Hmmm. That's exactly what i need. However, i'd need to figure out if i can offer an open-source service through their closed-source software.

Their license is quite restrictive. I'd need to talk to them.

Hmmm. Though, looking further into it, what i need to do personally, is deploy the virtual colonies as a WebGL app. If someone wants to make games with it, that's great. There are other options - personally i'm interested it telling stories with it.

The question is whether the an in-browser app built that way can accommodate a sort of Second Life experience, in which there are tenants in that colony, and people can build their own things within it. My intention was that it could be a meeting place for people who want to take it further, or use it as a forum for the subjects it relates to - space development.

For that, it doesn't need most of the things a game engine does. It just needs to allow very basic avatars, and communication within the environment by text or voice.

It does need to allow people to add objects to it, and modify them over time, but it doesn't need to do that in real time.

I wish i had moved on from the models to tackling this like a year ago. That is what i originally hoped. The models continue to consume all my time.

And the website. Which is all the background on how the colony is structured and why, which is important.

I have tried to look for software specifically for just a virtual world with those characteristics, with no luck.

yeah, i know... the interactions involved are just basically what can be done with WebGL, but with the ability to have people interact on a very simple level

it seems like overkill to use a game engine. especially since they aren't designed for that.

i'm about to ask about it in the Unity forums

i wish i could use Godot because it has an MIT license, but it won't do multiplayer, and there is all that server part. it is hard to get a handle on it at all because it is nothing i know about.

forum.unity.com/threads/…

godot -hm, quite interesting thing

yeah, i'd love to use it.

server side could be pretty complicated, or not that complicated. secondlife thing is rather on the side of not complicated basically teamspeak + some additions

ah - teamspeak, i was trying to remember what it was called.

here is the thing i have never figured out in all the times i've tried to make decisions about this - what should i learn here? What do i need?

teamspeak is used with a game engine, right?

i've never found a framework for this. and learning could take a long time and be demanding. I don't want to work on that unless it is really the right thing to do.

learning enough three.js and webGL to show the full colonies does seem like a good idea. Learning how to handle the rest, i really don't know.

i think i need to do enough myself to convince people who could fund it, and people who could build and run it, that it is a project worth their time and money. A webGL version should be enough for that.

but i need to understand what i am even proposing. i really don't know anything about what is involved in setting up an environment where there can be lots of very simple avatars, and people can add models if they have permission, and they can communicate.

./UnitySetup-2017.3.0f1 --unattended --install-location=(path)

can path just be ~?

i guess it can, because it is asking me to accept the license agreement...

pubnub.com/blog/2012-02-01-stackhack

codeofrob.com/entries/…