secondlife goes seamless world

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Yes, but very little community sense. All small grids sailing under the same flag.
Much less community and so less need to cross sims  than in SL.

Yes but again not the topic for this this thread. I'll point out though that because in Opensim there isn't the need to jam 20,000 Li of lag inducing builds into every region to get one's monies worth, there is more of a tendency to spread them out them out making for easier border transitions even without  the seamless option.

Community is what one makes of it and besides I am surprised at how many SL residents claim they never leave their region anyway so community isn't really a factor they are looking for. In which case, why pay a small mortgage payment for virtual land here then one can have free or for the cost of a laptop powered grid over there?

[Sid Nagy]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Yes but again not the topic for this this thread.

It has everything to do with the topic of this thread IMHO.
Opensim has almost no reason for sim crossings given its structure.
SL does, also defined by it's structure.
You can't simply adopt features from one to the other, that would cause complications for the grid in question.

[Arielle Popstar]

5 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

It has everything to do with the topic of this thread IMHO.
Opensim has almost no reason for sim crossings given its structure.
SL does, also defined by it's structure.
You can't simply adopt features from one to the other, that would cause complications for the grid in question.

Then you are missing the advantage of having seamless regions. Having racetracks that extend over several regions with no need to worry about lag and crashes because of it, Arial dogfights over 10 or so seamless regions etc. When the ability is there, creators and builder will figure out how to take advantage of it.

[Jaylinbridges]

4 hours ago, Quartz Mole said:

I had to remove some posts, and replies quoting them, because what should have been calm discussions about technical issues seemed to have become somewhat emotionally charged

I see you removed some of the OP's posts, so I never got an answer to what he meant by seemless.  Love's post was humor, not a technical discussion.

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I see you removed some of the OP's posts, so I never got an answer to what he meant by seemless.  Love's post was humor, not a technical discussion.

Based on the posts, I had to assume "problems due to region crossings" was meant. 

NOT "seamless textures between Regions".  

[Jaylinbridges]

SInce everyone is speculating about seemless, I think it means "simply" larger regions, so no region crossing at all would exist in a seemless region. SL could start a new large region world which was mainly for gaming and seemless, just one gigantic region.  They could recall a few Sansor employees to get them started... Region crossings assume you have adjacent regions, and that is not seemless.

Trying to combine large gaming seemless regions with the present 256x256m regions, would probably break a lot of things.  I recall an ex-Linden saying it would require a new design for SL and was impracticable.  Of course Sansar was still fresh in his memory.

There are some new seemless projects for mmo games, but still in the future.

Ubisoft Massive's Star Wars Game Will Reportedly Feature A "Seamless Universe"

CRAFTOPIA – SEAMLESS WORLD UPDATE RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCEMENT

There are many seemless small contained mmo games already, usually for an X-box or on Steam.  These have nothing in common with the massive SL grid.

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Ardy Lay]

What the heck are you all talking about?  SimTK: OpenSim: Project Home

Searching opensimulator dot org for "seamless" yields little enlightenment.  I too have to assume OP was referring the the feature where OpenSimulator instances can contain a region that is square multiples of Second Life's single region size.  Looks to me like this is accomplished by lying to the viewer, in some exchanges.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Ardy Lay

[animats]

45 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I think it means "simply" larger regions

Larger regions are, of course, available in the Other Simulator We Can't Talk About Here. But those big regions tend to be rather sparse. The total LI before things slow down is independent of region size. And even in the Other Simulator, you can't mix region sizes for regions that touch. So you can't have giant water regions with few objects adjoining busy land regions, which would be useful.

Giant regions are useful, but somewhat special purpose. There are some giant regions for flying around. There are big deserts and forests. There are big regions where there's a little town or mall near the center, and sparsely furnished outlying areas. There's an overall low-detail feel to large regions.  There's not the sense of detail you get in much of SL.

Edited June 15, 2023 by animats

[Love Zhaoying]

44 minutes ago, animats said:

Larger regions are, of course, available in the Other Simulator We Can't Talk About Here. But those big regions tend to be rather sparse. The total LI before things slow down is independent of region size. And even in the Other Simulator, you can't mix region sizes for regions that touch. So you can't have giant water regions with few objects adjoining busy land regions, which would be useful.

Giant regions are useful, but somewhat special purpose. There are some giant regions for flying around. There are big deserts and forests. There are big regions where there's a little town or mall near the center, and sparsely furnished outlying areas. There's an overall low-detail feel to large regions.  There's not the sense of detail you get in much of SL.

I swear that I saw something about "Premier" (not sure of the term) Regions - which support more people.

Found it! "Event Region Pro" and "Event Region Elite". Support up to 175 avatars.

Event Region Pro

The Pro configuration for Event Regions offers support for larger groups of avatars to be present in the region simultaneously with more capacity for scripts and an optional extended chat range to allow for all visitors to take part in events without the need to crowd into a smaller space. Additional services for special events (including an increase in land impact capacity and cloning of event regions) are available as a separate fee if desired.

Existing full regions can be upgraded to an Event Region Pro with no additional setup fee; the monthly maintenance fee for the selected region would increase to USD$449 on its next monthly billing.

