SL Desktop

Since the SL client already has all of the 3D rendering and such in place, I would like to see
a "single user sim" added so that SL could be used as a private 3D desktop that links to the main public SL worlds.

As a model, what I would like to see is the SL client incorporate the desktop usability of the 3DNA Desktop from http://www.3dna.net

In the 3DNA Desktop, you can have "icons" on the walls of a "Web Bay" that link to webpages. The icon itself is a tiny snapshot of the webpage. You click the icon, your browser opens to that webpage. There is an "Application Bay" where application icons from the user system launches installed apps. A "Media Bay" allows you to launch music and videos, etc.

What I would like to see is an extension where you could build on your own "private" land that acted as your desktop, where you could link icons/objects to webpages, applications, or MIME files. In this "private land" you could also link a portal to the main SL world.

This could probably be put together through an alliance with 3DNA to extend SL to the desktop, and to integrate a great 3D desktop to a great 3D world.

I am not sure if what I am picturing is all that clear, please feel free to ask.

You cant do this without distributing all the server software to the client.
SL follows a thin client architecture. Nothing that you see is actually being done on your machine. It works over an RPC model - you ask the server to create a cube, and when the cube is created, you receive an object update telling you what to render.

Ohmygod, think about it though; an offline mode or a home-server model (even stripped down), to run a limited private island from your house has been one of the most-oft-requested features that I've seen. Even if it can only handle <5 visitors at one time, even if it can only handle one, or perhaps none at all. How cool would it be if you could also use such a home-sim to navigate your PC; rezzing objects, and linking them to different file areas. Each person could create their own custom 'puter browser, in the 3-d form that they they desire. Access to files and security features of your PC built up like with Land or Object permissions, so that you can designate the amount of access you prefer to visitors, none, some, or deep access. People can come to "visit" you at your home, IN your computer, and tool around, limited only to what you've determined their permissions are. Build a house and make this "My Computer". The living room would be the "C Drive", kitchen would be "Control Panel". Or, whatever. Any form you decide to give it.

THAT is a starting point for the metaverse.

I'm not sure why you think you couldn't do this eggy? It's be pretty simple to tell the client to look to a file (of the proposed space) for it's data instead of looking out on the net. And the linking mechanism is already in place. Didn't you know you could hyperlink to an SL location via the web?

Data is data.... the client doesn't care where it comes from. And having used the 3DNA desktop, I gotta say it would be a pretty spiffy addition. I'd really like to see it where you could have a limited number of people in 'your space', but I know that's askin' too much.

Distributing Server Code onto the Client is very, VERY BAD in many respects:

1) It bloats the size of the client... How would you like your client updates to go from a 14MB download to a 200MB download??

2) Needless complication... The whole system is designed to have the servers run in a controlled environment with "split" responsibilities - you have database servers, sim-servers, etc. You'd have to set 1 of EACH up on your home machine, to allow for an "offline private sim". An "online" private sim area is out of the question - because it sucks bandwidth & server resources away from the rest of us who are playing in the "normal" areas online. As Spock would say: "The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few, or The One."

3) Possible Hacks/Cheats/Attacks/Exploits... Part of the security of an MMO, is that the home-user only sees the data that the servers send. They don't see HOW the servers get or process their data. This is an important security item. If you start giving people the opportunity to try to reverse-engineer the server code that would exist on their home system in this situation, you begin to provide them a tool to cause big problems in the game for the rest of us.

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

1. Client updates need not be any larger. The people who do not wish to run an off-the-grid or offline version of SL will continue to only download the client updates. The people who do will need to make the necessary sacrifice for it. Since LL charges on a subscription basis and there are many civic minded "contributers" among us, they can even make use of a P2P application like bittorrent to distribute the larger download. The download itself is free, so it's not piracy, and the people who wish to, could contribute to the community by leaving the torrent up for awhile.

2. Hmm, not knowing much about network architecture I'm not sure, but this might not be necessary. There wouldn't be a central assett server needed so much as a cache to retrieve things from.....after all, this would be a pocket universe more than a grid. The biggest and hardest issue to me would be how to safely transport inventory created in-world to out-world, and vice versa; managing id tagging with the central asset server inworld and preventing people from "hacking" downloaded items or finding expoitable bugs to circumvent item permissions. An "online" private sim need not suck resources away from the central grid, because it wouldn't be ON the grid. There ought to be some way, however, for a person in-world to "jump" off-grid to one of these private servers. Rez a warp gate and fly into it or something, you're given a waiting screen while you connect. While that happens, you're "handed off" from LL's servers to the other person's home network; or, the server where their island is being hosted from. Presumably the goal is to make the metaverse much like the internet, where you can rent server space from any number of vendors if you don't possess the hardware or bandwidth to host yourself. Also, there would be severe limits on how many guests a private island would have, both for bandwidth reasons and because it would (in the short-term) encourage continued use of the existing grid.

