OpenSim’s official upgrade is out; supports varregions and Bullet physics

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About a month ago, a preview of OpenSim 0.8 came out, with rotating regions, Bullet physics, and variable-sized regions.

The testing is now complete, and the official, recommended 0.8 release is now out.

Get all the details about the update in the release notes, or read our earlier story about the preview release.

Bullet physics roller coaster by Michael Cerquoni, also known as Nebadon Izumi in-world. Click image for full video.
Bullet physics roller coaster by Michael Cerquoni, also known as Nebadon Izumi in-world. Click image for full video.

The single biggest change is Bullet physics.

Justin Clark-Casey
Justin Clark-Casey

“Bullet is a much more efficient physics implementation than ODE,” said OpenSim core developer Justin Clark-Casey in today’s announcement. ODE was the previous default physics engine for OpenSim. “For the same amount of CPU, you’ll be able to fit many more non-sitting avatars and physical objects on a simulator with Bullet than you could with ODE.  Bullet also receives much more active development than ODE has in recent years.”

However, ODE will still remain an option for region or grid owners who have vehicle scripts optimized for ODE.

“Re-enabling it is just a case of change the physics engine setting in the [Startup] section of OpenSim.ini,” said Clark-Casey.

Eye-level view of one of Swondo's varregion terrains.
Eye-level view of one of Swondo’s varregion terrains.

The other big change are variable-sized regions. Several vendors have already jumped ahead on this, and have begun offering these super-sized regions at no additional cost to their customers, including  Swondo, Dreamland Metaverse, Zetamex and Sasso.

 

Maria Korolov
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