Reaction Grid

My Visit to Reaction grid

This is my fourth blog post on a visit to an OpenSim based Virtual world.

Reaction grid is a rather large and growing Grid, so there is no way I could really visit everywhere, and see everything, even with multiple visits, it's also PG rated so it's safe to login with your grandmother (if you can get off that dance pole in SL).

They recently had their 3000th user account, ok that's not big compared to the massive millions who have set up accounts in SL, or even the 21000 for OSgrid, but it's a steady growth pattern, but then again it's not the sort of business where you want an population explosion that you can't handle.

Reaction Grid is one of the more commercial and professional of the OpenSim providers. In that it actively seeks out markets, and promotes itself as an alternate to
Second Life. They do seem to be growing quite well, and have just had Microsoft move in from Second Life.

Reaction grid are very pleased to say they run it all on Hyper-V on 2008 Windows Server using SQL Server 2008, so I guess Microsoft are going to where their own technology is being used.

They are also Partners with ESRI, and if you have ever worked with GIS (Geographic information systems) products, you know that ESRI is considered the number one application by many people.

They have also released they own private Grid for business Service called Banbury, in competition with the Linden Lab Enterprise.

This post is not going to be very up
to date, as they are such a moving target, it's hard to keep up with them (shakes tiny fist). They not only work with OpenSim itself, but a product called Unity 3d, hopefully to bring a web based interface to OpenSim. I tried it once during a early test, potentially it should be able to import avatars from poser, Daz3d, and other modelling software.

I suspect the grid is in one data centre, this should hopefully help with Sim crossing.

The Website is very helpful, and has lots of information, on who they are, where they are, and how it all runs.

First thing to do is to create an account at the Reaction Grid website, you have 6 choices for your initial avatar. It would be best to try out the Hippo Viewer, as it should have the Reaction Grid Settings in it's Grid Manager

Here is a pic of the Login point, on the raised platform in the background, there is a screen to show you who is inworld.
You may notice the large red emblem on the
ground, it's that of Reaction grid, This place is set as your home location, so if you get lost, click on the Home on the menu to return here. As you can see the Avatar is better than the basic Ruth you get on most OpenSims.

This is the Teleport centre, the picture is not clear enough to show you what is written on them, sorry.

I first visited the RGshop which didn't seem to be there?? Hmmm

Ok lets go to Little Japan




So we have a rather large Oriental styled house..lets go in...

It's big...yes it's quite big inside

The land it nicely done with nice ponds and streams and landscaping

OK, Teleport back Home...a random choice and lets go to 1939 Worlds Fair

Lets go into the Information building, that the one straight ahead, on the end of the bridge.
It contains a large amount of posters and displays of the 1939 Worlds Fair

City of New York Display


The next three pictures show the Hemispere. A circular structure, with a long spiral path to walk along...but I would rather fly instead.

A large dome with a Jack o lantern was on display. Aparently this is how it actually looked when the fair was on

OK, there is more, but I decided to go check out some neibouring area, I flew across to the next region Code Torque and took snapshots.

I seem to be the 213th visitor.

They have plants here, you know if this was SL, it would grab you and try to drag you under.

Crossing regions was quite good, except when I seem to have hit a corner of 4 sims, and got stuck. The only way out of this is to TP home, Which didn't work this time
so I logged out.

Logged back in and TPed to Gridizens market, one thing I have notice is all these little one person boats everywhere. I had a short go in one,they work fine, I was just wondering why they are there? I am also wondering where my picture of them went, oh well never mind.

The market is quite small but it has a Few Scripts, Animations, and furniture and items. Hmmm OK, lets go back to Home

My next randon choice to see is Elf Clan, and it seems to be fairly close to what I remember in SL.

I might one day remember not to put the back of my head in most of my pictures

Around this time I thought to myself I should put my draw distance to maximum...and then I noticed I hadn't really been TPing very far.
As below is the view above the Home point

I think this is the Master Control room.

The overwhelming feeling is that crossing regions is so good, although I always seem to have the habit of crossing where 4 come together, and getting stuck. (So don't do it, ok?)

With the increased in draw distance I realized how much I missed, but I was travelling very slow, it's a business laptop, with a average video card :-).

On my second visit I dropped in on Trever Meister who was working away on his land, who was nice enough to talk to me, and show some of the items he has created. His main interest in OpenSim is how it can be used in education

On my 3rd visit I just imported my Avatar settings via Meerkat, and strangely felt much better, and taller, and just a bit err, you know..bustier :-)

I then started to fly randomly, and found myself approaching a Gas Giant

I seemed to have found someones plans for a housing estate. This would be a good idea. First create your houses, and estates, and get is all sized up.

