First Technical Look at the Second Life Client

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."

Comments

Re:Payola

[Rob T Firefly]

I mean, seriously, why so much attention for a game where the first two things that happen when you login are some loser wanting you to go offline with them to engage in "sex chat" for cash and someone trying to sell you random crap?

You mean like the Internet?

SL isn't much of a game in that sense, but it's a neat Internet-based platform for many different types of content. It's basically a big chatroom in a user-generated 3D environment. Like any chat platform, if you're not looking for the lowest common denominator, you have to actively seek out something that pertains to your own interests.

Why wouldn't they open up the client?

[TubeSteak]

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.

All their money is made server side.
Why wouldn't they open up the client?

The only reason I can imagine involves the prevention of IP (skins, etc) theft.
But, that is an arms race that they've already lost.

Re:Why wouldn't they open up the client?

[Rei]

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

Talk about useless...

[DaleGlass]

It's pretty much a copy of a small part of the build instructions from the wiki. Absolutely nothing new, and even not enough information to actually build it.

It's also out of date. The latest versions do build with GCC 4, although it doesn't seem to be fully supported yet. Once in a while they release source with a couple of lines that GCC chokes on (such as using "class::method" in headers), but compiling with GCC 4 doesn't require any changes besides fixing that.

OpenJPEG recently became very usable as well, thanks to some good work on optimizing it.

Re:Payola

[daeg]

I think it's because the Slashdot crowd likes the idea more than the game itself. Not necessarily the advertising and sex chat (well, maybe...) aspects, but the idea that a user-generated world opens a new avenue of the expression of information.

I think the overall problem with Second Life is that the largely negative, undesired crowds got into it first, and that society in general isn't quite ready, nor are computers. As an example, I know that the furries exist, but on the regular Internet, I can avoid them easily just by never searching for them. In Second Life, though, you can't just avoid their island or whatever they have. They are, well, everywhere. Same with everyone else--flying penises included. Don't want to see X-rate content? Too bad. The community has far too big of an ego, too.

Well, that an Linden seems to only want to make a buck, and they'll sell whatever they can to do it. Maybe sometime in the future.

Re:Payola

[DaleGlass]

As an example, I know that the furries exist, but on the regular Internet, I can avoid them easily just by never searching for them. In Second Life, though, you can't just avoid their island or whatever they have. They are, well, everywhere.

You can't really avoid anybody on the Internet, look at my website ;-)

But, furry themed areas in SL aren't that many, and quite easy to avoid. It's not like they're going to bite you if you happen to pass by, anyway.

Don't want to see X-rate content? Too bad.

Nonsense. Look at the menu bar. Right near the region's name it says "(PG)" or "(Mature)". If you don't like the porn, then just stick to PG areas. X-rated content in a PG area is a bannable offense.

Flying penises are the SL equivalent of the well known .cx site. You can't entirely avoid that sort of thing anywhere, but it's not an all that frequent occurrence, and usually dealt with quickly.

Re:ads

[lilomar]

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.