Just barely ten days after announcing their roadmap for the future of Blue Mars, Avatar Reality have come good with several of their promised improvements and new features for the SDK, Website and Client. Here is a run-down on the latest release:

DEVELOPER UPDATES

Websites:

Updated Developer MyPage ( https://dev.bluemars.com/MyPage/ ) features (COMING MARCH 1, 2010)

• The entire site has been optimized to open and run significantly faster.
• Properties > City > Leased Cities > [Add Block] command: Instead of manually entering Block Name, uses the Current attribute in level_editor.xml as Block name to be added to database.
• Properties > City > Blocks > [Re-Upload .BLD file] command added:  Allows re-uploading of .BLD file for selected Block, as long as it is NOT leased out or being used by yourself.
• "Allow Sublease" checkbox added to the following tabs:

• City > Properties > Leased Cities: [Add Block] dialogue
• City > Properties > Blocks: [Edit Properties] dialogue
• When the box is checked, the selected Block becomes subleaseable--meaning the Block owner can lease out Shops and Residences on this Block to other developers/users.  If the box is not checked, the Block is not subleaseable, meaning the Block Owner can only build Shops and Residences on this Block for their own use (note: There is no "Use By Myself" command for leased Residences yet--that will be coming soon). This sublease permission can be set when adding Blocks to your City ("Add Block"), or it can be changed after you've created a Block ("Edit Properties") ONLY if there are no existing 3rd party tenants in your Block.  If you have tenants (other than yourself) in your Block, you would need to run the "Evict Tenant" command first before changing the "Allow Sublease" status.

• If you don't have any leased Blocks, the Properties > Block tab will not be active.
• Change in itemdata.zip file size check:  When uploading an itemdata.zip file, the current file size limit is 512KB.  EXCEPTION: When uploading Shop or Residence interior files (Category: Interior), the itemdata.zip size limit is 2MB.
• Home > Account Info now shows "Company Code" under "Name". If you bought a City, it will show your company code (the code you chose when you signed up for a city to uniquely identify yourself or company - up to 6 capital letters).
• Home > Account Info > [Edit Account Info]: "Edit Company Logo" feature added. You can now upload thumbnail images of your company logo (NOTE: Change will be reflected immediately if you upload an image file with a different filename, but if you re-upload an image file with the same filename, it may take a few minutes before the change is reflected.)
• Administer > Company Members > [Add New Member]: Address, Phone, OS, Graphic Card, and CG Tool fields have been deleted from the [Add New Member] dialogue.
• Administer > Company Members > [Add New Member]: Displays an error message if you try to register an email address that is already registered as a Blue Mars Developer.
• Administer > Billing History: Displays various financial activity information.
• [Vendor] menu no longer appears in the [Upload Content] window except for City Developers who have multiple vendor codes.

SDK Editors

 Body Editor NEW!

• Import custom shapes.
• Import custom skins.
• Test custom shapes, skin, clothing, and animations.
• No upload functionality (coming soon).

Shop Editor

• Clone instances of decorations.
• Control for camera speed.
• Enable saving of work in progress.

BLUE MARS CLIENT

Websites:

• Updated User MyPage ( https://member.bluemars.com/MyPage/ ) features:
• MESSAGE tab is now enabled: Exchange messages between your Blue Mars friends.
• FRIENDS tab update
• "SEARCH MEMBERS" button: Search for people on Blue Mars by their Avatar Names or User ID, and send them Friend requests (which will show up on their User MyPage).
• "REMOVE" command in the Friends List will remove the selected User from your Friends List.
• "Waiting List" shows pending Friend requests that you have sent to other Users.
• "Request List" shows pending Friend requests you have received from other Users.

New Cities and City Updates:

• Shade City by eFrontier now has a Shop!  Purchasable T-shirts will be available on the second floor of Shade City.
• Welcome Area 2010 has been added. (The old welcome area has been retired).
• AR_Shelter has been added.  This is a minimalist level to be used as a meeting area in case there are problems with the new welcome area.
• VSE_TERC has been added.

New Places Browser

New Features and Feature Updates:

• Avatar names are now displayed above the avatar instead of the avatar ID.
• If you change your Avatar Name display option in the User MyPage, it will now be reflected in the overhead avatar name display as well as the chat box.
• New and updated City data can now be downloaded directly from the Places Browser--no need to install City patches.
• User interface update
• New look for the Place Browser!
• Refresh button in the Places Browser allows you to enter your downloaded City (except New Venice) without having to close and reopen Blue Mars. 
• The Camera icon has now  menu tray. The clothes, face, animation and settings icons are displayed by clicking on the arrow icon.

• The ? icon now opens the Blue Mars tutorial Website.
• Right-clicking avatar profile in the Client shows the Avatar Name as well as User ID.

User Name above Head, Right-Click to get User ID

• Settings update
• New Click Sound option in the Settings menu will let you turn the pointer sound on or off (default: Off).

Walking Sound On/Off

• New Display Name option will let you hide the overhead Avatar Name display of the avatars around you (to hide your avatar's overhead name from others, use the Edit Avatar window in your User MyPage).

