Resident Transmission | xmir

OMC is no more

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 20:39:06 +0100

Yesterday VirWox – the creator of the OMC currency used on XMIR posted the following statement to their web page.

VirWoX is closed
As previously announced, the Virtual World Exchange (VirWoX) has closed its business on January 6, 2020.
VirWoX operated for more than 12 years, first as a place to buy and sell Linden Dollars for Second Life, and since April 2011 our users also traded Bitcoin. That made VirWoX the world's oldest Bitcoin exchange after MtGox closed in 2014. We wish to thank our more than a million customers for their loyalty in all these years.
Enquiries can still be sent to support@virwox.com.
Legal Information

The immediate consequence of the closing is that XMIR currently is without a grid currency.

The Currency symbol has temporarily been set to NOK = Norwegian Kroner, but this has no significance as there are no mechanism to hold a balance on the grid per date.

Most likely the PayPal currency system will be implemented on the grid. Stay posted for updates...

News from the Rockies

Fri, 14 Jul 2017 22:02:36 +0200

It has been a rocky year since the last transmission, and without going into details, the grid is slowly waking up again with some new places to see, and many small makeovers throughout.

Down the telegraph road in Skomrak a hardware store is about to establish itself and a new road has been built up to the lake. We hear there might be a mining boomtown in the offing.

In Firat the dock was moved after the flying dolphins now traffic Ornos where the water is deeper and larger boats can use the harbour. A new road has been built to the dock in Firat, and the street lights have been extended to cover most of it. Dirt roads all over XMIR has been given a bit of a makeover as they have all been given a new layer of sand and gravel. They both look and drive better!

In Hengil a football field has been built. Pity the physics for the balls is pretty unpredictable so they usually end up at the region border.

In Verven Island an old stone fence came to light after some trees and scrubbery were cleared. The stone builders have also shown their skills in an old fence that was discovered during road construction by the small lake in Lindland. The road will connect the sea shore in Lindland with the road now ending at the rezz zone in Norderhov.

High Summer Grid status

Sat, 23 Jul 2016 15:29:26 +0200

It is already high summer and the grid has been in a slummer for some time, but a few things have happened for the sharp-eyed observer.

The dirt road in Norderhov has been extended up the hill to the eastern region border where a rezz sone has been made. This is currently the only location where it is possible to rezz a vehicle for the roads, but there will be a few more added.

The rather clunky looking support walls for the roads in andwest and andwest Bay have been replaced with walls that are both sturdy and looking good.

The secondary welcome region for hypergrid visitors has been moved from Firat to the neighboring region Ornos, together with the terminal building and dock. This is where hypergrid visitors going to grid.xmir.org:8002 will land in the event andwest is down.

Plenty of bug fixes and some improvements have been deployed to the grid servers throughout the summer. The OpenSim 0.9 dev server software is still a bit rough around the corners but slowly shaping up.

Unfortunately there is no ETA on when the grid can again be fully operational.

Spring updates

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 16:48:18 +0200

Since the last update 4 regions have been added to the East side of the grid to complete the shoreline that was pretty broken on that side. Looking at the grid map one will see it is now possible to do continuous sailing across or along the shore of 7 regions, and perhaps even 10 as it should be possible to take a canoe under the bridge in Lake Atlas and go all they way to the church in Norderhov.

The new regions are called Storskog, Lindland, Lindesnes and Verven.

Telegraph road over Badr Jabaal can now be closed by road barriers in case the weather gets too bad and makes it impassable.

There are many small updates sprinkled around, but most of the focus has been on upgrading the grid software by adding more functionality and fixing broken stuff, in addition to contributing to the Kokua viewer both for speed, reliability and making sure functionality that works in SecondLife is also useable in OpenSim grids.

One such notable addition in Kokua has been the ability to upload meshes with more than 8 materials per mesh.

SecondLife slash land setup fees by up to 40%

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 21:03:48 +0100

In an announcement made today Linden Lab has slashed setup fees for land with as much as 40% effective immediately.

