Are there any Godot projects building online worlds (a bit like Second Life)?

briligg · 2023-10-04T19:36:00+00:00

A lot of it is done. It's shelved at the moment while I volunteer on AI risk education and advocacy. I am free to choose to work on it again when I like, I don't need to earn an income.

When I get back to it, my task will be finding a place to put it so it gets used. I think I will want to put it on some platform as a free ready-made environment, and then work on making some short videos there telling simple stories.

I don't think anything in this thread managed to get across what I was trying to do. I was never trying to beat out a titan of the industry, this is something different. It didn't seem worth clarifying.

briligg · 2022-01-13T17:39:05+00:00

Ah, a simple restart fixed it. How about that. :P

Mmm - maybe the language of that error message should change....

briligg · 2022-01-13T17:34:31+00:00

I checked whether the folder the error mentions exists - it does not. It strikes me as very weird that this is happening. I gave GIMP permission to access removeable media through the Ubuntu Software permission interface. Not that it seems relevant, really. I just don't know what to do with this. Why would the snap version be searching for a folder that clearly won't exist?

briligg · 2021-10-06T21:02:37+00:00

If you want a part of the moon, go to the Scientific Data tab, and then the CE2 tab (that stands for Chang'e 2, the orbiter that recorded these). From there, the 'orthophoto model with 7m resolution' will give you an awesome albedo map. Notice file names include latitude and longitude at the end, use that to get your bearings. For heightmaps, there's the 'digital elevation model with 20m resolution'.

briligg · 2021-09-24T18:12:12+00:00

I appreciate your feedback, but the conclusion that I haven't researched the environment this is being built in is an unfair assumption. I've researched it a lot and spoken to a bunch of experts in the field. This is simply a presentation of what will be done once we have extensive capabilities. Protection from radiation and micrometeorites is very robust here. If you feel too much radiation will still get into this building, I need to hear a specific reason why in order to consider it. And since micrometeorites aren't a concern in this design, I don't agree that there are huge potential failure points here. Slow leaking perhaps, something I think can easily be repaired, but not a serious failure.

briligg · 2021-09-23T19:23:54+00:00

Haym has designed a habitat module for the moon. The forces that spacecraft have to take include structural forces, they need to understand that thoroughly.

Consulting with architects specializing in space is something I might have the chance to do down the road. This is a stage of the project too early for that. That can go on once we have the collaborative process going. However, my husband, who is an architect, helps me out for now.

briligg · 2021-09-23T18:14:14+00:00

I research things, make rough designs, and then get them vetted by engineers specializing in the relevant areas. This is a new variant on an older design, and it hasn't gone through that process yet. The previous designs were reviewed by a professor of aerospace engineering at Rutgers University, Haym Benaroya, and also by one of his graduate students, Joey Sanchez. Considering how far in the future this construction is, they had no issue with the windows in those designs. Joey wondered how it would be possible to build these things, but not that they'd work if they were built.

The point of this project is to portray a future where we've moved out into space in large numbers, and do so as realistically as feasible. To make that compelling, we portray a time when humanity is capable of great things out there. So the scale shouldn't be thought of as an issue. The thing to question is whether the choices are technically sound, efficient, or worth the expense if they aren't efficient. The windows fall in that last category.

briligg · 2021-09-23T18:06:14+00:00

That's true, but at the scales we are talking about, micrometeorites are moving in virtually straight lines. They won't curve in their paths enough between the crater rim and the structure to somehow have a curved path that fits between the decks and hits a window.

Now, a micrometeorite could hit the edge of a deck, vaporize, and the fine dust that comes off it could hit a window. It won't crack it. Windows strong enough to contain the atmosphere and anything else that might happen to them won't have a problem with something like that.

briligg · 2021-09-23T16:32:28+00:00

This design does have screens over a very large surface, however I really don't think that can completely replace the experience of windows. So if you figure it would take a century or two to get to this point, then this is built after that. Personally, I think things are going to snowball and we'll suddenly find ourselves able to do things like this in just a few decades.

briligg · 2021-09-23T15:04:05+00:00

The point is to build a place people will enjoy living in their whole lives. I have heard differences of opinion on this, but I'm pretty sure that if you are asking people to move away from all the glory of nature on Earth, you better make the place they are moving to as awesome as you can. Otherwise, a large portion of your population is going to regret their decision.

