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[Taoki]

Since I know Alynna and many kitsune here where involved with the Second Life sim we had and I already spoke with her about this, I decided to make a post here about the Opensim Kitsuhana simulator that I'm currently running. This post mainly refers to those who used to go to the Kitsuhana / Kitsune Island simulator in Second Life which Alynna runs. Those who are new to SL however are as well invited to try it.

Ok, first of all I shall say a little about Second Life for those who never heard about it just to avoid any confusion. SL is a virtual space where one can build whatever they want, configure and model their character how they want, and basically do anything in 3D. Otherkin and furries alike use SL a lot, as there you can model yourself any types of avatars (characters) including furry / kitsune ones. Some otherkin there find SL a great way of expressing yourself as what you are. Please note however that SL is not a game, it is just a 3D space where one does and builds what they want.

Further on, I will explain what OpenSim is. Opensim is, simply put, a community made server-side application for Second Life. It works with the same SL client, just that one can make their own grids and sims completely separate from Linden Lab and their official servers, and of course all for free as you make your own server and do what you want there. However, it is still kind of a beta and under development, so some things are still not implemented and fully unstable.

Now... the reason I am posting about all this here is because, like I said, Alynna used to have such a sim for us kitsune on SL (the official grid of course) where we and others lived some great moments in the past, and done a lot of fascinating things. Well the sim itsself is still there just that it's not by far as active and safe as it used to be, since SL went through some pretty bad moments in the last months and lowered very much from what it used to be last year. Most however probably remember the Kitsune Shrine we used to have there a good while ago, the Avatar Bazaar, and everything else Alynna and the others had.

Over the last months I took the time and rebuild the buildings we had, on Opensim on my own computer from older screenshots and a few I took from Ash. I remade the Shrine, the Avatar Bazaar, the teahouse and the building which was back then called the Quickfox HQ. I attached a few screenshots to this post so people can see. I made sure to keep everything as close to what it was before as possible.

Recently, attachments where implemented and are now supported in opensim, which means that we can have kitsune avatars. My plan is to make this sim the virtual 3D world of Kitsuhana (just like the #spirituality is our IRC channel) together with Alynna though we agreed I host the sim myself for the moment. Basically I want to make this a 3D space where people can hang as their kitsune selves together, build and discuss, just like the one we used to have on the official SL or even better. Sadly, I'm having issues with hosting the sim at the moment so the sim may be down or crash a lot. Also I didn't make any furry avatars yet except a personal one I have separately (as of course the content from the LL gird and OSgrid has nothing to do with one another), but we will of course build many when the time will come and more people get on. If anyone is interested to come, I have noted the steps below for accessing the sim;

1) Go to http://www.osgrid.org/ and register an account there. Choose a Firstname, Lastname and password.

2) Once you are logged in, click the Change Account button, and in the new window that appears select Opensim Kitsuhana from the drop down menu. After that, click the Save button below. Note that if Opensim Kitsuhana doesn't appear in that list, its because the sim is down. Just try another time when it is there.

3) Make sure you have the latest official Second Life client installed. If you don't, go to http://secondlife.com/ , download it and install it. After that, from the Second Life installation folder drag a shortcut to SecondLife.exe somewhere on your desktop or wherever you are comfortable with it.

4) Right-click that shortcut and select Properties. In the Target field, you should normally have something of the type "C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe" or different depending on where you installed SL. Change that entire field to "C:\(path to your SL)\SecondLife.exe -loginuri http://osgrid.org:8002" (without the "" 's).

5) Click OK and open up that shortcut. Once your SL client is open, write the firstname lastname and password you registered with on osgrid and click Connect. You should now connect to the sim. If you get logged into another sim however, its once again because the sim is down.

Note that the instructions below are for Windows users only... I don't know the steps for Linux or other systems as I hardly ever used them. Either way, everyone is welcome if they want to come. I hope that soon we can build a new kitsune 3D space to hang in and have more fun there. If anybody wants to help with building kitsune avatars or making other buildings to populate the sim, please let me know (though the issues OS currently has make sims crash a lot so yeah, you need to be patient with it). Sorry for the long post and hope people will come and we can start what we had on the LL grid once again.

[Liëka]

....this looks really good.
As a wolf, can I come? Or would you rather it purely kitsune-orientated? I don't really mind.

[Taoki]

....this looks really good.
As a wolf, can I come? Or would you rather it purely kitsune-orientated? I don't really mind.

Of course you can come as anything you wish, anyone can use any type of avatar they want. We even had people who had large dragon avatars and many other types so sure. Sadly there aren't any custom avatars on there yet like I said, though I plan on copying the simple fox one I made sometime soon.

