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11 Comments

1. 

   It was terrific fun to build and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did putting it together and big thanks to Zuza, Dot and Tocy too!

   One thing that should be emphasized is that I dont think there are any other grids out there (including SL – Linden Homes? Yuck!) that are offering a 100% mesh, VR ready world to their users for free.

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      Thank you again for your generous contribution Ozwell. 🙂

   2. 

      and more than that, I am pretty sure no OpenSim commercial grid offers, often, any more than a barren flat region.

      WTG Kitely for even more innovative ideas and firsts!

2. 

   Kitely’s vision has always been about providing people with Virtual Worlds on Demand. This means being able to press a button to get your own copy of an optimized VR-friendly world. We’ve been enabling people to create new worlds at a press of a button since 2011, now those worlds include an option that is optimized for VR headsets.

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      Hey Ilan, well done, we have built around the Universal Campus OAR and see the clear advantages of transferring to an Evergreen Island base as we have had problems with optimising.. also like the atmoshpere created here… so in a transfer scenario how would you suggest would be the best approach and how do we know what items and structures are suitable to take with us or purchase?

      1. 

         Hi Kerry,

         Optimizing a world for VR requires reusing textures, meshes and scripts in such a way that keeps draw calls low and frame rates high. I wouldn’t recommend taking elements from the Universal Campus world template, which is not optimized for VR, and adding them to a world created using the Kitely Evergreen Island world template.

         There are quite a few content creators who sell optimized mesh items in Kitely Market that you can use in this world with good results. You can start from searching for “mesh” in the Structures category in our marketplace: https://www.kitely.com/market?cat=50600&q=mesh

         Please note that if the product details don’t specify how well optimized a particular item is then click the merchant’s name in the Kitely Market interface and use the Send Message option to inquire about the item’s triangle count and the size and number of the textures used in it.

         if you want help in acquiring items that are similar in design to the Evergreen Island and optimized to work with the existing elements in it then it may be best you contact the content creators who created the existing elements in this world. The links are provided on the last paragraph of this article.

3. 

   Took a tour…The use of mesh for rocky land masses is especially welcome as this adds quite a bit of realism. The trees also look very good. They are all the same species, but vary in their height and branch density along the trunk.

   I set the graphics quality to the highest settings for everything, and the lowest frame rate was 17.5 while using Flycam and moving the camera through dense wild flowers. Most of the time, flying around with the avatar, I experienced consistent frame rates in the 20’s. The overall experience is very smooth, as advertised.

   One particularly interesting component are the flying swallows, and the very clever way they are set in motion – check it out!

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      Hi Lawrence,

      A few things worth noting:
      1) Good computer-based VR has very high hardware requirements that are much better than the computer and graphics card you used in your test (I get much higher FPS on my own computer with Ultra settings and a graphics card that is a generation older than the baseline Oculus Ready graphics card). With an Oculus Ready setup you should be able to get FPS numbers that are 3 to 4 times higher than what you got in your test.

      2) Most VR games limit graphics quality to what in the SL-viewer would be Low/Medium graphics setting with a limited draw distance. They do so to enable the device to retain the desired frame rate. If you’re using this world on a VR device I’d recommend using Oculus Ready hardware and setting graphics to Medium/High instead of Ultra. If you do this you should be able to achieve the Oculus-recommended target of 90 FPS.

      3) The SL-derived viewers are far from optimized when it comes to minimizing draw calls. This world would have achieved a much higher frame rate on a properly optimized viewer that did things such as atlasing of textures and automatic batching of objects.

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         I understand. You want it clearly understood that this world is intended as optimized for VR and that Kitely is prepared to be used for VR headset virtual worlds. In the meantime, it is also runs faster (does it not?) for the majority of users not using the hardware that is required for VR. Furthermore, the quality of mesh is visually compelling… In the short run, this is an immediate benefit for everyone.

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            Yes, exactly. This world will perform better both for people with VR hardware and for those using the existing SL-derived viewers on run-of-time-mill computer hardware.

4. 

   It’s nice when “optimized”, “easy”, and “beatiful” all come together in one package.