ReactionGrid Ninja Blog

Announcing MyROAR for all Region Owners

Chris Hart — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:44:02 GMT

Region Owners - announcing a new tool to view some data about your regions, and give you the ability to edit some information about those regions. If you own a region on ReactionGrid, you can now log in to http://myroar.reactiongrid.com with your ReactionGrid avatar account and view information about your region online.

It's an early stage application, but it will be growing! What you see when you log in is a slice from our core ROAR application that powers the whole of ReactionGrid. With the full version of this application, we have a web-based administration for our grid, enabling us to add regions, move region coordinates, check to see if a region is currently busy, and more. The lite version of ROAR is now available for free to anyone with a private grid hosted on our servers, but for region owners on ReactionGrid, there was no web admin until now.

So, what does it do?

Primarily, you get a count of the number of prims on your region, and the number of scripts. We have tracked nearly all the regions on the grid now, and we are starting to see patterns as to how many prims and scripts are "a lot". Scripting can be tricky to quantify, since a single script could be harmful to performance, but any region that is showing over 150 scripts will take a long time to start up and will not perform nearly as well as one with 50-100 scripts. From the data we have at hand now, we can say that a significant quantity of support requests have been submitted in recent months from regions with over 200 scripts actively running on them. If you are experiencing a high number of crashes, then this could be an indicator that you need to review the quantity of scripts on your regions.

Prim count - we have some regions with very high prim count, few textures, and virtually no scripts, and these regions run very well. There is more of a hit on the client on these regions since your client will have to download data about all the primitives on the region, but in general, waiting for that information to come down is all that is required then you can explore the region (see Wizzy sim for an excellent example of this!) More textures will be more of a hit, more complex primitives is also a hit (lots of hollow twisty path-cut spheres, for example) on client rendering.

You can edit the description and category of your region - this data is shown�here�and is a great way to find and read about interesting regions on the grid. So far we've tried to add descriptions ourselves to some regions, but you know your regions better than we do, so please update your region descriptions for the world to find out more about what you do!

There's a button to save your region's current state to an OAR file as a snapshot. We actually automate this process for all regions on the grid, but this gives you the power to take a snapshot when you are ready to do so. That snapshot is then safely stored, and remains there in case you need to restore your region. If you ever wanted to roll back, you could just drop in a ticket to our support department at http://metaverseheroes.com and we could revert your region for you.

Region status - admittedly isn't massively useful in its current form, but if you see text along the lines: "Region: ONLINE: 1" then your region may be alive. If you see the text that something went wrong and the region may be down, then it may be down. I would love to get more useful information from this, so we will be working to get more data here.

This is version 1.0, there will be new releases and upgrades to this over time as we add more functionality- some items on the wish list (that are not hard to achieve) include a web interface for remotely loading terrain heightmaps, and a history / version system for OAR backups. Feature requests are very much appreciated, please drop them in to http://metaverseheroes.com and we'll collate them and see what you want us to provide, and see if we can help to provide those features for you!

Grid Hopper meeting for Educators

Chris Hart — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 08:24:10 GMT

Haley Dunning of MyMichigan simulator is hosting the first Grid Hopper meeting for educators on her region, MyMichigan, on January 6th at 8:00pm EST �(01:00 UTC Jan7). All are welcome to attend!

Movie Night Postponed

Chris Hart — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:26:39 GMT

Movie night is taking a break this week due to the festive holiday season. But rest assured, the movies will return soon and be as bad as ever in no time at all. Watch this space for updates on our next event!

UPDATE: Grid Maintenance Dec 10

Chris Hart — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:00:21 GMT

Prior to our previous announcement we're putting plans to upgrade on hold - there are some significant bugs in OpenSim 0.6.8 that failed our test plans over the past few days, and as such we are not going to be rolling out an upgrade this week. Core OpenSim developers are aware of the issues, and we're working with them to provide as much feedback as possible and help get 0.6.8 up to standard.

