First a little background, I was invited as both the founder of the Openlife Grid and an active participant in the Opensimulator Project, to attend this event in Oulu, Finland.
Not completely aware of what I was in for I can say before hand I was excited nonetheless but wasn't prepared for what was to come. I think I could safely say what was presented pleasantly surprised and excited all that attended.
I will try not to go too much into detail but provide pictures and videos with comment to help explain the event.
Being from Australia -'Anything' degrees is cold. Here you can see it really was cold on arrival.
Picture: The view from the plane, I was almost a little shocked to see that the ocean is frozen.
... I did say cold didn't I? But Oulu is a beautiful place nonetheless.
Picture: The View from the Hotel, Oulu, Finland. (snow, snowing & cold, but very beautiful).
OK, So nice snow pictures and all but what was going on?
Well, Friday morning we all met. Firstly wow, it was great to meet most of the others from the OpenSimulator project, I don't think it had been done before, and whilst things may have started quiet it didn't take long for us all to Gel together and get talking! And then we met the guys under the banner 'RealXtend', this was interesting why had I flown more than 14,000km across the planet? Who were they and what had they been doing? Questions were flying in everyone's minds and we started to get some information.
2 Companies Admino & Ludocraft had been working furiously in the background over the past 4 months, 'extending' the function of the OpenSimulator Project, they had done this with the afforded generosity of Juha Hulkko.
So what did they want global domination? No. Were they Anti-Linden? No (actually Chris Collins from Linden Labs was there too). Did they want to take over the OpenSimulator Project? No.
They wanted to move forward, extend as the name suggests features & methods for greater user function and versatility of the code & it's application.
OK so the morning meeting was a good start and now all of us were even more curious. What was next? Well, Finland likes coffee so it was a coffee! Alright that sounded like a little stall but we jumped in taxi's headed for Rehapolis for 'real' demonstration.
So without saying to much more what did we see?
2 Parts.
- A Modified SL Viewer (with OGRE 3D Engine) let's call this the 'REX' Viewer.
- A Modified Opensim Server setup let's call this the 'REX' OS Server.
Picture: Juha Hulkko, introducing the RealXtend work and his vision.
Picture: Can you tell that these guys have seen things they know we'll be excited about? Just look at the faces of our hosts as they prepare the demonstration!
Picture: The 'REX' Viewer Login Screen. getting exciting now...
Picture: Almost there... yes they have a content developer. Clearly a pretty good one too!
Picture: OK. We logged in and went into a little house full of people but, notice there is actualy only one Avatar here? It can be hard to tell the difference these other people are all meshes! (that's right not prims - meshes).
But so is the Avatar, the Mesh system is much more advanced than the standard 'prims' and these Avatars are created with a defineable bone structure of over 160+ bones! Plus 'mesh' attachments are possible with multiple attachments to each part of the bone structure. -Yes this excited us quite a bit too.
*For those curious it was an 8800 series nVidia Card achieving approx 42fps.
OK - So I may as well Start talking about what they did. Then throw a bunch more pictures at you:
First the 'REX' Viewer:
- Uses OGRE Rendering
- which also means 3D objects (meshes), lights, shadows
- Python Scripting (yes that's a fair bit more advanced than good ol' LSL)(iron python engine)
- Responsive Avatar Controls - This actually is an improvement on the SL -> OS current responsiveness
- Web Based Texutring Support (give it a url of a texture or a texture from inventory)
- Desktop Based Application Sharing (there's a video of this it uses VNC)
- Avatar Generator - This we'll talk about more later
- VOIP Client - Yes! they have a working VOIP client in the viewer and supported by the server.
- SL Mode. (let's you view standard Openlife/ Secondlife/ Opensim grids)
- client side prediction.... (coming ...)
The Modifications to the Opensimulator (this is what Openlife uses) Server.
- VOIP Server
- Python Scripting Engine
- Control viewer HUD & User Interface
- Mesh Inventory
- 3D Mesh Collisions with ODE
- Web Services & Hardware Integration.
Work on the Avatar:
- MESH + Skeleton
- Customizable skeleton with over 160+ bone Structure
- Carried Objects/ Attachments (multiple to each point)
- Animations
Alright!
That's a lot of things but it's probably easier to see by video so let's see some. Just a quick note, these videos and pictures were taken by me, I'm not a cinematographer or supercameraman but I think you can understand them all the same 
.
Meshes, Lights, Shadows & no prims!
Demonstates the REX Viewer & MOD Server in action with meshes, lights, shadows but no prims. Support for objects up to 100m.
