then publicly condemn perfectly good ideas that uses their platform. Really - why bother offering a VR service... why would anyone use it if the Lindens are just going to condemn your application?

I could go on about "its not what you say its what you do" that matters.  But life is too short.

BTW... my idea isn't new really .. this same kind of evolution has happened already with dedicated servers.  Today ...web hosters offer both shared servers ( analogous to my microsim )  and dedicated servers ( ala the Lindens Sim ).  Its a fairly obvious idea ... it will probably happen eventually.

BTW: I like the spell checker :) and works in the HTML view too! nice!  (too bad about the rest of the forum eh?)

 

 

[Caitlin Tobias]

I have absolutely no idea what you are on about, really. But as you posted this in community feedback I suppose it is some proposal to make SL a better place for all?

Maybe someone will respond to you in this thread and perhaps one day it will make sense to me!

 

Um. Good luck!

 

[Venus Petrov]

tl;dr

--||-

[Wilhiam Hydraconis]

 

---

Caitlin Tobias wrote:

Maybe someone will respond to you in this thread and perhaps one day it will make sense to me!

---

 

You might=  have no clue, but I see a CLU in the making .. = ^.^ =

Yeh, ok .. I seen Tron Legacy a lil' too many times after another.

[Peewee Musytari]

Sorry I lost the will to live after "The Problem" as after reading it I still had no clue what the problem actually was, so I didn`t feel a need to read the solution.

Whatever it is I wish you luck with your proposal

[Dale Innis]

Kaiser's idea is, I believe, that different people's browsers would render different sets of prims in the same area.  That way I can have 10,000  prims in my skybox that's just above your head, but since your viewer doesn't render them you will see just open sky and not suffer any lag from having to render my prims.  And vice-versa, looking down from my skybox I will not see any of your prims down on the ground.

Of course if I fly down to the ground I will still bash into your roof and be unable to walk around due to your walls, but at least I won't see them.    At least that's how I expect it would work.

The Lindens have decided they don't really like things that would cause two people in the same place to see completely different things.  (I personally agree with them there for most cases that I can think of.)  He thinks that it would be an advantage that when people come to my store they would somehow be prevented from even seeing the store next door, which might seduce them away.  This does not seem like a great idea to me, but maybe that's just me.  

Would seem adequate for the main case to tell people to just set their draw distance to 256m or less, and then stack skyboxes 256m apart up and down.  I'm not sure just what's wrong with that solution.  

[Void Singer]

 

---

Dale Innis wrote:

Kaiser's idea is, I believe, that different people's browsers would render different sets of prims in the same area.  That way I can have 10,000  prims in my skybox that's just above your head, but since your viewer doesn't render them you will see just open sky and not suffer any lag from having to render my prims.  And vice-versa, looking down from my skybox I will not see any of your prims down on the ground.

---

 

what has been failed to be mentioned is that all this extra is hosted on the OP's servers, with exclusive right to sale built on by the OP, and doesn't address permissions on exporting items (see OP's complaint about that back here) which would have been a death knell for TPV inclusion even if OP had complied with the rest like available source (it aint) and privacy policies (non existent), etc ad nauseam.

 

OP has a novel idea that could be a useful add-on feature, but low ethical standards, and this ridiculous stealth marketing campaign (like the recent absurd shill post where op forgot to log into a different account with exactly the same ad copy, that is now deleted, where I called OP out as liar.), the lack of any type of offical business contact information, etc etc...

I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. I recommend the same to everyone else. wait for somone that will do the idea legit.

[Kaiser Bogomil]

this is in reply to Void Singer

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_doth_protest_too_much,_methinks. )

I do try not to reply to posts like Void's  but because this is a public thread I'm afraid I have to defend myself here.  

Here is my privacy policy and for ease of reading it is on my download page right along with my disclosures, checksums etc. and the full source code.  Which is all free to download for everyone.  You can read it to verify it is 100% in complience with the TPV listing requirements.  And furthermore if anyone wishes to verify that the executables match the source they are free to build it and compare executables both for Mac (gcc4) & Windows (VC9).  All of this has been there since Nov 15, 2010.  I just added the Mac though -  Jan 17.

BTW Void you really should stick to points that you can verify otherwise well .. you know.

Void said: 

"what has been failed to be mentioned is that all this extra is hosted on the OP's servers,"

You didn't read my privacy policy did you?

