Myst Online Open Source - what will this mean for SL?

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/txt/archive/?postID=8731

Will the Myst Online source be released under a license that's compatible with Second Life?

What open source resources will become available for use IN Second Life?

The announcement doesn't say what license they plan to use, only that it will be a staged release.

I doubt it will be applicable, at least at first. Twice in the past Cyan has tried to make an MMORPG based in the Myst universe: The first time, with Uru, it fell on its face. Glitchy, and strayed too far from the original stories (it took place in the current time, rather than the 100+ years ago that the original games took place). The second time was UruLive or something like that, and it never even went online. Besides that, these worlds were never meant to be anything like SL, they were more like WoW or PSU or other MMOs. They're games meant to be played and solved with other people. No user content that I'm aware of.

That said, there may be some bits of code that somebody might find useful in SL.

Myst never even made it to a full production stage. They hope open sou8rce will bring it out of moth balls? I dont think it means anything to SL.

It may not mean anything to Linden Labs, but what about the open source viewers?

Nothing happens (tm).

Second Life engine is so radically different in structure and core principles (Algorithmically generated primitive meshes overlapping all over. No other realtime 3D engine uses primitive modeling, as far as I know, let alone generates meshes on the fly) that benefiting from any other technology is highly unlikely. This is what enables it to have user content and this is what makes rendering so slow. Windlight got into the viewer mostly because it didn't need or touch the primitive geometry.

There's more than enough open source engines already. So?

Don't assume that all the open source forks of SL are going in the same direction. RealXtend is moving towards more fixed meshes and talking about using OBJ files directly, for example.

Sounds intriguing.

Currently Stanford Uni is working on a virtual world that will let you upload your own avatar meshes.
They had a presentation on it at our own uni. It's going to be big.

Those meshes will be nothing more than statues if you can't rig them. There's a lot more to custom avatars than a lot of people realize. (Though in this case I imagine rigging was included)

Also, unless some method of merging meshes into one is available, importing our own meshes into SL won't be that great - lots of well known and popular designers can't model a paper bag with traditional tools, they only shine with primitive block building. And don't even get me started on n-gons and wonky vertex issues. Of course if it were more like a polished sculpty sort of thing, with the models being imported as is instead of with mapping, but still with rules about vertex count and such, that would be nice.

They are developing the rigging and such, it's still very much in progress.
I'm looking forward to using my own models, eventually.

... You know what? I think It's time I break out the URU Live backups I made during the beta period ^_^

Yes that's right, I have backups from the dark ages of URU. I've seen things you wouldn't imagine, linking stones on the edges of cliffs.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Linking books on the edges of cliffs by the walkway. I watched markers blaze in the dark near the Library. All those moments lost in time, like tears in rain. … Time to live.

Point me at the source...





- image from the table above

I'm anxious to see it myself.