OpenSim Monthly Usage Goes Up

On 18th March 2022 David Kariuki published this month’s statistics on Hypergrid Business. It seems like the OpenSim monthly usage has gone up while the land area drops on grid outages. During the past month OpenSim gained almost 2, 000 active users which is good news.

The OSgrid is the biggest OpenSim grid at the moment with 35, 553 regions with Kitely in second place with 18, 936 regions which is quite a difference don’t you think. OSgrid has the most active users at the moment with 4, 804 with DigiWorldz in second place with 2, 070 active users.

Since last summer the total OpenSim land area has been steadily been increasing staying around the 100, 000 mark. OSgrid has seen a huge increase in new regions and active users in recent months. OSgrid is doing pretty well over on OpenSim at the moment and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues through the rest of 2022.

Many OpenSim grids actually offer free land and hosting is pretty cheap for those interested. See the breakdown here or grids renting land.

OpenSim is a free, open-source virtual world platform similar to Second Life that allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds, and to teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.

The Kitely Marketplace is still doing well with 19, 432 product listings which contains 38, 568 product variations (33, 431 are sold with the export permission). The Kitely Marketplace has delivered orders to 540 OpenSim grids to date which is pretty amazing. The Kitely Marketplace is accessible to private grids, closed grids and the hypergrid-enabled grids. In second place is the Tag Grid Marketplace featuring avatar appearances and accessories etc.

Hypergrid Business normally releases monthly statistics each month in the middle half part. It’s good to still see these reports being released and to see there are monthly OpenSim news/events happening.

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OpenSim News Roundup – October 2021

Hypergrid Business is the best source for all things OpenSim from monthly grid statistics, conferences, surveys, events, hunts and more. Many OpenSim grids are now planning for the Halloween season with events lined up. Check out the schedule here.

OpenSim is most certainly active right now for anyone that thinks nothing is really happening. There are a lot of things happening in the short term and long term. Many grids offer contests, hunts, freebies and more.

Wyldwood Bayou Grid Celebrates First Anniversary – LINK

The Wyldwood Bayou grid will be celebrating it’s first anniversary from Friday 29th October through until Monday 1st November. The grid will be hosting it’s second annual Halloween Bash on Sunday 31st October 2021.

OpenSim Stats Are Up This Month – LINK

During the past month all OpenSim stats were up from OpenSim active users (+107), land area increases (+673) and registered new users (+875). There are now 96, 872 hypergrid-enabled OpenSim regions. OSgrid is leading for the most regions (32, 547) and most active users (4, 445).

AvaCon Announces Ninth Annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2021 – LINK

The ninth annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2021 will be taking place on 11th to 12th December 2021 on the OpenSimulator Conference grid. Call for proposals are open.

Important Dates & Deadlines

• September 27, 2021 – Announcement of the Call for Proposals!
• November 1, 2021 – Proposals are due by 11:59 PM PST (Pacific Standard Time).
• November 8, 2021 – Proposal acceptance emails and with conference information.
• November 13, 2021 – Accepted speakers must register for the conference to create an entry in the conference schedule and the program.
• November 13 & 20, 2021 – Speaker Orientation & Training sessions and Presenter Booth Setup to prepare speakers for the conference.
• November 29, 2021 – Deadline for stage props and audio-visuals (beyond textures) for the conference program.
• December 11-12, 2021 – OSCC20 Conference dates!

AviTron Testing Out Crytocurrency For IN-WORLD PAYMENTS – LINK

AviTron is now testing cryptocurrency for in-world payment method. The grid will be accepting Dogecoin and Bitcoin for in-world purchases and land rentals. The operating costs may be lowered and that means lower land prices soon.

Twelfth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey Results – LINK

This year there was more than 300 responses for the twelfth annual OpenSim Grid survey. The survey scores a variety of areas from technology, content, support, community and overall.

• OSgrid was the grid that had the most respondents followed by AviTron and DigiWorldz. 74% of the survey readers had been to the OSgrid
• Kitely came out on top for technology followed by Wyldwood Bayou and Enchanted Grid
• Wyldwood Bayou came out on top for support followed by Utopia Skye and Dorena’s World
• Wyldwood Bayou came out on top for community followed by Enchanted Grid and AviTron
• Utopia Skye, Tangle Grid and Dorena’s World came out on top for content

There are many reviews of each of the OpenSim grids on the blog post link above for this survey. There is definitely a range of mixed responses from user experiences, communities, entertainment and more.

