Welcome to the OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017!

Welcome to the OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017! 

Join us for the fifth annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017 today at 7 AM PST (-8 UTC) on the OSCC Grid!

Follow @opensimcc on Twitter and use the hashtags #oscc or #oscc17, and post your pictures and snapshots of the day on our Flickr group.

Conference Schedule

We have an exciting program lined up, with great keynote presentations, breakout sessions, social events, and plenty of Expo regions to explore over the next two days! Don’t miss the Keynote sessions, including the OpenSimulator Developer Panel on Saturday morning, along with dynamic short presentations and panels that take place Saturday, December 9th and Sunday, December 10th within our OSCC Keynote regions.

You can view all #OSCC17 sessions on the schedule at https://oscc2017.sched.com/

The schedule also includes community and social events, and plenty of Expo regions to explore over the weekend! Don’t miss the special HyperGrid Tour on Sunday at 11 AM PDT, and the many how to’s, resources, and scavenger hunt landmarks to interesting destinations where you can learn to HyperGrid visit throughout the OpenSimulator metaverse. There is also the chance to attend live music at the virtual venue of Maritime Club Belfast, and many after parties and simulation tours.

Conference Streams

We will be live streaming the conference on YouTube live!  See the online schedule and watch the live conference video stream live on our OSCC conference site.

Connecting to the Conference Grid

If you requested a new local account be created for the OSCC Conference Grid, you should have received an email with the login details. See the Login Info page for instructions on how to download an OpenSimulator viewer and more information about how to connect to the grid. If you have a Local Account and have forgotten your password, use the Forgot Your Password link to reset it.

For those accessing the OSCC Grid via HyperGrid, the Login URI and HyperGrid link is: http://cc.opensimulator.org:8002

Optimize Your Viewer

For the best experience, make sure to enable Streaming Media & Music, and turn on AUTOPLAY for Parcel and Prim media. We also recommend turning your Draw Distance settings down to a reasonable level. The lower your Draw Distance, the better your viewer performance will be. See the FAQs for more information. We also have some additional tips for those who might have trouble viewing some video and streaming media in world.

OSCC Zone Groups Access

When you log in, you will land on your designated Landing Zone region 1, 2, 3, 4, or the HyperGrid (HG) Landing Zone. Check the rotating banner in your Landing Zone to see the corresponding Keynote region that you should use for keynote presentations. You will only be able to access the Keynote region that matches your Landing Zone unless you are a presenter. See the Online Map for an overhead view of the conference grid.

Attending Sessions

When you arrive at a Keynote region or Track region please sit in a chair ASAP during the sessions! The conference grid will perform best if everyone takes a seat in the presentation areas. All of the conference presentations will take place via parcel streaming media, so we recommend that you set your viewer to AUTOPLAY parcel and prim media. In-world voice will be disabled in those areas, so please use text chat for socializing, networking, and asking questions of the speakers.

Expo Zones

The conference would not have been possible without the financial support of our Sponsors and Crowdfunders, so please be sure to visit their exhibits and booths in the Expo Zones to thank them! Explore five regions of terrific booths and fun activities provided by our sponsors and Crowdfunders – and invite your friends who didn’t get a conference ticket! The Expo Zones are open to public HyperGrid visitors!

HyperGrid Tour & Learning Resources

Visit OSCC Expo Zone 2 for the HyperGrid Tour & Resources section of the conference. There you will find step by step help on how to HyperGrid if you aren’t familiar with jumping from one OpenSImulator grid to another grid world, as well as helpful website links, and a curated collection of HyperGrid landmarks for those more experienced to explore the interconnected OpenSimulator metaverse. OSCC17 will also feature a special HyperGrid Tour organized by Thirza Ember, that will take attendees on a tour of several OpenSimulator grid location that offer up amazing creations and experiences. This two-hour OSCC HyperGrid tour starts at 11 AM Pacific, on Sunday, December 10th, and is not to be missed if you want a fun, guided way of learning to HyperGrid.

OSCC Poster Session Expo

You can find accompanying poster materials, resources, gifts, and links from this year’s OpenSimulator Community Conference presenters in a special OSCC Poster Session Expo area located in OSCC Expo Zone 3.

OpenMetaQuest Game

Play the OpenMetaQuest to test your knowledge about the open Metaverse – and have fun! Your mission, should you be brave enough to accept it, is to find 12 hexagon-shaped game tokens across 7 sims while matching your MetaKnowledge for prizes. Look for the Adventure Hippo to begin your journey and win terrific prizes!

Technical Difficulties

Although we hope everything goes smoothly, it is always possible for there to be technical difficulties during the conference program. If this happens, we appreciate your patience and understanding while we work to resolve the issue.

