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First Technical Look at the Second Life Client

Posted by Zonk on from the go-make-it-better dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Second Life is a virtual world, maintained through a combination of client software and hosting servers. It has the unusual quality that nearly all of the content is user-provided. It is also unusual in that Linden Labs recently announced the release of its client software as open source. This is something that is rarely, if ever, done in commercial MMO apps. This article introduces the client (or "viewer" in Linden terminology) and explores the Second Life development environment."

2 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why wouldn't they open up the client? by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps some contributors to the client, now that it's open source, can make the rendering engine not look late-90s. I'm not talking poly counts or texture detail, which would be constrained by bandwidth. I'm talking about how flat everything is. I don't know what their lighting and texturing models are, but they need first aid. :P

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    How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?
  2. Re:ads by lilomar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    See, the problem is that it isn't supposed to be a game. It is supposed to be, quite literally, a second life, that is, a place, online, where you can do pretty much anything you can do in real life, plus. I tried SL a while back, expecting a really cool "game" I didn't like it. It wasn't a game. But that doesn't mean that you can't appreciate it for what it is.

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    The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.