Interview with Tony Manninen CEO of realXtend

Me: Second Life as a platform has been pretty much ignored for game development up to this point. Do you imagine transforming OpenSim and Second Life into platforms suitable for MMOG?
Tony: I am running the company and also making sure the realXtend development reaches the required quality and performance standards you would expect from MMOGs. We’d definitely love to make games for Second Life, but at the moment the end-user experience is not exactly what you would expect from a game system. Therefore, we’ll pay heavy attention to things like responsivity, graphics quality, frame rate, etc. If we manage to keep up the momentum of realXtend development, then I’m sure there will be some interesting games spawning up in the near future… Developing a sophisticated game engine is not an easy - or cheap - task, so there’s a loads of challenges ahead. But I truly believe that is the only way forward. With game-like interfaces and features you’ll be able to get much more heightened experiences.
Me: Have you worked out anything with LL yet re keeping the realXtend viewer compatible with SL?
Tony: We have tried to keep the rexviewer as compatible as possible. We totally appreciate what Linden Lab has done and we are trying to do our best to co-exist with their beautiful social innovation.
Me: But will you be able to work out a licensing deal under the GPL so that they can integrate your code into their browser?
Tony: The whole licensing scheme is still undergoing some serious thinking processes. We will try to find the best possible option in order to satisfy the needs of hungry virtual world adopters. GPL has its challenges. But, on the other hand, everything invented by a man can be re-invented by another. I am sure there will be a fruitful solution to the licensing issue. At the moment we are concentrating on releasing all the code to the general public, so that all the enthusiastic developers out there can join the forces and increase the momentum. I’m pretty sure the pieces will eventually find their right places. I am really happy about the response we’ve got from Linden Labs - it’s great to think we might be able to give something back for them.
Me: Is it safe to say the licensing issues are on the table and being worked out?
Tony: There’s definitely some serious working-out being done, so I suppose it is safe to say that.
Me: I know Will Wright creator of Sims online and Spore has spoken a lot on the spiraling costs of content production and that diminishing returns for content development at these high costs. He has gone to procedural programming with Spore to take gaming on another path. But, it seems to me that you are taking another approach by trying to bring SL up to gaming standards - is this correct, or are you doing something different?
Tony: I guess that’s quite correct assumption - at least in relation to LudoCraft. This is not necessarily a conscious decision. It’s more like the costs of licensing a decent game engine are generally so high that they more often than not fall out of reach of start-up companies and small developers - let alone universities, communities, etc. We have tried to find a suitable platform for our collaborative games, but since there were no perfect solutions, we decided to try and make one. Not alone, but by joining forces with our partner company Admino and several other keen developers. The OpenSim merger will increase the development base even further, so there’s a great chance we’ll actually pull this off. Like I said, there’s loads of challenges, huge amount of work and some design issues involved. But the Open Source communities have proven themselves earlier, so why not now.
Me: What do you think are the chief design issues to be addressed? The realXtend project includes LudoCraft and Admino, plus we have several sub-contracting developers doing work with us. The main issue is the divide between social 3D worlds (like SL for example) and MMOG. The gamers tend to avoid these social virtual worlds for obvious reasons [the quality of the experience from a gaming POV]. However, if we manage to develop a platform that can serve both purposes, then I’m sure things will change. The main design issues, therefore, are the performance, audiovisual quality, rendering, frame rate stability, responsivity, interaction, etc. Numerous issues that are not necessarily critical in purely social virtual world, but are absolutely essential in any multiplayer game environment. Plus, if well taken care of, these issues will boost the whole end user experience in the non-gaming situations as well.
Me: You have gone a long way with the rendering and meshes what will be the next most important features and when do they arrive?
Tony: Inverse Kinematics and procedural animation are essential features if we want to have truly expressive and adaptive animations. We see avatars as main tools for self-expression. We’ve researched the issues since 2000 and we believe we are on the right track. With flexible and powerful expression potential and accurate controllability, the users will be able to communicate with their avatars so much more than is possible nowadays. The concept of Rich Interaction is something we will utilize here and it will be interesting to see the results when the system is actually usable by the general public. Vehicles and projectiles are really important so they sit heavily on our roadmap.
Me: Are you going to do 3D face mapping etc - I know that this is getting close to doable now?
Tony: Oh, the required list of features is endless. There are several key features in terms of game development, but also some interesting stuff for more serious applications. Our avatar will have enough “bones” for full facial expressions, etc. When the actual base architecture of the avatar is fully functional, there’s a possibility to use webcam, voice, or other input devices to control your avatars facial expressions. It can be true 1:1 mapping, but of course it can be something else as well. You can be yourself, or, you can change your “output” to something else.