#bakesonmesh — Public Fediverse posts

@Aeris Irides Originally, yes, #LindenLabs introduced that rating system to #SecondLife as content warnings for sensitive users: If you don't want to see sex and/or gore, don't go to Adult-rated sims. If partial or complete nudity disturbs you, you may want to stay away from Moderate-rated sims as well. When the teen grid was shut down, the rating system was also used to kept users under 18 away from sims that weren't General-rated.

Of course, it also means that the content on the sims has to be appropriate for the rating. The Lindens probably don't take kindly to public sex being allowed and actually happening on General-rated sims if they find it out. On the other hand, I guess they may also go against rating misuse the other way, namely Adult-rated sims with no Adult-rated content. But these may be rare because there's no point in rating a Second Life sim Adult and keeping everything squeaky-clean.

Now, experience has shown us that the Second Life rating system simply doesn't work in #OpenSimulator. It is based on the real-life age of the users, and even in Second Life, it only works with age verification: Only if you can prove that you're 18 or older, you may enter sims with a Moderate or Adult rating.

But #OpenSim doesn't have age verification. The rating system doesn't work as an access restriction system based on real-life age. And the fact that it was originally intended as a content warning system is completely forgotten now.

Add to this the fact that OpenSim doesn't have pre-defined standard grid rules built in. Almost no grid has any rules to begin with, so there's also no written definition of these ratings in OpenSim whatsoever, probably also because many grid owners believe that it's commonly accepted that the definitions are the same as in Second Life.

Without user age verification, the focus has often switched away from the age of the users to the apparent age of the avatars. This, together with a lack of a common mandatory ratings definition, led to this not exactly rare new definition:

• General = G-rated
  
• Moderate = G-rated; nobody knows what the difference to General is
  
• Adult = G-rated, but no child avatars allowed

In part, this is due to misunderstanding on the side of grid owners/sim owners who don't speak English as I've said in the start post. But it can also be wishful thinking by deeply prudish and up-tight people who want all smut gone from the #Hypergrid.

This, by the way, leads to an interesting phenomenon. You can often see it when you attend an event in a place where nudity is not just allowed as per the Adult rating and the implication that it means the same as in Second Life, but encouraged and actually practiced. So you have nude avatars dancing.

Then someone who isn't a regular, who most likely has never been there before, comes teleporting in. Hellos are exchanged. They stay for about five minutes. And then they teleport out without saying a word. Why? Because they've spent these five minutes waiting for everyone's clothes to rez. After these five minutes, however, they came to the conclusion that some of the avatars are actually naked. Thus, they escaped from that cesspool, disgusted and disturbed. They clearly didn't expect an Adult-rated sim to actually have Adult-rated content on it.

Now, why does OpenSim have this ratings system in the first place if it doesn't work? Because it has to stay as close to Second Life as possible so that it can use the same viewers.

Some viewer developers think that adding grid selection is sufficient to make a Second Life viewer compatible with OpenSim, and they wish this was the case so that they don't have to take any extra efforts upon them. AFAIK, there are less popular viewers which are pretty full-featured when it comes to Second Life, but which lack a lot of OpenSim-specific features because the devs lack capacities and motivation to include them. If they only ever use Second Life, they can't even test them in the first place. Even Firestorm has removed the ability to create subfolders under Outfits because Second Life doesn't support them anymore, regardless of them working perfectly well in OpenSim.

This also means that changing OpenSim in ways that replace Second Life features with original OpenSim features is completely out of question. OpenSim needs its own ratings and content warnings system, but that would have to sit next to Second Life's General/Moderate/Adult system in the viewers at first and eventually replace it altogether. Viewer devs won't do that.

What makes matters even more complicated is that the grids run widely different OpenSim versions which viewers have to stay compatible with. #OSgrid is always bleeding-edge. Other grids still run OpenSim 0.8.2.1 or even older. Or they run some fork from 0.7.* times that only had a select few changes from newer versions backported over time, and which are no longer maintained anyway. This explains why Otterland which is stuck on OpenSim NextGen lacks both #BakesOnMesh support and even a fallback for BoM avatars, so it wrecks any and all BoM avatars entering the grid.

Even if OpenSim did manage to introduce its own ratings system, it'd take years for all grids to implement it which would require some grids to shut down for good. On the viewer side, the #CoolVLViewer would be the first to implement it, the #FirestormViewer would follow when they deem it important enough to include it in one of their next releases, and probably all the others would lag behind a lot or never implement it in the first place and become useless for OpenSim.

@Aeris Irides Originally, yes, #LindenLabs introduced that rating system to #SecondLife as content warnings for sensitive users: If you don't want to see sex and/or gore, don't go to Adult-rated sims. If partial or complete nudity disturbs you, you may want to stay away from Moderate-rated sims as well. When the teen grid was shut down, the rating system was also used to kept users under 18 away from sims that weren't General-rated.

Of course, it also means that the content on the sims has to be appropriate for the rating. The Lindens probably don't take kindly to public sex being allowed and actually happening on General-rated sims if they find it out. On the other hand, I guess they may also go against rating misuse the other way, namely Adult-rated sims with no Adult-rated content. But these may be rare because there's no point in rating a Second Life sim Adult and keeping everything squeaky-clean.

Now, experience has shown us that the Second Life rating system simply doesn't work in #OpenSimulator. It is based on the real-life age of the users, and even in Second Life, it only works with age verification: Only if you can prove that you're 18 or older, you may enter sims with a Moderate or Adult rating.

But #OpenSim doesn't have age verification. The rating system doesn't work as an access restriction system based on real-life age. And the fact that it was originally intended as a content warning system is completely forgotten now.

Add to this the fact that OpenSim doesn't have pre-defined standard grid rules built in. Almost no grid has any rules to begin with, so there's also no written definition of these ratings in OpenSim whatsoever, probably also because many grid owners believe that it's commonly accepted that the definitions are the same as in Second Life.

Without user age verification, the focus has often switched away from the age of the users to the apparent age of the avatars. This, together with a lack of a common mandatory ratings definition, led to this not exactly rare new definition:

• General = G-rated
  
• Moderate = G-rated; nobody knows what the difference to General is
  
• Adult = G-rated, but no child avatars allowed

In part, this is due to misunderstanding on the side of grid owners/sim owners who don't speak English as I've said in the start post. But it can also be wishful thinking by deeply prudish and up-tight people who want all smut gone from the #Hypergrid.

This, by the way, leads to an interesting phenomenon. You can often see it when you attend an event in a place where nudity is not just allowed as per the Adult rating and the implication that it means the same as in Second Life, but encouraged and actually practiced. So you have nude avatars dancing.

