If you can say that OpenSim is something like a free alternative to SecondLife, then Overte can be compared to free Sansar. It has very good graphics and real-time lighting. Overte is a fork of the Virсadia project, which in turn inherited the code of the High Fidelity project. The founder of High Fidelity was the well-known and brilliant creator of Linden Lab (SecondLife) - Philip Rosdale! “High Fidelity was founded in April 2013 by Second Life founder and former CEO Philip Rosedale, Ryan Downe Karpf, and Irena Freidrica Heiberger. The company was formed to create a next-generation virtual reality platform featuring low latency, spatialized 3D audio, high-detail environments, realistic avatars, and a working economy built on blockchain”- This is what you can find on wikipedia. High Fidelity was supposed to be the next step in the development of virtual worlds after SecondLife. Unfortunately, this did not happen. In 2019, the virtual world of High Fedility ceases to operate. The company decided to close this project. A generous gesture on the part of the company was the publication of open source code. If I remember correctly, it was announced to all users that the project was being closed. Then it was said that everyone can get the source code of High Fedility for some time, after which the repositories will also be closed. Then the High Fidelity code was significantly revised and improved in the Vircadia project. The founder of the project Kalila and the guys did an amazing job to make the virtual world as convenient and useful as possible. I've spent some time at High Fidelity and have something to compare to. High Fidelity seemed very uncomfortable to me in many ways. When I met Vircadia I was blown away by how great this engine works! They completely changed the course of history and gave users freedom of choice and creativity as never before. Why do we talk about "freedom"? I will now try to explain to you what is meant. Of course, creativity. You can create anything you want in absolutely any way. But not only that. Just imagine that no registration exists anymore. You simply visit numerous virtual worlds as a guest. Any Virtual World can be independent, or can connect to one of the global metaverses. You can just be anonymous, choose any nickname, or none at all. You can also sign up for a metaverse if you want. Metaverses only help manage access to virtual worlds, enjoy certain rights and services. For example, some virtual worlds are only open to registered users. This can help create a spawn location and publish your world to the global list. You can also use statistics services for your metaverse world etc. Otherwise, metaverses do not play a particularly important role. This is somewhat similar to a hypergrid, with the only difference being that for a hypergrid you must be registered somewhere in order to exist as a user.
Each world here is called a "domain". This three-dimensional space is 4096 km2 in size. To make it easier for you to imagine, the area of Nagasaki Prefecture is 4130 km2.
Today Vircadia team continues its work on the core of the project. As I said, Overte is a fork of Vircadia (I love this both). The Overte team also added many interesting and even revolutionary features. This is a very responsive community of enthusiasts who love their work and bring the era of free metaverses available to everyone. As an experiment, we decided to port the headquarters of the Sacrarium in Overte to introduce you all to the amazing legacy of High Fidelity. When compared with Opensim, we can say that there are many similar opportunities here. This is likely the future of open source metaverses. We have prepared a little teaser for you.
If you can say that OpenSim is something like a free alternative to SecondLife, then Overte can be compared to free Sansar. It has very good graphics and real-time lighting. Interestingly, Overte is a fork of the Virсadia project, which in turn inherited the code of the High Fidelity project. The founder of High Fidelity was the well-known and brilliant creator of Linden Lab (SecondLife) - Philip Rosdale! “High Fidelity was founded in April 2013 by Second Life founder and former CEO Philip Rosedale, Ryan Downe Karpf, and Irena Freidrica Heiberger. The company was formed to create a next-generation virtual reality platform featuring low latency, spatialized 3D audio, high-detail environments, realistic avatars, and a working economy built on blockchain”- This is what you can find on wikipedia. High Fidelity was supposed to be the next step in the development of virtual worlds after SecondLife. Unfortunately, this did not happen. In 2019, the virtual world of High Fedility ceases to operate. The company decided to close this project. A generous gesture on the part of the company was the publication of open source code. If I remember correctly, it was announced to all users that the project was being closed. Then it was said that everyone can get the source code of High Fedility for some time, after which the repositories will also be closed. Then the High Fidelity code was significantly revised and improved in the Vircadia project. The founder of the project Kalila and the guys did an amazing job to make the virtual world as convenient and useful as possible. I've spent some time at High Fidelity and have something to compare to. High Fidelity seemed very uncomfortable to me in many ways. When I met Vircadia I was blown away by how great this engine works! If Kalila is not a saint, then I don't know who can be called a saint))). She completely changed the course of history and gave users freedom of choice and creativity as never before. Why do we talk about "freedom"? I will now try to explain to you what is meant. Of course, creativity. You can create anything you want in absolutely any way. But not only that. Just imagine that no registration exists anymore. You simply visit numerous virtual worlds as a guest. Any Virtual World can be independent, or can connect to one of the global metaverses. You can just be anonymous, choose any nickname, or none at all. You can also sign up for a metaverse if you want. Metaverses only help manage access to virtual worlds, enjoy certain rights and services. For example, some virtual worlds are only open to registered users. This can help create a spawn location and publish your world to the global list. You can also use statistics services for your metaverse world etc. Otherwise, metaverses do not play a particularly important role. This is somewhat similar to a hypergrid, with the only difference being that for a hypergrid you must be registered somewhere in order to exist as a user.
Each world here is called a "domain". This three-dimensional space is 4096 km2 in size. To make it easier for you to imagine, the area of Nagasaki Prefecture is 4130 km2.
Today Vircadia team continues its work on the core of the project. As I said, Overte is a fork of Vircadia (I love this both). The Overte team also added many interesting and even revolutionary features. This is a very responsive community of enthusiasts who love their work and bring the era of free metaverses available to everyone. Overte seemed more stable to me. Overte client runs even on fairly old computers. Added an unique voxel system. You can build anything you like from voxels. Overte becomes more and more stable by each new release. There is some difference between Vircadia and Overte: Vircadia is focused on the web client, while Overte believes that “interface” provides a lot more options and possibilities. The choice, as always, depends on your personal goals.
As an experiment, we decided to port the headquarters of the Sacrarium in Overte to introduce you all to the amazing legacy of High Fidelity. When compared with Opensim, we can say that there are many similar opportunities here. This is likely the future of open source metaverses. We have prepared a little teaser for you).
Enough words! If you want to try it, just download it, install "interface" and click here!
Operating system:
Windows 8.1 64-bit, Windows 10 64-bit, or Windows 11 64-bit
Ubuntu 18.04 64 bit, or most other modern Linux distributions
CPU:
Minimum: Dual-core with hyper-threading
Recommended: Quad-core with hyper-threading or better
System memory: Minimum: 8GB
Graphics adapter: Minimum: Nvidia 600 series
Recommended: Nvidia 900 series or higher
Minimum: AMD Radeon HD 87XX series
Recommended: AMD Radeon HD 89XX series or higher
Minimum: Intel 5th generation CPU integrated Iris graphics. Using Intel integrated graphics is not recommended.
P.S. Overte interface has higher system requirements than Firestorm. Therefore, if you have an old computer, this may not work. But don't get upset. In the very near future a solution will be found that does not require high system performance and will be available to everyone. Just wait.
