Been awhile since I posted.  After my last post, I set metaverse stuff aside, as I never did figure out what was wrong with OpenSim, and even started having trouble logging into OSGrid.  I wasn't motivated to try very hard to solve these problems for a long time, given the reaction I got.  I was also distracted by various offline stuff, both good and bad, that occurred shortly after my last post.

Still, I never really stopped paying attention to the weekly updates and such.

This past week I started setting up a new instance of OpenSim 0.6.6 rev 10108 on a different machine with a fresh OS for the use of a group I'm a part of.  Finally got that working after some hiccups with remote desktop apps and other non-opensim networking issues.  I still need to convert the thing to MySQL and Grid mode, but it's up and running.

Not sure that I'll be constantly chasing the latest builds anymore after the experience last year.  It's somewhat less convenient with the current setup, in any case.

I also logged back onto OSGrid.  Apparently the gremlins preventing me from doing so before have expired of old age while I was away.  Seaprior Plaza is still there, at least in spirit, as I see Nebadon left the hub and the Amphitheater intact, and the terrain is as I made it originally.  My homesteading parcel, the lighthouse, the ship, the little homestead pylons, and the various platforms and catwalks have all been removed or altered, though.  The Amphitheater also got retextured and the signs removed.

At any rate, nothing exciting to report; this is mostly just an "I'm still alive" message.

In case you were wondering why I haven't been posting:

Temporary loss of internet connection + intermittent internt outages + impending Vacation + OpenSim randomly deciding to throw an exception and die at startup when attempting to listen to port 8895 (even on old, previously working versions) + many of the normally helpful folks involved considering my setup (running all servers on one machine) to be "unsupported"  = Time to take a bit of a break, I think.

I'm still keeping an eye on things, and I'll get back to it, but for now it's off to one side.

So, I've not been working a lot in OpenSim for a few weeks, mostly because I've not had time (been sleeping too much lately).

I did, however, revise the Ballroom in Candlewick a bit, and also started making a model of a particular car from the setting.  I also did a little work on SeaPrior.

I'm not sure about the OS Grid copy of the Candlewick region; it seems to not be up reliably, and bits of the house are usually missing when I visit it.  I may have to find another way to do it.

As promised, a quick post with more pics:

Progress on virtual candlewick continues. Yesterday and today saw the addition of a foundation, porches, all of the Orphan's rooms, a wall in the east wing, minor improvements to the east stair, and more of the exterior walls.

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This just in: Virtual Candlewick Manor is now on OSGrid thanks to the generosity of OSGrid user Richie Ward.

To visit, go to the OSGrid site for instructions on connecting your viewer to the grid. (Note: the linux instructions are slightly incorrect. The part that says "-loginpage http://osgrid.org/loginpage.htm" should say "-loginpage http://osgrid.org/loginscreen.php")

When you start the SL Viewer following those instructions, you will be shown the OSGrid login screen (linked here as an example) with a list of regions in a box on the left side. Find and click on Candlewick in that list. Doing that should log you into the Candlewick region directly. (Alternately, you can try to use the world map to teleport to Candlewick. The region is two spaces west of SeaPrior Plaza, which in turn is about seven sims southwest of Lbsa Plaza, and about 12 southwest of Wright Plaza.)

Note that the build is still a work in progress, so large parts are not done.

Haven't had time to get a lot done since the last time I posted; most of my time over the last few days has been spent helping people get OpenSim working. I've done some minor work on the Candlewick Ballroom and some on the exterior, and some minor tweaks to SeaPrior. Will posts pics of some of that stuff later, but company is coming shortly.

Having now completed more detailing, it is time for more pictures.

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I've begun to build my interpretation of Candlewick Manor (the eponymous home for the RPG supplement The Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor) in my OpenSim installation.

My Opensim installation isn't publicly accessible at present due to network hardware limitations, so I've made a few screenshots. Right now I'm still blocking things out, so detailing and texturing isn't a priority, and it presently tends to look like an unholy fusion of a plywood stage set and Lego blocks. But there's enough to get an idea how it might eventually look.

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(Continuing my thoughts from Part 1...)

I mentioned previously that there was a lot of room for compromise between "high graphics, low flexibility" and "high flexibility, no graphics".

Second Life was one alternative which offered a lot of flexibility, but it still had issues.

You had the same "recurring fee" problem of an MMO, and it was considerably more of a show-stopper if you needed a significant amount of land to run your game, which you probably would. (As of this writing, Sim prices are $1000 set-up and $200 per month for a full-fledged region, or $200 set-up and $75 per month for a crippled OpenSpace sim. Most roleplaying groups would be rather put-off by that as a prerequisite, to put it mildly.)

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