However, since folks were made aware of some downtime, we will be using this time to do restarts of several regions and carry out some essential maintenance tasks to keep the grid running smoothly. For this reason, between 10am GMT and 1pm GMT today you may see regions rebooting around you. If anyone is on a region about to be rebooted, we'll attempt to give you plenty of warning.

Many thanks for your patience - we will keep you updated on any changes to our plans to roll out newer code. We are very hopeful that once these bugs are squashed that we will have a new version of OpenSim that we can roll out to you folks, but we are not going to rush anything into our grid without it passing all of our test plans.�

Major Grid Maintenance, 10th Dec 09

Chris Hart — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:28:22 GMT

We're planning on upgrading ReactionGrid from OpenSim 0.6.6 to 0.6.8 on Thursday, 10th December between 9am and 1pm GMT. The upgrade requires that all regions are taken offline before the new code can be rolled out, so there will be outages for all regions, and core grid services will likely be offline for up to an hour.

We are hopeful that the upgrade will be swift and painless, and that all outages are kept to a minimum. Likewise we hope for improved stability and concurrency on the latest revision.�

Follow http://twitter.com/reactiongrid on Thursday morning for the latest status updates on the upgrade. Post upgrade, we ask you all be vigilant and watch out for any new issues that arise, reporting any difficulties to http://metaverseheroes.com�

Thanks Gridizens - we really do appreciate your patience and I really hope this improves stability for us all.

1939 World's Fair Meeting - December

Chris Hart — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:10:33 GMT

The last meeting for the 1939 World's Fair project this year is today at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm GMT/UTC.�Come and join us to learn more about the project, or just to come and meet some friendly faces on the grid.�http://www.pmphoto.to/worlds_fair/newsletter/wf_rg_dec-01-09.htm

Offline IM to Email

Chris Hart — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 03:27:05 GMT

Advance notice to all Gridizens, in the next couple of days, IMs received while offline will start to be sent to you via email. Those of you who have not logged in for a while may receive several messages as the current list of stored messages is sent out. Offline messages will remain in the system until you log in to ReactionGrid, so in addition to the email notification you will receive the offline message on login too. It will feel similar to the system used on Second Life in that respect.

If you experience any problems from the rollout of this system, please contact our support team at http://metaverseheroes.com where you can log a support ticket.

If you are not receiving offline messages via email, it could be your email address on file needs updating (or adding - our earliest registered Gridizens may not have an email address on file!) so head here if you want to add or update your email address:�http://grid.reactiongrid.com/auth/updateuserdata.aspx�

Code Clinics on ReactionGrid

Chris Hart — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:04:44 GMT

The Code Clinic returns to ReactionGrid this week, Wednesday Nov 11, 20:30UTC / 15:30EST - all are welcome to join us for an informal get-together and chat about OpenSim code, inworld scripting, Ninja physics, Unity, .NET development, or any topic you want to bring up!

Even if you don't know your strings from your integers, come along for a tech-themed open discussion with some great information on the latest and greatest in the realm of 3D development.

World's Fair Meeting, Friday 6th Nov, 2pm Pacific

Chris Hart — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:08:53 GMT

The next meeting for the World's Fair Project will be:

Friday, November 6, 2009

2:00 pm PST / 5pm EST / 10pm GMT/UTC

�

LOCATION: In the West Meeting Room - 2nd floor of the New York City Building on 39FairHQ.

From the recent newsletter from Paul Van Dort / Trivia Tiratzo:

Plans for the Fair on ReactionGrid

There are six sims involved with the Fair: TrylonAndPerisphere, 39FairHQ, WF-1 thru WF-4

TrylonAndPerisphere and 39FairHQ are simply the introduction to the Fair, while WF-1 thru WF-4 is part of the actual Fair - the Production Zone.

At this time the awesome work started by Ruud Lathrop on the T&P was taken over by Joey Chernov. Joey added Democracity and all the "extras" to the building and the sim. Some work on Democracity still needs to be done, but it is about 90% complete.

Over on 39FairHQ, there is still much to be done. David is working on the text for each "room" on the Zone Walk. This text will be turned into Notecard displays for students and Fans of the Fair to take away written information about the Fair, complete with references.

