Offline Viewer Client

How about an SL client that makes an offline sim?

More specifically, a client that creates a sim on your computer acting as a local server, not connecting to the main grid. Also give the ability to upload individual creations, terrain files, or the entire sim to your privately owned land or sim on the main grid.

Also, to stop from conformity issues with prims/scripts etc, make this offline viewer required to update along with the online viewer. This would stop problems like old version scripts or objects not working properly with the new features or revisions.

Anyone see any major problems with this? I see no real potential for profit loss as long as this is on local only, and other people cannot connect to your local sim. Well other than hacks and such, but of course there would have to be security measures in place to prevent such things. Of course this would probably be a pretty big leap for LL and might take alot of time. But it would definately be worth it to be able to create/test/play offline.


Proposition 1978
Vote here: https://secondlife.com/vote/vote.php?get_id=1978

It is a very good idea, you should start coding it. We can give you enough information to get started if you drop by #libsl on EFNet.

that sarcasm? i havent done any c++ forever. since tribes 1 was out. bleh

Jesus. almost half the votes needed in one day. Must be a good idea Keep em comin! come on everyone, vote away

Actually I was serious. We really do have all the documentation you would need to write it, but the folks at #libsl would push C# as that's what libsecondlife is written in. You could probably actually use a slightly modified version of libsecondlife; just create a multi-threaded server and store current avatar locations, as well as maybe sending some terrain data down to the clients. It would essentially just be relaying client info to all the other clients, such as ImprovedTerseObjectUpdate packets, chat and instant messages. Prims, scripts, etc could be added one day.

So it'd start out being like a bizarro version of the "Construct" in The Matrix. A plain white room with nothing but copies of Ruth wearing "Image Missing" textures? You'd need an asset server of some kind, so you could upload and download textures for clothes and stuff.

I've thought about the same thing...

I'm actually working on a 3D collaboration tool, similar to the Open Source Metaverse Project (http://metaverse.sourceforge.net). I'm not currently trying to support SL, but it should eventually be possible to import content from SL and export content to SL via libSecondLife, if that's your desire.

Why don't we just rewrite SL completely from the ground up?

Eventually, with our without projects like libSL, this will end up happening.

SL is only the beginning. As computers and bandwidth get cheaper, more people will jump in to the streaming 3D world arena, with both free and commercial projects.

The big advantage of a system like SL is that the content is created by the users, so it should be (in theory) a much longer-lived platform than the proprietary engines, like Quake, Half Life, or Unreal.

I think it would have to download your inventory from the database, probably have a feature to manually synchronize your inventories offline and online. I know this is probably a bit of a large task, but i think in the end, being able to basically build a complete sim offline would save me and alot of others a bunch of downtime on large scale projects. Also being able to test things like skins/clothes offline without having to worry about people trying to get a sneak peek is a nice addition aswell. But i think this all would mostly be handy for redoing sims, or creating builds offline and just uploading, basically taking away all downtime.

I know there are a few problems with all of this. heres the ones i see:

1. Upload costs. If you upload a texture into the offline viewer, it must cost L$10 just like the online one, or there is potential for LL profit loss.
2. Version differences. If someone uploads something from version 1.0 into version 1.5, there sould be potential for problems. Updates should be manditory.
3. Inventory synchronization. I think the best solution to this would be to have a completely different inventory set, like an offline folder, and an online one, and be able to share between the two. Of course, permissions like no transfer should apply.
4. Hacking. There are a few potential security risks involved with this. A major one that i see, is that this offline viewer would basically have to be a copy of the server code you would have in an online sim. If someone reverse engineered, or otherwise obtained the server code, this could cause some major security issues for linden labs.

Im sure there are a few others im not thinking about right now. but i just woke up, give me a break

add your stuff to the list

Dag

Nah, just don't upload assets from the offline sim into the online one. That would also reduce the possibilities of using the offline sim for bypassing the rights system.

That sort of defeats the purpose of having an offline sim. The whope point of having it is to be able to create content offline, and upload it online. I dont really see any other use besides having the piece of mind of having your own little world. Well no i guess it might be nice to be able to transfer between online and offline aswell, so that you could create backups of builds.

Scripting.

I wonder what "-local", "run without simulator" command line option does?

That wouldn't need to be implemented by syncing the two sims. Better would be the ability to export any object from the offline sim to a file, and upload that (with an appropriate charge) from the client.

