Offline Viewer Client

I already asked about the -local option. Data linden says its linden only, for testing purposes.

what where you hoping seriously ^_^

What do you mean? I asked about -local ages ago. i figured it wasnt usable, but i asked anyway. Way before i posted this stuff.

*Bump*

The client can already work offline... by accident. Ocasionally I am using SL and the bandwidth drops to zero, but the client doesn't seem to notice. Various interesting things can be learned in this state.

1. You cannot move while offline. Movement requires collision detection which needs the physics engine. That is on the server, so your AV cannot move or interact with an offline view.

2. You can view your inventory, and open any closed folders. It appears the inventory is downloaded in one shot when you first open it.

3. You cannot rez any prims or rez anything from inventory. That requires sim notifications to either sync with the client or find the object with the key from your inventory.

4. If you have any of your own objects nearby, you edit them, move them around, rotate.. but you cannot duplicate them. The movements are instant even for a massive pile of prims. But since this is offline, none of this is being saved and goes back to the way it was before when you quit and reconnect.


Basically the client can do a few minor things on its own but the important things are totally nonfuncitonal without a server available.

I suppose it'd be possible you could at least pan around the static world, if the camera is unlocked, but the client will only display what was near your AV and within view when you were last connected.


And some demonstrations if you're interested:

1. View of Goguen Sandbox when offline. I started with 96-meter distance when online, but cranked it to 512 after going offline. The entire sim terrain shows up but no objects can appear since the sims aren't talking with me anymore:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4492108551027268512

2. Selection (bug?) and object moving when editing my objects offline. It seems that what is highlighted may have nothing to do with your ability to actually edit it. And menawhile, look how quick and snappy that editor is, the 1400 prims instantly go where I want with no delays or jumping around!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1258073131364964736

3. Undo does not work offline. Anytime you use Undo, it is a request from the server to do it. Though this does mean you can undo things even after logging off and back on...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-586388555378197304

The offline viewer better be just for one sim. In this March google video about SL, Phillip Linden says there are 15 TERABYTES of user-created objects on the grid.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5182759758975402950

(You might want to upgrade the hard drive in your offline-viewer computer.)

At least it's still in a size people know instead of Yettabytes (1024 Zetabytes, 1 Zetabyte = 1024 Terabytes).

Yeah, my idea was originally intended for one sim. But i suppose it wouldnt hurt to be able to create and save as many sims as you want. I dont think it would be plausable or even helpful to be able to save online sims for offline viewing. Unless that sim was yours. That could create copywright issues, being able to copy someone elses sim onto your computer and re creating objects in it at your liesure. Not like you cant do this already, but being able to do it privately with an exact copy of something would make it a bit easier.

I think this is a great idea and deserves more attention.

It solves a lot of problems like testing textures on objects before paying to have them in-world, the lag from building around other people/scrips & the ability to build very large projects while not having to worry about the grid crashing and losing your creation.

All it needs to be is a local sandbox, just like any of those sims.

Would also be great for people testing clothing textures and doing other work on their avies.

dhAz

I've refined the idea of an offline client somewhat in a new proposal. Essentially, I'd like to see an offline emulator with the complete SL toolset offered as a product separate from and complimentary to SL, for sale on a CD or DVD-ROM and bundled with tutorials and reference materials, and possibly some third party software such as Avmotion. It could serve as a more comprehensive introductory experience, a complete offline building resource, and a means of backing up content independent of the grid.

I am guessing that you meant "yottabytes" rather than "yettabytes"... and 1 yottabyte = 1024 zettabytes. 1 zettabyte = 1024 exabytes. 1 exabyte = 1024 petabytes. 1 petabyte = 1024 terabytes. And 1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes.

So, 1 zettabyte is actually 1073741824 terabytes, not 1024. Not to be anal or anything.

-----------------------------------

aside from my geeking out on Draco, I too would like to see some kind of offline client. Although, all I would really like to see in such a client would be the ability to test new creations prior to uploading them to the grid. Considering the insane amount of money I spent tweaking, uploading, testing, tweaking and uploading again my first creation today, it would be nice to be able to do that stuff offline first, then have to only pay the upload fee once for a working creation.