The NCR building sits empty. We have little information and could use a lot of help bringing the displays for this building to completion.

The NYC building is coming along nicely. There are some displays with information and more will be forthcoming.

Once these to sims are complete, our attention will return to WF-1 thru WF-4. Joey has begun construction on many of the buildings, but we need some more people to work on the other buildings and their content.�

If you are interested, please contact me in-world or in RL at 1939NYWF@PMPhoto.to No experience is necessary, you can learn as you go. A year ago was the first time I entered a Virtual World. During the past year I have learned a lot, and am still learning ... and so can you. If you are new to the Grid, you'll find that the people there are friendly and always willing to help answer questions.

Don't be shy ... give it a try!

ReactionGrid Welcomes Microsoft

Chris Hart — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:17:31 GMT

Team ReactionGrid are proud to welcome Microsoft and the MS communities from SecondLife to our world! As a small celebration, we'll be on the grid from 4pm EDT / 8pm UTC today to welcome anyone who wants to know more about our plans for the Microsoft communities on our grid. We will continue today's fun with Halloween-themed movie night at 6pm EDT / 10pm UTC, followed by a party.

Over the next few weeks we will be hosting more introductory classes on some great OpenSim features, including Ninja Physics and C# scripting inworld, plus we will restart the regular Code Clinics that have proved popular in the past. You can look forward to some presentations in the upcoming months on a range of topics, and if you have any topics you'd love to hear about then please let us know! We have a BrainBoard permanently stationed on Core3 sim where we are collecting ideas, so any time you want to jump in and get involved you are more than welcome.

Events and tours 30th Oct 09

Chris Hart — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:07:28 GMT

Due to a very nasty flu bug, all events and tours scheduled for today are postponed until Kyle returns to health. Get well soon friend!

Maintenance Oct 27

Chris Hart — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:37:40 GMT

[COMPLETED]�thanks for your patience!

Core services (logins, asset, inventory transactions) will be unavailable for around 10 minutes today starting at 10am GMT/UTC while we apply some updates to one of our servers. We aim to keep disruption to a minimum and appreciate your patience.

Any problems, contact chris @reactiongrid.com or drop in a support ticket to http://metaverseheroes.com and we'll do our best to help!

Scheduled Maintenance 9th October 09

Chris Hart — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:16:07 GMT

[COMPLETED: 9th Oct 11:20am UK]

While we're not quite ready to roll out 0.6.7 on ReactionGrid, some reboots need to be done and some server maintenance needs to be performed, so tomorrow morning at 10am UK (5am EDT, 3am PDT) several regions will be rebooted and may be unavailable for up to 30 minutes while this is done.

We aim to keep such disruption to a minimum, and apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may cause. Keep an eye on @ReactionGrid on Twitter for status updates.

Next Upgrade for ReactionGrid

Chris Hart — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:21:31 GMT

We're currently evaluating the potential release candidate for OpenSim 0.6.7 with a view to rolling this out on ReactionGrid next week if it passes all the required tests. So far initial tests look good, and there will be plenty of great improvements and new features that will come alongside this release if it's ready in time for a rollout grid-wide.

Also on track for a rollout next week or very shortly after, will be groups on ReactionGrid. There have been several improvements and patches to groups core code since 0.6.6 and things are looking promising for this too.�

As ever, we'll keep you posted, but consider this advance notice of some potential downtime around Wednesday or Thursday next week if all goes to plan!

Trying out the 3Di Viewer

Chris Hart — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:57:47 GMT

The announcement yesterday that 3di had released their latest web browser client for OpenSim was extremely exciting, so I grabbed the source code and compiled.

Running it I think may result in different experiences for different users - my personal experience was not great. I did manage to log in to ReactionGrid, but I was a cloud that wouldn't move. Prims barely rendered, most of the dialogs were in Japanese - but it's a starting point! On the downside, to others, I appeared as a naked deformed avatar (nicknamed The Naked Pixie), so I encourage RG Gridizens to test elsewhere until that can be fixed, since the ReactionGrid terms of service are no nudity :)