Then someone who isn't a regular, who most likely has never been there before, comes teleporting in. Hellos are exchanged. They stay for about five minutes. And then they teleport out without saying a word. Why? Because they've spent these five minutes waiting for everyone's clothes to rez. After these five minutes, however, they came to the conclusion that some of the avatars are actually naked. Thus, they escaped from that cesspool, disgusted and disturbed. They clearly didn't expect an Adult-rated sim to actually have Adult-rated content on it.

Now, why does OpenSim have this ratings system in the first place if it doesn't work? Because it has to stay as close to Second Life as possible so that it can use the same viewers.

Some viewer developers think that adding grid selection is sufficient to make a Second Life viewer compatible with OpenSim, and they wish this was the case so that they don't have to take any extra efforts upon them. AFAIK, there are less popular viewers which are pretty full-featured when it comes to Second Life, but which lack a lot of OpenSim-specific features because the devs lack capacities and motivation to include them. If they only ever use Second Life, they can't even test them in the first place. Even Firestorm has removed the ability to create subfolders under Outfits because Second Life doesn't support them anymore, regardless of them working perfectly well in OpenSim.

This also means that changing OpenSim in ways that replace Second Life features with original OpenSim features is completely out of question. OpenSim needs its own ratings and content warnings system, but that would have to sit next to Second Life's General/Moderate/Adult system in the viewers at first and eventually replace it altogether. Viewer devs won't do that.

What makes matters even more complicated is that the grids run widely different OpenSim versions which viewers have to stay compatible with. #OSgrid is always bleeding-edge. Other grids still run OpenSim 0.8.2.1 or even older. Or they run some fork from 0.7.* times that only had a select few changes from newer versions backported over time, and which are no longer maintained anyway. This explains why Otterland which is stuck on OpenSim NextGen lacks both #BakesOnMesh support and even a fallback for BoM avatars, so it wrecks any and all BoM avatars entering the grid.

Even if OpenSim did manage to introduce its own ratings system, it'd take years for all grids to implement it which would require some grids to shut down for good. On the viewer side, the #CoolVLViewer would be the first to implement it, the #FirestormViewer would follow when they deem it important enough to include it in one of their next releases, and probably all the others would lag behind a lot or never implement it in the first place and become useless for OpenSim.

It's frightening how fragile the sims which I've listed in my mesh clothes shopping guide for the #Ruth2 family seem to be.

When the guide was still an unfinished draft, 100 Dresses disappeared from Catena di isole on the #VirtualHG grid. It has yet to resurface. Until then, the line is commented out.

Even earlier, Remmy Ravenhurst closed her sims in #OSgrid to start her own grid together with Tanned Babe. She has made a whole lot of textures for older mesh clothes. I'm still waiting for the grid to open. Another commented-out line.

Not long after I've published the guide, #DorenasWorld suffered from hard drive failure and spent three weeks offline during which it was impossible to get certain Klarabella Karamell creations and almost impossible to get the Deva Moda products. Now Klara is leaving the grid and relocating her own sims to OSgrid so I have to edit these lines. I myself am looking for a

While Dorenas World was already down, #Artdestiny got into software-side trouble, but it came back quickly.

The #EtheriaGrid had its own share of trouble several times, making certain exclusive textured #Clutterfly items unavailable. I hope it's halfway stable now.

Sabi Breen has completely redesigned Shopaholic once again, and she has yet to bring back her Damien Fate clothes.

Recently, Cloe Kegel, owner of the #Astralia Shopping City, posted something that sounded like she had also closed Shopping City for reconstruction. This could have meant the removal of older layer and mesh items, some of which can only be found there anymore. Fortunately, Shopping City is still open and complete.

And just a few minutes ago, I thought that Birch Grove on #Neverworld had been shut down in favour of its own spring variant which lacks some of the original's shops. It's still there, just not listed on #OpenSimWorld anymore. The spring variant with its new pride shop will receive a special mention when I make my list of shops with layer clothes useful for #BakesOnMesh bodies like Ruth2 v4.

#OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #RuthAndRoth

It's frightening how fragile the sims which I've listed in my mesh clothes shopping guide for the #Ruth2 family seem to be.

When the guide was still an unfinished draft, 100 Dresses disappeared from Catena di isole on the #VirtualHG grid. It has yet to resurface. Until then, the line is commented out.

Even earlier, Remmy Ravenhurst closed her sims in #OSgrid to start her own grid together with Tanned Babe. She has made a whole lot of textures for older mesh clothes. I'm still waiting for the grid to open. Another commented-out line.

Not long after I've published the guide, #DorenasWorld suffered from hard drive failure and spent three weeks offline during which it was impossible to get certain Klarabella Karamell creations and almost impossible to get the Deva Moda products. Now Klara is leaving the grid and relocating her own sims to OSgrid so I have to edit these lines. I myself am looking for a

While Dorenas World was already down, #Artdestiny got into software-side trouble, but it came back quickly.

The #EtheriaGrid had its own share of trouble several times, making certain exclusive textured #Clutterfly items unavailable. I hope it's halfway stable now.

Sabi Breen has completely redesigned Shopaholic once again, and she has yet to bring back her Damien Fate clothes.

Recently, Cloe Kegel, owner of the #Astralia Shopping City, posted something that sounded like she had also closed Shopping City for reconstruction. This could have meant the removal of older layer and mesh items, some of which can only be found there anymore. Fortunately, Shopping City is still open and complete.

And just a few minutes ago, I thought that Birch Grove on #Neverworld had been shut down in favour of its own spring variant which lacks some of the original's shops. It's still there, just not listed on #OpenSimWorld anymore. The spring variant with its new pride shop will receive a special mention when I make my list of shops with layer clothes useful for #BakesOnMesh bodies like Ruth2 v4.

#OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #RuthAndRoth

I've done it.

I've launched a #wiki on this #Hubzilla channel of mine. It's still at a very early stage of being a WIP, but it's there, and it has three pages already. It's written in Markdown, by the way, for those of you Hubzilla users who want to take a peek at how that's being done, seeing as there's no documentation on it.

Here it is.

The purpose of this wiki is not so much experimentation or showcasing a feature that no other #Fediverse project offers (I give #CalcKey 6 months tops to include a wiki engine, heh). Instead, I've created it for what wikis are for: sharing information.

More specifically, it's about the #Ruth2 and #Roth2 families of mesh bodies. It'll offer information and guides for those interested in using these bodies. The main focus is on #OpenSimulator, but maybe some who use Ruth2 v4 or Roth2 v2 in #SecondLife may find it useful, and be it to help them solve the mystery that's #BakesOnMesh, for I already have a page about that already.

#OpenSim #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #RuthAndRoth

I've done it.