[Fawkesey]

my desktop is a piece of crap that doesn't meet minimum requirements so I can't join

I also know next to nothing about SL anyway

[matoa]

The laptop I use is only ~400mhz with 1mb of video ram. Won't run it.

Oh well.

 

[Taoki]

Yeah... such a shame LL never wanted to make it compatible with older computers. But SL is easy to learn... you learn it as you spend time there really quickly. You mainly just run a character you configure the way you like and walk around in a 3D world where you can sit on objects, talk with people, and things like that.

On another note, I got things better on my end. It was a firewall port setting that was causing my sim to go down which I now fixed. I also worked almost non-stop on the sim while I was at my PC in the last 3 days and retextured almost everything from what I planned to, and added a few scripts around there where I needed them.

I'm kind of drained to work on this any more but I soon plan to use the furry avatar I had and retexture it there so people can have one. But yeah... all in all I think its ready for people to go around there

[Liëka]

Gah.... I'm gonna have to download SL first, and I have to get permission from other people who use the computer.....
Might be a loooong time.

[Taoki]

Heres a few more shots of the now textured and scripted sim.

On another note, I made a few more tests and I think OpenSim supports transferring of an avatar (such as other prims, clothing, etc) to another person from a prim, which means I may just be able to continue with my av after all. Still not 100% sure but I hope I can set a basic one up for anyone to be able to take.

[Fawkesey]

that's cool.
Makes me wish my computers weren't so low end

[Liëka]

It looks so georgeous... I wish I could be there.

[Kuro]

Disturbingly accurate.  We still have that, it's just that the shrine isn't as grand, and now it's shared by less-than-spiritual furs, vampires, etc.  =.=;

[Taoki]

Time for an update after such a long time. Since my last post here I kept running the sim except for the past few days when someone took my slot while my sim was down without knowing, so I had to move it again. You may have to look for the new location though you normally find a sim is by its name and UUID which is the same so that shouldn't matter much.

Yesterday I had a chat on #kitsune whether or not should l keep the sim running on OSgrid. It takes memory and bandwitch to keep it running so I'd need to know if people really use it. Right now I may only run it from time to time, though most of the time I do try to keep it up. I don't really know if many people still visit it and if I have who to host it for when I'm not there though.

Anyway, I can finally say I have great news; I copied my avatar from the other sim and installed it in Kitsuhana on local assets. Now everyone there can go to the Avatar Bazaar and get a copy. If wanting a kitsune avatar was the reason you didn't go there, now you can go. Currently I only have a single av of a single color, but to avoid all kitsune looking like clones I shall add at least another color soon. Also note this is a rip from a SL avatar made by someone else, which I re-made over screenshots just like I have with the sim so its idea is not mine. Lastly, since its on local assets, remember it can only be used and seen inside Kitsuhana. If you go in any other sim the avatar detaches and doesn't display to others.

Well now, normally you should be able to get the avatar from the Bazaar, but in reality you can't get the avatar directly from the sim yet! OpenSim still needs to fix some modules before you can leave inventory in a prim for someone else to pick up (permission problems actually, can't set them to be copyable by someone else other then the owner). So if you are on OSgrid and want the avatar you will have to ask me to log on and manually send you each part of it. You will be able to pick it up directly once OpenSim fixes these implementations. But apart from that you can have a full kitsune avatar and use it. Screenshots attached.

[Taoki]

Said and done. I made a red and a black version of the original silver avatar today, so now there are three colors to choose from overall. I also added a bonus and made a pair of butterfly wings which anyone can color any way they want to since it uses a gray texture just for that.

As an updated to what I said yesterday - Apparently, I managed to bypass the "non-owners can't pick up inventory from prims" issue with a llGiveInventory script. However there seems to still be an issue with sending skins so you may still have to ask me for the avatars though I think that will be fixed soon.

[Seeker]

Don't know much about this sorta thing, but it looks like you're definitely making progress. How do you make the avatars even? I might be persuaded to help if it's not too difficult. If you could get me some links to the software you use, and any tutorials you recommend, That'd be awesome. I need a new hobby anyway since i'm pretty much bored of video games, and 3d modeling seems like something I'd be good at.

[Taoki]

Don't know much about this sorta thing, but it looks like you're definitely making progress. How do you make the avatars even? I might be persuaded to help if it's not too difficult. If you could get me some links to the software you use, and any tutorials you recommend, That'd be awesome. I need a new hobby anyway since i'm pretty much bored of video games, and 3d modeling seems like something I'd be good at.

In Second Life everything you build is made of geometric forms. You simulate any kind of objects and shapes from spheres, cubes, and any form which has options to model the way you want. It is a bit difficult at first as you have to learn the editor a little but it's easy when you get used to it. As for the software, you can download it from http://www.secondlife.com .

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