What OpenSim grids do you think is doing well at the moment ?

OpenSim 100, 000 regions milestone reached

For the first time OpenSim regions has reached the 100, 000 regions milestone via Hypergrid Business. Well done to all the OpenSim grid owners that made this happen during April 2021. As you can see below in the chart the total OpenSim total land area has kept on growing since December 2009.

OSgrid, Kitely, ZetaWorlds, DigiWorldz and the Discovery Grid has the most regions for April 2021. OSgrid, DigiWorldz,, AviWorlds, Tag Grid and Metropolis have the most active users on them for April 2021. Hypergrid Business now tracks a total of 1, 660 public accessible grids. 342 were active this month and 269 published their statistics.

OpenSim land area growth since December 2009 (Hypergrid Business Data)

Second Life by comparison has 26, 818 main grid regions in total as of 16th May 2021 from the Second Life Grid Survey. 18, 205 are Private Estates and 8, 613 are Linden owned regions. Second Life total area is now 1757.54 (km).

Check out historical OpenSim Grid Statistics going all the way back to 2009.

OpenSim Grid Statistics – January 2021

Hypergrid Business posted within the past 48 hours or so the latest OpenSim grid statistics for January 2021 where the total land area grew by 2, 270 standard regions and more than 4, 000 new registered users this month compared with December 2020. The active users dropped by 646 due to some OpenSim grids not reporting their grid statistics.

The largest OpenSim grid at the moment is the OSgrid with 26, 154 standard regions followed by the Kitely grid with 19, 180 regions then it drops down to the DigiWorldz grid with 8, 015. The OSgrid has 6, 384 active users followed by DigiWorldz with 1, 875 active users and AviWorlds with 1, 590 active users.

The Growth Of OpenSim

OpenSim land area growth since December 2009 (Hypergrid Business Data)

As you can see above the OpenSim land area growth has been expanding since December 2009 and more rapidly since early 2014. OpenSim software has been around since January 2007 where the first client was released. There has been a lot of good progress and gains since then.

Overall OpenSim growth is still happening with loads of new grids coming online every month or so. There are many OpenSim grids that have been online for years that are still showing positive growth in terms of land area and active users.

As of 17th January the Second Life grid reported 25, 539 total regions and yes there is a lot of catching up to do. It’s going to take many more years though.

About OpenSim

OpenSim is a free, open-source virtual world platform that’s compatible with the Oculus Rift. It allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds, and then teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.

The Kitely Market

(Kitely Market Data)

The Kitely Market is the largest “collection of legal content available in OpenSim” that currently has 17, 868 product listings and it’s growing every week. The Kitely market contains 36, 074 product variations where 30, 996 are exportable.

The Kitely Market has showed strong positive growth since July 2014 with even more products being added every month. It has now delivered orders to 484 OpenSim grids to date and more orders will be delivered to other grids in the months ahead.

The Future

I think that OpenSim will continue to grow throughout 2021 in terms of land area, new registered users and active users. I think there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future of OpenSim including the Hypergrid. As long as more improvements/new features are added, more events take place and technical issues are addressed quickly then growth will continue.

It’s worth pointing out that there are loads of educators, performers, developers, creators, grid owners that have made successful gains over the years. The OpenSim community is very active and I think there will be more interest in the months and years ahead.

It will be interesting to see what happens with OpenSim during 2021 and 2022. I will be blogging more about OpenSim throughout this year. Stay tuned for that.

8th Annual OpenSim Conference – 5th & 6th December 2020

AvaCon announced last month that the eighth annual OpenSimulator Community Conference will be held on 5th-6th December 2020. The conference will take place on the OpenSim Conference Grid and everyone is invited to attend. The main focus will be on OpenSimulator software and OpenSim development.

Registration is open for volunteers and other roles however tickets to the conference are limited. If you are interested in OpenSim then this may interest you. I have been to a few OpenSim conferences in the past and I found them to be very good indeed.

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Hypergrid Address: http://cc.opensimulator.org:8002/

About

The OpenSimulator Community Conference 2020 features two days of fast-paced presentations, panels, performances, and workshops that spotlight the best of the OpenSimulator platform and community. In the evenings, we celebrate another year of discovery and wonder as DJs and performers host dances and parties. 