I've launched a #wiki on this #Hubzilla channel of mine. It's still at a very early stage of being a WIP, but it's there, and it has three pages already. It's written in Markdown, by the way, for those of you Hubzilla users who want to take a peek at how that's being done, seeing as there's no documentation on it.

Here it is.

The purpose of this wiki is not so much experimentation or showcasing a feature that no other #Fediverse project offers (I give #CalcKey 6 months tops to include a wiki engine, heh). Instead, I've created it for what wikis are for: sharing information.

More specifically, it's about the #Ruth2 and #Roth2 families of mesh bodies. It'll offer information and guides for those interested in using these bodies. The main focus is on #OpenSimulator, but maybe some who use Ruth2 v4 or Roth2 v2 in #SecondLife may find it useful, and be it to help them solve the mystery that's #BakesOnMesh, for I already have a page about that already.

#OpenSim #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #RuthAndRoth

@Owlmagnet That's because I'm not on Mastodon, but on a bigger and older project named #Hubzilla which nonetheless is federated with Mastodon through ActivityPub. #^https://hubzilla.org/ Hubzilla doesn't really have a character limit.

@Sean Heavy ✅🤙🏻☯🏳️‍🌈 Is my memory pranking me, or haven't you upgraded #RuthToo and #RothToo to #BakesOnMesh as well?

If I were better at tinkering, I'd try to isolate the fingernails and toenails from RothToo, give them the same BoM capability as those for #Ruth2 v4 and add the nail BoM controls from the Ruth2 v4 HUD to the #Roth2 v2 hud.

Not that I need that to put on the nail polish I've made a few months ago...

@Owlmagnet @Cherowolf™️ I think what free content is in #SecondLife is legal content in #OpenSimulator.

It's possible to deck out an entire avatar in it, but you've got little to choose from, and it's hard to find it in the first place. And, of course, it's even harder for male avatars. Many creators think it isn't worth creating for male avatars because all they need is a shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes whereas female avatars need all kinds of stuff in all kinds of variations.

There is even only one legal male mesh body that can use #BakesOnMesh, #Roth2 v2. It was made in #OpenSim for OpenSim by a team lead by @Austin Tate, and it comes with an attached head. Although it's also available in the Second Life Marketplace as well from RuthAndRoth, very few clothes have ever been made for it, and they're all one-piece outfits. In OpenSim, only an acquaintance of mine has started making the first few pieces of clothing for Roth2 v2.

Add to this that the shape of its mesh is so much different from all other bodies that wearing mesh clothes not rigged for Roth2 v2 can only be worn with massive use of alpha-masking and covering pretty much the entire body so nobody can see the air between your body and your clothes. You can't go topless unless you're wearing layer swim trunks (+ a sculpty bulge); mesh bottoms rigged for any other body will clip into your body at the front and stand far off the body at the back. And the tops you have to wear all need a collar that goes at least halfway up your neck because they collide with your body right below the neck.

I've met the main mesh designer behind the body a while ago. She said that nobody involved, not even she herself, is satisfied with the shape of Roth2 v2, and that another complete re-design may be necessary. This probably won't happen anytime soon because the new team working on the #RuthAndRoth bodies is currently concentrating on #Ruth2. By then, we may actually have some more Roth2 v2 mesh clothes which would then become obsolete again.

Still, the only body I might consider replacing Roth2 v2 with is a direct successor. It has BoM features which you won't find on any stolen body, it supports alpha masks out of the box (I hate alpha HUDs), not to mention that it's legal, open-source and under free licenses.

@Owlmagnet @Cherowolf™️ I think what free content is in #SecondLife is legal content in #OpenSimulator.

It's possible to deck out an entire avatar in it, but you've got little to choose from, and it's hard to find it in the first place. And, of course, it's even harder for male avatars. Many creators think it isn't worth creating for male avatars because all they need is a shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes whereas female avatars need all kinds of stuff in all kinds of variations.

There is even only one legal male mesh body that can use #BakesOnMesh, #Roth2 v2. It was made in #OpenSim for OpenSim by a team lead by @Austin Tate, and it comes with an attached head. Although it's also available in the Second Life Marketplace as well from RuthAndRoth, very few clothes have ever been made for it, and they're all one-piece outfits. In OpenSim, only an acquaintance of mine has started making the first few pieces of clothing for Roth2 v2.

Add to this that the shape of its mesh is so much different from all other bodies that wearing mesh clothes not rigged for Roth2 v2 can only be worn with massive use of alpha-masking and covering pretty much the entire body so nobody can see the air between your body and your clothes. You can't go topless unless you're wearing layer swim trunks (+ a sculpty bulge); mesh bottoms rigged for any other body will clip into your body at the front and stand far off the body at the back. And the tops you have to wear all need a collar that goes at least halfway up your neck because they collide with your body right below the neck.

I've met the main mesh designer behind the body a while ago. She said that nobody involved, not even she herself, is satisfied with the shape of Roth2 v2, and that another complete re-design may be necessary. This probably won't happen anytime soon because the new team working on the #RuthAndRoth bodies is currently concentrating on #Ruth2. By then, we may actually have some more Roth2 v2 mesh clothes which would then become obsolete again.

Still, the only body I might consider replacing Roth2 v2 with is a direct successor. It has BoM features which you won't find on any stolen body, it supports alpha masks out of the box (I hate alpha HUDs), not to mention that it's legal, open-source and under free licenses.

Yes, it's possible to dress avatars entirely in clothes made in and for #OpenSim. And that doesn't mean that you have to resort entirely to layer and prim clothes from 2011 or earlier.

Here's a picture of my in-world sister @Juno Rowland and me, taken less than an hour ago.



First of all, both Juno and I are wearing mesh bodies made in and for OpenSim. Mine is #Roth2 v2, Juno's is #Ruth2 v4, both from 2020 and fully enabled for #BakesOnMesh. Both bodies can be found, for example, on the official #RuthAndRoth sim on #OSgrid (hg.osgrid.org:80:RuthAndRoth).

As far as clothes and accessories are concerned, I am wearing Taarna Welles creations from head to toe. My new glasses (reMake Urban Glasses, modified by myself to have clear lenses), the hoodie (reMake Hoodie Men Grey Text) and the jeans (reMake Jeans Base Black) can be found on Taarna's more recent sim Savvy on her own #Bubblesz grid (bubblesz.nl:8002:Savvy). The LB Furio Sneakers, these are the black ones, are still made of sculpties and can be found on her old sim La Baronnie (bubblesz.nl:8002:La Baronnie).

