COMMENTS CLOSED -- SEE UPDATED INFORMATION ON BUILDERBOT RELEASE HERE.

We made a set of tools to help us archive and move our content that is/was on the SL grid. We called it "BuilderBot" as it automates the process of finding objects on a region and converting them into OAR files that can be used offline and/or inside any OpenSim grid. We also made a tool to look at the OAR file offline and edit it. This is particularly useful to merge content from several OAR files. We think this is pretty handy stuff and thought it would make sense to release it for serious content creators. There are of course some issues relating to this and we would like to explain our approach to releasing it and invite some constructive comments. Please leave comments, suggestions here or drop us a line using our handy enuff contact form.

Visiting the in-world instalations by AM Radio is always a delight. The latest that I discovered is The Red and The Wild in IDIA Laboratories sim:

With a name Garden of Dreams, you expect to see a breathtaking sight.  Often sadly, that is not the case, however this sim lives up to its name.  The minute you arrive and fully rezz you are carressed with nature, with wooden pathways that encourage you to explore.  With waterfalls, sailboats, and lil nooks and crannies, this is a place you don't want to explore on your own.

Walking around with a loved one, the mood is set, and with a click of a button, the music flowing into your ears, this sim is all about romance.  You can easily find a cozy snuggling spot to whisper sweet nothings into your beloved's ear as your gaze into each others eyes.  The sim is also a perfect place for taking pictures, with many panoramas for you to delight in, whether you are a landscape photographer or of people.

My theory is that they are just young and set in their ways.  They need more of us old people around to show them new and modern ideas.  Last week, for example, I introduced the idea of using a holodeck as a prim miser.  This week, I am going to reinforce that idea with a video I made as a demo.  Keep in mind as you watch the video that all the holodeck scenes are being made in the same place and with no use of prim allocation except when they are in use.

Butch Dae, the inquiring character in the video, has colleced a whole simful of holodeck builds.  Some of the builds he bought from Novatech (the place where we did the video).  Others are buldings that he got for nothing.  On his place the buildings appear on demand.  You see an empty field.  You want to the place where a building should be and suddenly it builds itself right around you.

It doesn't really take a lot of effort to see that the price “jack-up” on the Voids that became OpenSpaces means anyone who keeps that simulator product will be paying a lot more for a lot less. And not just less prim density--but less peformance. Aren't hosting+server costs supposed to go down over time? Isn't performance meant to improve over time? Isn't efficiency meant to improve over time? LL seems to have it all backwards (...again).

The offering from M Linden (= Mark Kingdon, CEO Linden Labs) does little to make this mess right and adds a new layer of confusion and technical nonsense to the already stressed Second Life user-base and the SL virtual world platform as well.

Anyway, here are some comments and more detail on why the OpenSpace offering looks so terrible. I am not sure this commentary is new, but some of the ideas explaining what the issue really is might be interesting enuff.  * Warning danger of boringness is high and I show a spreadsheet*  (Better to go watch a fun machinima here!)

Flying over from Greenies Home Sim, many have attempted to land at Greenies Lawn to no avail: sim was 'under very busy construction'. Jolly news: we finally found it ready to show & being enjoyed by a select public. Wednesday 2nd of June - that's tomorrow - at 7AM SLT, Greenies Lawn (click for TP) will open for members of the Zero-G group! Yeey! They can now explore and enjoy the virtual sun at the same time. No sitting inside in the hot Greenies Home, feet in the sink to try and chill, but virtually outside, rezzing towels to sunbathe - don't forget the sunscreen!