More details at https://conference.opensimulator.org/

Firestorm Update 6.3.9.58205

On Thursday 28th May 2020 the Firestorm team released a brand new release update numbered 6.3.9.58205. This new release comes with plenty of improvements, fixes and a lot for OpenSim users. This version of the Firestorm viewer brings it in line with the Linden Lab 6.3.8 code base. It’s been over 7 months since the last release so there is loads to be excited about this time.

* Added a “Stop Locally” button to the Sound Explorer.
* Added a search button to Nearby Chat and IM session floaters.
* New options added to the Area Search context menu: “Select All,” “Clear Selection,” and “Filter My Objects.”
* Added “Inspect” option for own attachments.
* Enabled multi-selection for all name lists in group profiles.
* Updated the Mac installer image backgrounds for readability and consistency.
* Fixed being unable to post snapshots to Flickr.
* Fixed hi-resolution snapshots appearing broken up in segments
* Lots of behind-the-scenes work to migrate the Firestorm code repositories from Mercurial to Git and to switch crash reporting from Windows systems over to Bugsplat. Expect future releases to be even more stable.
* Improved memory handling on the Linux viewer
* So many crash fixes…
* Improved region crossing behavior.
* New feature to lock and protect an inventory folder to prevent inadvertent drag-and-drop or deletion.
* Translation updates for German, Polish, Japanese & Russian
* Just sooo much more! 

Premium Plus

This new release adds viewer-side support for Premium Plus. There will be some kind of new announcement soon on this on the Second Life Blog. It’s important to note that Linden Lab have not released the Premium Plus feature yet. 

EEP Update

For those interested in the EEP capable version of the Firestorm viewer the answer is soon. I’m thinking later this year depending on progress being made. There is pressure for EEP to be fully incorporated however there are still a number of challengers ahead for the Firestorm team.

OpenSim Update

For those that use OpenSim grids this new release brings it back in line with the Second Life Firestorm release which is very good news to hear. Nine new OpenSim grids have now been added to the grid manager including Virtualife World, DiscoveryGrid, Alife Virtual, Mobius Grid, Zone Nations, Party Destination Grid, TanGLe Grid, The Kaz Grid and OpenSim Community Conference.

This new release improves map search and there are lots of maintenance fixes. All group notices should now send correctly on OpenSim. 

Here are the full release notes including new features and improvements.

 

Firestorm 6.3.2.58052 Released

On 1st October the Firestorm team announced the Bakes on Mesh viewer (6.3.2.58052) release which is a major update and it’s important all users upgrade to it. Firestorm 6.3.2.58052 is now fully merged up to the 6.3.1 Linden code-base.

This new release includes rendering-related changes from Linden Lab, bug fixes, improvements and tweaks.

This build is not offered to OpenSim users for the moment. 

In my previous blog post I said we would provide an “as-is” download of this release for Opensim. However, I have been informed that this update will actually cause Opensim regions to crash upon login. Unfortunately, by the time we made the decision to reverse the split we were too far into our QA process to test or make changes & fixes. This is why the “as-is” was mentioned. Because of the severity of the issue (crashing regions is about as bad as it gets) and having no time to fix it, I am forced to go back on my word on this one.

We will continue to host Firestorm 6.0.2.56680 on our downloads page in the Opensim section until we are able to remedy the major issues. The SL version of this update will install separately, so you can use the 6.3.2 update for SL and continue to run 6.0.2 for Opensim.

Major updates from LL in this update include:

– Bakes on Mesh! See the primer from Inara, the announcement from Linden Lab, and the LL Knowledge Base.
– Love Me Render! See the post from Linden Lab on these rendering updates.
– Umeshu, a group of bug fixes, tweaks and improvements.
– Edit notecards from an external editor.
– Ability to duplicate group roles.

There are Firestorm goodies…

There are a few new FS-specific features in this release as well like ability to sit on objects from Area search, New Discord Rich Presence, Ghosted attachments now automatically fix themselves after tp, but as usual there are too many to list here.

Bakes On Mesh

BOM – Bakes On Mesh

Bakes on Mesh is a new feature to allow system avatar baked textures to be shown on mesh attachments.

Basic features

• Any face of a mesh object can be textured using one of the server baked textures.
• The corresponding region of the system avatar is hidden if an attached mesh is using a baked texture.
• 5 new bake channels – leftarm, leftleg, aux1, aux2, aux3. You can use the new bake channels on the face of a mesh.
• A universal wearable type.