Avatar Names On/Off

Bug Fixes:

• Bowling matchmaking fixed
• Golf matchmaking fixed
• Non-ASCII avatar names should now be displayed correctly regardless of the locale setting.

What would you like to see in the next release?

Rock

Touch-screens
Touch-screen PCs have been around for over 30 years now! I used a Hewlett Packard 150 touch-screen PC, based on the 8088, back in the mid 1980s. However, things have moved on rapidly since then, and with the advent of Microsoft's multitouch Surface, Apple's iPad, and various Interactive Whiteboards, it would not be long before the direct manipulation of 3D objects in 3D Virtual Worlds was a possibility.



Edusim
Moves to combine Interactive Whiteboards with the manipulation of 3D objects in 3D Virtual Worlds were actually started back in 2007. It was then that the Edusim project was started at the Greenbush Education Service Center in Southeast Kansas, as an effort to bring an engaging 3D experience to the classroom interactive whiteboard.

Based on a slimmed-down version of Open Cobalt Edusim is a 3D multi-user virtual world platform and authoring toolkit, and coupled with the latest developments in interactive whiteboards the project aims to:

engage student through "immersive touch" by leveraging 3D virtual environments on the interactive surface or classroom interactive whiteboard.

The results are amazing. Take a look at this video showing Edusim in action.



Interactive Whiteboards
Edusim has been successfully tested on the following Interactive Whiteboards:

Activeboard

Interwrite

Polyvision

Mimio

eBeam

Kids have never had it so good!

Rock

Arggghhh!.

After working all weekend getting my blog template exactly how I wanted it, and really liking the result once I applied it, I then found that virtually every post and article I have written would have to be reformatted for the new template.

This is because all the graphics do not resize themselves to the change in width of the new template, so text now flows around them, and headings, image captions, bulleted lists etc, are now all out of alignment.

The lesson to be learnt from this, is that you can change the 'look' of a template with new colours, new header and background images etc., but if you want to change the dimensions, particularly the width of a template, then be prepared for a lot of re-editing.

I have now reverted to the original template, and I will now wait until the Easter break, when I have more time for editing, before having a go at my new template again.

So, back to normal service. Look out for an imminent exciting new article on Interactive Whiteboards and Virtual Worlds!

Rock

Blog Maintenance
I have been spending the last couple of days creating a custom template for Chapter & Metaverse. The free templates you get with Blogger are not very awe-inspiring, and other 3rd party templates did not do what I wanted either.

I always found that Blogger templates were quite narrow, and with the standard configuration being 2 or 3 column layouts, with things such as My Profile, Links, Archives etc in the side columns, leaving the main column even narrower still for blog posts, and left looking something like a newspaper column.

There are single column templates available, and I tried all these, but the problem then occurs of where to put My Profile, Links, Archives etc. If you place them at the end then it can be a long scroll to get to these frequently used gadgets. I thought the answer would be simple, just have a header with a menu bar or tabs underneath, and place the My Profile, Links, Archives etc. behind menu buttons or tabbed pages. Alas, Blogger does not permit this directly, so some clever workarounds are necessary.

Another problem with Blogger is that if you use a custom header image, with the name of your blog in that image Blogger still insists on overlaying the image with the name of the blog. It will not allow you to have a blank field in the Blog Title when in Header Edit mode. Again, a neat workaround enables the Blog Title to be hidden.

So I invested in some commercial software to design my own Blogger template, Artisteer,  and I am just getting to the stage where the termplate is looking, and behaving, as I want it. Just a few more tweaks...

I hope to have the new suit of clothes for Chapter & Metaverse ready by tomorrow, Sunday 14th February, so please bear with me.

New Blue Mars SDK, 2010-2-12
Avatar Reality announced another updated SDK yesterday. Full details in the Forum post.

Happy Valentines to all,

Rock

I like to see myself as a hitch hiker travelling in the free Metaverse looking for grids to visit and things to see. Well, I spoke to Rock and we both agreed that I should set off and take a look at some role play worlds since that is the back ground I come from. So I hitched a ride on a passing metabeam and materialized in the world of Gor.

I arrived at the Gor Grid only to find it is now called Role Play Worlds. I landed in the reception region that was apparently still under construction and, with no links available, I resorted to using the map to try to find some life. I teleported to another sim and found it also under construction and at this point I was beginning to feel I might be wasting my time but I am glad I decided to barge in on two avatars way off in the distance because this was going to turn out to be better than my first impressions were having me believe. One of the two ladies I accosted turned out to be a builder busily doing her work, I had come across Breezy Kanto who welcomed me and gave me an LM to the Gor reception building on the same sim. Seems I had chosen the right place quite accidentally since I could have gone to any of the 100+ regions on the grid which, surprisingly, did show more life than you might expect from a large OpenSim grid.

I found myself in a gothic chamber and I followed the circular walls to a door and entered another chamber.  This one had Gorean information notices informing me of the castes I could chose from to begin my role play. There was a free combat meter available too which I was obliged to wear if I intended to continue. The RPX meter controls what happens to you in world, your health and such and in the next chamber I came to I found the walls lined with assorted weaponry that could be taken free and used to interact with the meter. In other words, these weapons could be used to kill or capture me!

