Recently I came across a new creation of Ener Hax called Sim-on-a-stick and this is quite a good idea. Basically loading OpenSim, Apache and MySQL all into one program plugged into a usb port, start it up and after a few minutes you have a local a virtual world. Apparently it needs USB 2.0, USB 3.0 makes no improvement.
Simonastick comes in two versions one with Imprudence and one without, I downloaded the latest version 0.73, unzipped it to a 1gig usb stick, and clicked the Start_opensim.bat. The machine couldn't cope with the Imprudence viewer, so it was simply a matter of commenting out the relevant parts of the .bat file giving it a restart and it was fine.
It took about four minutes to fully start up, and finished with a DOS prompt. Yes, you will actually need to type things at the command line, but no need to worry, it's no big deal.
OK, you can see the problem I had, this is all really designed to be run from the one machine, but I couldn't start Imprudence on the server, so I would have to access it across the network.
Although designed for running on one machine and to be accessed on the same machine, you can change some files to allow this.
Start with the file \diva-r18822-c\bin\Config-include\MyWorld.ini on the usb drive.
I just opened it in Notepad and then did a search and replace for every instance of 127.0.0.1 to my servers IP address of 192.168.1.220. Then saved it.
Go up one directory and then into \diva-r18822-c\bin\regions\RegionConfig.ini, and do the same, then save it.
Now open up Imprudence on your own machine, go to Grid Manger, then create a New Grid.
In my case I entered http://192.168.1.220:9100/. Pressing Get Grid Info should populate the rest of the screen.
If you keep getting http://127.0.0.1:9100/ and you NOT on the same computer the Simonastick is installed on, then you will need to check the IP address is correct on the server or the changes to the files are saved. You might try turning off the firewall and then trying it again. You will need to open up ports 9100 TCP and UDP on the ports of the server and that should allow the network connection.
Once you have the IPs and firewalls sorted out, enter Simona as the first name, then Stick as the last name, and 123 as the password.
You should then be standing next to a giant rocket that most people will recognize from the Tin Tin series. It's big..really really big, I have zoomed out for the picture below, but I am actually standing near the base of the rocket.
The default avatar is still a bit blah..
I've not used Opensim for a while, although it seems my own Plasmalandia is still up and running with 4 months uptime.
So I looked to see what there was in free OAR files. These are virtual environments that you can load into your opensim.
AHA... here we go, I found http://opensimworlds.com/ and downloaded the Fairie Castle from Jessica Random. Once downloaded, move it to the usb stick, and then type "Load oar e:\directorytofile\FairieCastle-v0.1.oar ", after a few moments the Dos screen will start to scroll upward displaying the .oar file being installed. This can take a few minutes, waiting....waiting....
So now you might be seeing something like this:-
Now hopefully you haven't had this land on you, this is a big build, I'm that small orange dot in the middle of the picture.
WooHoo, you get a ship!
OK, lets try another oar file. I found http://lindakellie.com/ and I then downloaded Fantasy.oar, so move it to the usb stick. Linda Kellie has a lot of useful things such as hair, clothes, buildings, that are certainly worth looking at.
Now you need to go to the Dos screen and type "Change region Simonastick 2" this will put the focus on to the next region, remembering that you have 4 regions on this Opensim. Now type "Load oar Fantasy.tgz", on the server, I had to wait about 8-10 minutes for it to load waiting...waiting...
It's big...really big, I'm standing standing in the far distance next to the the tall white tree in the middle.
So this is quite a useful addition to the Opensim family
Thanks Ener, good work.
http://simonastick.com/
http://opensim-creations.com/
http://www.lindakellie.com/
“Virtual reality is a self-created form of chosen reality. Therefore it exists.” ― Joan Lowery Nixon
2 comments:
dang, how do you know all that stuff! to change the server address and all that? thanks for the kind words, btw =)
with your tech know-how, how would doing a real install of OpenSim be? you would have a lot more flexibility and also be able to have many users log into your region (you could also set up as many as you like, like our 16 region grid for EnclaveHarbour.com)
very cool that you were able to hack this for your needs and you are yet another example of a passionate person looking at great creative tools! =)
Hi Ener,
I have had a Diva Distro going for about 7 months called Plasmalandia.
The main headache was that this was on Linux, and getting Mono installed.
I mostly use it as a jump off point for the Hypergrid.
It even has it's own money. http://www.flickr.com/photos/shockwaveplasma/5384659439/in/photostream
But for the Simonastick, it was just a case of finding everything that said 127.0.0.1, and changing it to the machines IP address.
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