On a random Map selection I found the Grid CSI department.

I wonder if anyone has told Desmond Shang he has a Caledon outpost here?

Now here I came across Cube3, who make the Spaceships in SL, he has been rather busy!

I'm trying to sit down, but I guess this is some sort of anti-theft device.

A nice Spaceship

MOVIE NIGHT!!

Possibly I should have brought a date, but there was no movie showing, I suspect Sci-Fi may be a popular choice.

CAn I have some Popcorn please? Anyone.

On my fourth visit I looked at the Map and did some random jumps, and then i found the Hypergrid...not having tried the Hypergrid I gave it a go and ended up on Virtual Recovery.

It was not very big, just 4 -6 Regions, so I had a quick look around
and them went back to the login point, and stayed there, while clicking
on the ground, the air...and couldn't see how to get back or go
anywhere else... so I logged out.

I logged back in again, and just did another final map jump, and found myself here. I have an idea what it's all about. But I am still amazed at the things that people create

And this is when I logged out. I do belive that Reaction Grid is going to be one of the frontrunners for a viable OpenSim environment.

Microsoft case study on Reaction Grid

Microsoft in ReactionGrid on Flikr


ReactionGrid on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/groups/reactiongridlandscapes/

http://www.reactiongrid.com/Community/FlickrCommunity.aspx

Pachube is a site/system that bring sensor data to the public. I belive it can be directly written into a Database, this can then animate objects in OpenSim

Pachube and Reaction Grid
http://www.reactiongrid.com/Community/TDAQ/pachube.aspx

Reaction Grid Support site is

http://www.metaverseheroes.com/



Karl G is on twitter as http://twitter.com/Dr_Manhattan and as
far as I can tell, he's having a great time, and enjoying what he does.


The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people
to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive.
It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so
in a sense it is all about potential. - Steve Ballmer

My visit to Rezzable Grid Alpha

This is my 3rd blog post on visiting OpenSim Grids.
Today we visit the Rezzable Grid Alpha.


At one point Rezzable had 40 Sims in Second Life, as you can imagine this does get a bit unwieldy and expensive to manage. These issues plus lack of control of the actual content, and then OpenSpaces issue (as detail by Zonja Capalini), lead them to explore using OpenSim.

Firstly you will need to sign up to get a Rezzables account to visit the Sim at http://rezzable.com/user/register
After you have Registered, you can go to this website

http://rezzable.com/groups/private-grid-alpha-testing

and follow the instructions, on how to get connected.


It's a bit different to other grids I have visited, as you need to download a launcher from the website, this will ask to start the SL client, passing across the grid settings and allowing you to login to the grid. I guess this is to make it as foolproof as possible.

Once you have downloaded the launcher, click on the Red Private Grid Button again, this starts the launcher, you will probably be asked by your PC, if you want it to run, so say yes, and the SL client should automatically log you in.

TADA!! You should now be on a giant table, and being Ruth. On the table is some free skins and clothes, there is a AO being offered, but it doesn't seem to want to hand it over to you.



If you remember Greenies, and I'm sure most people do, then it will be very familiar to you, but no vehicles, no flying saucers, and no cockroaches.



I've not found the beach here, but the doors and windows are locked.


Coke on the table top, and no one has cleaned it up yet.


Quick..someone..anyone, throw him a life jacket, or a Pea from the Fridge!


He must be totally full of Coke over there.


When we can turn on "Damage", I think behind the Iron would be a great place to snipe from.


Greenies is unusual as it's actually lots of space. It's not crowded with items that are trying to grab your attention. When flying around, it does take awhile to realize just how much space is free.


This is just the current iteration of the Rezzables Grid, remember they had 40 Sims worth of content, such as Crimson Shadow, Black Swan, the Dinos.
If you enjoyed visiting them in Second life, it might be appearing here one day.


“I think the idea of virtual worlds will not be a dead-end novelty as long as the software gets better with less bugs and continued development, and enough people in UK education see the potential and create examples of virtual world experiences which can be shown to positively benefit the users.”(Lindsay Da Silva)

My visit to Intels Science Sim

OpenSim is still Alpha software, but that doesn't stop it being used for projects such as Intels Science Sim

Intel recently showed an advertisement on Youtube to show off it's Science Sim offering, and it's vision on the 3D web. I don't think it went down well in some quarters. I have been to the website before for a (very) quick read, but never actually visited the Sim.