Finally, I left the building and found myself in a market offering both freebies and paid items. There was plenty on offer too but I couldn't buy anything of course. I no local currency. I saw some notices though that said you can pay for your goods in Second Life and have them delivered in RPW. When finally, I got to meet the owner I would learn that RPW is laid out as a number of role play worlds as the name states and the world of Gor is the main one. There is a main reception area and another for each world. You will get all the help you need at the receptions as I did and on leaving the reception you are treated to a themed market where you can prepare and clothe your avatar with plenty of freebies.

Now, I confess, I had already been to the Gor grid once before some while back and had skinned up and dressed in freebies so I was respectable which is just as well because the one thing I hate is landing as a Ruthed avatar. I can't find the freebies quick enough. Yeah, I am vain.

Well, I was wandering about pretty aimlessly until I came full circle back to the reception building to find Breezy and the other woman, Tessa Mureaux. I decided to question Breezy about the grid and she called the leader and had him TP in to talk to me. This was Aramil Ewing. one time leader and founder of the Askari Mercenaries in SL Gor. He told me that this all started out as a hobby when he and friends decided to setup their own Opensim grid. They chose to run a role play based on Gor because that is what they all enjoyed in Second Life but in Opensim they felt they could manage it better and more by the book so to speak which loosely means they make rules and laws based on common events found in the Gorean novels - all 27 of them. Aramil explained, "All of us, well the 90% of the users here has been on SL. I was a role play gamer even before I joined SL, when D&D was done in pen and paper, as well a deoria. Our aim is to develop a planned world, thinking of a true MMORPG."

Aramil called me over to a large map of Gor which is taken from the web and most Goreans accept as a true representation of their world. The map was overlaid by a numbered grid and Aramil said, "We choose that one because the names of the cities are on it and kind of more by books. Still there are some SL add-ons like Midgard, but was a good one to start with. Each rectangle you see there is a sim location so we use it as guide to know where and how to terraform and build the sim located in a defined spot.

I replied, asking, "That is a lot of sims. Do you really believe you can create them all?"

"Yes," he answered, "we already have several ones. Of course is something that will not be filled in the short term."

I fired back, "It will take a lot of people to populate such a vast area. Do you think you can get that many people to come here?"

"We have a group there (in SL)," he said, "The Gor Grid, and recently Role Play Worlds, mostly to keep informed the interested users about the progress but the same community spread the word and invite users to RPW."

So, my understanding from the conversation was that there is considerable inter-grid travel between RPW and SL and, while I noticed there were about 14 people actually on the grid at the time of my visit, it was clear that the numbers fluctuate considerably at the moment but there are times the numbers rise sharply so this is due in no small part, I think, to their maintaining strong links and contacts in SL. It also accrued to me that this may well be the pattern for RPG and other gaming ideas, people will maintain strong links with SL while they build their grids. In deed, I can imagine a gradual exodus of Second lifers finding their way to the free Metaverse via role playing connections. Some may chose to grid-hop and play in both worlds while the numbers who stay permanently will depend on how Opensim develops and the advantages to be gained. Certainly, there seemed no lack of enthusiasm on the part of Aramil to create a world that would give the Gorean community, at least, what they might be looking for and not finding in Second Life.

Aramil offered me a tour and with three others in tow we set off and on a walkabout crossing sim borders, climbing hills and visiting camps and outposts. Along the way I asked, "tell me. Are people role playing?"

He answered, "lot of them are building but always there is time for rp."

"Building has taken up much energy..." said Jet Racer, who had been tagging along with us, "but there has certainly been roleplay."

At this point I asked about the slaves, whom Goreans call Kajira, "Do you get many Kajira coming over from SL?"

Aramil laughed and said, "Yes, the major population are Kajira and you can see this by the polls on the web site."

Next we came to a port with a dock and several ships moored up. "Ok, this is another thing in our grid," said Armail in his slightly broken English as he stepped onto the dock. "Some (of these) ships that tp you to exclusive points on mainland like one to the north, the other to the vosk region, the other to the south and from there you need to travel. What we plan is to block intersim teleports once the grid is more filled so in rp you actually need to travel and that encourage rp. People will travel by foot, (fly) tarns and (sail)ships, once vehicles work properly on opensim, etc."

"Will that confuse people first time they arrive?" I asked.

"When people arrive, they will land in a General Welcome Area that is on the build and they will find the info needed there and from there to each world welcome area so before they reach mainland (the rp continent) they will have all the info and tools."

"Try to board the ship." he told me, "and choose mainland in the menu. Each one of them take you to a far away area of the continent. The idea is in time have ships drived by users to transport them along the world."

He turned now and headed off up a path with the rest of us following and after a long trek uphill we arrived at Black Stone town and here Aramil informed me that a major aspect of their RP would involve taking and holding locations such as this one.

Aramil explained, "One feature of rpw are the fight to keep sims. This town is one of them so any group can take over the place and keep it while they are able to defend it. Imagine yourself as a free woman of this town and the admin and the guards are defeated by another group, so you will be now under a new admin, and it is up to you how to rp that scenario. This is the way to encourage more realistic role play."

