On October 4th, at the same time as Linden Lab’s Patterns was launching in its Genesis Release using the Steam Platform, Valve, the owners of Steam released a update to the Steam client and website which included their new line of non-game software, which they originally described as being “creativity and productivity” applications.
The update initially sees seven titles listed in the new Software category of the Steam client / website, including a free copy of the basic Gamemaker Studio for Windows (with the cross-platform suite available for £314.00 ($508)); 3D modelling software 3D Coat, Art Rage, a painting and drawing application; Camera Bag 2 photo editing software, 3DMark and 3DMark Vantage PC performance tools and Valve’s own Source Filmmaker.
Software on Steam
There has been some speculation (both in this blog and elsewhere), that this new category might be where Second Life appears when it is finally made available through Steam. However, on the basis of this initial selection offered through Steam, it would appear increasingly likely that SL may appear under the Games category.
No date has been given for Second Life’s appearance on Steam – nor should this update from Valve be taken as a sign the SL’s Steam debut is drawing close. Currently, the deployment of new versions of the SL viewer are being held up while a serious crash / memory leak issue is rectified. Until such time as this has been taken care of, the updates to the viewer which are specifically aimed at the Steam tie-in are subject to delay.
Until now, Kitely, the on-demand virtual world service, has offered worlds (regions) based on a subscription basis, with prices starting from $5 a month, inclusive of two regions and 30 hours a month in-world (additional time can be paid for / covered separately).
From today, however, Kitely are offering regions with unlimited use for a fixed monthly fee, in much the same way as other grid-based virtual worlds offer regions of their own. Kitely’s fees for worlds are :
$40 a month for an individual world (1 standard 256mx256m region)
$60 a month for 2×2 megaregion (equivalent to 4 standard regions)
$80 a month for a 3×3 megaregion (equivalent to 9 standard regions)
$100 a month for a 4×4 megaregion (equivalent to 16 standard regions).
Each world type has free unlimited access for visitors and supports up to 100 avatars and 100,000 prims (i.e. the 2×2, 3×3, 4×4 megaregions all support 100 avatars and 100,000 prims, not multiples thereof).
Commenting on the move, Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP of R&D states:
Our virtual worlds run on powerful multi-core, 7.5 GB servers, and each world can support up to 100,000 prims and 100 concurrent users. This means that our 1-Region worlds, which cost $40 / month, are both cheaper and more powerful than equivalent private islands on other grids, which cost up to $75 / month. And if you decide to host larger worlds then the price becomes ridiculously low, costing as little as $6.25 per region for a 16-region world. Remember that these are not regions running on overcrowded or underpowered servers: each of our cloud-based servers hosts between 1 and 4 worlds, depending on the amount of users in the worlds. This means that if your world has enough users inside it then it will get its own dedicated server at no extra cost!
Kitely subscribers can opt to lease a fixed-price region option, should they so wish, without it counting against their free region allowance
This move may wide broaden Kitely’s appeal among users who wish to have large number of visitors and who don’t wish to have concerns about direct charging for in-world time, etc.
SL Viewer Support Removed
On September 27th, Kitely ceased supporting the Second Life viewer for accessing their worlds. This move is somewhat inevitable where OpenSim is concerned, following Linden Lab’s decision to enter into a Havok sub-licence arrangement, a move which subsequently saw the -loginURI capability disabled within the SL viewer.
This last week has been an interesting one for news on NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, with the release on the 27th September of news that the rover Curiosity has come across extensive evidence for free-flowing water to have once existed in Gale Crater.
Curiosity examines Jake
Prior to this, on Sol 47 (September 23rd) Curiosity commenced contact science on a rock dubbed Jake Matijevic, using the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), mounted on the turret at the end of the rover’s robot arm. Studies of the rock continued through Sol 48, September 24th, with the ChemCam laser being used once more to assist in analysing the rock’s composition, and MAHLI, the Mars Hand Lens Imager, gathering a range of images of the rock from various distances.
On Sol 49, Curiosity resumed its drive towards Glenelg, a region where three different types of terrain, as observed from orbit, come together. Now over half-way to the region, the rover travelled a further 31 metres (102 ft). During the day, the rover also captured more images of its location and observed the Martian sky.
Sol 50 saw the rover complete its longest single drive to date: 48.9 metres (160 ft), bringing the total distance covered to over 400 metres, or close to quarter of a mile. With the drive came a shift in emphasis for the science team, as they start looking for a location where Curiosity can obtain its first sample of Martian soil. Ideally, the team would like to find a sandy spot with planet of loose Martian fines which can be scooped up by the sample system on the robot arm and then delivered to the on-board SAM and CheMin instruments for detailed analysis.