Juno's outfit started with a Sasa pullover dress made by a friend of ours, Loru Destiny; it's available in her small shop at Needful Things on #PangeaGrid (pangeagrid.de:8002:Needful Things). Unfortunately, as you can see, this dress is rather short, too short for weather that justifies a knit dress and too risqué (or even risky) for dancing. Fortunately, while many Second Life creators build dresses against the skin of the corresponding mesh body, this one, while rigged for a predecessor of Juno's body, leaves enough room to wear mesh jeans rigged for the same body underneath it.

In this case, they are straight-cut jeans made by Klarabella Karamell, another friend of ours. You can get the piece of clothing itself and various textures for it at Bella Klara on #DorenasWorld (dorenas-world.de:8002:Bella Klara). Finally, the boots, reBoot Dune Middle Boots, are made by Taarna Welles again, and they can be found on Savvy.

#OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #VirtualClothing #VirtualFashion

Yes, it's possible to dress avatars entirely in clothes made in and for #OpenSim. And that doesn't mean that you have to resort entirely to layer and prim clothes from 2011 or earlier.

Here's a picture of my in-world sister @Juno Rowland and me, taken less than an hour ago.



First of all, both Juno and I are wearing mesh bodies made in and for OpenSim. Mine is #Roth2 v2, Juno's is #Ruth2 v4, both from 2020 and fully enabled for #BakesOnMesh. Both bodies can be found, for example, on the official #RuthAndRoth sim on #OSgrid (hg.osgrid.org:80:RuthAndRoth).

As far as clothes and accessories are concerned, I am wearing Taarna Welles creations from head to toe. My new glasses (reMake Urban Glasses, modified by myself to have clear lenses), the hoodie (reMake Hoodie Men Grey Text) and the jeans (reMake Jeans Base Black) can be found on Taarna's more recent sim Savvy on her own #Bubblesz grid (bubblesz.nl:8002:Savvy). The LB Furio Sneakers, these are the black ones, are still made of sculpties and can be found on her old sim La Baronnie (bubblesz.nl:8002:La Baronnie).

Juno's outfit started with a Sasa pullover dress made by a friend of ours, Loru Destiny; it's available in her small shop at Needful Things on #PangeaGrid (pangeagrid.de:8002:Needful Things). Unfortunately, as you can see, this dress is rather short, too short for weather that justifies a knit dress and too risqué (or even risky) for dancing. Fortunately, while many Second Life creators build dresses against the skin of the corresponding mesh body, this one, while rigged for a predecessor of Juno's body, leaves enough room to wear mesh jeans rigged for the same body underneath it.

In this case, they are straight-cut jeans made by Klarabella Karamell, another friend of ours. You can get the piece of clothing itself and various textures for it at Bella Klara on #DorenasWorld (dorenas-world.de:8002:Bella Klara). Finally, the boots, reBoot Dune Middle Boots, are made by Taarna Welles again, and they can be found on Savvy.

#OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #VirtualClothing #VirtualFashion

@Lelani Carver I'm still wondering how original, vanilla Ruth 2.0 (and which version, the 2017 test release, the RC#1, the RC#2 or the RC#3) became Sweet's Ruth 2.0 and through which steps. Sweet's Ruth 2.0 itself is closed-source (because Sweet Lynwood supplies neither the sources nor a link to them) which, to my understanding, goes against the licenses of original Ruth 2.0.

So much I know: The #BakesOnMesh conversion of Sweet's Ruth predates both #OpenSim mainline bodies #Roth2 v2 and #Ruth2 v4. Thus, it is not based on the latter. On Ruth2 v4, BoM works reasonably well, up to and including alpha masks on body and eyes, but its HUD only controls 12 alpha cut zones, head included.

I've got my doubts that Sweet Lynwood came into contact with the maintainers of Ruth2 who had had Roth2 v2 in the making already at that point; I guess she "re-invented the wheel" when she applied BoM to Ruth 2.0. Unlike Sweet's Ruth 2.0, Ruth2 v4 has two buttons on its HUD which can switch the alpha mode of body and eyes to alpha blending and alpha masking respectively. They're also very useful if the alpha mode of the body ends up off altogether after teleporting, causing all worn alpha masks to fail.

If you want to try the official Ruth2 v4, it may be available from the shop run by its maintainers.

What exactly was your issue? Did you put on layers (tattoos or clothes) that didn't appear? Did they appear in the wrong order? Did you put on alpha masks, but they didn't cut anything? Did you have trouble making self-made alpha masks fit?

If the latter is the case, try making a classic skin or a classic tattoo out of Robin "Sojourner" Wood's UV templates and using it as a reference.

@Lelani Carver @Cheryl Furse @The Steam Powered Story Teller @Matt J. @tanoujin It sounds like #Ruth2 and #Roth2 only slowly trickle down from GitHub and #OpenSimulator to #SecondLife and especially to the Marketplace to the point where it's third-party users instead of the original creators who import them to the Marketplace.

But I guess one issue is that both bodies are rated Adult on the Marketplace, and it takes third parties to upload "forks" (I'm not even sure how many of them are still open-source, much less actual forks) with a lower rating to the Marketplace. Another one is that nobody seems to know the in-world store where you can find them; but then again, the official RuthAndRoth sim in #OpenSim still isn't listed on #OpenSimWorld either.

OpenSim definitely gets all variants vanilla and as soon as they're done. We've had Roth2 v2 with one of the most advanced #BakesOnMesh implementations I've ever seen on a mesh avatar as early as May 2020, and Ruth2 v4 with an even more advanced BoM implementation followed suit in August. I was one of the earliest adopters of Roth2 v2, and I think I had the first dedicated third-party shop for these bodies.

#RuthToo and #RothToo are already forks of Ruth 2.0 RC#3 and Roth 2.0 RC#1 respectively, created by @Sean Heavy ✅🤙🏻☯🏳️‍🌈 before BoM came along. In OpenSim, both have been upgraded with BoM this year.

I've also heard that the development of both Ruth2 and Roth2 is being continued, but it seems like everything is currently done behind closed doors. Hardly anything is happening on Github.

I'm currently at my first event in this #Winter that involves #IceSkating. It's in a nice location, it's snowing, it's fun, and I guess you can see how cold it is.



We had a visitor in one of those typical #OpenSim women's outfits: thin micro-minidress, bare arms, bare legs, open spike-heeled sandals. It actually made me wonder what women wear on winter sims in #SecondLife. In the meantime, I'm wearing nylon tights under leggings under denim. Plus socks. Thanks #BakesOnMesh I'm warm.



#OpenSimulator #DorenasWorld #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Winter

@Shelenn Ayres @Ryan Schultz @David Farnell @Aereyn Onyx LeShelle herself has sent an open letter to the #OpenSim community years ago, demanding the removal of any and all copies of Maitreya content. It's still publicly available at Tante Tilly's in Klamotto, that's where I know it from. The sim owner Otto von Otter is one of the seemingly few who complied with her demands and removed everything listed in the letter.

