The Latest From realXtend
I checked in with realXtend over the weekend. They’re up to version 0.3 now, and showing some serious promise.
For those of you unfamiliar: this is a virtual world technology based on Second Life. They’ve added some major features, including “meshes” (the graphic component almost every 3D environment but Second Life uses) and the ability to import and export everything from avatars to objects. They even include some great tools for working with standard 3d applications.
Launching the server was as easy as launching any other application, and in no time I was walking around a world on my hard drive. I was able to log into a remote demo server as well, and exported my avatar onto their server with no problems.
Modifying avatars in this thing is fantastic. Everything is pull-down menus and buttons, making it very easy to browse content. Clothes look awesome, actually draping on your avatar in a very realistic way. You can even tweak the way it handles animations, changing your posture and walk speed, and you get extremely fine control of the way you look right down to the length of individual fingers.
I could go on about the features, but I’ll let the video tell the story:
When these guys hit 1.0 the web will quake. (For more background on realXtend, check out this most excellent article at UgoTrade.)
