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Kitely has added support for physically based rendering (PBR) materials in both its virtual worlds and on the Kitely Market, the company announced this week. The update also includes support for textures up to 2,048 by 2,048 pixels in size. PBR materials allow for more realistic textures by simulating howRead More →

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Update (Sep 1, 2024): Several educators have asked to be able to order after the school year has started. To accommodate their request, Kitely decided to extended the offer until September 15. Only 10 more people will be able to take advantage of this deal, and there will be noRead More →

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Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, implementing an enhanced version of OpenSim 0.9.2.2. This update comes on the heels of a recent system-wide upgrade that doubled world performance. According to an announcement earlier this week, the new version of OpenSim includesRead More →

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Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, doubling the performance of all Kitely regions without increasing prices. The company has achieved this by adopting the latest Amazon server technology, the M7i generation, while maintaining its existing pricing structure. “This upgrade enablesRead More →

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OpenSim land area has passed 130,000 standard region equivalents this month, for a new all-time high. This is the second month in a row that OpenSim has set a land record. The total number of regions grew by over 2,000 over the past month. Registered users also increased, by moreRead More →

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StoryLink Radio and Seanchai Library will host a series of Halloween-themed live voice, streamed, and in-world storytelling sessions during the month of October, which is high story-telling season. Virtual world citizens are welcome to listen to the stories at the Halloween Merchant Mall in Kitely. There will also be aRead More →

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OpenSim grid stats decreased by 1,347  active users and 131 regions this month compared to last month’s tally due to several grids suffering outages or not publishing their statistics this month. For example, New Life Italy did not report its active user stats this month — it had over 400Read More →

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The public OpenSim grids reported over 2,600 new active users this month, the biggest increase since last fall. The total land area also hit a record high, of 125,841 standard region equivalents. All of the growth has been on hypergrid-enabled grids. In fact, there were only 499 active users reported byRead More →

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The public OpenSim grids gained nearly 2,000 regions this past month, and more than 1,300 new registrations, but continued to bleed active users as the weather improves and people spend less time inside at their computers. However, the total number of active public grids has reached a new record highRead More →

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The size of OpenSim virtual land just got bigger this month by an additional 996 standard-size regions even as the number of active users dropped by 991, mostly likely due to normal seasonal variations. OpenSim also added close to 3,000 new registered users this month, reversing the hefty loss ofRead More →

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OpenSim added 2,061 active users this past month, hitting a new record high of 47,169 unique monthly users. Some of the increase could be due to the recently-concluded OpenSimulator Community Conference , or due to the fact that people are home from work or school for the holidays, and haveRead More →

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The public OpenSim grids lost more than 4,000 active users and nearly 2,000 regions since this time last month for a combination of reasons, the biggest being the closure of the Metropolis grid. Metropolis closed at the end of June so that the owners could focus on educational projects. TheRead More →

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Griefers can be a real nuisance in OpenSim. Also known as bad faith players, they can fill a world with various self-replicating items to deliberately irritate other users. There are a number of ways to do away with the objects left by griefers, including automatic detection, shutdown, and restarting ofRead More →

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OpenSim reported land area growth for the third month in a row with the addition of more than 1,400 new regions, for a new record high of 114,567 standard region equivalents. Active monthly users went up by 525, for a new record high of 44,061. Logicamp and Creatrix World —Read More →

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All OpenSim stats are up this month. The total land area of the public OpenSim grids increased by more than 1,000 regions, to 100,880, while the active users increased by more than 3,000, to 43,272. Creatrix World, which reported more than 700 regions last month, is currently recovering from aRead More →

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The total number of active users was up quite a bit this month, but total land area and registered users dropped slightly. The loss of 144 standard region equivalents and 1,141 registered users was more than accounted for by the fact that FrancoGrid had server issues and didn’t report itsRead More →

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Phillip Rosedale is returning as a strategic investor and advisor to Second Life, a company he founded 19 years ago, but it is unlikely that Second Life is going to change much given the tough company culture, closed nature of the platform, and the fact that High Fidelity is itselfRead More →

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The number of active public grids hit a record high of 382 this month, but usage stats were down across the board. The number of active users dropped by 3,844 since this time last month, to 37,301. This is mainly because several grids, including German World Grid and 3rd RockRead More →

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Active users passed 40,000 for the first time in history, hitting 41,145, up more than 2,000 compared to last month. This despite a number of grids not reporting their stats this month including Tag Grid, which typically has more than 1,500 unique monthly logins. The number of registered uses alsoRead More →

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The Hypergrid Safari tours will resume in January after more than three years off. The safari, which involves travel to arranged grids, will kick off at the brand new HG Safari region on OSgrid at 12 noon Pacific time on Wednesday, January 12. The group plans ten trips during theRead More →

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More than 300 valid responses came in for the Twelfth Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Wildwood Bayou received nearly perfect scores in all categories, with Utopia Skye, Enchanted Grid, Craft World and Kitely close behind. Wildwood Bayou, Utopia Skye, and Enchanted Grid were all write-in grids. Most years, there’s at leastRead More →

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AviTron, is testing out cryptocurrency as an in-world payment method in addition to its in-world currency, Tron. The grid will be accepting Bitcoin and Dogecoin as payment for land rentals and in-world purchases, despite the fact that the currencies are highly volatile and pose regulatory and other hazards for grids.Read More →

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All OpenSim stats were up this month. Despite Tag grid not reporting its user numbers, OpenSim actives were up by 107, while land area increased by the equivalent of 673 standard regions. In addition, OpenSim’s public grids registered 875 new users. Most of the regions added this month are hypergridabble,Read More →

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OpenSim added more than 1,300 active users this month, after a drop of nearly 5,000 last month. Public grids also registered 2,670 new user accounts. Land area slipped slightly — by 507 regions, but nothing like last month’s drop of 4,361. The drop in area was fully accounted for, andRead More →

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OpenSim lost both land area and active users this month. Part of it is seasonal, with schools out of session, and people going outside to enjoy the nice weather. Part of the loss is because The Tag Grid, which reported nearly 1,700 active users last month, did not share thoseRead More →

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OpenSim stats went up across the board this month, with the number of regions hitting yet another record high, despite a cleanup on OSgrid that took down more than 1,000 region map reservations. Overall, land area went up by the equivalent of 86 standard regions, for a new high ofRead More →

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Update 5/19: AnSky is switching away from Gloebit, possibly to a local currency on the jOpenSimMoney module. The Gloebit payment services is back up this week, kind of, after more than a month of downtime, but many grids and users are still reporting issues with the payment system. “We restoredRead More →

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Textures that previously took 15 to 30 seconds to appear now take less than two, due to the March update to the Firestorm viewer. That means that OpenSim builders, creators, and shoppers who use the Firestorm Viewer can pull textures from their inventories, drop them on an object, and immediatelyRead More →

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OpenSim’s total land area hit a record high this month, with the equivalent of 90,310 regions. And this is actually an undercount — many grids don’t report their stats, many schools and company grids run in completely private mode, and some grids count large variable-sized regions as single regions. ThisRead More →

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OpenSim land area grew the equivalent of 2,270 standard regions and OpenSim grids reported more than 4,000 new registered users this month compared to last month. However, the number of active users dropped by 646. This loss — and then some — could be attributed to Foundation Grid and VirtualRead More →

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OpenSim grids added a total of 1,574 standard region equivalents to their land area in the last one month, while the number of active users increased by 375. On a further positive note, OpenSim gained an additional 4,000 registered users. OSgrid gained the largest land area in terms of theRead More →