realXtend viewer is able to teleport between Second Life, Opensim and realXtend. Simplest way to teleport is to use view->address bar menu item to show your address bar. Type and go, just like in a web browser!
World owners can also make link objects. In the picture above, there is a realXtend teleport object on the left. However, teleports can be scripted to any object. Here’s how:
Right click object, select edit
go to content tab and edit object’s script (create a new script, if needed)
copy the code:
Save the script, close the edit window and the link object is ready. Click the object, and a popup will appear asking for the username & password. Lucy is going to teleport to Second Life, and change user account to Yani Pinion on the way in the picture below:
Here are two llMapDestination examples you can use. rex-url is used when you want to teleport anywhere else than to Second Life, and sl-ulr is used when you want to teleport to Sec0nd Life. The same works from Second Life, just use rex-url in llMapDestination to exit Second Life and teleport to realXtend or Opensim. This works only with rexViewer, naturally.
realXtend new features are making their way to users. ReactionGrid is going to start extensive trials on how the new technology could be taken into use. The main difference to the SL Viewer - Opensim combo is that in realXtend the rendering is done with OGRE3D and it is possible to use standard 3D mesh objects. There are also other benefits worth mentioning, like spatial voice and next generation free form avatars.
ReactionGrid offers Opensim region hosting with as low as $25 per month and a whole server with four regions $75 per month with more powerful plans available.
Intro to ReactionGrid
ReactionGrid is a PG Rated grid that caters to Business, Education, Collaboration, Art & Entertainment. The founders of the grid, Kyle & Robin G & Chris Hart believe in a hands on approach to help get your 3D project off the ground: “We invite you to stop by our grid by registering here http://reactiongrid.com/register.aspx“.
ReactionGrid is based exclusively on Microsoft technology, such as Microsoft Windows Server 2008 & SQL Server 2008. ReactionGrid is a fulltime 3D world whose owners can be contacted by IM, Phone, Email or InWorld.
Linux users can run realXtend viewer by using Wine.
Introduction of Wine from the website: “Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems. Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop.”
Screenshot from OpenSim wiki that shows off rex on linux
Instructions how to use Wine and make the realXtend viewer 0.4 run on Linux can be found from OpenSim wiki. The instructions were for Linux, but Wine works also on Mac OS X. If you try that and make it work (or not) on OS X, please leave a comment on this article!
When I first read about realXtend on Wine, I was suspicious about the performance. Wine works surprisingly well, the OpenSim wiki page says that the frame rate was “about 40/50 fps on a 8600 GT“.
realXtend viewer has been Windows-only right from the start. The first goal of the realXtend team was to make a prototype, so it did not matter that it was working only on Windows. The prototype was working well enough at the time of the first release (February 2008) that the prototype development continued - and continued as Windows-only.
The realXtend team is now planning a new from-scratch, BSD licensed and cross-platformviewer (read the CTN article about the new viewer). However, as making a new viewer is a huge task, we can not expect to use the new viewer before summer 2009 - so Linux/Mac users can use Wine as an intermediate solution until that.
Ryan McDougall, realXtend technical architect wrote an open letter to OpenSim-dev mailing list. The letter said that realXtend is planning “…a from-scratch BSD-derived viewer.”
realXtend
Current realXtend viewer is a fork from Linden Lab Second Life Viewer, and it is GPL licensed. The SL Viewer causes problems as OpenSim contribution policy explicitly states that OpenSim can not accept code from developers who have seen or developed SL Viewer. This policy is widely discussed in SL-Dev and Opensim-dev mailing lists and it seems unsolvable.
“We will begin this new process in January and continuing until February of 2009, with a feasibility study.” wrote Ryan McDougall in his letter. “That process will conclude with a proposed road-map as a result, what will be able to take us through 2009 and beyond. The process will begin internally with RealXtend, in order to solidify a unifying core set of principles, but very soon move outward to include a call for proposals and comments from all of you. With a clear road-map and a successful consultation process, we are confident that we will birth an cross platform Open Source community that will be at the forefront of the 3D Virtual World revolution.
“We invite you to give your feedback by visiting the RealXtend website, trying out our software out, signing up for our mailing lists, or joining us on IRC.”
This is an exciting move and from what we have seen from realXtend, we can have high expectations.
Neo, left, needs to grow his hair when compared to Keanu, right
One of the really fun features of realXtend is the possibility to generate new realistic faces for the avatar. You can use two photos to make a face - one from front and one from side. See the video below to understand what happens:
To use your own face, you need to:
find or take two photos from yourself - front and side
download and install facegen modeller free version
Launch facegen and use “photofit” with your photos
once you are happy with the new face, save it into a .fg file
download and install FaceGen2Rex, launch it and follow instructions (from the readme file) where to put the resulting files (and what else to do)
start your rexviewer, go to a world with your avatar and select view->avatar generator
Select different head by using arrows at the bottom + change skin for the head
After you have success fully imported your face to realXtend, you can continue and bring your favorite celebrities to the virtual world - guess who are modeled below (note: the SI stamp is removed from the forehead when imported)! Go to downloads section to get the facegen files.
Famous persons made into 3D from photos
I also tried to make Martti Ahtisaari and Elvis but they did not look as good. You can get some interesting results by using drawn characters and using side photo from a different person. If this is not enough, you can always use the huge amount of tweaking possibilities of Facegen.
Have fun!
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Here are two llMapDestination examples you can use. rex-url is used when you want to teleport anywhere else than to Second Life, and sl-ulr is used when you want to teleport to Sec0nd Life. The same works from Second Life, just use rex-url in llMapDestination to exit Second Life and teleport to realXtend or Opensim. This works only with rexViewer, naturally.
