Now you see it, now you don't

These are two different views of some mesh structures, one taken with a recent release of Kirsten's viewer that renders mesh, the other with Astra which doesn't. The other possibly interesting aspect is that this is the latest version of simonastick, i.e. OpenSim mesh running off a USB memory stick seems to be feasible. That said, the internal mesh format is likely to change shortly to keep pace with SL so it is perhaps a little premature to make such assertions

Those with sharp eyes will notice that I also deleted a smaller structure which was basically a failed multi-sculpted protein lacking the majority of sculpt maps. I don't know why. Was it a consequence of swapping between the two viewers, an earlier crash or some cache effect, i.e. the sculpt maps were never there? I've seen this type of behaviour previously, viz loss of textures. It's annoying but generally it all ends well with a little perseverance. And no, I haven't checked the backup oar files yet but will do so.

Why am I doing this? Firstly, I want a standalone option for use with students should remote servers cause problems, i.e. an insurance policy. Secondly, I am giving a talk and a poster towards the end of the month and am thinking that a few people might be interested in an oar, however crude and unfinished (there are some LSL bugs too).

The layout shown here is a megaregion, i.e. 2x2 standard SL sims. This is the format I adopted for the server-based OpenSim sessions a few months ago. A day or so ago, Ener Hax queried whether such a "loose" building style where builds are widely separated was inherently boring. You can see my comments on her blog but, in short, the logic in this case is that I can expand the content in each area gradually. At the moment they are called "Context", "Omics", "Molecules" and "Cells".

Scripting makes the world go around

One of the things that surprised (and pleased) me this year was the (unprompted) willingness of students to source and implement LSL scripts for their OpenSim builds. It definitely added another dimension to their work. That said, I don't teach a programming course per se so it would be good if students had a simple way to generate script not available "off the shelf".

(Incidentally, as far as shelves go, Fleep Tuque has a library of OpenSim-tested scripts and Ferd Frederix offers a wide-ranging LSL collection though not necessarily OpenSim-ready).

Simple scripts can also be written using the venerable AutoScript and, with a little more effort, Scratch4OpenSim, a version of Scratch4SL modified by Rich White. Somewhere between the two lies Con Wylie's script generator.

Now Rich has built his own Scratch-inspired, through-the-web scripting environment called Scriptastic. If you have used Scratch, you already know how this works. While intended for student use, it is potentially useful for rapid development of simple outline scripts more generally. The output is currently somewhat simpler than Scratch and a lot easier to modify. [Incidentally, there's also a new game creation engine called Stencyl that uses the Scratch-style interface].

Finally, there is another visual development environment called MiceOnABeam (MOAB) that is available as a limited but fully functional version as well as a pro developer edition. This is significantly more sophisticated than anything I've seen previously and appears to be well-documented and supported.

For the most part it is not hard for someone who has done a little scripting to see how MOAB relates to bog-standard LSL. It comes with a limited library of Actions (frequently used routines) that is scheduled to grow and you can add your own as well. I have yet to use MOAB "in anger" so it remains to be seen what the overhead might be in terms of performance (there is a performance analyser in the pro version) and potential for code "lock-in" to the system.

Overall, I suspect the product may have value for folk such as myself who are intermediate-level/occasional scripters with multiple projects active and needing a layer of abstraction to help keep tabs on them. Anyway, I will trial it and report back.