SL projects updates week 22/1: LSL functions for materials, group bans

It’s a light start to project news from the lab this week.

Server Deployments Week 22

There are currently no planned deployments for the week.

Materials LSL Functions

There’s still no firm date for when this are liable to surface for testing, but speaking at the Simulator User Group on Tuesday May 27th, Simon Linden indicated the time is getting “closer”. In the meantime he re-iterated the get and set functions currently being worked upon, which remains as per my week 21 report, namely:

Get functions:

• [PRIM_SPECULAR, integer face] returns [string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians, vector color, integer glossy, integer environment]
• [PRIM_NORMAL, integer face] returns [string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians]
• [PRIM_ALPHA_MODE, integer face] returns [integer alpha_mode, integer alpha_cutoff]

Set functions:

• [PRIM_SPECULAR, integer face, string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians, vector color, integer glossy, integer environment]
• [PRIM_NORMAL, integer face, string texture, vector repeats, vector offsets, float rotation_in_radians]
• [PRIM_ALPHA_MODE, integer face, integer alpha_mode, integer alpha_cutoff]”

The same access rules will apply to materials as for diffuse (texture) maps.

Most people may already be aware that llSetTextureAnim() will apply an animation equally across all three maps applied to an object / object face. However, the Lab is not currently looking to add additional parameters to llSetTextureAnim() so that each type of map independently of the others. Offering an explanation as to why this is the case, Simon said:

I’m guessing that would be pretty ugly to implement … or would need some careful design and thought as it couldn’t create new material entries under the hood.  I think that will have to be a follow-on feature … I can imagine it might create some cool effects but it would have to be carefully done not to blow up the materials accounting.

Group Bans

Simon indicated that the remaining back-end server updates for the group ban service may have been deployed on Tuesday May 27th. If so, it is possible that an initial server-side RC deployment of the group ban code might occur in week 23, together with the appearance of the group ban viewer. however this is pure speculation, and depends on how long the Lab want to let the back-end updates run prior to making a visible code deployment. More is likely to be known following the Server Beta meeting later in the week.