Dear all, We all agree AFAIK, that the current viewer and protocol can not be the final answer for future virtual worlds. (Although it is clear that there is no such thing that is completely future proof).
the first steps to make the new realXtend architecture were taken already at the end of 2007, we took a concrete decision to separate user account system and avatar appearance from the world server. We have been working to get that work well enough since then. Latest improvements to the new architecture were smaller, but very important too; current avatar generator and many of the avatar related issues have been solved at the moment. So congratulations realXtend team! It has been huge work to get all that done, I have seen it close. This all was done on top of existing software components, namely SL Viewer and OpenSim. Without them, our first step wouldn't take realXtend as far as it did. Next steps towards the new architecture and new protocol are also being planned. - We have already planned to separate content delivery from the world server to an ordinary web server. To support old ways of working and old already built content for realXtend, the new content server will be used as an additional source of content. This takes a big burden from the world server away, as it does not need to stream hundreds of megabytes of content to each connected viewer. - Current IM system does not scale and does not work across separate virtual worlds. realXtend has implemented a hack to support world-to-world IM, but it is not satisfactory. The IM needs to be solved separately (and I guess that Ryan has some opinions here already!) and we can modify current viewer to use the new IM system once it is implemented and tested. - Voip system is now fixed for the coming release, it had a long lag and strange echoes previously. The current solution is done by realxtend team, but it would be better to have a ready component to implement voip rather than self-developed. - For the new protocols, we will have a new client stack at the server side. The current viewer will be using both the old stack and the new stack at the same time. When we reach the point that we can develop a totally new viewer, we will use only the new stack and implement rest of the protocols then. - First skeleton of the new viewer will be the rex center (or rex communicator), which implements first only the IM, but later if the approach looks good, hopefully also a full 3D rendering. rex center will be cross platform and it can be run also on mobile devices. This work is not yet started, but I hope that our next sprint will already contain some rex center related tasks. - there are also other components that need to be implemented, which some have been also actively discussed in this list. All in all, I hope this mail draw a rough picture of the transition from the old viewer to the new architecture, protocol and viewer. No-one knows exactly how long this will take, but we have started to walk (or run?) the road and eventually we will get there. Best regards, Jani --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "realXtend" group. To post to this group, send email to realxtend@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