Otherwise, typical reactions are:

"LOL, go ahead and try to sue us!"

"I've bought this in #SecondLife, so it's mine, and I can do with it whatever I want." No, you can't. What you bought is not the item, but the right to use it in ways granted by the creator who still remains the owner. If the creator doesn't explicitly allow you to export their contents to OpenSim, you must not do that, full stop. Especially not without asking the creator first.

"Give us rock-solid proof that $ITEM is stolen, otherwise we'll regard your claim as false!"

"We've reworked $ITEM so much that nothing of the original is left anymore." Often used with Athena which simply isn't true, even less true with clothing. I actually know one shop owner who copybots clothes from Sacrarium which the Sacrarium shopkeeps have stolen from Second Life themselves, changes the box art and offers them as her own creations.

And, of course, the owners of some places define any and all questioning of the legality of the items in their freebie stores as "drama" and punish it with immediate perma-bans, thus rendering investigations difficult.

Speaking of suing: I've read about a situation in 2015 when at least one content creator, together with Linden Labs, actually threatened legal action against OpenSim grids for content theft because they distributed copybotted Second Life content, all the way to cease-and-desist. In other words, grids that wouldn't remove any and all copies of legal content from this creator would have been shut down.

To keep this from happening, the grid owners addressed to the owners of sims where such content was offered as freebies and demanded they remove all of it, lest their sims be deleted.

Back then, it was still possible to not only rent shops on freebie sims, but actually offer content from no matter where in them. So there were freebie sims that were chock-full of copybotted content. The sim owners then demanded the shopkeeps to remove that stolen content, otherwise they'd thrown them out and remove their shops.

Now, there was a lot of Chinese whispers involved, so that whoever ran the shops didn't know which illegal items exactly they were to remove. That, and/or if one SL creator sued for removal of illegal copies of their works, maybe tomorrow another one comes and does the same and so forth. So what they did was rip everything out of which they weren't 100% certain that it was legal. Since they didn't want to abandon their freebie shops, they replenished them with what they knew was legal. However, many of them only knew one creator of legal content in OpenSim. And so they filled their stores with old layer clothes made by Linda Kellie in 2007/2008.

This led to even more Linda Kellie drama because some claimed she was behind this, trying to stay relevant with her old content because nothing new had come from her since 2013 (that was before Clutterfly was launched, maybe even before Linda released any mesh items). It suddenly became easier for the copybotting mafia to make propaganda against legal freebies, likening them all to Linda's early works or outright implying that all legal freebies are by Linda. Also, this may have led to the creation of Sacrarium, run by a Kazakh at home with Russian co-admins under a Russian domain, a grid completely out of reach for any Western jurisdiction.

One downside of the copybotting craze is that it killed large parts of OpenSim's own creativity. Ever heard of Deva Moda? Cary Bean made some great clothes out of Damien Fate meshes in times when there were no mesh clothes in OpenSim yet. But then came copybotting. All of a sudden, just about everyone who didn't want to stick with traditional avatars only wanted an Athena body and Athena clothes which were the results of copybotting the in-world stores of Maitreya, BlueBerry etc. wholesale. Cary quit on the spot because it looked like it wasn't worth carrying on. It may actually have surprised her to learn from Otto that my in-world sister @Juno Rowland enjoys wearing her creations.

Nonetheless, there have always been idealists who made what seemingly nobody wants. Some continued texturing Clutterfly and/or Damien Fate meshes which, by the way, can often be combined, e.g. Damien Fate tops and Clutterfly skirts. Thirza Ember of HG Safari fame offers a lot of this on her sim, Remmy Ravenhurst joined most recently, some more can be found in places like Astralia's ShoppingCity or at Sinus on Craft-World.

Others went all the way and even made their own meshes. Taarna Welles started with sculpties and made them into shoes and other accessories, then she switched to rigged mesh which can be found on her sims Savvy and La Baronnie. I'm friends with two more creators, Loru Destiny and Klarabella Karamell, both of whom came from layer & prim clothes and eventually went mesh. All three rig for Ruth 2.0 now, and Loru and Klara also have a few pieces for Roth 2.0. Loru's main store is not on OpenSimWorld; it can be found on her ArtDestiny grid. She also has at least one older satellite store.

Klara even had a Damien Fate phase, it's still worth getting her works from that time. She has made a whole number of mesh skirts matching Damien Fate tops this year which means that she may now be responsible for the majority of mesh skirts longer than three inches below the crotch being legal. Places where you can find Klara's creations are Meshmatsch, Bella Klara, the top floor of the Kaufrausch Megastore in Santiago and the shoe store in the Westend.

Speaking of Ruth 2.0 and Roth 2.0, OpenSim has even got its own lines of mesh bodies. Or rather trees if you look the various forks. They were originally created as basic starter avatar material that is neither as outdated and ugly as the system body nor as illegal as the other mesh bodies which existed back then.

The current lead maintainer of both, @Austin Tate / @Ai Austin, led #Ruth2 and #Roth2 into being the mesh bodies with probably the most advanced #BakesOnMesh in all of OpenSim so far, offering features which Athena 6 and Adonis 4 users still deem outright impossible such as alpha mask support or actually switching BoM off.

It's important that such endeavours are advertised and receive the attention they deserve. It's especially important because many OpenSim users believe that there literally isn't any legal content in OpenSim. This is what those who offer stolen content want them to believe. I mean, there's still anti-Linda Kellie propaganda around. Freebie merchants flat-out refuse to offer anything legal. Some openly deny that there's legal content to keep people from looking for it. Once they're proven wrong, they start badmouthing anything legal, again, to keep people from looking for it instead of acquiring content from them.

Fortunately, not all merchants are like this. Okay, maybe some are simply clueless and don't know what it is that they put into their stores as long as it's a lot. But the Ruth2 v4 and Roth2 v2 boxes are slowly spreading from freebie store to freebie store, sometimes including third-party content. That said, a good sign that some shopkeeps don't curate what they offer and just want to slap as many boxes against their walls as possible is when a new freebie store opens with Ruth 2.0 RC#2 or even the test release on one of the walls.

Sad but true: This is why many creators in OpenSim make their content no-transfer or don't allow it to be "resold" in mixed freebie stores. It makes removing outdated versions of their creations impossible. The downside, however, is that they only get very little exposure this way because everyone only ever runs to the big and popular freebie sims.

I've recently discovered a new approach to shopping, and that's a specialised sim with teleportals only to fashion stores. However, I've got a feeling that the owners of this sim don't really want to feature places with original, legal creations, and be it because the likes of Taarna Welles or Loru Destiny don't rig their works for stolen bodies.