Void said: 

"...had complied with the rest like available source (it aint) and privacy policies (non existent), etc ad nauseam."

Again .. read the above link.

And again: see Item 3 on : http://www.primphilia.com/store/MorelandGrove.html

it says:

 

Up to 10,000 Slim Prims! Because Slim Prims are stored on the Moreland Grove Server rather than the SL asset servers they are not counted against your prim count.  

 

You also imply that I store  passwords on my server.  I do NOT and would never never do that!!! AND this is such an outrageous accusation...  and yes I did want to be able to identify a user at log on so that I could give him access to their slim prims via their User Name and only their user name - NOT both   .... AND because the Lindens didn't budge on this I found a way around this - & this is all in my source code if you want to verify what I say.  You will also notice that ALL permisions are respected period.   With an addional restriction imposed by the TPV requirements -  only the creators of prims may export to my server - even if the prim has full perms and they're not the creator - you can verify this fact if you wish.  ( you don't want ppl to question your integrity do you? )

And yes currenlty the only place you may store Slim Prims is in a Slim Prim scene.   I'm sure I'll put in a slim prim inventory soon ... because it is awkward to buy a slim prim right now ( but you can do it - that was added in the last release. )  

Anything else you'd like to accuse me of Void?  & yeah boy did I do a bad job of hiding my identity eh??? lol!!! ...hint: I wasn't trying to.

Oh yeah I'm a software engineer - I have level 1 security clearance granted to me by the federal govt. of the USA, have writen security protocols for well known banks and several other kinds of well known businesses - I've also designed software for companies known world wide.  If you think I need to deceive ppl to give me their assets -  you clearly are out of your depth.   

And as I have said earlier, Void, this is all open source you can even host your own slim prims if you like.

=======================================================

Dale - you've got it ... except that a scene (or store) having only 4096 sq m of Linden space can have up to 256,000 square m (that's not a typo) of space with my viewer and because I do host the Slim Prims on my server I can offer up to 10,000 per scene as opposed to the typical 50-100 Linden prims you'd typically get at a mall.   Here's a pic of a sample scene I built on a 64m x 64m parcel. This picture was taken at an altitude of 1200m - note the water.

Note that the actual view space extends beyond the Linden boundaries.  I.e., from the center of the unit out to 256m in every direction.  The house is a 3 stories.  I'm in the picture too but because of the size of the scene I'm just a few pixels.  And to stick to the subject of this post - I get a 50% or better frame rate than the SL or other incarnations of the SL viewer. 

BTW because I do host the prims on my server I can add as many different kinds of prims/ tools/ features as I like.  ( I would love to tell you what I have planned but then my competitors might "scoop" me.)

 

 

[Void Singer]

it's very easy to add things after the fact isn't it? I wasn't the first one who spotted them missing, in the now deleted thread (which I believe was in community feedback forum originally? or was it tech forums?). was that the push that got you to insert it?

but good on you for getting arround to doing that.... now if we can get you to stop stealth marketing threads (hint: marketing goes in the marketing forums) and instead get some of the more reputable people on the blog circuit to review it instead, you might have a solid shot at making a go of it. might want to remove any unlicensed music from your promo materials too ::cough:: or the really awful make-money-at-home instant e-commerce flash site that is being hosted on top of it, that amusingly redirects to Target if you mistype a url. and mention that the prims are hosted on your servers in the ad copy and tucked away on the website (and perhaps the fact that residents can't use creations bought in SL except withing the bound of the skybox, and those WILL be limited to SL parcel prim limits) oh, and some business contact infomation if you're expecting to a projected ~450$US+ in profit from would go a hell of a long way towards trust.

(ps there's plenty more nefarious that can be done besides storing a persons SL password through an untrusted viewer. which I'm sure a software engineer, with any government security rating at all, knows perfectly well)

 

and just for the record... I like the idea... although I'm not sure it's all that much of an improvement over running your own open sim on your computer, but I can see potential in it.

ETA:
fixed link

[Kaiser Bogomil]

 Well Void - if the thread has been deleted I guess its your word against mine.   I guess its up to the readers to judge the truth for themselves.