We set off again and Aramil pointed, saying, "ok if we follow that path. You will cross all the northern lands to the west and will find a path through the forest to the south we going west to the crossroad but to walk the mainland will take a lot (of time) and one thing we are tying to keep is to make the terraform the most natural and realistic possible so we are going down a mountain and you will be actually going down, and you will experience that all grid wide."

We had arrived at Tovaldsland and I was informed this is another sim to keep if you fight for it. Armail then said we can go on to the city of Ar now and to get the picture of Ar in the mind I recalled reading the book, Tarnsman of Gor in which Ar is described as the leading city of Gor and famed for it's many cylindrical towers.


And sure enough I beheld the towering cylinders rising above the city. Breezy proudly explained the amount of work going into the city's construction.

"It covers 9 sims," she said, "It will be most glorious."

I could certainly tell heart and soul were going into this work as I took to the air and flew over the city. I landed on a platform and took a look at the designs on huge post prims. On the ground stood a large model of the city too and I looked around at the city and couldn't help being just a little awe struck.

I loved the city yet I found myself regretting I had not come to the Gor Grid sooner. I would have seen the old city of Ar and the pictures Breezy gave me reminded me of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. It had suspended walkways high up in the mist spanning between the towers and the colours were not so bright. It had the feel of Steam punk, slightly Victorian yet modern and I could imagine the great Tarn war birds flying over and landing on the tower perches.

I have posted more images of old Ar here.

Shortly after I arrived at the arena and was treated to a show of arms by Aramil, Jet and Tessa. This prompted me to ask about their combat meter, the RPX system. Aramil filled me in...

"ok, when we start, we was thinking on use some of the meters that users was used to, so Qapla offer himself to bring it to RPW and develop with us a system we has been working on paper since the beginning. But his schedule is kind of busy, and was delaying us, so we decide to give priority to it and develop it in our own (time). So BlueWall Slade, start to code what we had on plans and create a starting meter, and that is what RPX is atm."



He continued, "now Rpx is not going to be like the meters the users are used on SL, given the fact that we can manipulate the servers and merge it with the platform itself. Lot of things will be managed by the meter, not just combat."



I now asked if they supported the basic idea of a hypergrid with connecting worlds. "aye we do, that's the future of the virtual worlds" he replied, and went on, "We have plans for some Sims to be HG so people can come to rp from any grid they reside. You should see how we are building the continent, so you can have a better idea of the concept we are managing for Gor, and the future worlds. Several good things are on develop and will be release soon, and we know for sure, the community will love it."

Gor in Second Life is noted for it's inter-sim raids, stealing of slaves and trading.  I though how fantastic it would be if there was raiding from one grid to another and I'm sure it will happen because I already know that there are start-up Gorean sims elsewhere across the hypergrid.


At this point I wondered if they might be developing some special features. I was thinking of  RLV which is Retrained Life Viewer used with Open Collar LSL code in SL and the fact there are slaves here I thought about the restraining collar they might wear. so I asked, "Do you plan to promote a particular viewer  with special features. I am thinking perhaps RLV and Open Collar?"

Aramil answered, "Yes Open Collar is on Role play worlds, Tessa can give you more details about it, as she has been with the developer of the collar testing it but so far i can remember, some RLV features work and others still don't. (But)  we recommend the Hippo viewer cause is pretty light, don't have prims size restriction, etc."


Tessa Mureaux explained it all to me, "We're still modifying the scripts to get them all working and for now, we need the girls to put them on here, first in the non-script area, for attachment and adjusting.... then to a full script area to recompile the scripts and sync the database. From there, they can go on about their business as normal.  As we do more upgrades of both sims and servers, the grid itself, and the collars... then it will be a whole lot  simpler. It's matching the right code to the LSL grid for a better sync and  communication. For now, the couple animations in the collars do not work but as most of the owners were primarily wanting the leashing option to work, and some RLV functions, so we went ahead and released this rough version."

I smiled and then decided to ask about Role Play Worlds and I put it to Aramil as almost a challenge, "I see you recently branched out to cover role play in general. Is this because Gor is not working out so well?"

Aramil had no doubts that their Gorean venture would succeed and said, "aye, in fact we start to plan and build the vampire and fantasy world. Mostly cause the environment help us to build it quick but our goal is to manage several themes and build them planned and organized."

"But then the question I have to ask is, with all the work involved running the grid, new releases of OpenSim and trying to manage many themes, will the Gorean part suffer?"

"oh not at all," he insisted. "Our baby is the Gor world."