As for keeping out illegal content or even banning entire grids because their users come in with copybotted avatar attachments, this is a double-edged sword. Sure, it's honourable, and one could say that you have to start somewhere. But the vast majority of today's avatars is decked out in 100% illegal content from head to toe.

For one, newbies are usually exposed to literally nothing else at first. Finding legal alternatives usually requires outright detective work due to how little exposure it gets whereas the illegal stuff is plastered all over all the big freebie sims. Also, it takes newbies who didn't come here from Second Life a while to realise that what they're wearing is illegal.

Also, the the Menswear Ghetto makes outfitting male avatars in mesh pretty difficult. It's even more difficult to outfit them in ways that don't make them look like leather-clad one-percenters or Russian mafiya mobsters, and it's almost impossible to outfit them in 100% legal content. Granted, women's fashion in OpenSim strongly gravitates towards outfits that'd look out of place anywhere that isn't an Ibiza club party. But female avatars simply have more choice. Juno could run around in legal clothes on a legal body all year round with only her hair being of uncertain source. I couldn't even wear shorts until recently, and I don't have anything legal for winter that isn't too blatantly unfitting either.

Which takes us to another issue for the guys: clothes matching the body. Women's fashion can greatly rely upon Maitreya Lara/Athena which has become a de-facto standard. The only notable competition is SLink Physique Hourglass/Decadence-HG for which exists considerably less clothing, but if you've got that body, dressing like the girl next door or even practically isn't on your mind anyway. For men, not only are there three illegal standard bodies (SLink Physique Male/Adonis, Signature Gianni/Apollo, Belleza Jake/Ares) across which what little fashion is available for them stretches, but it's no longer mentioned what shall fit which body. And here I'm talking about illegal clothes for illegal bodies.

Ruth2 is fortunate enough to be able to wear a lot of things, also because it's mostly rather slender. While that slenderness does bring some limitations with itself, it isn't much of a problem. Even the swimwear situation improved with the adoption of BoM. Also, there's an increasing quantity of clothing rigged for Ruth2 or with Ruth2 in mind.

Roth2, on the other hand, is so far away from any and all established standards that it's hard to make any menswear work on it, Roth2 v2 even more so than Roth2 v1/Roth 2.0 RC#1 to the point of only tops with standing or otherwise big enough collars working on it. Alpha masks become your best friends because you always end up alpha-ing out most of the body. Whereas Ruth2 is technically too thin for Damien Fate clothes, Roth2 is too thick and ends up quite lanky in what few Damien Fate clothes halfway fit. In general, clothes are way too loose around the upper chest and the lower back and clip through the lower belly and the back below the neck. There isn't a single piece of mesh swimwear that fits Roth2 v2; you have to resort to layer clothes plus a most likely self-made bulge.

Add to this that men don't wear dresses, rarely wear one-pieces in general and almost never bare their midriff. You always have to match a top and a bottom which is a pain with copybotted clothes already unless you use boxed outfits. I don't have that much to choose from, especially not when I want to go legal. For example, I can pretty much only wear legal jeans that actually look like jeans with Gavin jackets (which do come from Second Life, but with consent from the creator), Taarna's reMake hoodies or the Arcadia turtleneck. None of these are good for summer.

Now, I've got more than two and a half years of experience with Roth2 v2, not to mention an increasing number of self-made alpha masks, and I may know every last source for legal mesh clothes on the Hypergrid, no matter how obscure. What is a newbie supposed to do? A recent Second Life convert? Or someone who has to switch to Roth2 v2 from Adonis or Apollo, and who only knows the big freebie stores that barely offer anything legal?

It'd actually be hard enough to fall back to the system body with layer and prim clothes because the big freebie stores have long since quit offering these in favour of copybotted mesh stuff. Linda Kellie's creations are still the easiest to find, but even that requires detective work. As for clothes that come neither from her nor from FleepGrid, you'd better be Sherlock Holmes and/or very very lucky or know the right people if you want these.

@Shelenn Ayres @Ryan Schultz @David Farnell @Aereyn Onyx LeShelle herself has sent an open letter to the #OpenSim community years ago, demanding the removal of any and all copies of Maitreya content. It's still publicly available at Tante Tilly's in Klamotto, that's where I know it from. The sim owner Otto von Otter is one of the seemingly few who complied with her demands and removed everything listed in the letter.

Otherwise, typical reactions are:

"LOL, go ahead and try to sue us!"

"I've bought this in #SecondLife, so it's mine, and I can do with it whatever I want." No, you can't. What you bought is not the item, but the right to use it in ways granted by the creator who still remains the owner. If the creator doesn't explicitly allow you to export their contents to OpenSim, you must not do that, full stop. Especially not without asking the creator first.

"Give us rock-solid proof that $ITEM is stolen, otherwise we'll regard your claim as false!"

"We've reworked $ITEM so much that nothing of the original is left anymore." Often used with Athena which simply isn't true, even less true with clothing. I actually know one shop owner who copybots clothes from Sacrarium which the Sacrarium shopkeeps have stolen from Second Life themselves, changes the box art and offers them as her own creations.

And, of course, the owners of some places define any and all questioning of the legality of the items in their freebie stores as "drama" and punish it with immediate perma-bans, thus rendering investigations difficult.

Speaking of suing: I've read about a situation in 2015 when at least one content creator, together with Linden Labs, actually threatened legal action against OpenSim grids for content theft because they distributed copybotted Second Life content, all the way to cease-and-desist. In other words, grids that wouldn't remove any and all copies of legal content from this creator would have been shut down.

To keep this from happening, the grid owners addressed to the owners of sims where such content was offered as freebies and demanded they remove all of it, lest their sims be deleted.

Back then, it was still possible to not only rent shops on freebie sims, but actually offer content from no matter where in them. So there were freebie sims that were chock-full of copybotted content. The sim owners then demanded the shopkeeps to remove that stolen content, otherwise they'd thrown them out and remove their shops.

Now, there was a lot of Chinese whispers involved, so that whoever ran the shops didn't know which illegal items exactly they were to remove. That, and/or if one SL creator sued for removal of illegal copies of their works, maybe tomorrow another one comes and does the same and so forth. So what they did was rip everything out of which they weren't 100% certain that it was legal. Since they didn't want to abandon their freebie shops, they replenished them with what they knew was legal. However, many of them only knew one creator of legal content in OpenSim. And so they filled their stores with old layer clothes made by Linda Kellie in 2007/2008.

