Pseudo-SL "Offline" Environment For Building & Testing?

Is there a 3D environment similar to Second Life where I can build 3D objects, such as houses that I can then import into SL?

I've been spending countless hours in SL lately building and building and, yup - you guessed it, more building. But I'm also interested in doing so without being a part of the whole grid thing.

Is there a 3D program that lets me build in a manner that is similar to Second Life's viewer application?

I've read information on importing 3D objects created in 3D Studio Max, but does 3D Studio Max offer the kind of interactive "walk through" 3D style developing environment that exists in SL?

What kills me presently are distractions, all those buildings and trees and gizmos and gadgets other people have built. I'm almost tempted to purchase a whole doggone 65,536 Sq. M. of land so that I can sit in the dead center of it and build to my heart's content without seeing anything around me but sky, clouds and rolling fields and hills.

Thanks!

Short answer: no.

Do check the Building Tips forum, though... I seem to remember talk about development of an offline builder.

And of course you can do sculpties outside the SL client... the Building Tips forums has info on that too.

As for finding a quiet place to build: First, do it on a sky platform at 500-700 meters altitude. Not only will there be less to distract you up there, there will be less for your client to render... and that means LESS LAG!!!

There are a lot of different scripted platforms you can buy, but regular prims will do. It does help if you have a flight assist, so that you can easily fly up to the high altitude (if you don't have one, IM me inworld and I will send you the free "Flight Feather" that lets you fly as high as you want).


ETA: There is a build limit of 750m, so if you are building something large, keep your sky platform low enough so that the highest prim is below 750m. (Or is it 768?)

Actually...yes. There is.

http://wiki.magrathean.ca/index.php?title=DGiG

You can access the sim using the SL client...and, if I'm not mistaken, utilize the building tools in that environment, as well.

Brutally cool, no?

I don't think there's a way to directly import your builds from the DGiG sim....yet. But it'd be a nice little private sim, unconnected to the main grid, where you could practice.

Thanks for the tips! I own several pieces of land and have been trying to sell the smaller ones to invest in a single larger one, though I do presently also own one 4,096 piece of land.

I have rezzed a single box prim before, sat on it, then set my height to something like 600M to skyrocket to the right altitude, then rezzed another prim and made a platform to hop off my box onto and then begin building... So starting a sky platform will not be an issue. I then just create a landmark to the skybox and TP there when necessary...

I'll check out the builder forum in regards to an offline builder. That would be a wonderful thing if there is one in development.

Thanks for the input!

I'm checking it out now. Thanks!

Have you got this simulator to work?

I downloaded it and it's running... It should be available on 127.0.0.1:9000 on my home computer, but I'm having issues using the switches.

I have the switch -loginuri http://127.0.0.1:9000/ exactly as stated, but when Second Life starts up it indicates there's some kind of serious issue and then closes.

So have you gotten it to work? It look sway cool from what I've seen so far...

Check with Adam Zaius - I know he is working on a similar project that allows the SL client to log into a locally hosted sim.

If your build involves megaprims, please try to stay below 512 m with your sky platform. Every megaprim above that height causes a lot of lag (don't ask my why, but Zero Linden said so).

There is a thing called OpenSim too which might be worth a try. My RL couldn't get it to work, though. Apparently what it gives you is an empty sim and the building tools and an avatar, but I think there are no textures, you have to make your own and upload them and you can't import anything from SL or vice versa - it's self contained so I can't go there, my RL would have to employ a different avatar there!

I can only comment on sky platforms, of which I have done previously within SL.

What I usually do is to rez a 10 meter square prim by 0.5 meters thick. Duplicate it 9 times and link the centre prim to all the other prims. That was (I think) the previous limit in distance to linked prims. You can get an exact distance via moving each prim 10 meters into the desired position.

Then click the entire linked set and raise the height to your desired altitude. 768 meters is the build height so any thing between around 500 to 700 meters is fine. Make sure your viewer client is adjusted so it "sees" no further than say 128 meters.

Buy a jet pack from a vendor or pick one up for virtually zero cost. I think no more than say $L100/$L250 is a fair price to pay for a commercial version of a jet pack.

You will then be able to fly up to your platform. Other avatars will not be able to see you or interact with you (unless they also have powered flight AND know your 3D location) as most viewer clients have a "see" distance of around 128 meters by default. Although the "see" distance can be increased the load on the computer processor makes SL almost unusable. So you should be quite private.

You will find the lag substantially less as your own viewer client has only to render your own constructions, scripts, and textures (in the main)

The only disadvantage is that you (and any guests) will be unable to fly within your platform as you are above the natural height ceiling of normal un powered flight, so therefore your build is best done from the sky platform ground up

This is my own simple way of starting a floating build. I accept there may be other more advanced routes, and of course this only addresses the start of what could be a complex build with many more prims extending both vertically and horizontally from the start base

Finally I have found that super large prim sets are unstable, and difficult to move at heights

hmmm never tried this, but hey, if you're adventurous...


look for the '-local' switch... it suggests the client will run w/o using an actual connection to SL

another proven option is building on the beta grid

Wow I am sure so many people have been waiting for quite some time for an offline builder. Hopefully you don't need to use that awful Ruth to build with. But with downtime it will be great to get some things done, even if there isn't a dedicated way to upload them into the main client yet. Thanks for the link.

There's also Google Sketch-Up, which is fun and somebody told me it is compatable with SL as long as you use full prims and don't cut or hollow anything at all. Sketch-Up has a far superior prim manipulation interface which isn't compatable at all, and I haven't been able to import anything into SL from Sketch-Up, but apparently you can somehow.

Sweet!

I have a license for VMware Workstation 6, so I'll give this a try. I bet the VMware Player would work for this as well, provided the download is the complete VMware Machine (which it sounds like it is - won't know for sure until I download/try it this weekend).

Wow, my own Beta Grid! Woot

Thanks for the link!

I just tried this and... no, it seems to just connect you to the live Main Grid.

I got OpenSim to work...

I'm running it in VMWare, but you must set NAT correctly so that the virtual sim server can communicate with the outside world.

Also, they do not go into very good detail as to logging in. You have to use the following login:

First Name: Test

Last Name: User

Password: test

It's still kind of lame from the polished standpoint of SL's Sim servers, but it's a definitely good attempt to re-design the SL world "blindly."

Create a platform up in the sky that you can build on, and reduce your graphics rendering to 60 meters or so and you won't see nearly as much stuff around you to distract you.

You can get an excellent free flight assist device in the box of free useful stuff on the vendor wall at my store in Shona.