The road to Glenelg: a mosaic of the land immediately before Curiosity and leading up to Glenelg.
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NASA has released images returned to Earth by the Curiosity rover of what appears to be an ancient stream bed, together with images showing further evidence of liquid water once having flowed freely within Gale Crater.
The images have been captured at separate locations on the route to Glenelg, with the first images being captured on Sol 27 (September 2nd), with additional images of another location being captured on Sol 39 (September 14th).
The Link outcrop images on Sol 27 using the 100mm Mastcam
The first set of these images were of an outcrop of rock dubbed Link, and showed rounded gravel fragments, called clasts, up to a few centimetres in size within the rock outcrop. Too large to have been moved as a result of wind action, these clasts have been deemed to be consistent with a sedimentary conglomerate, or a rock that was formed by the deposition of water and is composed of many smaller rounded rocks cemented together.
A close-up of Link (l) compared with similar rocks seen on Earth (r). Erosion of the outcrop on Mars has resulted in gravel clasts which have fallen onto the ground, creating the gravel pile. The outcrop characteristics are consistent with a sedimentary conglomerate, or a rock that was formed by the deposition of water
On Sol 39, Curiosity imaged a more remarkable outcrop, dubbed Hottah after Hottah Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories. The exposed bedrock in the images, again captured with the 100mm Mastcam, is made up of smaller fragments cemented together to again form sedimentary conglomerate.
The location of the stream bed lies between the north rim of Gale Crater and the base of “Mount Sharp”, the mound towards the centre of the crater which Curiosity will explore later in the mission. Imaging of the region from orbit shows an alluvial fan of material washed down from the rim, streaked by many apparent channels, sitting uphill of the new finds, further evidence that water was once free-flowing in the region, probably over a reasonably long period of time in Mars’ ancient past. The images of the outcrops themselves show what are referred to as “classic conglomerates”, rocks that are made up of gravels and sand which have been cemented together. The sizes and shapes of stones offer clues to the speed and distance of the ancient stream’s flow.
“From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet [1 metre] per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep,” William Deitrich, an MSL science co-investigator said, reviewing the images.
The Hottah outcropping of bedrock – evidence of an ancient stream bed imaged by Curiosity
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The SunAeon team have been working on the primary site, and adding a raft of new features, which launched on Wednesday 26th September. Once again, I was very honoured to be asked to contribute to the site, providing information on the Earth, the Moon, the Sun and little Pluto.
Launching SunAeon presents you with a new introductory video, a virtual tour of the Sun, the eight planets and Pluto, showing each in turn, together with notable surface features in the case of the Earth, the Moon and the Sun, and cutaway views of the interiors of the major planets.
The main screen navigation tools remain unchanged, although the Navigate drop-down menu (accessed from the SunAeon button, top left of the screen), now includes the Sun, Earth, Moon and Pluto. Clicking on any of these will take you to your topic of interest and present the familiar surface view of the target, and the data display options.
Data Display for the Sun
The amount of information available for each target is currently a little variable – Earth and the Sun, for example, have a lot more data options available for them, including panels for their atmospheres as well as internal structures (blame me for that – I may have overloaded Mito and the team with text!). Surface features are also now annotated for them, and for the Moon, allowing specific points / features to be focused upon and dedicated information panels displayed for them. I confess I wasn’t involved in these panels, but now I’ve seen them, I hope very much that Mito and the team will include a similar approach for the other planets as well – such as coverage of Olympus Mons, Gale Crater, Gusev Crater, the Vallis Marineris on Mars; Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, and so on.
An additional surface features pop-up panel for Earth
Some of the planetary data display pages now also include videos, provided courtesy of NASA. The pages for the Sun, the Moon and Mars all now incorporate optional videos, one of which features the upcoming MAVEN mission to study the upper atmosphere of Mars, and which is scheduled for launch at the end of 2013.
Ace of Space
This update also includes a very simple game as well. Called Ace of Space, This is essentially racing a small spaceship around the eight planets of the solar system, passing just close enough to each to make a checkpoint. The race is against the clock, and planets can be tackled in any order (although there is a degree of planetary alignment which can be used if you hit on the right course). Controls are simple – the arrow keys, with UP firing your main engines and DOWN firing your retro motors (both burning your fuel allowance, which can be renewed), and LEFT and RIGHT turning your ship. For those that feel up to it, you can also activate the planets’ gravity wells, which you can use to assist your flight – as long as you’re careful!