See Role Play Worlds home page here

Sim Pricing:

• Slave Sim (3750 prims) =30$ setup fee + 30$ monthly tier
• Master Sim (15000 prims) = 30$ setup fee + 100$ monthly tier
• Slave Package (2 slave sims) = 30 $ setup fee + 50$ monthly tier
• Peasant Package (4 slave sims) = 60$ setup + 90$ monthly tier
• Homestone Package (1 Master sim + 8 slave sims) = 100$ setup + 300$ monthly tier
• Merchant Package (2 Master sim + 7 slave sims) = 100$ setup + 350$ monthly tier

As I took my leave I couldn't help feeling a fondness already for these intrepid builders of Gor. I wasn't sure about the other role play worlds they had in mind to create. I figured it was best left to another time when they had got a new theme going but none the less I was convinced they would make the best of Gor. In Second Life Gor is big but fragmented with many Sim owners imposing their own interpretation of the books which is a constant source of dissent and drama. Here in RPW there is but one rule book and one meter and, moreover, the world is laid out according the map of Gor. There is no duplication of Sims either as found in SL. You can rent one of the cities here or, if you can't afford to, then there is nothing to stop you getting together with friends and forming a clan of Panthers, Outlaws or Mercenaries and using your RP  and combat skills to capture and hold a Sim for free. That, in itself is a unique concept.

I really believed in what they are doing and given that Linden Labs have in the past snuffed out this kind of creativity with their erratic pricing policy it was good to see people building like this, and knowing they have the chance to do it better and bigger than can be done in SL.

I was invited back to role play and you know what? I am tempted. I think Aramil and his team are here on the free Metaverse to stay.



Gaga Gracious

Today the Avatar Reality Community Director, Glenn Sanders announced the current roadmap for Blue Mars. He said:

Many of our community members have requested new features and improvements to Blue Mars.  We listen closely to your concrete suggestions.  Then we incorporate as many of your ideas as possible and feasible in our roadmap strategy. In addition to suggestions from the community, we are planning a multitude of other enhancements to Blue Mars. Here's a sneak preview of a few of the items we are planning.

• Expanded Preferences for chat,
• Enhanced camera movement and controls
• Improved avatar movement
• Avatar name will be displayed above the avatar head.
• Right-click shows Avatar Name and UserID.
• Move the camera control icon out to the menu tray

• Clickable hyperlinks in the Chat box
• Select and copiable text in the Chat box
• IM - instant messaging

• New, improved avatar meshes
• Avatar Masks (new face shape and face skin for your avatar)
• Avatar Physiques (new body and face shape and skin for your avatar)
• Cloth editor: edit and upload Hair as an item for sale.
• Avatar tongue model/setup
• Mask and Physique editor
• Avatar attachments and animation rigs
• Animation workflow documentation
• More sliders for the Face Customization UI

• Avatar Editor:
• Import custom avatar shapes and skins
• Test the imported mesh with standard animations and clothing
• Create displacement morphs (compared to the original mesh shape)Create normals for your custom mesh
• Export your mesh and skin as an item for upload and for sale.
• Allow JPG to be used for a texture to create items (the editors automatically convert it for you)

• Crash management for the Places Browser
• Download Manager for the Places Browser
• Download Manager with background download, notification, and City version checker
• Improved download and streaming of some items.

• Expanded Real Estate Page
• Expanded dev MyPage with:
• Billing history
• Remember login email
• Commands to manage tenants
• Expanded Real Estate page:
• Check files
• Improved dev SDK installer with AR and NEWCO becoming optional installs
• Upload Block, shop, and items for sale.

• user MyPage with:
• BLU balance display
• Enhanced Friends List
• Messaging

• New City updates with a shops where you can purchase items.
• Residences, and residence management

Rock

Second Life to Close their Forums Today
Linden Labs have announced that their forums are due to be discontinued after the 8th February, despite howls of protest from the forum regulars.



The announcement was as follows:

On Tuesday, February 9th we're transitioning our forums, from the vBulletin software we've been running for years to the integrated Clearspace software which can currently be found at http://blogs.secondlife.com. This transition will mean that new forum channels will be opened on Clearspace and the vBulletin forums will be closed and archived.  We understand that the forum community might feel some angst during this transition, but hope that you will understand the necessity and advantages of such a move

The most active part of the forums, Resident Answers, has been replaced by a section of the Linden Blog, Second Life Answers. However, this is no substitute for Resident Answers as the Linden Blog makes it clear:

Second Life Answers is a basic question and answer style area. If your topic is really a discussion or conversation please feel free to go to the Second Life Forums and start a thread so the community can join in!

So, no discussions or conversation allowed in the replacement. Hmmm, and this after Linden Labs appointed their new Communications Manager, Wallace Linden, on the 14th January (although Wallace admitted my job is actually in the marketing department, not the community department). Of course, pointing people to Resident Answers will need to be amended, as after today there will be no Second Life Forums. Blue Linden made it even clearer:

We realise that some people just want the old forum software back. Unfortunately, that's not an option. We're not looking to replicate the old forum experience; we're looking to make something better, something that suits both existing community members and new ones, and we hope you'll join us in this effort by reporting bugs and making feature suggestions.

So, where will the Resident Answers crowd move to? A recent poll gave these results:


The majority (apart from those who are having pie) appear to be headed to the SLU forum, run by Cristiano, with other sizeable chunks headed for slapt.me and secondcitizen. Although I think they will all eventually migrate to SLU, as slapt.me currently has only 26 topics in their Resident Answers section, and seems to be very lightly used, while secondcitizen has a horrible orange color scheme, which no-one in their right mind (and yes, I know, we are talking about the Resident Answers crowd here) could possibly put up with for more than a day or two.

