Try Rezzable's new Unity-based Browser Viewer for OpenSim

Jon Himoff's picture
published by Jon Himoff on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 14:31

Rezzable Unity-based Browser Viewer for OpenSimWe have been working hard on the new Rezzable Browser Viewer for OpenSim and finally have a test version ready for you. Check it out at the end of this post. Feedback is more than welcome, drop any comments or questions here on this post or via our handy contact form.

The scene you see is loaded dynamically from OpenSim, so you will see what is on the Region at the time of the download.  If the content changes during your session you will need to reload the scene to see the changes. 

There is a single basic avatar here now, and to use chat, you simple hit "C".  Test your flying (or floating) skills by hitting "Home", and then using Page Up/Page Down.  Keep CTRL down and click to focus your camera.

The visual quality in the browser-based viewer seems good and pretty close to the OpenSim+Imprudence combination. You can compare 'the view' to the actual OpenSim region if you go onto the Heritage Key grid.  Search for the "Black Swan" region using the Map tool.  The environmental features are not there at all.   Movement is controlled by OpenSim physics.

How This Works

There is a module for the specific OpenSim Region that packages the content and sends it to the browser. We then have a special Unity3D scene that then presents the content and uses OpenSim as the MMO engine.  You can see and chat to other visitors. In OpenSim the avatar is represented as a cloud and on the browser as the one female avatar.  

Demo: Rezzable's Unity-based Browser Viewer for OpenSim 'Black Swan'

How OpenSim Region Owners Might Use This

We think OpenSim Region owners will benefit from being able to share their content immediately on the web. This should enable many more visitors to easily access their areas. How many people will really want to do this? We have no idea.  Assuming that some portion of all the OpenSim Region owners did want to use this we guess that we will need to charge in the range of $50 licence/region and $20/month to host the browser sessions. If there is enough support then we could look at increasing the features.

What say/think you?

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Comments

rikomatic (not verified)

Wed, 02/02/2011 - 15:54

For some reason it isn't working on my machine. Probably because I'm on a hackintoshed netbook over wifi.

Still for some reason I just get a female avatar continually falling into the ocean, then the land, then the ocean, then the land...

DPentecost (not verified)

Wed, 02/02/2011 - 16:16

All I can do is rotate in a pack of other identical avatars. The rest are not rotating. Maybe they gave up. Nice water, though.

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Jon Himoff

Wed, 02/02/2011 - 16:18

Rik -- you need a better graphics card and better web connection. Probably if you waited long enough though you might get more content.

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Jon Himoff

Wed, 02/02/2011 - 16:32

server crashed, we are bringing it back now. Should work ok for win/mac. Try again in a few minutes please ;0

Ann's picture

Ann

Wed, 02/02/2011 - 17:30

Hi all, regarding the 'Home' button you need to press to fly, that's not a button on the client's screen, but rather the [Home] button on your keyboard. It can usually be found right next to [Insert].  Press it once, and then use the [Page Up] and [Page Down] buttons to float up/down. 

Jimmeh (not verified)

Thu, 02/03/2011 - 01:08

I see nothing but water, I can Ctrl-Alt pan down and see grass terrain under it. I can't move, ASDW has no effect, and after I think it was 4 attempts, the longest it could stay before it crashed the whole Firefox process was maybe 30 seconds. Too early to be showing others the work.

DPentecost (not verified)

Thu, 02/03/2011 - 04:25

Thanks Ann, but there is no home key on a MacBook Pro (only on extended Mac keyboards) so there's no way to start. A different choice of key might be better if you even need it. Most Unity apps are ready to navigate on startup.

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Ann

Thu, 02/03/2011 - 10:13

Jimmeh, I'm surprised you're having such trouble. It is well known that I don't have the most powerful computer in the office (I quite regularly manage to crash photoshop due to lack of memory/writing speed/whatever...), and it runs fine here -- in a Chrome session with 22 other tabs open, 3 openoffice documents, and one IE session.  No crashes, no issues (and I do have a Home button). 

We have a quite splendid internet connection here, so it took me about 6 minutes to load the entire scene.  And no staggering when walking, or 'camming' around. For me? The best test version of it so far. I'm tempted to go rezz a sign saying 'Vint was here' on the OpenSim region, just to test if it really shows on the next Unity load.

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Jon Himoff

Thu, 02/03/2011 - 11:42

Some of the problems we are getting reports on relating to not being able to move or only seeing some of the content are due to the opensim region crashing. We are looking at why this is occurring, but most likely due to the load of visitors hitting it at once.  We see similar issues with Imprudence, but seems to be at higher visitor numbers, so possible that this is putting more strain on the server than Imprudence for some reason we need to find. Meanwhile we will keep restarting server to do more testing.

Viv Trafalgar

Thu, 02/03/2011 - 14:59

The server seemed pretty stable this morning, and on firefox, I was able to walk over the bridge a ways and take in the Black Swan scenery. It's much faster and smoother - really impressive. There are a few bugs still, but overall a big jump forward.

Zoey Zane

Thu, 02/03/2011 - 18:13

Just a question..... I had a hard enough time finding the faq. to connect before, now I am just dumbfounded. Can't connect again, and no easily viewable faq. as I am looking over the page. Is it even still possible to connect with other viewers? I.e. Impudence for example?

Zoey Zane

Fri, 02/04/2011 - 16:18

Thanks for the help -_-

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Jon Himoff

Thu, 02/10/2011 - 12:03

thanks for comments and feedback. Yes, you can also use Imprudence to access the same region. Go to http://heritage-key.com/register to get an account on the grid. You can then find the "black swan" region using the map search.

Features like customizing the avatar are possible, but we are not developing that yet. We are still interested to know if people would really use this. We see the potential to take opensim content to the web are wonder if anyone else does ;) and will help fund this work.

Gypsy (not verified)

Fri, 02/11/2011 - 11:31

Good job guys!

Add the Touch and Sit interactivity and some basic camera controls so you can look at yourself and zoom your follow cam, and your onto something big here.

Some character customization is going to be a big issue though.
At first glance, putting myself in your shoes, I would prolly do something like.
Pre-design a collection of avatars,
Let new users pick one off the thumbnail list and type in their name,
Do a quick mysql INSERT to build the avatar with all the proper UUIDs
Then log them in and let them get straight into the immersion.

The cooperate and edu guys will eat this up! Their end users can jump right
into whatever venue they have without the need to download, install and learn
the whole viewer!

The fast development and deployment for something like this would be so attractive!

Elrik Merlin (not verified)

Fri, 02/11/2011 - 13:01

Running a current MacBook Pro 17/i7 here, wired connection, 10.6.6.

In Chrome, I see a blank space below a button asking me to install Unity and then restart the browser. I do so, and there is no change.

On Firefox 3.6.8, it loads, I get to the avi floating above the water, but clicking full screen causes it to crash. If I don't do that, it's fine :)

I'm sure these are only teething troubles… this is an excellent development with enormous application and is great news all round. Congratulations!

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Jon Himoff

Fri, 02/11/2011 - 21:31

@Elrik -- yes, I saw same issue with Firefox. On Chrome also had same issue, try clearing your cache. The webplayer runs inside the browser cache allocation and sometimes seems to mix things together.

Nick Zwart (not verified)

Thu, 02/17/2011 - 07:20

Works great on my computer. I assume there is no voicechat (yet). I am building some language villages (English and French) where students have to talk to eachother. It would be great to have voicechat in this viewer.

Hudson (not verified)

Sat, 12/10/2011 - 19:56

Works fine in firefox !!! with full screen! GREATT
but crash my I.E 8
Please where I can buy this?

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