Sep 282012
 

 

After hearing news about this project for the past couple weeks, I decided to give it a try. But I decided the best way to test it out was to run my own server and let some friends join in. It’s an interesting program with some potential to do a lot of cool things, but it’s still in beta stage.

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, MikuMikuOnline (or M²Online) is a social chat client that was developed to allow people to run around and interact with other people in a 3D environment using MikuMikuDance based models. By default, the program comes pre-loaded with Miku, Haku, and the Kagamine twins. To install additional models requires a bit of work, but a complete “game” download and usage guide can be found HERE from Vocaloidism.

My own server with 12 members online. Click to enlarge.

 
The program is an interesting concept, but still needs a lot of obvious work. There is currently no sort of ingame music or sound effects, making running around seem rather dull. The physics for jumping in particular are less than realistic, but allows for some fun hopping between buildings. There is also no form of jump detection between separate clients, so this often leads to glitches of characters teleporting at random times.

Moving around itself can be glitchy at times, and can possibly lead to your characters getting stuck. Due to this, the developers implemented an “/escape” command to instantly teleport your character to a new location. Speaking of commands, some nice ones to see would be “emoticon” type commands, for laughing, dancing, etc. A follow command to instantly follow other players would also be useful.

The project is still in beta stage and under constant development. From what I can see, there’s no large scale project to host any sort of “global” server. So I’ve had the idea to open up my own public server to a larger audience (more than 20 people at once), but doing so would require a dedicated machine that will run 24/7. Unfortunately, I do not have the funds at the moment to build one, although the specs needed to do so aren’t very high.

Maybe there will be an “official” Mikufan M²Online server in the future. Until then, feel free to download the client yourself and check it out. It’ll be fun to see where this project leads in the future.

Official Video for M²Online
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHQlgc2qiKc]

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About jrharbort
A Hatsune Miku fan since December 2007, jrharbort joined MikuFan as the Head Writer in October 2011. Follow on Twitter at @jrharbort.