If you are disconnected from the grid, please wait a moment or two, check the conference Twitter stream @opensimcc for updated information, and then try to log back in. We will do our best to resolve issues quickly and stick to the conference schedule. No matter what happens, we’re sure the day will hold plenty of surprises!

A tremendous thank you to all of our speakers, sponsors, crowdfunders, volunteer staff, streaming team, and attendees! We hope you enjoy the conference program and we’ll look forward to seeing you in-world or on the web today!

Sincerely,

The OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017 Team

Conference Organizing Committee
Joyce Bettencourt | Rhiannon Chatnoir
Cynthia Calongne | Lyr Lobo
Maria Korolov | Maria Korolov
Barbara Truman | Delightful Doowangle
Grid Administrator: Michael Cerquoni | Nebadon Izumi
HyperGrid Activities Coordinator: Thirza Ember
Streaming Team Coordinators: Mal Burns, Michael Bailey | Marcus Llewellyn, James Lloyd | James Atlloud
Web / Scripting Coordinator: Jeroen Frans | Frans Charming
Volunteer Coordinator: Sunbeam Magic

Conference Advisory Committee
Michael Cerquoni | Nebadon Izumi
Crista Lopes | Diva Canto
Melanie Thielker | Melanie Milland

OSCC17 Sponsors
AvaCon Inc. | http://avacon.org
OpenSimulator | http://opensimulator.org
UC Irvine Institute for Virtual Environments and Computer Games | http://ivecg.uci.edu
Rockcliffe University Consortium | http://urockcliffe.com
Yippee Ki-Ay Blues™ | http://www.yippeekiayblues.com
Galactic Systems, Inc. – GridFone | http://galacticsystems.net
LLOUD LLC | http://lloud.com
PurePowerStreams | http://purepowerstreams.net
Virtual Outworlding | http://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com

And the many #OSCC17 Crowdfunders and Volunteers that made this possible.

Note About Watching Video Inworld

Dear Attendees/Speakers,

OpenSim Viewer technology and Web standards are constantly changing, sometimes they are not in lockstep with each other. Doing a dry run we noticed that showing video from the web in world, like youtube, is not working ‘out of the box’ for many people any more. That is very unfortunate as some presenters might want to show a video.

Fortunately there is a way to get video working in world more reliable, but it means you will have to install an extra flash plugin. Even if you already have the main flash plugin installed.

The following comes from the Firestorm Wiki:

  • Windows users:
    • In order to play Flash format videos (e.g., YouTube videos), you must have the Opera & Chromium version of the Adobe Flash plugin installed. Unless you already have this specific version of Flash installed already, you will need to get the Opera & Chromium Flash plugin from Adobe.
  • Linux users
    • You need to have the pepperflash plugin installed, which can be satisfied by installing pepperflashplugin-nonfree for Chromium
  • Mac users
    • Mac users currently need the Safari & Firefox version of Adobe Flash plugin installed. Download it from Adobe.

Make sure you select the right version when downloading.

It is understandable if this might make you uncomfortable. If you prefer not to install this plugin, we will make sure to share links to web video and webpages in chat during presentations. This way you can just click the links to load them in your web browser.

Register Today!

Registration is open for the OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017!

Eventbrite - OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017

Attending the conference event is free, but those wishing to financially support the conference can participate in our Crowdfunder Campaign when registering. Participants in the Crowdfunding Campaign will receive a variety of thank you gifts depending upon their level of participation, including early access, VIP events, conference promotional items and ability to have a virtual expo booth at the event.

Since seats are limited, registration is open on a first-come-first-served basis until the maximum number of virtual conference center tickets is reached.  At that point, community members will still be able to register for the live streamed version of the conference that will be available. This will also be free.

 

Maria Korolov speaking

OSCC17 – Call for Proposals

Call for Proposals

The OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017 Call for Proposals is now open! The OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017 wants everyone to know what is exciting about our favorite social 3D platform. We are looking for those individuals or groups on the forefront who are shaping the Metaverse, hosting exciting activities, and changing the game. This year’s conference will focus on the visions for the future and the evolution of the platform. The conference features a concentrated series of talks on December 9th-10th on the main stage featuring Creative, Education, Technical, and Experiential topics.

The speaker sessions offer 20-minute presentations to engage the mind while the community-sponsored tours, and on the Expo regions, content give-aways and Hypergrid explorations take attendees to faraway places. We are particularly interested in speakers who dramatically tell the story of their work and employ great 3D examples as props and graphics.

The organizers encourage presentations that span current innovations and activities, performance artistry, educational simulations, innovative business cases or have a publication or track record of real world use.

Important Dates & Deadlines

  • September 12, 2017 – Announcement of the Call for Proposals!
  • October 19, 2017 – Proposals are due by 11:59 PM PST (Pacific Standard Time).
  • October 23, 2017 – Proposal  acceptance emails and with conference information.
  • October 29, 2017 – Accepted speakers must register for the conference to create an entry in the conference schedule and the program.
  • November 11, 2017 – Speaker Orientation & Training sessions and Presenter Booth Setup to prepare speakers for the conference.
  • November 18, 2017 – Deadline for stage props and audio-visuals (beyond textures) for conference program.
  • December 9-10, 2017 – OSCC17 – Conference dates – Bring the WOWness!
  • December 10, 2017 – OSCC Hypergrid tour and community events.

Submit a Proposal
To submit a proposal, select the appropriate track below and enter your information in the Proposal Submission Form. If you have questions or need more information, please contact the conference organizers.  Thank you!

  • Creative
  • Education
  • Technical
  • Experiential
  • Other

We look forward to reviewing your submissions!

OSCC Track Room

Announcing the 5th Annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017

AvaCon is pleased to announce the fifth annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017, to take place virtually on the OpenSimulator Conference Center grid on December 9-10, 2017. The OpenSimulator Community Conference is an annual conference that focuses on the developer and user community surrounding the OpenSimulator software.

“OpenSimulator is an open source multi-platform, multi-user 3D application server. It can be used to create a virtual environment (or world) which can be accessed through a variety of clients, on multiple protocols.” as explained on OpenSimulator.org. Users can also visit other OpenSimulator virtual worlds, across the web by using the Hypergrid protocols. “In this way, it is the basis of a nascent distributed Metaverse.”

Organized as a joint production by Core Developers of OpenSimulator and AvaCon, this year’s conference will focus on the latest software release, visions for the future, and technologies or content today that are shaping the future of the platform. 

The OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017 features a series of dynamic short presentations, panels, performances, and workshops that spotlight the best of the OpenSimulator platform and community.

“Last year’s conference was a terrific success with two days of presentations, panels, exciting expo and Hypergrid experiences, hundreds of attendees within the 3D virtual world conference space, and thousands more watching on via live video stream.” said conference organizer Joyce Bettencourt. “We will be building on that success by offering more opportunities for the community to be involved and furthering outreach to attract new users. With the continued interest surrounding virtual reality technologies, we want the VR community to know that OpenSimulator is a great platform for building the open metaverse.”

Those wishing to financially support the conference have several options, including the opportunity to participate in a Crowdfunding Campaign when registering to raise small dollar amounts that will be used to help cover grid, web hosting, and streaming services for the conference.  Participants in the Crowdfunding Campaign will receive a variety of thank you gifts depending upon their level of participation, and event sponsors will have options for promotional activities and participation in creating content for the conference grid.

We hope to be able to accommodate over 400 users in total, a figure which includes speakers, sponsors, and staff. Since seats are limited, registration will be on a first-come-first-served basis until the maximum number of virtual conference center tickets is reached. At that point, community members will still be able to register for the live streamed version of the conference that will be available.

The expo area will not be ticketed and so can be accessed by any avatar, subject to constraints on the number of avatars that the exhibition regions can hold at any particular time.

We will have more information and details about the conference schedule and registration, and we look forward to seeing the wide range of projects, presentations, and other activities of the OpenSimulator community. We invite you to submit a proposal, sign up to volunteer, or sponsor this year’s event. Thanks for your interest and support, with more to come!

 

The OpenSimulator Community Conference 2017 Planning Team
Conference Chair
Joyce Bettencourt | Rhiannon Chatnoir
Conference Steering Committee
Joyce Bettencourt | Rhiannon Chatnoir
Crista Lopes | Diva Canto
Michael Cerquoni | Nebadon Izumi
Melanie Thielker | Melanie Milland
Conference Organizing Committee
Cynthia Calongne | Lyr Lobo
Joyce Bettencourt | Rhiannon Chatnoir
Maria Korolov | Maria Korolov
Barbara Truman | Delightful Doowangle
Grid Administrator | Michael Cerquoni | Nebadon Izumi
Sponsorship Coordinator | Joyce Bettencourt | Rhiannon Chatnoir
Streaming Producer | Mal Burns
Tech Guru | Jeroen Frans | Frans Charming
Streaming | James Lloyd | James Atlloud
Streaming Coordinator | Michael Bailey | Marcus Llewellyn
Thirza Ember | Special Events

 

OSCC HyperGrid Tours & Learning Resources

HyperGrid Tours & Learning Resources

OSCC Expo 2 Region (Hypergrid address: http://cc.opensimulator.org:8002/)

Visit OSCC Expo Zone 2 for the HyperGrid Tours & Resources section of the conference. There you will find step by step help on how to HyperGrid if you aren’t familiar with jumping from one OpenSimulator grid to another grid world, as well as helpful website links, and a curated collection of HyperGrid landmarks for those more experienced to explore the interconnected OpenSimulator metaverse. Conference attendees can use these resources to go on a guided tour of several OpenSimulator grid location that offer up amazing creations and experiences.