Following the removal of all adult content to the Adult Continent, Zindra, and now the closure of the Forums, I think we can all see which direction Second Life is being steered in, and unfortunately the destination does not appear to include a large proportion of the current user base.

Rock

One of the new cities added to the Blue Mars portfolio last week was Digital DNA, created by Angela Talamasca. This is the first city in Blue Mars to use the Voxel-created cave system in the terrain, and the first to use rainbows.

Intrigued by both its beauty and its unusual name I managed to catch up with Angela using Avatars United, to find out more about her first offering.

Interview with Angela Talamasca

Q. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, were you in other virtual worlds before Blue Mars?

I have worked in the technology industry for three decades and have been following the development of virtual worlds for years [Angela's background is in Electrical/Electronic engineering, chip design, and crime scene analysis!]. My passion is artifical intelligence. Some years ago, I wrote a conversational AI that was debuted in dot net, but I was unhappy with the outcome, because it wasn't really intelligent. So, I ended up returning to school to study psychology and how we learn. AI is still definitely my primary focus but I am having fun playing catch up where graphics are concerned.



Q. Do you have any Crysis Sandbox experience, or did you learn the Blue Mars editors from scratch?

I have no experience with cryengine. In fact, the first time I had actually heard of Cryengine was from the Blue Mars announcement, as I am not an FPS gamer. The short answer? Yes, I am definitely learning the Blue Mars editors from scratch.

Q.  Was it all trial and error, or did you get any help from any of the other devs in Blue Mars?

This build was a mix of trial and error, lots of Google searches, watching "how to" Youtube videos, and of course, lots of help from the other Blue Mars developers.


Q. What do you think about the current level of tools and documentation for the Blue Mars editors?

I have mixed feelings about the tools. However it is important to recall, my background is on the hardware / coding side, as opposed to graphics. That being said, the tools are not intuitive for beginners and the lack of documentation is horrendous. The latter would be, by far, my biggest gripe. In that I end up spending a huge amount of time that could be better used for the build.


Q. Where did you get your idea from for Digital DNA? And how did you arrive at the name?

I would love to give you a catchy reason but in honesty, I chose it due to the real life crime scene recreations I was doing in SL, and it sort of stuck. [And the fireflies?] I created the fireflies because I kept getting lost. [What? In your own city?] Sad to say, yes. The fireflies were like a sort of Hansel and Gretel crumb idea so I wouldn't get lost so often. But don't pass on that tip! [Yeah, right :)]


Q. How long did the work take you from starting out with Digital DNA to get it ready for upload?

About a month. I downloaded the tools on the 18th of December and submitted the build on the 18th of January.

Q. Have you been surprised by all the positive feedback you have received?

In a way, yes. Simply because there's not really much to do. Nothing interactive, etcetera. And, in a way, no. While it is far from perfect at this point, I am very pleased with the way it is shaping up.


Q. What are the three most important things you would like to see introduced into the Blue Mars client?

Only three? [chuckle].

Okay, I would say avatar modification would be at the top of the list. Or at the very least, more choices. The very first thing people want to do when they enter a virtual world is to change their appearance.


Second in line would be search. I have friends who are using Blue Mars but unless I am here at the same time they are, there is no way to friend them, or to find them, much less keep in contact with them via this platform.

Which brings up the third thing. Communication. Open, friend, and group chats that extend beyond a single city. As well as logging and instant messaging. Voice would be great too, at some point.

Q. And the three most important things missing from the SDK?

Definitely a TOD trigger for the flowgraph editor, which comes standard with the Crysis cryengine.

There are also a number of items they provide in the basic sandbox that are missing textures. So, I would say they should either get rid of them, or provide the textures.

And finally, but certainly not least, is documentation. In fact, the lack documentation is by far the biggest frustration I have with respect to learning these tools. And while the Crymod portal has a variety of documents, tips, and even tutorial videos, those do not always apply to the Blue Mars implementation of that product.



Q. What are your future plans for Digital DNA?

I am really not sure yet, though it will have something to do with solving puzzles. Currently you really need to be able to fly to take in all of Digital DNA, but I am not just going to give that ability away, it will have to be earned! [can't wait!]

Thanks very much Angela

You're welcome : )

For those of you who have managed to read back to my very first blog post back in April 2008, you will know that the beginning of the end for me (commercially) in SL was when Linden Labs imposed VAT on its European customers, and although this was not the fault of Linden Labs, in the first instance, they did not handle the VAT issue, or their announcements, very well at all.

Background
It all started back in 2002 when the EU issued Council Directive 2002/38/EC, whose summary states:

The objective of this Directive is to create a level playing field for European Union (EU) businesses with regard to the indirect taxation of electronic commerce.

This Directive was later amended by Council Directive 2006/138/EC of the 19th December 2006.

Basically a complaint had made by a European ISP that competing companies from the US, such as AOL, were not charging VAT to European customers for their electronically-supplied services, while European-based companies were having to charge VAT, and they wanted a level-playing field. The response from the EU was, via the above Directives, to require all companies based outside of the EU to gather VAT from their European-based customers, and remit the collected VAT back to Europe.