This led to even more Linda Kellie drama because some claimed she was behind this, trying to stay relevant with her old content because nothing new had come from her since 2013 (that was before Clutterfly was launched, maybe even before Linda released any mesh items). It suddenly became easier for the copybotting mafia to make propaganda against legal freebies, likening them all to Linda's early works or outright implying that all legal freebies are by Linda. Also, this may have led to the creation of Sacrarium, run by a Kazakh at home with Russian co-admins under a Russian domain, a grid completely out of reach for any Western jurisdiction.

One downside of the copybotting craze is that it killed large parts of OpenSim's own creativity. Ever heard of Deva Moda? Cary Bean made some great clothes out of Damien Fate meshes in times when there were no mesh clothes in OpenSim yet. But then came copybotting. All of a sudden, just about everyone who didn't want to stick with traditional avatars only wanted an Athena body and Athena clothes which were the results of copybotting the in-world stores of Maitreya, BlueBerry etc. wholesale. Cary quit on the spot because it looked like it wasn't worth carrying on. It may actually have surprised her to learn from Otto that my in-world sister @Juno Rowland enjoys wearing her creations.

Nonetheless, there have always been idealists who made what seemingly nobody wants. Some continued texturing Clutterfly and/or Damien Fate meshes which, by the way, can often be combined, e.g. Damien Fate tops and Clutterfly skirts. Thirza Ember of HG Safari fame offers a lot of this on her sim, Remmy Ravenhurst joined most recently, some more can be found in places like Astralia's ShoppingCity or at Sinus on Craft-World.

Others went all the way and even made their own meshes. Taarna Welles started with sculpties and made them into shoes and other accessories, then she switched to rigged mesh which can be found on her sims Savvy and La Baronnie. I'm friends with two more creators, Loru Destiny and Klarabella Karamell, both of whom came from layer & prim clothes and eventually went mesh. All three rig for Ruth 2.0 now, and Loru and Klara also have a few pieces for Roth 2.0. Loru's main store is not on OpenSimWorld; it can be found on her ArtDestiny grid. She also has at least one older satellite store.

Klara even had a Damien Fate phase, it's still worth getting her works from that time. She has made a whole number of mesh skirts matching Damien Fate tops this year which means that she may now be responsible for the majority of mesh skirts longer than three inches below the crotch being legal. Places where you can find Klara's creations are Meshmatsch, Bella Klara, the top floor of the Kaufrausch Megastore in Santiago and the shoe store in the Westend.

Speaking of Ruth 2.0 and Roth 2.0, OpenSim has even got its own lines of mesh bodies. Or rather trees if you look the various forks. They were originally created as basic starter avatar material that is neither as outdated and ugly as the system body nor as illegal as the other mesh bodies which existed back then.

The current lead maintainer of both, @Austin Tate / @Ai Austin, led #Ruth2 and #Roth2 into being the mesh bodies with probably the most advanced #BakesOnMesh in all of OpenSim so far, offering features which Athena 6 and Adonis 4 users still deem outright impossible such as alpha mask support or actually switching BoM off.

It's important that such endeavours are advertised and receive the attention they deserve. It's especially important because many OpenSim users believe that there literally isn't any legal content in OpenSim. This is what those who offer stolen content want them to believe. I mean, there's still anti-Linda Kellie propaganda around. Freebie merchants flat-out refuse to offer anything legal. Some openly deny that there's legal content to keep people from looking for it. Once they're proven wrong, they start badmouthing anything legal, again, to keep people from looking for it instead of acquiring content from them.

Fortunately, not all merchants are like this. Okay, maybe some are simply clueless and don't know what it is that they put into their stores as long as it's a lot. But the Ruth2 v4 and Roth2 v2 boxes are slowly spreading from freebie store to freebie store, sometimes including third-party content. That said, a good sign that some shopkeeps don't curate what they offer and just want to slap as many boxes against their walls as possible is when a new freebie store opens with Ruth 2.0 RC#2 or even the test release on one of the walls.

Sad but true: This is why many creators in OpenSim make their content no-transfer or don't allow it to be "resold" in mixed freebie stores. It makes removing outdated versions of their creations impossible. The downside, however, is that they only get very little exposure this way because everyone only ever runs to the big and popular freebie sims.

I've recently discovered a new approach to shopping, and that's a specialised sim with teleportals only to fashion stores. However, I've got a feeling that the owners of this sim don't really want to feature places with original, legal creations, and be it because the likes of Taarna Welles or Loru Destiny don't rig their works for stolen bodies.

As for keeping out illegal content or even banning entire grids because their users come in with copybotted avatar attachments, this is a double-edged sword. Sure, it's honourable, and one could say that you have to start somewhere. But the vast majority of today's avatars is decked out in 100% illegal content from head to toe.

For one, newbies are usually exposed to literally nothing else at first. Finding legal alternatives usually requires outright detective work due to how little exposure it gets whereas the illegal stuff is plastered all over all the big freebie sims. Also, it takes newbies who didn't come here from Second Life a while to realise that what they're wearing is illegal.

Also, the the Menswear Ghetto makes outfitting male avatars in mesh pretty difficult. It's even more difficult to outfit them in ways that don't make them look like leather-clad one-percenters or Russian mafiya mobsters, and it's almost impossible to outfit them in 100% legal content. Granted, women's fashion in OpenSim strongly gravitates towards outfits that'd look out of place anywhere that isn't an Ibiza club party. But female avatars simply have more choice. Juno could run around in legal clothes on a legal body all year round with only her hair being of uncertain source. I couldn't even wear shorts until recently, and I don't have anything legal for winter that isn't too blatantly unfitting either.

Which takes us to another issue for the guys: clothes matching the body. Women's fashion can greatly rely upon Maitreya Lara/Athena which has become a de-facto standard. The only notable competition is SLink Physique Hourglass/Decadence-HG for which exists considerably less clothing, but if you've got that body, dressing like the girl next door or even practically isn't on your mind anyway. For men, not only are there three illegal standard bodies (SLink Physique Male/Adonis, Signature Gianni/Apollo, Belleza Jake/Ares) across which what little fashion is available for them stretches, but it's no longer mentioned what shall fit which body. And here I'm talking about illegal clothes for illegal bodies.

Ruth2 is fortunate enough to be able to wear a lot of things, also because it's mostly rather slender. While that slenderness does bring some limitations with itself, it isn't much of a problem. Even the swimwear situation improved with the adoption of BoM. Also, there's an increasing quantity of clothing rigged for Ruth2 or with Ruth2 in mind.

Roth2, on the other hand, is so far away from any and all established standards that it's hard to make any menswear work on it, Roth2 v2 even more so than Roth2 v1/Roth 2.0 RC#1 to the point of only tops with standing or otherwise big enough collars working on it. Alpha masks become your best friends because you always end up alpha-ing out most of the body. Whereas Ruth2 is technically too thin for Damien Fate clothes, Roth2 is too thick and ends up quite lanky in what few Damien Fate clothes halfway fit. In general, clothes are way too loose around the upper chest and the lower back and clip through the lower belly and the back below the neck. There isn't a single piece of mesh swimwear that fits Roth2 v2; you have to resort to layer clothes plus a most likely self-made bulge.