3) I agree that this is a very big concern; however, if we accept at face value what the Lindens have been saying; that they intend SL to pave the way for the Metaverse, then this will have to be addressed sooner or later. Self-hosted environments will be part of any eventual metaverse.

Visitors most likely wouldn't be allowed in.

Would you play SL at 128kbps/sec (most upload speeds in the US are capped at that)? That's one person. If someone else connected, you would be getting object updates at 64kbpsk/sec. In comparison, most folks run SL at around 400-600 kbps a second to have Sims download stuff as quickly as possible.

On top of that...

A single Sim, just to run (without visuals) takes up the full processing power of a 2.6ghz Opteron processor. Full. As in, no idling.

You would also need data server software. And asset server software. On separate computers.

The SL client requires at least an additional 1.5 ghz or so, PLUS a beefy video card, PLUS 512 megs of ram to run properly.

So by the time you get your Sim network up for your desktop, you have 4 computers running on a network. Kinda kludgy for hosting your own sim.

LF

Hey Lordfly;

Although I've no idea of exactly how a home setup might have to be cobbled together, I figured that it was a very real possibility that home users might not be able to both run a simulation and host visitors.

An SL mini-sim as my UI? That would own.

I would like a small private sim, tho. The asset thing? I'll have to write out an entire proposal for that.

Bumping because this really should happen.

An alternative to this that I believe could be possible with relatively short development time by LL is a private "home" area for each resident. That is, give each resident his or her own private space that is only available to that person and whoever else is invited. This would be somewhat like apartments in Neocron (best example I can come up with off the top of my head)

1. Each private space only exists while someone is actually in it.
   
2. Private spaces do not show up on any map.
   
3. If each private space was limited in size to, say, 32m square, 64 of them could fit within the existing architecture of a simulator at one time (although it should not be possible to see or interact with other people's spaces while you are in your own) and the space would only be used up if 64 people were online and inside their respective private spaces all at the same time. Under this assumption I am guessing LL would only need a few spare servers to handle the load for what would undoubtedly be an incredibly popular and valuable feature.

Yeah, we don't know what the havok license looks like though. Can they distribute it?

However, distributing the servers will come eventually. They just need to figure out how to do it in an intelligent way. From a work space point of view, from a privacy point of view (do we reall need LL snooping our chat logs? no, I don't think so)

Bumping up this thread, since all that's needed for SL as a 3D Desktop is actually HTML-on-a-prim ... available in June 2006, hopefully.

i heard version 1.7, so i wont be holding my breath till june

I don't see why this can't be done already. Instead of SL sending the request, all it has to do is render right-away, presumably the settings translate over extremely easily.

This would be PERFECT for building things, as you could build your objects without sim-lag, for free, and then take them into your inventory to have them become an object you can place in-world.

Although I don't know what you'd do with scripts, those would still need compiled which I don't think the client does?

Ignoring the technical and legal hurdles (a mini/local sim would still need authentication and asset services which would mean decoding the SL protocols which LL would probably consider Bad), there are a number of reasons that using 3-space to model information spaces is too limiting.

I'm glad 3DNA is pleasing to you; if the model was broadly useful, we'd probably see much more of it out there. As a comparison, think about a specific item for sale in-game - now try to find it using only your "geographic" memory. This is not an easy task.

The client doesn't "look for data". It tells the sim "turn left" and the sim sends an update containing the objects you can see from that viewpoint. It tells the sim "Wear this" and the sim tells it what it can see. It's not just asking the sim for objects and textures... the sim is doing all the heavy lifting.

HTML on a prim for a 3d desktop is ludicrously inefficient and impractical even with just the client and browser in the loop. Adding the overhead of a sim and asset server ... ick.

I found this unconvincing when it was slashdotted over a year ago, and now that I've discovered SL I'm even less convinced.

A desktop isn't an information space. A desktop uses a 2.5d space (2d windows stacked in an infinitely thin 3rd dimension) to model interest, not information. The problem is that navigating a 3d space instead of a 2.5d space is hard... but SL's camera navigation does a lot to solve that problem.