Linden Labs and the VAT Fiasco
The main problem with Linden Labs was not so much the Council Directive, which they had no control over, but rather their handling of it.

On the 27th Septemember 2007 Linden Labs informed their European customers by email that VAT would assessed from that date onwards, and would apply to:

• Premium account registration
• Purchases from the Land Store
• Land use fees (tier)
• Private Region fees
• Land auctions
• LindeX transaction fees 

However, in an amazing gaff, a Linden admitted in an interview that up to the point of the VAT announcement by Linden Labs, the Labs had been absorbing the VAT costs, and not passing them on to their European customers, in order to maintain a commercial level-playing field for residents of Second Life. More suspicions were raised when it was revealed that Anshe Chung had started charging in L$ and had cancelled all Paypal subscriptions 6 weeks earlier (did Anshe anticipate this VAT thing, or had she been tipped by the Labs earlier than anyone else that this was coming?).

So basically Linden Labs were aware of these EU regulations, had decided to absorb the VAT cost for their European customers to maintain a level-playing field for all residents engaged in commerce within SL, then one morning decided not to absorb them anymore. Of course, all the European residents who had been purchasing regions prior to this email announcement felt justly aggrieved, and many expressed sentiments in the SL forums that they would not have made these purchases had they known that Linden Labs had been absorbing VAT and might, at any time, rescind that policy and pass the costs onto their European customers.

Linden Labs should have informed their European customers as soon as Linden Labs was aware that VAT charges needed to be applied, and VAT payments from Linden Labs back to Europe needed to be paid, and should have made clear to residents THEN what their policy was going to be.

Aftermath and Sad Stories
Many Europeans pulled out of the Second Life land market. It was just too much to pay 19%  more than a competing US-based land baron and compete on rental prices to prospective tenants.

Others formed partnerships and agreements with US-based friends, and transferred their land holdings to them, as they did not need to levy the VAT. This was good news for Linden Labs, as they received $100 for all transfers of land ownership, and there was less VAT accounting to be done.

However, horror stories began to emerge, and a particular one caught my eye today in the SLU forum.

Basically, Ciprian_Newall claims that he lost US$20,000 by transferring regions to a chap called Darwin Tomsen, (for the purpose of mitigating the VAT exposure) only for Darwin to sell 'Ciprian's' regions and not pay over any of the money! (However, see the Comments for a counter-statement).

The thread makes for quite interesting reading.


So what now for Blue Mars and other US Virtual Worlds?
The question now is what will be the policy of Avatar Reality (Blue Mars) and other Virtual Worlds run by companies outside of the EU regarding VAT charges on their European customers? Should they absorb it as LL did initially, or charge it from the outset and risk losing European customers who just cannot compete commercially within their virtual economies?

Currently, the Blue Mars Terms of Service state, in Section 7.1, Fees:

You agree to pay all fees or charges incurred by your Account, including applicable taxes, in accordance with these Terms of Service and the billing terms that are in effect at the time that the fee or charge becomes payable.

'applicable taxes' = VAT?

I hope Avatar Reality handles this issue in a more open and pragmatic way than Linden Labs, and see if they are able to absorb the VAT charges, when setting the post-pioneer prices, and enable all Blue Mars residents to compete equally within the virtual economy.

Rock

I have been reading a recent article from Deva Canto, an Opensim dev, on her blog in which she makes a plea to developers who build on top of the Opensim platform not to patent their code or it will hinder the continued development of Opensim. She gives a warning too to those who take the open source code which a dedicated core of developers have been working on for a long time and use it for their own business ends and, while contributing nothing back, actually threaten the prospect of a free Metaverse.

She goes on to say,

one of two things will happen: either (1) what you patent is so important that it will be critically missing from the common infrastructure because of your patent, therefore the infrastructure will never happen; or (2) what you patent can be done in a different way, in which case that other way will make it to the common infrastructure, and your patent-based business will miss the point.

We are seeing a growing number of grids based on Opensim who's developers take full advantage of the freely available source code. The core developers of Opensim have from the beginning had the goal of building the infrastructure of a free Metaverse for the benefit of private, educational and business interests alike. Everyone owns it. It is the virtual air we breath and just like polluters, there are people that would strangle the baby at birth for the sake of personal gain.

The dream is very clear; a Metaverse of immersive interconnected virtual worlds. Not walled-up monopolies like Second Life or the twenty or so other contenders for the virtual market. The aim is to have lots of small and large grids sharing a common resource on which to build a rich and diverse virtual super grid. Users will be able to grid-hop as easy as teleporting from one sim to another. The hope is for Common standards and methods to arise for names registering, search, money and copyright protection. The users will be able to hold their own property and wear it and use it where ever they go. All this is threatened by those who are effectively stealing and damaging what belongs to everyone.

Deva warns,

you won't gain any friends among some of us core developers (me, at least). You're putting the whole effort in jeopardy. I can guarantee you that if something you patent is critical, I won't stop until I find another way of doing it that doesn't step over your patent.