But that may very well be a pipe dream.

In which case, they changed it from the last time I heard anything about it.
Was some thing where someone decided that they were going to go up the alphabet backwards (Z etabye, Y e/o tabyt, X abyte, etc). o..O
Though, I do think you're right that whatever the order is, petabytes do come after terabytes.

interesting... now I am going to go off and see if I can find anything out about that... I was just citing what I remembered from my computer science and electrical engineering classes in college... and that was a few years ago.

Admittedly my information is out of date a few years as well, I'm remembering back to some interview by NPR (National Public Radio) or PRI (Public Radio International).
Wikipedia says...

Getting back on topic, it seems to me that since we now have full access to the client source, an offline viewer could be hacked together using the existing viewer code, possibly fairly easily.

The way this works is that the client already keeps a cache of objects in each sim, stored in the *.SLC files, and it does somr other stuff with the VFS (still somewhat undefined).

I believe that when you log in to the world, what the client does is this:

1. Startup. Can I find the connection server? The asset server?
2. User Logs in
3. Authenticate to connection server and open connection to asset and sim server.

First, the sim cache:
4. Do I have a cache file for this sim?
5. The user is located at position x,y,z. Do I have a cache of objects near that location?
6. Check with asset server to see if cache is still current. If yes, then use cache. If no, then download most recent content.

Then in the VFS:
7. Do I have a cached object/texture as referred to in the sim cache?
8. Check with asset server to see if cache is still current. If yes, then use cache. If no, then download most recent content.


To make an offline viewer what you need to do is go through the various spots where it looks for remote connections and verifications and effectively weld the code into the "CONFIRMED!" position, for everything.

1. Startup. Can I find the connection server? The asset server?
**Hack code to make client think it is already connected, all the time.
2. User Logs in
3. Authenticate to connection server and open connection to asset and sim server.
**Hack code so confirmation is comfirmed without doing any connection attempts

First, the sim cache:
4. Do I have a cache file for this sim?
5. The user is located at position x,y,z. Do I have a cache of objects near that location?
6. Check with asset server to see if cache is still current. If yes, then use cache. If no, then download most recent content.
**Hack code so client gets an instant confirmation that the cache is always current without doing any contacting of the nonexistent remote server.

Then in the VFS:
7. Do I have a cached object/texture as referred to in the sim cache?
8. Check with asset server to see if cache is still current. If yes, then use cache. If no, then download most recent content.
**Hack code so client gets an instant confirmation that the cache is always current without doing any contacting of the nonexistent remote server.


Voila, you now have an offline viewer. Though it is, purely, a viewer only. It cannot do anything since all outgoing connections are effectively sheared off with various sparking bits of shrapnel hanging out the back of the mangled client.

Note that this is how the cracking of copy protection and so forth is usually done, and is how modchips for gaming systems works. You find the one crucial pass/fail check in the entire protection system and force it to always report "PASS! PASS! PASS!" no matter what. In this case the open source client will think it is fully online and authenticated when it isn't at all.

It may be necessary to hack the client somewhat to deal with the situations where the local cache does not have the object/sound/texture requested. In that case the code could be forced to report the object cannot be found on the asset server anymore, and the client should just give up looking for it.

.

Scalar: Great idea, and that message should go on the SLDev mailing list.

The only problem I think that there is that you wouldn't be able to build or walk around, or really anything else. I believe that movement commands are actually server requests.

Still, you could just "reflect" it all back to the client, but I'm sure something won't work right.

Yes, correct, the sim merely sends keypresses to the server, which turns those into movements. A client hacked in this manner would need a new module to manually move the camera around the world.

I don't think an AV can work, but then I don't think an AV is even necessary. Just having a free roaming camera that can cross cached sim borders may be all that is needed, as an initial test.

Local camera navigation should still work, you could set up and take snapshots and save them to disk at your leisure.