The web browser-based 3D world viewer using OpenSim technology and the Unity 3D plug-in I wrote about last month has been in early public Alpha for the last few days: Go here to check it out (free account required). Created by UK development studio Rezzable (a former sponsoring partner to this blog), this demo is very much early Alpha, so don't expect a smooth virtual world experience. (As I write this, I'm running it in another tab of my Chrome browser, and my Tilda Swinton-esque default avatar seems to be stuck walking in an infinite loop.) Rezzable is using this tech for 3D simulations of historical monuments and treasures (such as King Tut's tomb) for their Heritage Key archaeological community website, which was once developed for Second Life. Assets from the SL project have been exported into this new project, which signifies, as Rezzable's Jon Himoff puts it, a crucial milestone in the future of virtual worlds:
Some of the many prims that you will see were originally created in Second Life, so it is also proof that Second Life assets can be 1) pulled over to OpenSim and 2) displayed in a browser.
There's more about this project on Unity's blog, too.
Further proof Linden has had its head up its rear for the past year and a half
Posted by: Metacam Oh | Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 04:55 PM
Yeah, Avis does that jitter loop while scene downloads. It is sorta Deja no vu thing . She also reminds me of Cali
Lewis ...
Posted by: Xlent1 | Thursday, July 01, 2010 at 02:17 AM
As impressive as this is, I was more impressed by FriendsHangout's Unity3D solution with terraforming in a browser window. Their 'visit as a guest' feature had a friendly user experience, only asking for gender before placing you in world, and with animated loading screens to ensure visitors don't see any partially loaded content. I can imagine a similar interface on a Second Life iPad app...
Botgirl Questi covers it here: http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2010/06/friendshangout-launches-virtual-world.html
Posted by: Nat Merit | Thursday, July 01, 2010 at 02:21 AM
Had a pop in to see what FriendsHangout was all about and I gotta say its pretty impressive, I didn't get a chance to explore thoroughly but they seem to have a lot of options and ease of use that I think SL needs to ahem "borrow." What impressed also was that they are pairing with a company called Evolver that is basically a webpage where you can create avatars that can be exported to programs like iClone and Friends Hangout. SL really needs to upgrade their avatars...if they could parter with Evolver as well I could see that working nicely.
Posted by: Metacam Oh | Thursday, July 01, 2010 at 11:33 AM
Have tested and enjoyed the result, knowing that this is a begin of what has a lot more to show of, as far as I am exploring Unity3d (build there looks so familiar). Go check this http://www.marunchak.co.uk/unity/V2_web/audit.html from http://virtualautonomy.com/blog/index.php
Posted by: spyvspyaeon | Thursday, July 01, 2010 at 01:14 PM
Very impressive! Thanks for sharing this article :)
Posted by: OpenSim | Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 02:14 PM