Jason T Clark.net

Experimenting with Multiverse continues…..

To make a long story, short- SampleWorld is up and running. I checked the forums, found the IRC channel, and asked my questions there. A guy in the channel said, “put the JDBC jar in with the other jars- in the other folder under Multiverse’s application directory.” Tried it, and it worked. Not sure why, but hey, let’s go with it.

Sampleworld took awhile to finally load in on my Vista machine, and when it did, I couldn’t “see” anything. the Multiverse logo stayed on the application window. I could hear the “Welcome to Multiverse” video running, but I couldn’t see it. Frustrated with how it ran on my Vista box, I tried on my XP laptop. Ironically, it worked a lot better on that system than my so-called “beefy” Vista machine- more on my gripes and pains with Vista later.

Ok, so in review, I’m able to connect to the demo worlds with the client without incident, the server application running on Linux doesn’t take that long to configure, and I can connect to my server instance from a remote client by changing a short “one-liner” in the world_settings file. My only issue now is the performance. I don’t know if there’s a way to improve the performance of my server instance, and hosting it on the ‘net somewhere I’m not quite ready for. I’m wondering if that video is a stream that’s eating up bandwidth when I connect to the Sampleworld- who knows. Still, I think this platform is worth of trying to create something of my own on. Deciding what to create becomes the next question. Ok, here’s my ratings for initial impressions of Multiverse:

Experimentation Ratings for Multiverse:

Client Installation: A

Server Installation: B+

Documentation: B+

Support: B+

Stay tuned for the next episode in the series, when I start creating my own world with Multiverse.

“Experimenting with Multiverse” continues…..

OK, so I downloaded both the server application, and the Multiverse development tools. Installing the Multiverse development tools was a breeze, although when I began using the Multiverse World Editor, defining an asset repository for it was interesting. I went with the SampleAsset repository, downloadable from the Multiverse site. Thing is, it kept complaining about there not being a “Misc” directory in the asset repository. Two things: change the manifest, or create an empty “Misc” directory. I went with the non-destructive option by simply creating a false Misc directory in the SampleAsset repo just to satisfy the requirement. Once I got passed that, The World Editor loaded up nicely. I tested out loading up the Sample World file, which again, loaded up as expected. I’m not sure how intuitive it is to use this world editing application, maybe those of you out there who have played with it can key me in. It’s seems a bit lackluster at first glance, but as I get more involved, it’s possible that feeling will dissapate.

OK so satisfied with getting the tools working at this point, I decided to tackle the server. I am an avid Ubuntu Linux user, and if anyone tells me that Ubuntu is too difficult to use shouldn’t be walking on their hind legs. Anyway, I was impressed from the fact that this app installed strangely without any hiccups as well. A couple minor things, such as making sure my symbolic link to java was pointing to the correct one, setting up the database, etc. etc. Nothing a web developer couldn’t handle. I’m at the point where I’m ready to try to connect the client up to my server running the sample world……..

…….after configuring my server as suggested, alas my first problem- the MySQL/J Connector.  For some reason, when I look at the server logs, the server is not finding the JDBC driver.  I’ve triple checked the multiverse.properties file and provided the correct path.  Still no party.  Well, I guess I’ll stop here and figure out how to deal with that….off to check the forums!

One thing I’d like to start doing here is sharing my experiences with the masses- to not only share news from external sources, but to also share with you my own “news” in the form of discoveries, technology evaluations, and explorations of virtual worlds and interactive media.

So with that said, I spent some time over the last few days exploring Multiverse; a development platform
for creating virtual worlds. First impressions are lasting ones, like the scent of a woman- pleasant or unpleasant, and my first measuring stick is how the environment looks. I know that’s a shallow one, but hey, it’s how I’ve always been- what’s pleasing to the eye can certainly be intriguing at the least. I downloaded the Multiverse World Browser and Registered for an account. My first interest was to see the Time Square Demo World. If they can get that right, there’s certainly potential for the platform yet. After the installer ran, and the patches were applied, I proceeded to login. The first thing I noticed was the Axiom.dll updates, which means the graphics rendering is done with the C# flavor of OGRE. Not a bad choice- it’s one of the leading graphics rendering engines in open source, and the scene management is fairly straightforward.

Once I logged in, I was quite impressed. The default avatar held a slight resemblance to the avatars in Entropia Universe, which isn’t a bad thing, and the overall environment was sleek and trendy:

The UI was quite basic, but what do you expect from a demo world. As I’ve seen in screen shots the UI can be updated. After walking around the virtual streets of Time Square (listening to the Fresh Prince), I decided to load up the Fantasy World demo. This test for me is to see if I could see myself playing a game based on this platform. Once the world loaded up, I created my avatar/character. Again, not to many choices but not surprised. I dropped in the world and immediately saw a few scripted wolves running around. Again the environment although not as advanced as say, Crysis, it could do the job for a basic virtual world solution. One thing I missed was the shadowing. I didn’t see where that was implemented, but maybe that’s in the works. It has the potential to aesthetically a step up from Second Life and/or Active Worlds, but maybe a slight step down from CryEngine-based Entropia. Intrigued enough by what I saw, I went ahead and downloaded the server, and developer tools. Check out my next post on Multiverse as I take a deeper dive.

OK, so I’m up REALLY early this morning, trying to work on some code that was really bothering me, and I happened to wander on to gamedev.net, seeing that there was announcement about the Havok Engine being provided for free in non-commercial PC applications. This is somewhat BIG news for homebrewers. I mean, Havok is one of the premiere physics engine out there - Half-life, CoH, Starcraft….quite a few big name titles use this engine. The download access doesn’t begin until May of this year, but still, I’m psyched….

Check out this link: http://www.havok.com/content/view/582/53/