I dropped in to Collins Land after coming across shots of it in Cerys Collins’ (aka Cerys Celestalis) Flickr photostream. It is Cerys’ Homestead region, to which she extends a warm invitation for people to visit.
This is a rugged region, with high hills cut in two by water, a large sheltered inlet laying below them which protected from open water on one side by a sweep of low-lying land. There are a couple of houses here, one up on a hill-top and another with an ultra-modern geodesic dome down on the coast. There are also farm outbuildings, cobbled paths, high wooden platforms and more to see.
The arrival point is in an old greenhouse up on the hill to the north-west of the island. From here you can wander up to a high glade where stands a barn and sheep graze. There are places to sit here, as there are on the platform on which the greenhouse sits. For those wanting to explore onwards, there’s a wood-and-rope bridge spanning the deep split in the hills. Crossing this brings you to a small house with outdoor hot tub and a modest vegetable garden.
The region is a curious mix of features – the old-style house and wood-framed buildings on the tops of the hills, the modern stone-and-concrete circular house with its huge glass dome down below; a broken and rusting old van, a sleek yacht… But all of it comes together in a way that is both natural and very pleasing to the eye.
There are also lots of little details which bring the region to life – the picnic laid-out at the side of a track, seagulls wheeling over the water, wildlife ferreting in the underbrush or sitting calmly watching you watching them, and so on. There are one or two touches of humour as well – such as one of the stars of a certain series of animated feature films and his long sought-after object of affection (or is that greed?). In fact, such is the level of detail it’s worthwhile taking time in your explorations or you will miss something along the way.
Getting from the highlands to the lowlands can be done in one of four ways. You can jump (but that’ll probably hurt) or you can fly (but that’s cheating), or you can take the elevator down the wooden tower near the arrival point, or, if you’re feeling daring and want some fun, you can use the rope slide.
This last one can be enjoyed in first or third-person view, and takes you across the inlet on the east side of the island from a platform up near the little house to one on the banks of the inlet, not far from the circular house.
About Land for the region has a kindly invitation: “A quiet and peaceful for those who seek serenity and quiet place. You are welcome :)”, and the island certainly is peaceful, with plenty of places to sit or lie down. This is a place which can be enjoyed on your own or in the company of others, and places like the path-side picnic and a little lodge near the waterfalls certainly invite you to stay.
But … there is also something of a dark secret as well; you’ll need to keep an eye out for it, but in this little piece of paradise there is something that might have its own mysterious story to tell, for those who find it…
As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.
Second Life Server (SLS Main) Channel – Tuesday August 13th
There was no update to the Main channel. It had been anticipated that the package deployed to BlueSteel in week 32 would reach the Main channel this week, but this is not the case, for the reason given below (see the Grey Box Attachment issue notes, below),
Release Candidate Channels – Wednesday August 14th
Magnum remains with SSA enabled, but otherwise received no further updates.
LeTigre should receive a new maintenance package which “only includes a few internal bug fixes which shouldn’t show any visible changes to the residents”. In describing this at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday August 13th, Simon Linden said, “There’s one performance fix that you might see in the viewer … you shouldn’t get those situations where you see lots of ‘duplicate caps. messages”
Bluesteel should receive a new server maintenance package comprising:
A fix for the “grey box attachment issue” (non-public BUG-3547, details below)
A (further?) update to for “llListen in linked objects is listening at root instead of linked object local position *after re-rezzing the linkset*”, which was also listed in the BlueSteel release notes for week 32 (non-public JIRA BUG-3291)
The code to block avatars entering a region / objects being rezzed in a region during the last 60-seconds before a restart. In addition, restart warning pop-ups will include the region name. This was again in the release notes for week 32, so would appear to be a further update to that code
Fixes for further simulator crash modes.
“Grey Box” Attachment Issue
This is a problem whereby a grey prim appears around any passenger(s) sitting on a boat / vehicle when crossing from a BlueSteel region to any other region (including another BlueSteel region) – the driver / pilot is left unchanged. The affected avatar has no control and requires a relog, while the prim itself appears to be linked to vehicle when edited.
The “grey box attachment issue” (image courtesy of Jen Cuddihy via the SL forums)
It is thought the bug was introduced during the week 32 BlueSteel deployment, and Simon Linden indicated it was the reason there was no Main channel deployment for week 33, saying:
We didn’t update the main channel today. There was a bug found involving vehicles and region crossings that needed to be fixed, so that update will go out tomorrow [the BlueSteel RC deployment]. Basically, don’t sit more than 1 person on a vehicle when leaving a BlueSteel region, otherwise it turns you into a box :P. It happens to the 2nd (and probably more, if you had a crowd) person seated on the object.