Add to this that men don't wear dresses, rarely wear one-pieces in general and almost never bare their midriff. You always have to match a top and a bottom which is a pain with copybotted clothes already unless you use boxed outfits. I don't have that much to choose from, especially not when I want to go legal. For example, I can pretty much only wear legal jeans that actually look like jeans with Gavin jackets (which do come from Second Life, but with consent from the creator), Taarna's reMake hoodies or the Arcadia turtleneck. None of these are good for summer.

Now, I've got more than two and a half years of experience with Roth2 v2, not to mention an increasing number of self-made alpha masks, and I may know every last source for legal mesh clothes on the Hypergrid, no matter how obscure. What is a newbie supposed to do? A recent Second Life convert? Or someone who has to switch to Roth2 v2 from Adonis or Apollo, and who only knows the big freebie stores that barely offer anything legal?

It'd actually be hard enough to fall back to the system body with layer and prim clothes because the big freebie stores have long since quit offering these in favour of copybotted mesh stuff. Linda Kellie's creations are still the easiest to find, but even that requires detective work. As for clothes that come neither from her nor from FleepGrid, you'd better be Sherlock Holmes and/or very very lucky or know the right people if you want these.

@Ken Not only apparently. There is such a thing as #OpenSimulator. It has been around since early 2007, and the #Hypergrid was established in 2008. It even has a small but growing community in the Fediverse. You may have caught it from hearsay from people who in turn have heard about it from hearsay, but I'm an actual user. Someone who is more famous than me is @Mal Burns who also runs several series of YouTube videos including This Week in XR, MBTV and the OpenSim-specific Inworld Review.

For starters, see this FAQ page on #HypergridBusiness which has a dedicated OpenSim section labelled #Metaverse. Seriously, #OpenSim has been using that term since long before Zuckerberg tried to make everyone believe he invented it.

OpenSim is a result from the #SecondLife viewer going #OpenSource, thereby laying open Second Life's viewer API. For one, this led to the creation of third-party viewers such as the #FirestormViewer. But beyond that, a whole new platform for #VirtualWorlds was developed around that viewer API so that it'd work with the new third-party viewers, so that little had to be developed from scratch. The project started as OpenSecondLife, but it was renamed OpenSimulator prior to its public launch.

This also explains why OpenSim is so very similar to Second Life, why it's so very close to it: It still uses viewers primarily made for Second Life, albeit sometimes in dedicated OpenSim variants. The reason for this is a lack of developing capacity. See, Second Life is entirely maintained by a profit-oriented company with hundreds of hired full-time developers. OpenSim is maintained by a small bunch of spare-time developers who get code submissions from other spare-time developers from the community. And OpenSim still doesn't even have its own dedicated viewer. What few devs take care of Firestorm barely get to do more for OpenSim than absolutely necessary because they're busy enough to keep it running in Second Life.

So since the third-party viewers have to cling to Second Life's development and implement all its new innovations to stay compatible with Second Life, OpenSim is forced to follow suit to stay compatible with the viewers. New things from Second Life take their time to trickle down to OpenSim, also because they have to be more or less reverse-engineered first, but OpenSim got things like #BakesOnMesh or EEP.

The experience of Hypergridding is semi-smooth. You do get to take your entire inventory with you, for example. This also means that you can acquire things on other grids than your home grid.

There's a thing called Hypergrid v2 which introduced the "suitcase" in which items can be taken from grid to grid, so all you actually take with you is what's inside your suitcase or worn on your avatar. This was partly established in order to keep asset servers of grids from being cluttered with all kinds of stuff from all kinds of avatars' inventories. But since it's so inconvenient and cumbersome to use, few grids have adopted it, and even fewer still use it, mostly small newbie grids whose admins don't know what it is.

People Hypergrid all the time. Go to any event on the Hypergrid, and you've got folks from all over the Hypergrid as visitors. That's also because the Hypergrid is huge. An estimation says that over 8,000 individual grids are on the Hypergrid, ranging from small home-hosted personal grids to the behemoth that's #OSgrid which, all by itself, has a larger land area than Second Life.

There are a few problems, though. Some arise from not all grids always running the same OpenSim version. Some grids run development versions to always have the latest features and get bugfixes quickly. OSgrid itself is basically still the same development platform as which it was launched in 2008, so while it's the biggest grid in land mass and user numbers, it's also one of the most bleeding-edge grids. Other grids stick with stable release versions. Then there are grid owners who simply can't be bothered to upgrade. Some may have that Windows user mindset of installing once and never upgrading as long as it works. Also, there are entire grids which seems like they've spent at least the last six years under a rock with their hopelessly outdated OpenSim version and their complete lack of years of innovations, e.g. they still don't have any mesh. Last but not least, a few grids run forks of OpenSim which have been abandoned by their creators, which are therefore very outdated, but which are difficult to migrate from to vanilla OpenSim. So although OpenSim has introduced BoM some three years ago, there are still a few grids which don't support it.

Another problem is that not all grids are hosted on powerful Linux root servers in data centres. Especially lots of smaller grids are based on DreamGrid, an OpenSim distribution with a Windows-only point-and-click control interface geared towards ease-of-use for people who have zero experience in running servers. These are very often hosted at home on whatever spare Windows machine the grid admin had lying around through whatever landline the grid admin has at home. There are also people running their OpenSim grids on Raspberry Pis.

Last but not least, just like in the Fediverse, not all grids on the Hypergrid are connected to all other grids. A few grids are blocked by especially large public grids for various reasons. In the case of #ZetaWorlds, it's the other way around: They have blocked lots of other grids for a whole number of reasons, be it grids that use dynamic DNS which may wreak havoc on a grid's database, be it grids that don't offer any way to get into contact with the admin(s) other than in-world.

If you're interested, you may want to take a look at the OpenSimulator Community Conference which will take place on December 10th and 11th. I think registration is still open, and the grid it runs on offers first-time visitors to create a new avatar (it's also on the Hypergrid for those who already have avatars, but that isn't the case with you).

And another name (probably) known in #OpenSim circles has joined the #Fediverse: Ai Austin, current maintainer of #Ruth2 and #Roth2.

This is particularly exciting for me as I was an early adopter of Roth2 v2 two and a half years ago. That made me one of the first to use #BakesOnMesh, quite a while before Athena 6 came out which is usually regarded the first BoM body in OpenSim.

#OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #RuthAndRoth