• New tattoos for universal wearable type –
  • HEAD_TATTOO, → baked to head
  • UPPER_TATTOO → baked to upper
  • LOWER_TATTOO, → baked to lower
  • SKIRT_TATTOO, → baked to skirt
  • HAIR_TATTOO, → baked to hair
  • EYES_TATTOO, → baked to eyes
  • LEFT_ARM_TATTOO, → baked to left arm
  • LEFT_LEG_TATTOO, → baked to left leg
  • AUX1_TATTOO, → baked to aux1
  • AUX2_TATTOO, → baked to aux2
  • AUX3_TATTOO, → baked to aux3

Benefits

• Avoid the need for texture appliers → easier customization workflow.
• Avoid the need for onion avatars → fewer meshes, fewer textures at display time.
• Avoid the need to sell full-perm meshes. You can customize any mesh you have modify permissions for simply by setting the flags and equipping the appropriate wearables.

Avatar wearables are baked into eleven different textures (BAKE_HEAD, BAKE_UPPER, BAKE_LOWER, BAKE_EYES, BAKE_SKIRT, BAKE_HAIR, BAKE_LEFTARM, BAKE_LEFTLEG, BAKE_AUX1, BAKE_AUX2, BAKE_AUX3) by the baking service.
You can now apply these textures to your avatar’s object attachments’ diffuse texture slot.
Right-click on the attachment, click edit and from the edit face menu select textures.
Click the diffuse texture icon to open up the texture picker.
The texture picker has an extra radio button mode called ‘bake’ for selecting server bakes.
The ‘bake’ radio button mode has a dropdown for selecting BAKE_HEAD, BAKE_UPPER, BAKE_LOWER, BAKE_EYES, BAKE_SKIRT, BAKE_HAIR, BAKE_LEFTARM, BAKE_LEFTLEG, BAKE_AUX1, BAKE_AUX2, BAKE_AUX3 server bake textures.
When an attachment is using a baked texture, the corresponding base mesh region of the system avatar is hidden.

If a mesh face is set to show a baked texture but is not attached to an avatar, you will see a default baked texture.
If you are using an older viewer without bakes on mesh support, then faces set to show baked textures will also display as the default baked texture, and base mesh regions will not be hidden.

For more detailed documentation, please see:

• SL Knowledge Base – Bakes on Mesh
• Linden Lab Bakes On Mesh release notes – includes a list of known issues.
• Firestorm Wiki – Bakes on Mesh
• Inara Pey – Modem World, Bakes on Mesh – A Basic Primer – Numerous embedded links of interest.
• Slink Redux and Bakes on Mesh FAQ – Slink brand specific and general Bakes on Mesh FAQ.
• Maitreya Bakes on Mesh – How to use BOM with the Maitrya Lara mesh body.
• Second Life Forums – Bakes on Mesh – Assorted forum threads of information and resources.
• Get Baked – A Quick Beginners’ Guide to Using Bakes on Mesh – Virtual Bloke.
• List of creators producing BoM-Compliant Goods – Unofficial.

  Anchor Linden, Vir Linden, AndreyK ProductEngine

The things I like from this release…

• NEW Added Discord rich presence support
  This feature allows you to connect your SL account with your Discord account.
  Once connected, Discord will show your SL online status & session length, and optionally, your username and location in SL.
  For further details, see the Firestom Discord wiki page.
  Comm → Discord
  Liny Odell, Ansariel Hiller, Nicky Dasmijn
• NEW Added the ability to edit notecards in an external editor
  For Firestorm, to set the external notecard editor, go to Preferences → Firestorm → Build 1 → External Editor → Browse to the program or application and select then press OK.
  When a notecard is open, you will see a new “Edit” button bottom left.
  Clicking the Edit button opens the Notecard in the external editor.
  Making changes in the external editor & then saving the file in the external editor will upload the changes into the notecard in Second Life.
  If no external editor is selected in Preferences, the viewer will try to use the external editor that you have set to open txt files.
  NOTE: There is a known bug with this feature that causes the order of embedded content to break – see BUG-227626 for details
  Maxim ProductEngine
• NEW Added the ability to duplicate a group role
  The feature allows you to duplicate a group role so that the copied role has the same permissions and you can just give the copied role a different title.
  This feature was requested in BUG-226986
  Open the group profile → Members & Roles → Roles → Left click on a role to select it → Click the “Copy Role” button.
  AndreyK ProductEngine
• NEW Increased the allowed sound clip length from 10s to 30s
  This adds support to the viewer to upload & play sound clips up to 30 seconds in length.
  Currently, sound uploads over 10 seconds are not possible, but will be soon when the server-side support is added by Linden Lab.
  Firestorm 6.3.2 is ready to support this feature as soon as the required server-side changes are made
  AndreyL ProductEngine
• NEW Attachments now auto-refresh if they are ghosted on teleport
  Added timer for refreshing attachments if attachments were attempted to get killed after the actual teleport finished
  This feature should mostly solve the problem where attachments are invisible to observers after a teleport or region change
  It provides the same function as “Refresh Attachments” under Avatar → Avatar Health, but the refresh is triggered automatically when needed
  This feature is enabled by default
  Optionally, if the debug setting FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFixReport is set to TRUE, Firestorm reports attachments that were attempted to get detached during a teleport or region crossing to nearby chat, followed by reporting “Refreshing attachments…” to nearby chat when the auto-refresh starts
  This should hopefully workaround FIRE-12004 and BUG-7761 until there is a server-side fix from Linden Lab.
  Ansariel Hiller