While I was doing development, alpha and beta tests... I was only interested in getting things written, tested, and fixed and yes I said very little about my viewer period.  I did announce it & asked for testing help.  And since I didn't/don't work for either you or Linden Labs and was not seeking LL listing approval.... I have the freedom to set my own job requirments and schedule even if you don't personally approve.   Believe it or not... I can't do everything at once.  I'm not rich .. no staff etc. And this feature took a lot of work - work that I can't afford to pay for (guys who can do this kind of work make $80K USD plus a year. ) So I finished the viewer first and then finished off the listing requirments ... that way the Lindens can evaluate the finished product.  I dono just made sense to me.

Yep I redirect hackers intentionally. 

the content that visitors see first is a list of features are all presented as information.... kind of hard to hide something away in a 3 page web site.  And what you might want to see first ... well you can do your viewer and present things in the order you like best. 

Yep .. Slim Prims are enhancements to my bussiness .. hmmm golly what was I thinking???

And btw ... making them available to everyone outside of my business is actually easy to do - if I could afford a Slim Prim server for every Linden region and if the cost were justified I might

And yes if you want features similar to those I offer you will need to buy 4 adjacent island sims (you can get a sim for quite a bit less now than the Linden price now too) .   But then even with that and with double prim sims you'll still only get 120,000 prims.   On my sim I can rez 3,170,000 slim prims.  And because of how I've isolated my microsims  visitors can rez all of their 10k prims out to the full 512m x 512m with very little impact on neighbors.  And rather than pay for a 4 full sims where your tier is $1180 USD a month for the 4 sims a tenant only has to pay  about $1.50 USD (yes one dollar and fify cents USD.) a month (L$100 a week)... As I have said before .. its like shared hosting.... it has many of the features of dedicated hosting and at a much cheaper price but like shared hosting you don't get all of the features.  But I do plan on adding more features.  Like generalizing the idea so that other ppl will be able to host their own Slim Prims - have the huge build spaces - and all of the other features I've listed as well the new features I have planed. 

And yes there are nasty things any software vendor can do once you have installed the product.   But as I have said before ... I have nothing to hide - my source is all there.  If you can't read it .. get someone you trust to read it.  They'll know how to read it so that they don't have to read the whole thing.

Void - go read my 3 web pages & digest... then my source... build it .. verify the matching binaries then go visit and see for yourself. 

 

 

[Void Singer]

actually it's your word against mine and any who saw or responded to the original... I wouldn't rely on them not wandering by... if I really cared I might put out a request to the forum that I thought it was in... I don't. I'm willing to stand on my own reputation.

 

so let me get this right... you redirect "hackers" (anyone who happens to hit a bad link, truncates a copy paste, or misspells an address) intentionally? from your instant e-commerce site... to yet another ecommerce site? .... really?

or is that just the default set by the hosting company for the e-commerce site (so they can generate extra click throughs)?

I don't know any "professionals" doing that.... plenty of shady advertisers... but no professional software writers.

 

and I obviously did go read your pages, else how would I know about the items I listed above that you should probably fix? and really? what sane person would want me review their product after I slammed their practices? I'm not a reviewer... and anything I say would be subject to claims of bias one way or another (the claim could be anything from a personal vendetta to being paid off).

That's why I suggested you get it reviewed by the blog circuit... there's plenty out there are trusted and do that sort of thing, and would get you way more press than this silly out of context posting.

never mind the fact that I dodn't trust it personally, that it would still be connecting to your servers, unless I made the extraordinary effort hunt through the code, and recompile it to target my own server, and reverse engineer both the format and behavior of your server side setup.... sounds like work to me, and since I'm not getting paid, and there's not enough in it for me, that's just another big reason for me taking a pass on it.

[Lily Knave]

Well, I have read all the posts and this is quite a heated debate, which I will say is a little over my head. I understand the basic ideas expressed but can't comment on the technical aspect.

What I do feel compelled to comment on is my experience using Kaiser's viewer. I was one of the people who agreed to beta test his viewer and I have been using his viewer exclusively for the last 4 or 5 months. I find it to be very stable; I can use it on a computer in my office on which I can't use the SL version 2 viewer (yeah, the secret's out I get on SL from work...shhhhh). I also like that it is similar to the first SL viewer. I just couldn't adjust to the changes in the second one.

As a newbie builder, I love the slim prims!! I can play and manipulate and build large scale items that rez quickly and I don't have to worry about prim counts or learning how to make sculpties. From what I read in the preceding posts, as for security, I guess I am building for my own enjoyment and the learning experience and that is not a huge concern for me.

Again, I can't attest to any of the technical stuff posted above. I can only say I have been a Moreland Grove resident for a while now and I am very happy.