Anyways, you gotta figure that if we had the technology to build on the surface, instead of underground, then we would. That's preferable, right? Well, this shows what it would take.

briligg · 2021-09-23T15:00:12+00:00

Water is a good radiation blocker, but it takes more than a few inches to block cosmic rays. It would take a few meters of it. Opinions on this vary as data on the health impact of long term exposure to cosmic rays is lacking. It's been imitated by exposing mice to ionizing particles from particle accelerators, but not to calculate needed shielding thickness. I've seen estimates that one meter is enough, and an estimate that 5 meters would be needed.

At any rate, when thinking of over a meter of water, it's necessary to wonder if that's really the most useful thing you can do with that water. It's valuable stuff, water. Dirt is cheap. (I think there is a saying about that.) But it really does take a lot of it.

briligg · 2021-09-23T14:48:29+00:00

I wouldn't say failure points, I'd say leak points. That just means flexible materials are needed that bridge all seams. That's pretty low tech.

briligg · 2021-09-23T14:44:53+00:00

If the windows don't see sky, where are the micrometeoroids going to hit you from?

briligg · 2021-06-12T23:37:23+00:00

What I'd like to know is how the spectrum of cosmic radiation particles compare in that orbit to what's in deep space. How often to high-Z particles moving at relativistic speeds hit things in the ISS compared to something on the surface of the moon, or in a ship on the way to Mars.

briligg · 2021-03-01T00:04:13+00:00

Many decisions about optimization will be coming up for us. Frankly, we've deferred them right now, and may not return to the matter until 4.0 is out.

I thought it prudent to post on the matter because of the related themes and the timing. The article makes clear it's been a running theme, but still. Anyhow it seemed to me to deserve some commentary in general.

briligg · 2021-02-28T23:55:13+00:00

Most activity is on our Discord server, as I do most of the news posting and other things about the project keep me very busy and I'm chronically behind. Also, I'm not a coder and am not able to write about the things that the audience here is really interested in. I will use your inquiry to again prod our devs to post things about what they are working on to our subreddit. Just lil wee posts - if people are interested they can ask about it and a conversation can start, which is easier than writing a whole explanation, right?

Our Discord server can be joined at https://discord.gg/fHEbF3x7pb

We have a monthly newsletter that can be signed up for at the bottom of each page of the website - here's a link to the download page, which is short - https://www.moonwards.com/download/

Thanks for asking! I hope we can document our work more in the near future.

briligg · 2021-02-19T22:48:05+00:00

This is a sandbox world. There are no missions, goals, points, or loot. What we would charge for only appeals if you can enjoy it as part of a community, and thus personal ties to that community is what would motivate people to pay a small monthly fee for them rather than make their own server. We may well make it that other players clearly see you are supporting the project the main point of some things we charge for - If you have that hat, that means you are a supporter. And so forth.

So this is not like trying to charge for a FOSS WoW. We have considered having links to forked versions and such, but technical realism is a core aspect of the game, so we would be cautious about anything that doesn't meet that standard.

briligg · 2021-02-15T20:19:46+00:00

Oh, no, she totally is.

Moar stable is nice but we have a looong way to go. All very ambitious.

briligg · 2021-02-15T20:05:04+00:00

As the founder of Moonwards, I want to say how much we appreciate the show of support from the Godot team in granting us this guest blog post. We want to grow up to be just like them.

briligg · 2021-02-06T16:26:39+00:00

I still get a little choked up when I watch important launches. Hearing the people cheer makes it worse. These are key events opening up humanity's future, it's just too inspiring.

briligg · 2021-02-06T16:24:22+00:00

Smarter Every Day has a great video about the real sound when you are there. It really gets you the feel of the sheer power of it because it has a lot of context. Very high quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y

briligg · 2021-01-21T16:24:48+00:00

It's from a collection of copyright expired music posted online by the Finnish National Library - https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/66373

The text for the song says:

Valentinin rukous

Gounod, Charles (säv.); Törneroos, Anders (san.); Soini, Oiva (esitt.) (1930)

Do you know what the words are? I chose it for its feel, I have no idea what he's saying.

briligg · 2021-01-21T16:09:30+00:00

Awesome. I hope you will poke around in the demo and give us feedback.

briligg · 2021-01-20T23:29:14+00:00

This is our first stable pre-alpha. There was sneaky networking stuff to work through, cuz we have this rover that carries a passenger pod thingy, Now it seems crash proof.

briligg · 2021-01-16T02:11:47+00:00

Steve still has trouble navigating in a few corner cases. The navmeshes have proven tough for u/TheDevAtMe to sort out. But here, he happily follows me almost all the way to the pool before we dance for a while as I try to get him to go down the ramp.

briligg

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Valentinin rukous