Event Region Pro Specifications

• Land impact capacity: 20,000 (upgradeable)
• Avatar Limit: 175
• Extended chat range (on request)
• Available Cloning of Event Region - USD $50
  • 100% original content only
• Price: USD $449 per month
  • No additional setup fee required; for new regions, the monthly maintenance of USD$449 is charged when the region is created

Event Region Elite

The Elite configuration for Event Regions includes the features of Event Region Pro but adds additional services as an all-inclusive option, for those who operate frequently recurring high profile events that require more active maintenance than an Event Pro Region configuration allows.

Event Region Elite Specifications

• Land impact capacity: 30,000
• Avatar Limit: 175
• Extended chat range (on request)
• Event Region Cloning (100% original content only)
• No fees for Region Rollbacks
• Price: USD $599 per month
  • No additional setup fee required; for new regions, the monthly maintenance of USD$599 is charged when the region is created

 

[animats]

13 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I swear that I saw something about "Premier" (not sure of the term) Regions - which support more people.

Found it! "Event Region Pro" and "Event Region Elite". Support up to 175 avatars.

Right. That probably gets you a bigger AWS instance. Big events need a bigger engine.

Will SL20B be on these kinds of instances? That will give us a sense of how well these perform.

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, animats said:

Right. That probably gets you a bigger AWS instance. Big events need a bigger engine.

Will SL20B be on these kinds of instances? That will give us a sense of how well these perform.

Weird, another thread just came up with a similar question - I thought I posted the info there, but it was here.  Serendipity.

[Jaylinbridges]

47 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Found it! "Event Region Pro" and "Event Region Elite". Support up to 175 avatars.

And they are still 256x256 regions, with adjacent region crossings.  So not seemless.  The SL19 BD regions for the main Linden speeches last June  about the future plans for SL, used 3 of these extended LI regions, all adjacent.  With about 80 avatars per region, the lag was horrible if you tried to move.  Grab a seat, point the cam at the stage, and hope you don't crash.  The lindens were crashing too, if they tried to cam the 250 in the crowd.  You seem to have missed Animats point about mixing large regions with the usual SL region too.  

Those Elite regions also were still limited to 30,000 LI each.  They added more script capacity to handle more avatars in a small region.

What if a seemless region was 2048 m on a side? That would be the size of 64 normal regions.  64 private regions at 30K LI each is 1920K LI, or about 880 LI per region if 30k LI was the region max.  That is a rather sparse landscape for a full region, which was animats point.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Istelathis]

This is one of the reasons I have in the past suggested modules for SL, more specifically for game developers so that they could build their own physics into their engine while using SL's assets and allowing the use of our own avatars if so desired.  Large seamless worlds could be designed, by independent teams, which would allow for more advanced gaming such as racing, boating, MMOs, etc, and be directly connected to SL with its own physics, and world design.  Essentially, it is an independent program that connects to SL's servers for assets, payments, etc, that opens when an avatar wants to access them.  Meanwhile, SL's developers could continue to make advancements to SL, and everyday residents could continue to use the tools made available in SL via the viewer.

As far as changing SL to be seamless, it is not impossible I would think, but it would probably be an incredibly lengthy process with all sorts of bugs that would need to be worked out, who knows what would break in the process,  For large seamless sections of SL, with their own physics, with their own GUI, essentially their own self packaged game connected to SL we would be given a way to connect them to SL.  As to why anyone would want this, rather than just build their own independent games free from SL, well a lot of people get attached to their avatars, they would like to use them in other games, for developers that are interested in SL, they would have an existing userbase that already are in SL, and when mobile hits it is likely going to grow.  This is essentially, what the metaverse would be considered, a single avatar able to access multiple different worlds, although not necessarily a virtual reality one.  It would expand SL as the central hub managing it all, and not require a lot of work from LL.

[Love Zhaoying]

I am pretty certain that the "Seamless Regions" question / complaint posted by the OP does not apply to "Private Regions" - since unless you have multiple touching "Private Regions" they are never going to "touch" anyway:  you can't cross from your Private Region to someone else's Private Region without teleporting..right?

 

[Jaylinbridges]

31 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I am pretty certain that the "Seamless Regions" question / complaint posted by the OP does not apply to "Private Regions" - since unless you have multiple touching "Private Regions" they are never going to "touch" anyway:  you can't cross from your Private Region to someone else's Private Region without teleporting..right?

You certainly can if they are arranged as a private estate.  There are many Private island connected regions - they are called Estates.  Fruit Island for instance has over 200 adjacent interconnected sims and waterways. It is all private regions, and is no where near mainland.  Anyone can buy multiple private regions and have SL move them to be adjacent and connected (for a fee).  Each region in their estate is 256x256 meters.  If SL had massive regions, a private estate could go all seamless.  But there would be massive issues with adequate LI if only one region made from 200 full regions were made seemless.  Here is the Fruit Island map.  Every square is a full region:

 

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Ardy Lay]

Even one private region is an Estate.  Estate is the entity one owns, and that entity is a set of one or more regions.

Also, we have small Estates whose regions are, by mutual agreement, directly adjacent to each other.

