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Re: Croquet vs. Secondlife regarding future development (some thoughts to share...)
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Re: Croquet vs. Secondlife regarding future development (some thoughts to share...)
 
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On Feb 2, 2007, at 10:49 AM, deadgenome -.,.-*`*-.,.-*`*- wrote: > I know, and to solve this nicely requires really intelligent > distance/priority lodding done before download, so that the client > only requests stuff to the detail level that it wants to display it. I > have been looking at a couple of mechanisms for achieving this based > on analysing meshes as though they are waveforms and then using > amplitude and frequency to give mesh data a priority level. I don't > know if there are any engines that do this already but it seems to me > a better way of doing it than tile based systems. The sort of LOD that you describe seems orthogonal to whether a tile- based system is used; the tiling is a strategy for deciding which sim is responsible for which land area, but says nothing about how any given sim and client negotiate what needs to be downloaded. I believe (without having studied the code) that SL already does something like what you describe; it might not be smart enough to stream a particular LOD down, but it gives a higher priority to nearer objects. There is no reason that this couldn't be extended to be LOD-aware. The particular approach to analyzing the mesh is a separate matter. The infrastructure that I mention above will work whether you use a fancy algorithm like you suggest, or if you set an intern to the task of manually annotating the meshes with metadata about what LOD to use at what distance. Josh > > On 2/2/07, Joshua Gargus <[hidden email]> wrote: >> The biggest yadda that you didn't mention explicitly is that in Quake >> the world doesn't change in the middle of a deathmatch. All of the >> textures and models that you need are already there. In contrast, in >> SL, the software has no idea what sort of user-created content you >> might stumble across and therefore have to download on the fly. >> That's a really big yadda :-) >> >> BTW, have any of the people in this discussion built the open source >> SL client? How did that go? >> >> Josh >> >> >> On Feb 2, 2007, at 4:53 AM, deadgenome -.,.-*`*-.,.-*`*- wrote: >> >> > My issue with SL is that I used 2 play online CTF in quake in >> '98 on >> > ISDN with a 4MB matrox card and find that SL is appalling in >> > comparison in terms of laggyness and rendering quality. I know >> that it >> > is a vast world, hi poly avatars, yadda, yadda, yadda, but I still >> > feel that it should be a lot better given the hardware I am >> running it >> > on, the speed of my connection and the 9 years that have passed >> since >> > my first foray into online multiplayer environments. >> > >> > Croquet looks very promising and although it has some serious >> > deficiencies at the moment, is still heavily in beta, so I don't >> feel >> > I can judge it too harshly yet. I haven't used any of the others >> > (multiverse, etc.) and would be interested to know what people >> think >> > of them. >> >> |
RE: Croquet vs. Secondlife regarding future development (some thoughts to share...)
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In reply to this post by Shack Dougall
Shack, I might be alone on this point but I thought the SL gathering was not
for general metaverse chat but to actually look at practical integration efforts between SL and Croquet projects. This would require at least some of the participants to be developers with the SL platform who are familiar with scripting in-world. The topic kicked off with a few people wondering about porting content from SL's proprietary tools to other tools and other worlds, including Croquet. Plus... Isn't it kind of weird to question the usefulness of an avatar-based collaborative real-time meeting on a *Croquet* list? I mean, that's kinda the point of what we're all aiming to do, right? ;D I don't think people are meeting in SL because it has awesome chat/meeting features (it doesn't) but more because we are looking to bridge development and see what skill sets and options the group has within SL. By establishing an SL presence of some kind, like an info kiosk with a slurl we can share, then we can attract more experienced SL developers to any projects the group pursues. SL has attracted a number of talented coders who most likely are bumping up against limitations and frustrations in SL and this group would be a good outreach to get people in that camp to look closely at Croquet and cross-platform development outside of the SL grid. I think the group is seeking to bring together thinkers on this and I agree with Shack that the best place to continue in-depth discussions is a mailing list or forum accessible from both inside and outside the VR platforms we're hoping to connect. Chat in SL is MMORPG IM-style in visual format so it only supports brief, informal, single-threaded conversations. It also puts non-english speakers at a real-time disadvantage if they are not totally fluent and the chat is in english. I also think we should be careful not to hijack the Croquet list HERE to talk only about SL>Croquet stuff because that's somewhate OT to Croquet proper. So if there is going to be movement on the SL front by Croquet users, I think we should break off a new mailing list for it with a volunteer host. -Kelly |
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In reply to this post by Kelly Rued-2
interesting article...
2007/2/2, Kelly Rued <[hidden email]>: > im |
[croquet-dev] Re: Croquet vs. Secondlife regarding future development (some thoughts to share...)
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In reply to this post by Kelly Rued-2
I've a couple of thoughts on this.