Kelly Linden explained what was happening to cause this:
Every agent has a ‘task’ representation on the server that is the same as a prim. The bug is in sending the linked set w/ avatars to the other region: avatars after the first are losing the special avatar treatment and getting passed as a regular linked prim. So that prim is what the server thinks all avatars look like.
Simon added:
The region crossing code basically un-sits avatars from an object, sends both the avatars and object to the next region [as separate sets of data], which puts them back together. In this case, the 2nd avatar doesn’t get detached properly and things go south from there. So the 2nd avatar gets sent over bundled up with the object … which it’s not designed to do.
The additional avatars on the vehicle at the time of the region crossing essentially end-up in limbo, with data caught between the two simulators. “The regions are very confused about that avatar data by that point, I’m sure a relog would be needed,” Simon said.
An interesting side-effect of this is that the bug makes it possible to exceed the 256-prim linkset limit – sort-of. Enterprising individuals have realised that if you rez a 256-prim linkset, sit a number of avatars on it and move it across a region boundary, it will acquire an additional prim for each additional passenger over the first avatar to sit on it. However, the ability is of limited value; make any changes to the enlarged linkset, such as unlinking a child prim or trying to texture one of the greyprims, and the entire thing turns no modify / no copy – and the fix being deployed to BlueSteel should correct the problem anyway.
Server-side Appearance
Just as a reminder. There are no further SSA deployments planned for week 33. This is to allow for some back-end updates to be made to the SSA servers. These updates shouldn’t result in any visible difference to users on SSA-enabled regions, and are intended to fix a couple of scenarios where the viewer would have to re-try requests when it shouldn’t have to. The Lab wants to get these updates deployed to the SSA server prior to making any move to rolling-out SSA to the entire grid.
There have been comments on the forums that SSA “must” be encountering major problems as the deployment has been so protracted. This is not the case. Linden Lab (via Nyx Linden) have always stated that the deployment would proceed very, very cautiously because it is such a fundamental change in how Second Life functions. Even though the Lab has indicated that very, very few problems have been encountered with enabling the service so far, and the load testing on both Magnum and LeTigre (representing a little over 20% of the grid) has been very positive, they are sticking to their softly, softly approach.
Viewer Updates
As the Vivox updates became the de facto release viewer in week 32, the remaining five release candidate viewers in the viewer release channel have been underground rebuilding using the updated release viewer code base. On Monday August 12th, updates for both the Cocoa Viewer for Mac (version 3.6.3.279554 – download and release notes) and the Maintenance Viewer (version 3.6.3.279564 – download and release notes) were released.
Materials Project
The Materials Project viewer was updated to version 3.6.3.279651 on August 8th. This release lists a large number of fixes, perhaps most notably those related to problems with the appearance of alpha textures under both local lights and sunlight, and numerous issues with mesh rendering and lighting within the materials viewer. Please refer to the full list of JIRA items in the release notes linked-to above.
ALM Concerns
Concerns have been raised about performance issues as a result of having the Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) enabled by default (as is now frequently the case for most graphics cards, as is a requirement in order to see materials in use in-world).
The amount by which ALM can affect the user experience is variable, and subject to a lot of influences, not just the graphics cards / computer system the viewer is running on. Some people with systems similar to my own (see the panel on the right for my system spec), have noted “significant” impact when running with ALM enabled on a materials-capable viewer.
Part of the problem is the “ALM” is a very broad term, and other options within the viewer can influence performance, but will not impact the ability to see materials even if they are turned off – such as having shadows set to None, for example, or having water reflections set to Minimal and turning off local lights (via debug or Phototools, for example). So part of the problem is that of communicating what can be done from within the viewer to help offset performance impacts should they occur, but which don’t limit their ability to see materials in use.
Quick ways to improve performance when running in ALM to see materials. Top left: you can uncheck Ambient Occlusion, keep Shadows set to None and drop water reflections to Minimal. Bottom Left: Using Debug Settings from the Advanced Menu, set RenderLocalLights to FALSE. Right: Firestorm / Phototools, ambient occlusion, shadows, local lights and facelights can all be disabled from the Light tab and water reflections lowered from the WL tab
On Saturday 10th August, 2013, the Firestorm team hosted a question-and-answer session so they could outline the current status of the Firestorm viewer, the issues the team are facing, and outline plans for the future, as well as address questions from the audience.