[Love Zhaoying]

..that's my point, if they are Your Regions, they can touch..

Got it, @Ardy Lay.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Jaylinbridges]

22 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Even one private region is an Estate.  Estate is the entity one owns, and that entity is a set of one or more regions.

Well maybe because each region Detail has the region listed as Region/Estate in a tab, you can say that one region is an estate.  However the conventional terminology for an estate is more than one region.  At least that is how the SL Wiki defines it:

An Estate is a collection of Regions that can be managed as a set.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Estates#:~:text=An Estate is a collection,be managed as a set.

Regions plural, not one region. Then it is called a private region. If you own more than one region you can refer to them as part of your estate.  And there was a time when the Lindens called regions, sims,  too. 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Coffee Pancake]

There is so much wild speculation in this thread.

First up SL is not OpenSim, in the same way kraft cheese isn't cheese. Both are indeed yellow and have similar base ingredients, but that is where similarities end.

It is impossible to make SL into an seamless open world experience without major changes.

Remember - SL is 100% server side. The viewer is dumb like a rock.

 

Mega Regions - These are a possibility and LL did do some exploratory work. However, while the base region changes weren't that much work, they found that the region size is baked into so much of the general platform infrastructure as to be impractical to change. It's a million rabbit holes that go literally everywhere from physics to scripting to old content to web content to internal infrastructure to support and on and on. As such it represents a massive amount of work ... for a single region's resources with a variable land foot print.

Keeping the land footprint the same and adjusting the resources is the only option that doesn't come with a need to go over the entire platform with a fine tooth comb. So .. event regions and homesteads.

 

True seamless region crossings - Are impossible outside of explicitly defined test scenarios with very tightly controlled conditions (such as region crossing pile on events). Why? Because your avatar and it's attachments can not exist in more than one location at once. If it could then the door to race conditions is wide open and suddenly we have sneaky ways to duplicate content. Why does being in more than one place matter for seamless crossings? Because without this capability your avatar must be zipped up and passed to the new region, which under real world conditions takes a moment. This leaves the viewer making it up while the transfer happens, and it can't ever get it right, so when the next region says "hi, you're here" the viewer is out of sync and you get a bump.

It could possibly be solved with client side physics that inform the servers of the avatars position, so long as you're not too far away from where you could legitimately be, the server believes you. This is how games tend to do it. It is unlikely we will ever get client side physics, as no one at LL seems to play any games and has no idea just how junk the experience here can be. There would be a moment where server side scripts were wouldn't function, but we could also have client side scripts for controlling vehicles and then the experience would be better in every way.

[PheebyKatz]

Flying naked off my motorcycle, zooming for miles off into non-Euclidean space without being able to control anything at all, only to suddenly bounce back to the sim crossing with a different camera angle stuck all funky until I hit the next sim crossing is part of what makes SL fun for me. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Perfection is boring, and is for sissies.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Edited June 15, 2023 by PheebyKatz

[Qie Niangao]

All this is really a tangent to the original thread topic, but that's never stopped me before: Just to be clear, there's no requirement that regions in an Estate be contiguous. Many Estates consist of many isolated islands, usually rented to separate clients. It's often convenient for the Estate owner (and, especially, managers) that they're in the same "Estate", which is just an administrative and business entity.

Every Estate starts with a single region. Even a standalone Premium Plus homestead region is, for all practical purposes, an Estate.

To the actual topic:

• Sure, it would be better if they improved region crossings.
• Making mega regions is just kicking the can down the road.
• Completely re-architecting the world so a hunk of simulation lives on the viewer and oozes "seamlessly" around the server-side simulation that ties everything together is way more fun to imagine than it would be to implement.

[Sammy Huntsman]

I mean if someone owns multiple lands, maybe they can pay a little extra to create a mega-region. I can see that being more possible, good example Giano a roleplay community. Would benefit from a Mega region. 

[Coffee Pancake]

26 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

Perfection is boring, and is for sissies.

Go play GTA with friends .. it's not perfection, but damn, you wont ever want to drive here again.

(note - the physics has everyone phantom just for the race start, that doesn't last long)

As for 'sissies',, outdated nomenclature aside, some of us find them intensely desirable ... unlike all but the slowest SL road vehicles / boats.

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Coffee Pancake
note about phantom

[PheebyKatz]

I did include the requisite Seinfeld quote, just sayin'.

I did enjoy GTA5, but once I found my sweet spot, well, it became boring after a while.

SL is far more challenging in so many ways, it's like a paradise for me.

Anyway, yeah.

Edited June 15, 2023 by PheebyKatz

[animats]

2 hours ago, Istelathis said:

Large seamless worlds could be designed, by independent teams, which would allow for more advanced gaming such as racing, boating, MMOs, etc, and be directly connected

That's the business model of Sansar, High Fidelity, and SineSpace. All of which, on a good day, have a user count in 2 digits. Sinespace might hit 3 digits.

Those are called "game level loaders". You build a level map offline and put it on a server. User logs in, picks a region, there's a long wait while it downloads, and then it runs. This works fine, but it's a completely different kind of system. If you like that sort of thing, it's well supported in Unity.