The full release notes can be read here.

Islandz Grid closing down within 10 days

• The Islandz Discord has gone offline – 29th January

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The Islandz grid will be sadly closing down sometime within the next 10 days according to Elenia via the Islandz Discord channel on Monday 28th January 2019.

Elenia says that the grid is “not sustainable” and says “we’re not even remotely close”. Elenia goes on to say that “people are disheartened at the lack of content we could restore and I don’t blame them”.

As a former InWorldz/Islandz resident this is sad news for the community. I feel sorry for Elenia and Jim who have put so much hard work to start a new grid from the ground up. I understand the reasons for doing this. The grid just reached the 1, 000 users mark on Sunday morning that have opt-in. It was starting to get good with the regions growing.

I guess everyone will now have to find a new grid to move to.

Virtual Highway Grid Closed Down At The End Of December 2018

Apparently the Virtual Highway Grid closed down at the end of December 2018. The reason for the closure is not known but the Virtual Highway website has gone offline. It was one of the few closed grids around.

On the GeVolution World blog there was a small blog post about the closure and it seems they were offering all residents effected with a “free Alamans region for 30 days so they can get back into a home and start setting up“.

Here is the full blog post…

16th/Dec/2018

Unfortunately due to the time of year there is another grid closing its doors (lots opening this time of year as grid owners think they can make a quick buck for Christmas), Virtual Highway grid which is a closed grid will be shutting up shop at the end of the month, as we always try to help out those displaced,

 

GeVolution World Limited will be offering all Virtual Highway members displaced and made homeless a free Alamans region for 30 days so they can get back into a home and start setting up, Pass this word around to any you may know who are being displaced.

If anyone knows more information about the VH closure, please comment below or contact me.

I hope that all the VH community can found a new home again soon.

UPDATE 3: Logins Now Working / New Islandz Website Comes Online

 

Latest Updates

UPDATE 3: 16th November 2018

Islandz servers are up and running 

First preview of the new Islandz Welcome Area

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UPDATE 2: All former InWorldz residents can now opt-in below in order to enter the new Islandz grid.

• Announcement: Welcome to Islandz! 
• Opt-In Here

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UPDATE 1: 14th November 2018

GREAT NEWS! Islandz servers will allow logins starting November 14, at 3pm Islandz time (Pacific time)

https://islandzvw.com/loginscreen.php

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The new Islandz website is now up and running this week. It’s important to note that the Islandz website is still under development and some key features are not available yet.

It’s estimated that the new Islandz grid may be opening within the next few days or so which will be great news. Apparently accounts and logins are expected very soon. Registrations for new users are currently closed until the email and new inventory skeleton creation has been connected up with it successfully.

In the meantime it’s recommended for everyone to download the new Islandz viewer from the downloads page. You can use the Firestorm viewer if you prefer too. It’s worth reading the FAQ before you get started on the Islandz grid for some useful information.

The long wait is almost over. It’s good to hear that things are coming along nicely now and the big launch is just days away. Elenia Llewellyn and Jim Tarber have worked so hard in the past three months or so to build this new grid from the ground up after the closure of the former InWorldz grid back in the summer.

The new Islandz viewer > version > Islandz 1.0.0 (41497)

Islandz Login Screen Page

More updates soon.