1) There are some very useful things which can be learned from Second Life. 2) There are some very useful things which can be learned from Croquet. One of the most difficult things in Croquet (as far as I've been able to figure out) is server-based computations. Every computation is, as far as I can tell, done on multiple systems simultaneously. One of the most difficult things in Second Life is client-based computations. I.e., there aren't any. One of the good things about Second Life is the idea of a controlled amount of cash in the economy. There is a central "bank", which keeps track of the amount of money in circulation and controls it in order to ensure that inflation doesn't run rampant. One possible way to extend Second Life is via the libsecondlife project, which implements a proxy for the protocol. If a Croquet plugin could be devised for it, it would allow the Second Life viewer to interact with Croquet spaces, and possibly vice-versa. There are MANY limitations to Second Life's technology, just as there are many limitations in Croquet's technology. The need to attach primitives to your body to make it appear different -- that's not appropriate, in my view, though I don't know how easy it would be to allow different model meshes and animate them appropriately. But the larger the number of primitives which must be dealt with, the more slowly the process of dealing with the primitives occurs, which causes cpu-bound lag. Currently, SL handles the lag of avatar animation by offloading the .bvh animation handling to the client. It must process primitives on the server, though, which is why high-prim avatars lag sims so much. Any thoughts? -Kyle H On 2/2/07, Kelly Rued <[hidden email]> wrote: > > im > > > still dreaming of parallel metaverses interconnected via portals or > > > teleport. Where SL takes its role maybe as sotial life platform, > > > other virtual universes e.g. based upon Croquet or others show up as > they are needed. That sounds like a vision! > > > > > > Finally i dislike the idea to be member of an SL-group that thinks > > > about how to avoid SL. Isn't that a bit unfair? so we could meet without > placing a group. > > > maybe eventually that makes sense. But not before it becomes clear whats > up... > > FWIW, I agree that the "big dream" of the metaverse is actually a web of > platforms with sensible, fluid portals between them so that content is > interconnected in useful ways. I doubt it is a matter of inventing one uber > platform to rule them all. Despite the many obvious flaws in Second Life, > Linden Lab has accomplished many great things with the Second Life platform > and their virtual world is currently at the frontlines of turning virtual > spaces into usable,practical everyday tools for people who aren't developers > or academics. The P2P architecture of Croquet makes it supremely attractive > to me as a developer and I would cite SL's direction toward open clients and > open servers as a stop-gap sort of solution to what needs to be genuinely > p2p to support the "big dream" that many people have for the multiverse. > > So I'm not looking to avoid Second Life (I own a big chunk of mainland but > have no plans for an island until they open that up too and I can just set > it up on my servers). I just hope to bridge my SL-based content to other > platforms, especially something p2p like Croquet, so that I can inch closer > to the kinds of entertainment applications I want to be designing and > deploying. > > Our SL group should acknowledge SL's leadership in this metaverse space but > should seek to extend beyond the boundaries inherent with SL. Some things > that Croquet may do better than SL: > > -p2p world management decentralizes power, resources, and opportunities > better than any model that requires expensive remote servers (even if the > servers become/are "open source") > > -higher quality avatar art and the ability to import 3D assets from > professional tools, more control over art import/export in general > > -privacy: no central organization owns your chat logs > > -access: totally free sdk (no need to sign up or create an account with a > controlling organization), no central TOS that can ban your account from the > entire metaverse system for any reason/no reason at all > > -distributed ownership of users: each publisher of a world could easily > require a sign up or verification per application just as most users have to > create an account per web application rather than one big account for "the > internet" where none of the individual sites had access to the account info > held at "the internet db of users" which is the current system for > applications developed within SL (also for commercial apps "owning the > customer data" is very important so that you can do many important things, > such as ensuring due diligence in age verification or dealing effectively > with griefers) > > -liberation from corporate whims: companies decide to break things or drop > backwards-compatibility goals whenever they feel like it. SL is obviously > not the only platform (or even the most notable) to do this but considering > that most SL developers are not making anything close to a profit from their > SL development... It's a ridiculous financial burden to have to fix things > when you were developing at a loss to begin with. Hopefully Croquet *in > future versions* will always maintain reasonable measures to run legacy > croquet code and to give advance warning/notice when something is going to > be depracated rather than having developers login and find a bunch of Ims > from customers saying "x doesn't work anymore" and having to drop everything > to rush in a fix. In general I hope that Croquet's birth as this open > developer-centric platform means that external devs are treated well and not > just as disposable value-adders for the central Croquet software. > > Heh, you can tell from my final item that I think the main flaw with SL is > actually not one of architecture but of business policy. The developers and > content creators who make SL viable for end users are treated very shoddily > by SL decision-makers, imo (SL shipped as a fancy chat room, and what little > Linden content there is, it's not nearly as engaging as the user content). > Croquet is truly based on open development practices and I've been able to > watch a community working on the software, just as I have with other open > projects I follow like TikiWiki. That is the main reason why I think > developers should be looking at bridging SL to Croquet because Croquet might > give developers more opportunities to extend the platform and profit from > their contributions (by profit, I mean "pay people for their time so they > can make more stuff" because SL is a charity case for devs right now). And > for players, obviously they are going to benefit from a p2p world where they > can create their own island instead of paying insane set up fees and a > monthly rent that rivals most family's utility and grocery bills. It will > also be nice to have builds limited only by PC resources than arbitrarily > limited by "prim count" tied to blocks of virtual real estate. ;) > > -Kelly > > > -- -Kyle H |
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