While the meeting was recorded, the Firestorm team are aware that many of their users have hearing difficulties, and / or prefer to read text. It is because of this that this transcript has been provided. When reading it, please remember:
This is not a word-for-word transcript of the entire meeting. While all quotes given are as they are spoken in the video, to assist in readability and maintain the flow of conversation, not all asides, jokes, interruptions, etc., have been included in the text presented here
If there are any sizeable gaps in comments from a speaker which resulted from asides, questions to other etc,, these are indicated by the use of “…”
Timestamps are provided as guidance should anyone wish to hear the comments in full from any speaker on the video
Questions were asked in chat while speakers were talking. This inevitably meant that replies to questions would lag well behind when they were originally asked. Therefore, to provide context between questions and answers, questions in the transcript are time stamped at the point at which each is addressed by a member of the Firestorm team
Some questions were asked and answered purely in text. These have been excluded for one of two reasons. Either a) they lacked context with the voice conversation, or b) the seating arrangements in the auditorium meant there were some questions or answers which didn’t appear in my local chat window.
Please note: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. As such, questions on technical issues relating to Firestorm and / or project-specific questions cannot be answered here unless one of the Firestorm team drops by.
A few weeks back, I received an e-mail from Alianna Logan asking me if I would consider having this blog being syndicated on a new blog feed – LivingSL – which is, in her words “focused on the thoughts, feelings, ideas, expressions, explorations, etc. of SL residents, even mixing in real life at times.”
Intrigued by the offer, I dropped Alianna a line, asking a little more about why she’s started feed (and to accept her invitation!).
“I was one of those who was focused solely on fashion feeds,” she said in reply, “and then started to realize there was a whole world of blogs out there I was missing out on. It’s been on the back burner because of the other three I have.”
By the “other three”, Alianna is referring to her other feeds – DesigningSL, her feed for SL creators, bloggingSL for SL fashion, and HuntingSL for events and media in SL.
LivingSL has in fact been running for a few weeks now as mentioned, and I’m frankly honoured and delighted to have been asked to help get things going. If you take a look, you’ll doubtless see a fair few names from the blogsphere you recognise, and the cross-section of articles means that the feed does indeed cover areas not often found in SL-related blog feeds.
Alianna has just opened the feed’s doors to suggestions from readers on additional blogs which might be added to it. So if you do know of a blog that fits the criteria for the feed as outlines above, why not drop her a line?
If you’re looking for a central point by which you can keep up with SL-related news, commentary, thoughts and explorations, sometimes mixed with a dash of real life, make sure you bookmark LivingSL.
Sunday August 25th will see the third annual Bard on the Virtual Beach festival take place at Nowhereville Beach, starting at noon SLT, and there is an open call for performers to take to the stage and be a part of proceedings. If there is a high enough response, the event may be extended to include the afternoon of Saturday August 24th.
Bard on the Virtual Beach is a celebration of the works of William Shakespeare in an informal beachfront setting – a kind of sun, sand and sonnets, you might say. Performers are invited to present, in voice, scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, monologues and / or sonnets which meet the following requirements:
A presentation should be no shorter that five minutes and no longer than 12 minutes although minor fluctuations might be negotiated in exceptional circumstances). Performers are asked to submit a specified length of their presented pieces in advance of the festival and to be realistic in their timings
A single presentation may be solo, or include a scene with multiple actors
Performers may participate in more than one selection under these conditions: a limit of two selections per day, three in total (subject to programme review)
Selections will not be repeated from one day to the next, so that each session will be unique.
Do please note that the setting for the festival is informal – there will be no sets, although there will be a stage with some items of furniture and a functional balcony level. Performers are asked to submit any specific requirements, stage-wise, with their application to perform.
How To Apply
Send a notecard to Caledonia Skytower by the end of the virtual day on Monday, August 12th. Include your name, the piece or pieces you would like to present, approximate length of the performance slot you need, and whether this is a solo performance or a presentation by a group of performers. You may also email your application information to Caledonia at thedede@comcast.net
Details and schedule drafts will be managed through the StoryFest Events Group (if you are bringing a scene you will need to designate one from your company to be your captain & join that group temporarily to assist in communication/logistics) and through the StoryFest Blog.
This summary is published every Monday and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Viewer Round-up Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware) and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy
By its nature, this summary will always be in arrears
The Viewer Round-up Page is updated as soon as I’m aware of any releases / changes to viewers & clients, and should be referred to for more up-to-date information
The Viewer Round-up Page also includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
Updates for the week ending: August 11th, 2013 (with extras!)
Official LL Viewers
The release viewer updated to version 3.6.2.279258 (formally the Vivox RC) on August 5th (download and release notes)
Singularity updated to version 1.8.1.4863 on August 12th – core updates: Media ob a Prim (MOAP), Voice code update; Wavefront and Collada export; Web Profile and V3 Web Search support; Updated SSA code; OpenSim Hypergrid and high altitude building support, and more (release notes)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 