You'd need to restrict the content of the offline sim to things that you have full rights over, of course, but surely that goes without saying.

And even without that capability, there's all the testing (including test uploads) that one does in the preview grid that would be possible in your local sim.

This is for linden testing purposes. I believe Data Linden told me that. I have tried it, all it does is start, see that ther is no sim to connect to, and promptly crash. The idea is basically there in that command line, but all it needs is a local server to connect to.

Could we get some linden feedback? Would this even be an option for the lindens, or is there no way this would happen?

Actually multiple uses for it right off the bat without syncronizing from offline back to online. That would create way too many coding problems and security risks.

Sciripting for one, as already pointed out. But you could also do builds offline. There are already ways to import from both Maya and Blender. But both of those have a learning curve. ANYBODY that can build main grin though would be able to build offline then import thier builds. WOW imagine being able to work and finesse animations or textures on YOUR avatar at no cost until they were perfect and then import to main grid.

There would also be a LARGE financial incentive to do something like this. Charge $50 or more per program(I would have said more, but that is all I would be able to afford). Let's face it, SL is by far the easiest 3d platform there is. A heck of a lot cheaper and easier then Autodesk Inventor 10 or Autocad or other cads. Saw a post a little while back about a man who designed his restraurant in SL.

So many people do not need thier designs exported to a dwg or dwf format. Anybody could design thier own house bring it to the architect and the architect could walk through room by room.

What would be really, really wild is if you could connect your offline to someone else's offline. Heehee, You, your partner, Skype and a sexgen platinum in a totally private setting comes to mind ;-0. In case anyone discounts that silly comment just remember that every true money making innovation in the internet starts with porn. hahahahaha

I just went to the store and the numbers were still going through my head. God I wish I knew enough yet to be able to code this.

Lets take a look at numbers. MC Seattle sold 300 copies of god mode for $10 a piece =$3,000. A sexgen platinum costs $40 a piece. Have no idea how many sold but could imagine, and may be way off, 300??? = $12,000, maybe a hell of a lot more. But at a minumum of $50 a piece, how many could be sold??????????? I have 20 freinds on my list and know at least 5 would buy it. I can't imagine selling less then 300 copies. $15,000??

What if it was 1,000 copies or even 10,000 copies. Just remember we will sometime soon hit a million subscribers.

It is true, we are constaintly getting more and more subscribers, meaning there are more and more people finding the mina limitation of SL, that you must have an active internet connection to build, or script (without 3rd party software). Although, it is not the vast majority of our residents that build and script, and in this sense this program would be pointless to them. Then we have to think about alternat accounts, Before the whole security issue i had 8 accounts, and it wouldnt have been hard to create another one. We can not asume that each account regestered will be another person interested in buying this product, and when we get down to it we cant even asume that every other account is. But still, after putting all of those limitations into account, i can still see thousands of copyies being sold.

This is one of the advancements that has been thought about, and wanted by developers and builders alike for longer then I've known about SL.

Raven~~
Ace of Spades

Id have to say, id definately be willing to pay for this feature. I dont know about having to have a subscription, but a one time retail fee would be alright. The simple fact of all of this is that being able to build offline, in private, test my buils, scritps, etc, would open up a whole new world of building to me,a nd im sure man others. It would be wonderful to be able to upload textures as many times as you want and not have to pay upload fees. this way i could perfect my textures before uploading, avoiding spending 30-50+ lindens on one texture. The same would go for animations. And sounds, for that matter. I have spent 300 lindens on one animation, trying to get it just right before. that was a pain in the neck, and the finances. The ability to test your ideas offline would be invaluable.

One feature i propose to add to this would be the ability to instant mesage people that are online from the offline viewer. If not, then maybe a standalone program that would be like MSN messenger to IM people while you arent actually in sl. Or this might also be a longshot, but maybe a plugin for msn messenger, or some other like yahoo, to add your friends list to your mesenger.

I just thought I'd throw in that lindenlabs actually HAS a local version of the SL software that runs a small grid on a laptop for demo purposes. It runs all the server services as well as the viewer on the same machine.

Where have you heard of this? I have never seen anythign like that. Do you know where it would be available? Or is it linden only..

personally i don't believe it would be financially interesting for LL on the long term

you say the problem of the blender prim builder is the learning curve... i don't see that as a problem, exepted for lazy peoples, though lazy peoples don't deserve anything in my opinion ^_^

The -local command line option is probably a BIG clue.