Techtip: Messages and Events in OpenSim

The colleagues I work with in the BPMVE group have been finding that the configuration OpenSim.ini file settings have solved a few problems with our in world scripting in Open Simulator. I thought it would be good to share these on the blog.

Firstly, we have found a few problems can occur with script events when a large number of objects are in the region. This is caused by too small an event queue, causing script events to disappear for no obvious reason. The line below is the default setup for OpenSim.

; Maximum number of (LSL) events that can be queued before new events are ignored.

EventExecutionMaxQueueSize=300

We find setting the value to something in the order of 10000 often solves script event problems.

Secondly, messages can only be sent over a certain distance in OpenSim. This is a problem when you want to create scripts that rez objects over a large area via messaging mechanisms. Frequently, the location to place the new objects is out of range of the default distances specified, so messages never get to the objects. Setting the following parameters in the .ini file to more sensible distances often fixes these problems as well.

; Distance in meters that whispers should travel. Default is 10m

whisper_distance = 10

; Distance in meters that ordinary chat should travel. Default is 30m

say_distance = 30

; Distance in meters that shouts should travel. Default is 100m

shout_distance = 100

Thanks to Rune Rasmussen and Nathan Steenstra for these tips.

Ross