A single region – called Full Private Island, has the setup fee reduced from $1000 to $600, while a Homestead that was $375 is down to $225.

Qualified educational and nonprofit organizations will continue to receive a 50% discount off the applicable set-up fee (as well as 50% off ongoing maintenance fees).

Despite the reduction, the pricing for a single region is still in the order of 10x more expensive than a comparable region on most OpenSim grids.

The full priceless and details can be found in the SecondLife blog.

October updates

Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:23:33 +0100

While the grid is closed till a reliable solution can be found for a network connection, there are still small things happening to the grid.

The most noticeable are the addition of 3 new regions east of Firat to make a more natural end of the Murat River flowing into the Firat Bay.

The Bakxos Greek taverna moved onto a height overlooking the new bay and the road was extended from the bridge to below it.

The Murat telecoms building also got an update with a full second floor making it possible for an avatar to walk inside both storeys.

Future plans

As the dust settles the grid will gradually get more regions to the East to make the landscape flow more natural into the sea.

andwest will get a new store building next to the gas station and maybe even a small little street with a couple houses up the hill

The plan is to take the so-called “avination merge” opensim version when it becomes available, but I suspect Postgres support will be lacking, so this needs to be corrected. This might be the time to start preparing for the Postgres 9.5 update due out of beta in January 2016, and rewrite the general table handler to take advantage of the “upsert” functionality in 9.5 – which should bring the code closer to the MySQL version.

There once was a court

Sat, 22 Aug 2015 17:04:43 +0200

There once was a court in Concinna. A court that saw high drama, unbelievable stories, sad fates, conflict resolution, but also petty crime and theft.

The court had judges, prosecutors, lawyers, witnesses, court admin, police officers guards and almost 2000 convicts during its 19 months of operation.

The court originally assembled for the first time in the summer of 2007 in Ghul, but since there was no more land there to expand on, it was moved to Concinna in December 2008 where it stayed till SecondLife went trough an upheaval that sent it to Bay City, on to Fenfarg, and back again to Concinna. The turmoil had taken its toll on the court so in 2011 it was closed for good. The building decayed and was taken down in the winter of 2015.

Enter Murat. – Murat has quite a few buildings from the MOSES sims, and one of the original buildings was a court. Although not a bad build at all, it was a traditional prim build both in style and impact on the sim with a large number of scripts.

By putting together pieces that had been made over a long period (since 2012) and combining them with the two story version of the vicar house building, Murat still has a court; The Murat River Valley District Court. Perhaps one day it too will be the scene of drama the likes of what passed down in Concinna.

Window dressing the old vicar house

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 16:51:54 +0200

Sometimes the light and photo opportunities on the grid just takes you. The old vicar houses in Norderhov was up for some window dressing as the original very industrial looking windows no longer fit the environment.

As darkness fell and the cam was zoomed out this very 1850-ties national romantic moonlit scene just emerged – as if painted.

Tying up some loose ends

Sun, 09 Aug 2015 21:33:58 +0200

The last few weeks have been spent tying up some loose ends in and around the grid.

One corner of the Conference Center was still standing empty and barren so something had to be done about it. A bar desk and cozy lanterns was made and the icing on the cake was a very nice looking grand piano that was licensed for use on the grid. It all came together quite nicely in the end.

Presence is everything

A number of software issues that prevented the grid from working properly was sorted out by updating the database tables in the PostgreSQL database – tables and driver software that had been badly neglected compared to the MySQL counterpart that most grids are based on. By fixing the Presence service - the piece of software that tells who is logged on to the grid, who is visiting and where they are, made a number of pieces fall in place and the grid and visitors are so much happier. You can even visit with a 64-bit viewer without being kicked to the ground.

There is still an issue with IM sent to someone who is offline, and the same type of issue exist with placing classifieds. The good thing is the root cause has been identified, so a work-around can be found.

High Summer

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 21:40:20 +0200

It is high summer with less time for grid development but a few things have been in the works.

The grid has grown by a few residents after the registration page was added. A very warm welcome to them!