So here I go.




I also noticed the website has been updated recently.

You need to go to the Getting started page, and then create an account, then setup your viewer. I connected using the latest Imprudence viewer, the 1.2 beta, and found it's Grid manger very handy.

You first appear at a rotunda, as pictured above, and this gives you a basic tutorial on using the viewer.



I'm grey here because Imprudence didn't render properly (Sorry Jacek), At the time I thought it was lag, or OpenSim being difficult. Right In the middle of the above picture you can see a item that invites you to TP to another site, So I did so.

( This is where I started to get very confused, so please stay with me )

This took me the edge of a Lake with some boats, but at time I was more concerned with a change of clothes and generally making myself look good, I didn't see anything in the inventory or in the library, and was now a bit mystified on where to go next.

I could see a path, but it was behaving oddly, disappearing then reappearing, I followed it to see where it went. I ended up at a building called "The Saltwater House"


At this point I logged out as I was still grey, and the scenery was still behaving oddly, I thought there might be something with the Imprudence viewer and SciSim.

I relogged with the Hippo Viewer they recommend.
With the Hippo Viewer I was immediately able to see my clothes and myself, rendering did seem a bit slower, but I was able to perceive more. I was back at the Saltwater House.



"The Saltwater House" belongs to the Fashion Research Institute, below the sign it offered some clothes both Male and Female Avatars, and as I was rather tired of being Ruth, I was happy to accept.

The House is not fully rezzed in the the picture below, but the clothes are in front of the sign, where I am standing at the bottom left.

Before:-


After:-
Ok, that a bit better, but just a bit errrr Unsexy...possibly some adjustments are needed


A bit taller, thinner. longer arms...hmmm those boobs, lets fix those, longer torso..ok all saved...now lets try to get out of edit mode...errrr please..really...now?.
Then I crashed. Bum! That looked to be a network issue on my end.



Relogged, and had a look at the MAP. Then I realized that the shape mods didn't take, but that could have just been me crashing. I couldn't be bothered to try again, so I decided to stick with having the Librarian look.

Back to the Map, and that was very confusing, as the Grid looked to be about 10 sims, and I couldn't see my Login point.

I then walked down to the dock, and got in to a boat, it then sank, taking me with it. Hmmm



I did wish to get back to the login point, but I couldn't see a way to TP, to I started to fly around the sims, I came across a very interesting garden.
It looks like it took quite a lot of time to make.



Next I came across the the shop Bella Fantastic, it looks not fully completed or not rezzed in full, and I couldn't buy anything, which was a bit of a shame as I would have preferred the very nice outfits in the windows to my current outfit.



I continued flying up the coast and next found a giant white horse, and then a herd of them appeared, I seem to have reached a populated area.



It looked to be the Fashion Institute Sim Shengri la Spirit. This had more clothes, skins, eyes for sale at 0$, and some clothes and jewelry didn't display the $ sign, so I guess they were for display only. I spent some time exploring, and was rather impressed at how pretty it all was.

I also got a new skin and some red boots, from one of the shops :-)


More Horses :-)

The FRI is beautifully done and looks brilliant, I wish my Laptop was able to display it more. It did start to occur to me, that I must be missing quite a bit due to my draw distance.


So I decided to TP via the map, this seemed to work and I was TPed to a very large building with minarets, and gardens this was still the FRI.

This picture below shows just how big building can be in OpenSim. It's huge, really huge, you can tell the scale as I am at the base of the first fountain from the right.



From here I TPed to the most South Easterly region of the grid, and found lots of pencils ...really...although on first glance they look like the original Cylon baseships.

The Metaverses biggest pencil case.


Here is when I really started to get confused, I noticed all the Regions start with Shengri La, and I had been flying around in Circles


Ok...lets try again!
TP again to the north..I just now realized the names on the Map all started with Shengri La, but I seem to have been flying around Spirit, Lets go to Rosemary to the SW...on arrival.. Buildings.
I flied down, and I really was confused and it was Belle Fantastique again..., OK TP to Tyme, and back to that Garden ..eh!
There is one Sim that stands out on the map, and that is Gallery...and then found myself back at FRI I was wondering if the Maps were just wrong.



This is when I went back to the ScienceSim Website to find the listing of what to visit.

Search doesn't work in Hippo :-( , so looking around the map again I realized I had been missing a part of it, and TPed to an island.
This had some google pages and a pendulum, It looks like the frequency of the pendulum was being written to the board.