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview5.zip (.wmv movie) (commentary by our host Jani)
Texturing from a webpage (webpage/html on a prim face)
This demonstrates the Viewers ability to set a webpage as a texture and the server to produce the image for viewing.
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview4.zip (.wmv movie)
Remote Desktop on a Prim (VNC on a prim face)
This shows a REX Viewer displaying the another PC's desktop on a prim face, think... support applications?
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview3.zip
Remote Desktop on a Mesh Surface (SL MOD OGRE Viewer Render)
This shows the above but on a Mesh Surface. Interesting... but true!
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview1.zip
The Avatar System.
Shows you mesh attachments, and the use of both human and non-human form bone structures. (ie. the mushrooms on a rock avatar).
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview2.zip (.wmv movie)
Python Scripted Viewer Controls
This demonstrates Python Scriptin in action, interactive with a prim then sending commands to the viewer, in this case creating scrolling text overlaying the viewer. (script in prim to server to viewer interaction).
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview6.zip (.wmv movie)
Python Scripting Controlling other objects (growing trees)
Shows the ability of the Python scripting to manipulate other objects in this case 3D mesh trees.
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview7.zip (.wmv movie)
VOICE! in action
Shows multiple users using voice in a animated looking world.
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview8.zip (.wmv movie)
Advanced Avatar Structures in action
Displays multiple avatar structures getting along in an animated looking snow world. Note they all have shadows reflective of their underlying bone structure, human & non-human.
http://dl1.openlifegrid.com/movies/preview9.zip
OK. Before I go on, to demonstrate that there is a difference check out the pictures below.
1st View. A 3D world created with meshes.
A 3D Mesh World
ABOVE 3D Meshes with REX Viewer in REX Mode. BELOW Exact Same View in SL Viewer mode
It is important to note the level of detail seen in the mesh view yet it contains no where near the number of objects required to do similar even lower quality in SL View from prims. (each object is represented by an ugly prim box in the SL view).
So now what happenned? well in Finnish style we had a sauna of course!
...no pictures!
Onto Saturday! We all probably had strange dreams with meshes instead of prims, and woke up full of new ideas. But it was time to have discussions, meetings and work out how we can all move forward together.
Version 0.5 was born, and a target for version 0.6 was thought up. (OpenSimulator Project)
And what about this new code from RealXtend? what did they want to do? and what did we want too?
I won't go into too much detail here but it many things were clear.
RealXtend wants to help & join the OpenSimulator Project effort (Admini & Ludocraft)
Their code would be merged with the mainproject and that their server code would be released as BSD, an appointed person from their companies would commence merge & members of the Opensimulator Core would assist.
So does this mean we will see it tommorrow? Not really. There's a lot of things that still need further work, it was thought that the best way forward would be to make a branch, and then merge part by part. Somethings would require modification.
There was a lot of discussion...
-Avatar System, attachments in world. Changing appearance in world.
-Compatability between the new Avatar's and old 'SL like' Avatars.
-Compatability of the new OGRE mod Viewer (REX) and existing Regions like current 'prim type' Openlife Regions (Yes it does work but needs a few modifications).
-Telling existing SL Viewers they can't view a region because it's an 'Enhanced REX Region' (the SL Viewer cannot view Meshes, and Mesh avatars look like Ruths!).
-A new avatar system should support both Mesh Attachments and Prim Attachments. Because many users know how to make Prims and Prim Designs. (Meshes are made externally in a CAD program in OGRE Mesh format).
-The Viewer will need community support, unless Linden Labs were to open their viewer to BSD type license OpenSimulator Developers cannot work on the REX viewer because of GPL type licensing (It's a license thing - REX Team seperated Developers to achieve this).
-'There are some clear winners', the Feature Extension by the REX team provides valuable enriched environments and new applications of the code.
Sunday:
Erm... Big Meetings, Discussion and Sauna + Snow...
Picture: This little hill is very famous... And memories now deeply etched in the psychii of all attendees...
Monday:
Developers Dig in With the REX Team... and flesh out ways of moving forward!
We all agree that the friendly union and joining of the REX system into the source code will be an exciting future!
It worth noting that Oulu, Finland has an interesting night life... (More details to follow soon)
Tuesday: A few more meetings & it's Time to leave... 
Sakai Travels for 2+ days to get home... 
but is happy and excited by these new developments!
Sakai Openlife 
Please note: More demonstrations and interaction will follow soon. This is a review of the weekend from Sakai Openlife, present in Oulu, Finland and are not official anouncements from the 'OpenSimulator Project'.
*** If you attended the Oulu, Finland event please email me for more pictures / videos etc.