A new set of signage can be seen at road intersections throughout, and was designed to double as both direction markers and marking street names.

The OMC software has been updated with missing functionality so it is now possible to have vendors and rental boxes that works properly A group inviter developed by Virtec has been verified to work on the grid.

You can now “Grab” objects: use Ctrl+Drag to move them, and Ctrl+Shift+Drag to rotate them. In addition the llCastRay function has been significantly updated, and llGetGeometricCenter, llGetBoundingBox and llGetEnv are available for scripting. The OSSL scripting function osGetGender is available too.

Searching for groups now works, but group note notification to offline residents are not working as it should. The same is the case with online status for residents. It looks like we bumped into only half tested code. It is being investigated to get it working predictably.

Default avatars

Sat, 20 Jun 2015 21:15:07 +0200

XMIR will soon have a female and male default avatar which will be a big improvement over the default avatar that is standard in OpenSim, and that new residents have had to suffer till now.

A preview of the female avatar taking a well deserved rest in the summer night.

Welcome region for XMIR residents

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 16:38:56 +0200

The work on a Welcome region for new XMIR residents is coming together. It has aptly been called Landfall.

Landfall is the first place people who register as residents will arrive. Here they will find information about the grid, their account and basic clothing and avatar items to set them up for the journey to the main grid. This is also where they have set home till they can find a better place to settle down. Landfall is not accessible to hypergrid visitors.

Welcome regions are always places in change with constant improvements and new information as the grid evolves.

End of May grid news

Sat, 30 May 2015 17:19:11 +0200

The grid saw a number of major and minor improvements over the month of May. One milestone was completion of the road from andwest to Murat River, extending the passable roads to closer to 4 km. The stretch has been named the Telegraph Road, and an old style telegraph line has been built along the road from the reservoir in Hengill to the radio Station in Badr Jabaal.

In Skomrak the road cross the bridge over a creek from the lake. The creek has some smaller waterfalls before it empties into the sea at Ornos. A mesh water animation tile was created for the creek to look natural as it runs between the waterfalls.

The Telegraph road has been given route number 2, and the road from Herad to Norderhov has been given route number 1. Parts of route 1 has been called “Behnveien”. Roads will be marked with name signs.

Festplassen - outdoor dancing

An outdoor dancing platform has been built in Lake Atlas in the hillside over the Motel. The view extend from andwest Bay all the way to the snow covered mountains of the Seven Sisters.

Oculus pause Rift VR development for OS X and Linux

Sat, 16 May 2015 09:48:40 +0200

It turns out development for Oculus Rift VR has been paused for Mac and Linux till after the 2016 Windows launch. – "We want to get back to development for OS X and Linux but we don't have a timeline." according to Oculus Atman Binstock.

Oculus has also specified the recommended hardware requirements to use the Rift.

• NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater

• Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater

• 8GB+ RAM

More information in the Oculus VR Blog.

Road Works

Wed, 13 May 2015 11:44:30 +0200

In the recent weeks road works has been ongoing extending the asphalt road from the Texaco station in andwest up to the Hengill Water Reservoir where it ends in a parking space.

From there a dirt road has been laid winding across the plain in Hengill over to Skomrak where it cross straight over to Badr Jabaal. Here it stops under a steep cliff, but with a 4WD it should be possible to pass over and take the path down to Murat River.

UPDATE: The road has now reached Murat River after climbing the steep Badr Jabaal.

May Day Updates

Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:13:48 +0200

XMIR is never quite sleeping and there has been a number of small changes over the last couple weeks.

Destination Guide

Collectively the community figured out how to set up a Destination Guide in the viewers much like the SecondLife Destination Guide, and we have set ours to point to the hypergrid wide one provided by Hyperica. Here you can look for current events, freebies, shopping, venues or other grids to visit. If you use Kokua a Destinations button can be added to the toolbar. Other viewers can do the same or display it from a menu.

In addition we have set up beacons in 5 locations which will update the OpensimWorld site with information on how many avatars are logged into a region. Users of OpensimWorld can like and comment on regions, so if you have visited XMIR and enjoy our regions, please give us a thumbs up there.

