Real X tend

About two years ago, Second Life exploded and became -as far as virtual worlds go- extermely popular. Many of us wanted it open source, and along came Open Sim, but now there's another world, based on Second Life technology: RealXtend

Here's Caleb Booker's account on his first immersion:

They’ve added some major features, including “meshes” (the graphic component almost every 3D environment but Second Life uses) and the ability to import and export everything from avatars to objects. They even include some great tools for working with standard 3d applications.

Launching the server was as easy as launching any other application, and in no time I was walking around a world
on my hard drive. I was able to log into a remote demo server as well, and exported my avatar onto their server with no problems.

Modifying avatars in this thing is fantastic. Everything is pull-down menus and buttons, making it very easy to browse content. Clothes look awesome, actually draping on your avatar in a very realistic way. You can even tweak the way it handles animations, changing your posture and walk speed, and you get extremely fine control of the way you look right down to the length of individual fingers.