I had barely worked in the Terminal before I tackled Opensim. I
suspect many Mac folks are the same way. Most command line
tutorials assume you know what to do with their instructions. But
not everyone is a developer or a Unix administrator. It's really
fairly simple once you know how to proceed. If you think this might
be a bit tricky then head on over to the companion tutorial: How to
install Opensim on Mac OSX - The Easy Way
So here goes...
1. Install the Mono Framework, you can get the .dmg file here
What is this? It is a bit of
coding magic that runs Windows programs on an Intel Mac without
requiring that you run Bootcamp or Parallels. It comes as an
installer so there is no command line work required to install
it.
2. Download, install and build Opensim from the Subversion (svn)
repository
What does this mean? it is really
just a low-level install of the program elements, bypassing your
desktop and the usual way you install a program on the Mac. It
takes all the pieces from the developers' storage site (svn) and
builds an "executable". This usually happens behind the scenes in
software install. This way you get to see some of it as it happens,
scrolling by in the Terminal window.
Make sure you are in your user folder. If there is just one user
on your machine, the one that you are in when you first turn it on,
you don't need to do anything. In this installation Opensim will
install in the top level of that user, alongside Documents, Music,
Applications, etc. - it will not go into the applications folder.
Don't worry if this is confusing now - you will see where it goes
in just a few minutes.
Open the Terminal program. It can be found in the main
Applications folder, inside of the Utilities folder, on the top
level Macintosh HD level, not in the User Applications folder. In
fact, you may want to drag the Terminal application icon into the
dock, so you can find it again easily.
One line at a time, carefully copy each of the following lines
into the Terminal window at the $ prompt, and hit return. Some of
the commands will trigger long sequences of loading and scrolling
of text - don't worry, just let it go until you see the $ prompt
again.
svn co http://opensimulator.org/svn/opensim/branches/0.6.4-post-fixes opensim
cd opensim
./runprebuild.sh
nant
Here's a detailed look at the screen when you are running these
commands. Your prompt will differ - it will show your user folder
name and the $.
The next commands are cd opensim (return) and ./runprebuild.sh
(return), as seen below.
Wait until you see the next prompt…
and then type nant and hit return
You will watch many build pages go by until you finally see that
the build has succeeded.
Congratulations! You have installed all of the opensim software,
and now you are ready to configure it.
3. Duplicate the example initialization file, and make it your
working ini file
Go to the Finder, and look in your user folder for the opensim
folder. Look in there for the bin folder.
Open that folder and find the OpenSim.ini.example .
Right click or control-click on the filename and choose
duplicate.
On the copy, change the ending on the filename - remove
.example, leaving only OpenSim.ini as the name.
Make sure you have a file now that is called Opensim.ini
4. Run your new server:
Go back to the Terminal window.
You will need to use Terminal commands to move a level down in
the User folder, in order to be on the right level to run the
application. That can be done with the cd (change directory
command) in one operation.
Terminal always shows which directory you are in. You should
still be in the opensim directory, so this command will take you
down to the right level: cd bin
Now you will run the OpenSim app using Mono. Make sure you get
the uppercase characters right.
mono OpenSim.exe
The startup process will scroll for 5-15 seconds, until you are
asked for configuration information. Name your region at the first
prompt and hit return. You can then hit return at each item and
keep the defaults until you get to avatar name.
You may want to set up your user name and password to match your
Second Life login, if you have one.
Finally you will see the words Region (yoursimname) #
And you will know that the sim is waiting for you to connect,
using the viewer.
5) Open the Hippo Viewer Client and see your world
There is a Mac build of the 0.4 Hippo viewer here
Download and install the Hippo viewer if you have not already
done so. When it opens, hit the Grids button on the bottom menu
bar. In the window that pops up, use the top dropdown to choose
"local" - the parameters of your server will populate the page.
That is really just the internal IP address and port -
127.0.0.1:9000. If you will be using your local sim often, you can
hit the default button at the top to make this the default region.
Click Apply and OK. The window will disappear, the background will
be black.
Login using the username and password you entered above. You
will arrive in your new world as Ruth - a generic avatar.
Open inventory, go to Create at the top of the window, and
create a new body shape and a new skin - this is necessary because
otherwise they will be locked when you go to edit appearance.
Right-click or control-click on the avatar, choose edit appearance,
and edit your avatar. You will find yourself on one little circular
island. Use edit terrain tools to change it, or load an OAR file.
Also see below instructions regarding physics engine choice.
At this point you can shut down the server and return to do
further configuring later. To do that, first quit the Hippo viewer,
then go to the Terminal window and type control-c at the prompt.
Once the $ prompt returns, you can quit Terminal.
To start the Opensim server up the next time you use it, you can
open Terminal and use the following commands to start up
Opensim.
WHAT ABOUT PHYSICS? - How not to walk through
walls
We are changing the physics engine from the default
(basicphysics) to ODE - OpenDynamicsEngine. The BasicPhysics engine
only detects collisions between your feet and the ground - you will
find your self walking through walls and unable to stand on any
floors that you build.
You will make changes in OpenSim.ini which is in the bin folder
inside the opensim main folder. Open the file in Textedit or
another text editor, like SubEthaEdit.
The first section you will change is the Physics section, which
starts with comments like this:
; ##
; ## PHYSICS
; ##
Look for the lines which determine the physics engine. You will
change this:
; Choose one of the physics engines below
physics = basicphysics
;physics = POS
;physics = OpenDynamicsEngine
;physics = modified_BulletX
to this:
; Choose one of the physics engines below
;physics = basicphysics
;physics = POS
physics = OpenDynamicsEngine
;physics = modified_BulletX
The difference is just two semicolons - you will put one in
front of physics = basicphysics and remove the one in front of
physics = OpenDynamicsEngine
The other changes are in Avatar Control, where the heading looks
like this:
; ##
; ## Avatar Control
; ##
Find these settings and make sure they match the following:
;girth of the avatar. Adds radius to the height also
av_capsule_radius = 0.68
; Max force permissible to use to keep the avatar standing up straight
av_capsule_standup_tensor_win = 1900000
av_capsule_standup_tensor_linux = 1900000
; used to calculate mass of avatar
; float AVvolume = (float) (Math.PI*Math.Pow(CAPSULE_RADIUS, 2)*CAPSULE_LENGTH);
; av_density * AVvolume;
av_density = 80
Save the OpenSim.ini file back into the bin folder, being
careful not to change the filename.
That's it! Now you have a standalone sim, an avatar, and a world
to start modifying and building.
We recommend that you discuss this article on Think, but if you really want to you can leave a comment right here as well: