I got some very interesting news in my inbox this morning; Linden Lab, makers of Second Life, have aquired Windward Mark Interactive’s WindLight and Nimble technologies, both of which I worked on under contract for WMI on and off over the last few years. For those who missed the original post, here’s what I’m talking about:
This is Nimble (volumetric cloud rendering) from last year when I first created the prototype, which uses Ogre obviously, and it incorporates WindLight (which is doing the lighting), which was originally written in 2004. WMI extended both significantly since the original versions were created and it looks like their investment has paid off. I must admit that I didn’t see this one coming! Having briefly spoken to the guys recently, I knew there was something important going on behind the scenes lately (on account of them being super-busy on some hush-hush deal), but this I did not expect.
It looks like this means that both WindLight and Nimble will eventually be released under the GPL, since Second Life’s client is released on this basis. The press release suggests that WindLight has already been integrated into the PC version of Second Life and will be available immediately. That will be pretty interesting to see.
Right now I don’t know what this means for Alliance and its OGRE-based engine, since the WMI team are now joining Linden Lab’s Boston studio. But at least I now have some old friends in Linden Lab 
I wish them all the best and look forward to finding out where they’re going from here…
Edit: Here’s a video of WindLight in Second Life, man that stuff looks so familiar Those clouds aren’t Nimble’s fully 3D ones, just the original WindLight 2.5D clouds, so it’ll look better than this eventually.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:14 am
The press release isn’t too clear on the details…
So are they porting Nimble to Second Life or moving Second Life to Ogre.
[)amien
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:23 am
WOW!! Oh man, thats excellant – WindLight and Nimble going opensource! Oh yes!
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:35 am
Y’never know, you might get some more recognition from this. It was an awesome project though, and it really showed off your eye for detail artistically (or should I say, via nature).
It’d be good if they moved Second Life to Ogre though, although as Damieng said, it’s not too clear.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:48 am
Both WindLight and Nimble were written as application layer components which were demoed on Ogre because that was the quickest option, but they were specifically designed to be integrated into other rendering systems if required (they targetted the military at one point who have separate GL systems). I’m guessing the most likely case is that they will be adapted to Second Life’s existing renderer. Much as I’d like SL to start using Ogre I think that might be wishful thinking at this stage. Of course, the WMI boys are at Linden now and they’ve always liked Ogre, so who knows
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:43 am
Woohoo!! Impressive news, congrats Steve!!
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Psst, the image on the right has the wrong url, and brings up the one on the left.
Absolutely gorgeous images, though. How did you do the UI at the bottom? Is that standard CEGUI?
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Thanks, fixed the link. Yeah, it’s regular CEGui.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Hmm, well, Steve, considering the fact that Nimble is going to be GPLed, how about writing a screen or two about this technology? Are you allowed to do so?
I’m writing on my own cloud simulation (especially) and rendering (less so) technique and I’m _extremally_ interested in the subject…
May 24th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Maybe, I’m not sure of the current position yet.