Bruce A. Shields

Well it has been a while since I last posted on the website…I have been very busy with so many projects and things that I could not avoid, I just have not had time to post.  But now the new year has past, the taxes are done, the church financial reports are finished, and I can finally play again!

I have started up my OpenSim server once more on my home network, and have begun designing and building a huge sim for the kids and I to play on together.  This also allows me unlimited space to design and build models for selling on Second Life’s Marketplace without interruption from users looking for freebies and spare linden’s.

The first time I set up the OpenSim server, I was running it on an Ubuntu OS with OK results.  My biggest issue was my lack of experience with the Ubuntu system, and the pain of having to constantly look for help with even the smallest of issues.

This time around, I decided to run the OpenSim server on a windows based system, and I am very pleased with the results.

The server is basically an old unused PC I had sitting around from a trade in about a year back from a couple I know from church.  I set up their new system for them, and they asked if I wanted the old one, to which I always say yes.  I’m very big on recycling electronics, even if just for non-functioning artwork.

The server is an old HP Pavillion a1106n, it contains an Intel Pentium4 3.0Ghz CPU with hyper-threading enabled, and 500MB RAM.  It has a 150Gb hard drive, with Windows XP installed.  XP is fully up to date, and I have Avast virus installed, the FREE home edition of course!

I had to install Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express, MYSQL Server 5.1, and MYSQL Tools.

Sounds like a lot, but it actually only took a few minutes to download and install.

I then installed the Diva r13981 distribution version of OpenSim, which saves you a lot of time setting up a server.

After installation, I ran OpenSim for the first time and set up my ROOT region, from which I would build the rest of my mega-region from.

I prefer to use a mega-region for many reasons, but there are a few drawbacks as well.  most of your commands have to be submitted through the control console to specific regions as opposed to using the Hippo or Meerkat viewer.  But it’s not difficult once you know the console commands and understand how to implement them.

I had already drew a rough design for the mega-region I wanted to build.  I was envisioning a 25 region mega-region with various landscapes and environments for different types of game play.  The original drawing included a countryside, fields, trails, a forrest (which was very fun populating with trees once I discovered the console commands to do so!), a slum area, suburb, upper-class area, desert, mountains, beach and islands.

I designed these with a gradual transition between each region, making it “feel” more like you were slowly passing from one area into another without a drastic and noticeable border between the regions.

Once I finished my drawing, I began writing the region.ini file for creating the mega-region.

A basic region.ini file contains the information OpenSim needs for creating and placing the land masses, called regions.  A basic region would appear as this;

[Wasteland Park]
RegionUUID = e3e47750-2978-11e0-91fa-0800200c9a66
Location = 1000,1001
InternalAddress = 0.0.0.0
InternalPort = 9001
AllowAlternatePorts = False
ExternalHostName = SYSTEMIP
MasterAvatarFirstName = Lunk
MasterAvatarLastName = Portal
MasterAvatarSandboxPassword = ad630

After adding all 25 regions to the region.ini, I ran Open Sim and started planning sculpting the land.  This is where I had a few problems, but I will explain more in the next post