Map Changes

Three regions have been given new names and the Badr Jabaal name was moved to the new map location where there actually was a mountain. In addition one region was given a completely new landscape with the Skomrak lake under the foot of the Badr Jabaal. The other inland lake has been renamed to Lauperak, Windfall was renamed to Lervik, and finally one region was given the name Kapp, which means cape in English.

Gas Station and Post Office

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 14:14:49 +0200

The gas station and Post office in the andwest region is nearing completion. This was a project that was started in February but had slow progress because of lack of good textures for the pumps and signs. Armed with a nice selection of vintage textures from Texaco, the station has taken on a look of the early 50-ties, when we believe it was built.

The building will also house the Post Office of XMIR, and the postmaster is ready to move in on short notice. The entire build is mesh, with components made over the last year or so, such as the windows that are on sale both on Kitely and SecondLife Marketplace.

In the summer time it is nice to sit down outside, watch the sea, sip a Coke or enjoy a cup of coffee while watching visitors stop by for a chat, to get gas or pick up their mail.

Tidbits in early April

Wed, 08 Apr 2015 20:55:55 +0200

Lots of small changes have happened around the grid – also behind the scenes.

With April spring arrived and most of the landscape and trees are now in a fresh spring green only with snow on the peaks and the Seven Sisters mountains.

The small cabins in Lake Atlas has undergone a transformation where the cleanup of the mesh became more fundamental so they have gone from shacks to a place you might want to move into.

The motel at Lake Atlas has also seen a bit of renovation and there are finally beds in all the rooms, but still a bit to go before opening season.

The Chapel in Norderhov finally got a more representative entrance where there is now a pier where you could arrive by boat as they did way back when. The pier also serves as the landing point from which you can walk up the broad stairs to the chapel – the ideal place for a married couple to shoot their wedding photos.

Speaking about the landing, here one can also see the Hypergrid terminal for OpenSim World, which in many ways is the OpenSim answer to the SecondLife Destination Guide. We also got their webpage to load in the Destination Guide floater in most of the viewers, so expect to see some developments here, also from Hyperica, as pages are formatted to fit the space in the floaters.

Cleaning up the Mesh

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 12:52:20 +0100

The first mesh items that eventually became components of buildings and sites on XMIR were created in 2011, but much of the mesh that were created back then is rather inefficient for use in OpenSim or SecondLife simply because the majority of tutorials and training focus on creating medium to high polygon mesh – so that is what they ended up being. The two platforms, on the other hand really requires what many will call game ready mesh items, meaning polygon count must be kept as low as possible and texturing techniques are rather used to compensate for the lack of geometry.

Some of the initial mesh has been cleaned up, simplified and complemented with missing parts, and one of the results is the rather simple but nice Garden Fence that can be seen in the Norderhov region outside the church.

Also the cabins in andwest Bay has taken a major renovation where parts such as doors and windows have been changed so they can be used in general builds and not only in those cabins. They will soon be spotted elsewhere on the grid and on the marketplace as well.

The Conference Center nearing completion

Fri, 20 Mar 2015 21:27:16 +0100

It was time to give the grid a place for people to have meetings, exhibitions, conferences or just a place to sit down and chat, so in early February land was leveled in Barcola, and building of the XMIR Conference Center started.

Mesh had to be made, more mesh had to be made, SSL Handshake errors eliminated from viewers, information boards to be acquired, chairs and lecterns to be set up with animations and poses, and texturing to be done for a modern and versatile look.

Finally the center is nearing completion with two group meeting rooms, one bigger room seating 20+ avatars, and a big hall that can take 40+ avatars. There is also a representative reception area, a cafeteria that can seat 24 avatars and the bar is nearing completion. There is even a restroom in the making. All meeting rooms have MoaP screens, comfortable chairs and a fantastic fjord and mountain view.

The center can be booked by inquiry to XMIR.

Some of the mesh items developed are for sale on the Kitely Market or in-world on XMIR.