There was a board that you could send messages to. That was interesting.
This is more like what I expected to find, a demo of the technology that can be used in OpenSim.



Ok, back to the ScienceSim Website, it had one SLURL secondlife:// like to Quicksort, So I clicked that, and then had it open Hippo Viewer. I was TPed me to a island I never even noticed on the Map. I had a go with the Quicksort demo, but now I was looseing enthusiasm.

I had been here for a few hours now and the effort of finding anything here was making me rather tired.



I had a look in the Hippos Menus and thought "All else Fails...TP home", so I ended up in Newton at the Rotunda, again, I didn't see this on the map.

These are the areas where the Sims are called Newton, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein, so this was looking very promising, and it was where I started from..Hooray!

So lets have a look around.

Yes, more tutorials, and place that will let you have some free avatars




I then found the Newton Observatory, this has TPs to Yellowstone park, a display on the Solar System, Fern Seed, and other places in SciSim.


I first went to Mt St Helens, but while it was very large, didn't really thrill me. No photo of it, sorry. But it did have the HyperGrid Gateway on the bottom right have corner of the Sims

Back to Newton, and then to the Solar System display



I dropped from the Solar to the ground, and found a meeting room, a Star Gate, and then a bit further flying I found an other meeting room, and then an auditorium.


Galileo has a giant Pagoda, and some smaller ones. Close by is a camp fire

...then Galileo pine village.


I was looking inside the Senate building and that when I saw it!!


I saw a Green Dot..yes..someone was also here!!! As you may have noticed, I didn't meet anyone so far.
So this is when I rushed over to meet Shenlei Winkler, who is the owner of the FRI. She was happy to talk for a while and we talked the various things happening in SL and the way it's heading, and how OpenSim was going forward in leaps and bounds.



Then I realized she was the owner of the Sims I had been lost in and she said that yes the Sims are very spread out, and that's for a reason. But as we talk ed so much I for got to ask why.
My main question was to ask where everyone was...and was reminded that it was the weekend, and this is educational grid :-)

Here is the Senate Chambers, the meeting place for the ScienceSim Government.

On the lake outside the Senate Chambers I deside to check for any fish.

The region around the Senate was rather built up with houses, and meeting rooms. No guessing who owns the one in the next picture.

Here we finish my trip to Science Sim. There were more pagodas, and meeting rooms, but at this stage I had been logged in for about 5 hours.

Some more information on Intels ScienceSim, Intel, IBM and


Intel Blogs, and extra Reading

ScienceSim January 2009

ScienceSim Auguet 2009

Information on the FRI

The Blog of Shenlei Winkler

She also has a book Shengri La Spirit

V-Business is a consortium of businesses for the expantion of 3D virtual world technology.


The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
-Winston Churchill

Heritage key

I have been interested in the use of OpenSims for quite a while.
Heritage Key is operated by Rezzable, and its goal is to display interactive Archaeological sites in a virtual environment.

I was able to visit a few days a go and I was quite pleased to see how it was.
Unfortunately I'm not much of a writer, so I will pass you over to Honour Mcmillan who visited it
last month and it much better at writing and describing it than I.

But I will include some photos, excuse the quality, as my laptop is just able to run the customer Viewer. (No Linux Option)

As you first enter the Sim, you appear in a room to dress your Avatar, and learn how to operate the viewer. As I already knew, I didn't stay for long, but grabbed hair and a skin.

The next room is a sort of destination lounge, and it has posters for Egypt, and you can pick up some clothes suitable for an Egyptian explorer. As you can see below I was dressed as an English Archaeologist on an English dig :-)

From here it's a Teleport to the Compass Rose as below


Above is the Compass Rose, from here you take the balloon to the Dig site, and King Tuts tomb.


There is also a gallery with some Egyptian artefacts that are fantastic in detail, and there is also the Cosmic Walk, where even more artefacts are on display.

After the Gallery you get to visit the Nile, there is a house, and here you can see the typical reed boat of the time.
BTW you might want to stay clear of the crocodiles, if you go swimming in the Nile.


Inside the house you can get properly dressed in a variety of clothes for male and female.



Here I am back inside King Tuts tomb, and naturally this intrepid explorer shows he has very good manners by bowing to me.


For those interested Howard Carter is buried is in Putney Vale Cemetery


And Lord Carnarvon is buried near his family seat


"Those were the great days of excavating... anything to which a fancy was taken, from a scarab to an obelisk, was just appropriated, and if there was a difference with a brother excavator, one laid for him with a gun." --Howard Carter, 1923