I’ve been gently (and sometimes not so gently) chided recently for not spending as much time in Second Life as I did when I first started. There are a number of reasons for my recent shortage of in-world time, ranging from pressing RL issues, to creating animations in DAZ|Studio, to the fact that I’m currently working on adding the new version of the C:SI combat system into my sword (I do 90% of my scripting offline with SciTE and lslint because the in-game script editor blows).

Now I have another reason: I have my own offline sim courtesy of the OpenSIM project.

For those not yet familiar with OpenSIM, it’s an effort to create an open-source Second Life grid. It’s got a very very long way to go, but as you can see from the following snapshot, it’s already possible to log in using the official Second Life viewer. I can build, test clothing and building textures, test animations, etc, all in a completely 100% lag-free environment because it is running on an Ubuntu Linux machine (it’s also possible to run in Windows) in my local network - the same Linux machine that I will be using to run my new C:SI non-player character bots.

Obligatory snapshot:

OpenSIM does not yet support running LSL scripts to the level where I can create new weapons, though they are working on scripting quite actively. I don’t know yet whether it will *ever* be a suitable sandbox for scripting, though, since the OpenSIM developers seem quite insistent on changing the LSL performance characteristics (they are making it compile to .NET code on Mono that runs WAY faster). However, once (if ever) the main SL grid switches to Mono for scripts, then it may at that point be a suitable environment.

I have known about OpenSIM for quite a while, since Esprite pointed it out to me on Edo before I joined C:SI, but until recently I wasn’t really motivated to attempt to use it.

That changed when I found a post on Vint Falken’s blog about a publicly-accessible OpenSIM named Ruth, and another post about how OpenSIM already has the ability to use HTML on a prim (something LL has been promising for ages). Here was my chance to check out an OpenSIM that (supposedly) already works well enough for Vint and others to test clothing and shapes and various other nifty features, so I was on my way!

Having tested it (and left a few thank-you items in Dalien’s grid), I decided to install OpenSIM locally. It took mere minutes with Dalien’s instructions (which I modified for Ubuntu). Well, I’m sold. It’s buggy, and missing so many essential features, but OpenSIM shows absolutely tremendous potential and some pretty amazing momentum.

Now if only it was mature enough to support creating my own C:SI-only grid

If you feel like trying it out, I recommend following Vint Falken’s instructions for connecting to the Ruth grid, which I have reproduced below for convenience:

If you want to try Ruth out for yourself, and test the OpenSim, Testa User to Testz User are available for your exploration pleasures. This is how you do it:

• If you have a shortcut to the Second Life client on your desktop, copy it and name it ‘Second Life OpenSim Ruth’. If not, create one.
• Right click it and look at it it’s properties. Normally under ‘Target’ it says: “C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe” . Just add -loginuri http://ruth.petitbe.be:9000/ to the end of it, so you get “C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe” -loginuri http://ruth.petitbe.be:9000/.
• Use that shortcut to open the Second Life client. You should automatically connect to Ruth. As user name you can choose from Testa User up to Testz User, and the pass for all is ‘test’.

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