Not withstanding all this however, Opensim enjoys substantial, and growing support, and there are many new grids emerging built by people that heard the message given long ago by Linden Labs; A virtual world built by the residents and for the residents. OpenSim is not a walled garden. It is open and free and it will cost the individual a lot less to build and express their creativity. Those wannabe Grid Barons will only ever make it more restrictive and expensive for everyone and that's the author's opinion.

Gaga Gracious

Software Development Kit
The Blue Mars SDK has been updated,

Developer Blue Mars Client

• Places Browser features have been brought up to date to synchronize with the current release of the non-developer Blue Mars client.
• Several changes and additions to the UI, avatar name display, and preferences are in place. These changes may be integrated into the non-developer Blue Mars client in a future update.
• Stability fixes.

All Editors

• Bottom toolbar layout has been fixed for 32bit version of Windows 7. Other versions of Windows (including the 64bit version of Windows 7) were unaffected by this bug so you would not notice any changes.
• "Check Item/Cloth/City/etc in Blue Mars" menu item will now launch Blue Mars in a private mode. You will not be able to see other people logged into Blue Mars, nor will others be able to see you.
• ItemData.zip now use an improved compression method for reduced file size, to deal with the new 512KB upload size limit.
• Fixed a lighting bug which caused indoor light (Alt + 4) to survive the "File -> New" command
• Various bug and stability fixes

Furniture Editor

• Removed the geom path string from ARChair entity, in order to allow uploading of furniture items

Cloth Editor

• Now allows you to fill in the "input.dae" field on loading of existing cloth, even if the
  input.dae file does not exist. This makes it easier to load, test and modify existing
  cloth items. Also, set the "Step-by-step" flag to true, for the same purpose - less
  clicks to attach and test existing cloth.
• Cloth Editor can now correctly recognize pre-made non-cloth items, such as shoes.

City Editor

• When creating a new city, you now have the option of creating a city from a template, as opposed to creating one completely from scratch. Please see the Wiki for details about this feature.
• Lua scripts now run inside a sandbox environment for security. This may have an effect on your current scripts. The complete description of the new restrictions in place can be found in the Wiki. Please contact us if you were relying on any of the removed functionality, so that we can come up with a way to make the feature available to you in a safe manner.

City Developer Sample Data

• The number of errors and warning messages in the sample data has been reduced. Our plan is to bring the startup errors/warnings to zero, and keep it that way in the future.

The levels included in the Sample Data are:

• Beach City
• Small Islands
• Taki (waterfall island)
• Golf Course 1
• Golf
• Preview (the old welcome area)
• Welcome Area (the new welcome area)
• Face Customisation
• Viewer (not sure about this, looks more like an item editor)

Blue Mars Client Update (0.0.6999)
A new update has been released for the Blue Mars Client, giving access to two new cities:

and the following bug fixes:

• 'NoTexture' in the edge of the Welcome Area is fixed.
• City installer recovers better from crashes and other unexpected terminations.
• Blank screen when trying to log back in after a crash has been fixed.
• Build information in the window title bar now says "client build" instead of "player build"
• Various stability fixes, particularly with the Flash UI overlay

More updates to the SDK and the Client software are forthcoming, so keep your eyes peeled for further announcements.


Rock

Blue Mars Introduces the Script Center
On the 29th January Blue Mars introduced the Script Center.

The Center includes (so far):

• Introductory Concepts: such as basic script example, Flash Huds, and Action Maps
• Complete Scripts: A Free camera example is provided
• Code Snippets: Lots of useful snippets here to solve common problems

Developers and staff can now start adding their script solutions and build this into a really great resource.

Just Ignore and Let This one Die
Last week the the most incredible thread in the history of forum threads passed an unbelievable milestone. The eponymous and self-defeating thread, entitled 'Just Ignore and Let This one Die', passed the 100,000 posts mark in the Second Life Resident Answers forum. This thread covered every known aspect of Second Life, Real Life, Nostalgic Life, and every other type of Life imaginable.

The honour of the 100,000th post went to Gabriele Graves, with the inspiring "Lol, almost!" contribution. Our hearts should really go out to Maureen Boccaccio who thought she had it, and posted a nice graphic proclaiming the same, but was 1 early at the 99,999th position.

This thread has been viewed 911,239 times up to today, so there is another milestone coming with the 1,000,000th view. There should be a prize for that!

Correction
It has been pointed out by Maureen Boccaccio in the Comments to this Diary entry, that due to some posts in the thread being deleted the person that is currently at the 100,000th position was NOT the first to get there. That honour goes to Brann Georgia, and here is a screenshot capturing the event.

Avatars Disunited
Following the news earlier last week that Linden Labs had acquired the Facebook for Avatars, Avatars United, we were saddened to learn that within 24 hours of the announcement of the acquisition the new service began to break, with lost accounts, and people receiving emails intended for someone else. Didn't take The Lab long to break it, did it? :)

Sun withdraws Support from Project Wonderland
On January 27, 2010, Oracle announced that it had finalized its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Two days later the first casualty of this acquisition was revealed with news emerging that development resources are no longer being applied to Project Wonderland.  A core group of the Wonderland team have vowed to keep the project going, but I am getting my black suit pressed, just in case.

Rock