Flying past Mars in Ace of Space
Ace of Space is lighthearted fun, and includes a “free flight” mode. It’s hopefully a sign of more sophisticated space flight / exploratory capabilities will be added to SunAeon as time goes on, in accordance with the original roadmap for the site. The game can also be downloaded, for those who prefer to play it directly on their desktop / laptop, and the code is available to embed into webpages as well. If I have any critique at all, it is that the only way to get back to the main SunAeon solar system model appear to be going via the HELP option in the game or clicking the BACK button on your browser – an on-screen option would make things easier.
This is another nice update to SunAeon, and I’m again honoured in being asked to assist with a small part of it. I’m now looking forward to seeing it grow to include more details on the planets, moons and other bodies in our solar system.
Over the course of the last month, Kitely, the on-demand virtual world service, has continued to refine their megaregion offering introduced at the start of August, improving their OpenSim performance in the process. They’ve also announced an upcoming feature called “Transfer stations”.
Traditionally, working with megaregions is limited in some ways due to the viewer code being geared towards handling regions which are 256×256 metres in size. Editing terrain textures, for example, is something which usually cannot be done when working on a megaregion. While megaregion mode can be disabled to allow work to be carried out on a per-region basis, it can also lead to problems: landmarks can stop working, in-world objects may show at the correct location, etc.
Kitely have solved this problem by introducing an Advanced Megaregion option, which works relatively seamlessly with the viewer. When a world owner / manager using a megaregion attempts to carry out an operation such as changing the terrain settings, a pop-up is displayed advising them that the operation cannot be performed with the world running in Advanced Megaregion mode. A link on the pop-up allows the world owner to switch to their browser and disable the Advanced Megaregion option via their Manage World webpage. This then allows them to work on the world as if it were a series of individual regions. Once terrain work has finished, the Advanced Megaregion mode can be turned on once more.
The Advanced Megaregion also allows parcel media to be heard right across a megaregion (rather than being limited to the south-west corner region).
“Oren, We Need Warp Speed!”
As well as working on megaregions, Kitely has been optimising the OpenSim code running on their cloud-based servers. In the same blog post announcing the Advanced Megaregions, Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP of R&D describes the improvements thus:
We have made numerous improvements to OpenSim to make big worlds work faster on Kitely. These changes reduce OpenSim’s CPU usage up to 80%! This makes the user experience smoother and allows for the use of more complex worlds and more avatars than regular OpenSim. The following chart shows how much we reduced CPU usage compared to regular OpenSim. These tests were done on a world running in its own server, with one avatar in the world.
Kitely CPU server optimisation (courtesy Kitely)
This optimisation allows Advanced Megaregions on Kitely to run up to 5% faster than regular megaregions.
Transfer Stations
Transfer Stations are an upcoming Kitely feature. They are described as, “Miniature worlds that users wait in while their world is being loaded.” The blog post announcing them goes on:
Kitely is a cloud-based virtual world provider, so when a user tries to enter a world that is currently offline we need to start the world first. This is fairly quick, but not instantaneous. Currently users look at a progress bar on our website while the world is being started, and once the world is ready their viewer is automatically launched. Transfer Stations are going to change this: when a user tries to enter an offline world their viewer will start immediately, but they will enter a Transfer Station instead of the desired world. Once the world is ready the user will be teleported to it automatically.
The Transfer Stations will be located on dedicated worlds specifically set-up for them, and could, in the case where more than one user is logging-in to the same offline world, allow people to meet and chat while awaiting their destination to load (not that the wait should in any way be extensive!).
To encourage the development of Transfer Stations, Kitely are inviting world owners to submit themed Transfer Station designs of their own, which other world owners and managers will then be able to pick from when setting-up a Transfer Station on their world(s).
Kitely Transfer Station conceptual drawing (courtesy Kitely)
There are certain requirements which must be met for Transfer Station submissions, and these can be found in the Kitely blog post. Reviews of submissions, which will be performed by the Kitely Mentor’s Group, will commence on October 1st.
New Avatars
On September 21st, Kitely updated their default avatars with a range of seven new avatars, using modified assets based on ones provided by designer Linda Kellie. The avatars are available to new users signing-up to Kitely, and the assets are currently also available at in-world Linda Kellie malls for those who wish to use them as their base model.
Kitely’s new default avatars (image courtesy of Kitely) – click to enlarge
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 