Updates for the week ending: Sunday June 22nd, 2014
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 Current Viewer Releases 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. This page 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
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version: 3.7.9.290582 June 16th (formerly the MemShine RC – combining the MemPlugs memory leak fixes and sunshine AIS v3
SL Share 2 RC viewer updated to version 3.7.10.291134 on June 19th – ability to upload Tweets and snapshots to Twitter and / or snapshots to Flickr (download and release notes)
Snowstorm viewer prompted to RC and updated to version 3.7.10.291042 on June 19th – numerous code contributions including STORM-1831 Obtain LSL syntax table from simulator so that it is always up to date; STORM-1966 Block installation on old and unpatched versions of Windows and STORM-68 Allow setting of default permissions on creation of objects, clothing, scripts, notecards, etc. (download and release notes)
Project viewers:
Group Ban project viewer version 3.7.8.290887 released on June 17th – allows certain group members to ban avatar from a group or from joining a group When an existing group member is banned, they are also automatically ejected from the group (download and release notes)
Black Dragon updated to version 2.3.9.9(A) on June 17th – core updates: please refer to the change log
Restrained Love Viewer updated to version 2.9 on June 18th – core updates: new RLV camera commands (release notes)
V1-style
Cool VL viewer updated on June 21st – Stable release to version 1.26.12.4 and Legacy version 1.26.8.62 – core updates: please refer to the release notes
On Tuesday June 17th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the group ban project server code – release notes
One Wednesday June 18th, the RC channels were updates follows:
LeTigre received a new anti-griefing measure – release notes
Magnum remained on the Experience Tools project, but also received the group ban server code and the anti-girefing measure – release notes.
BlueSteel remain on the Sunshine / AIS v3 project, and the but also received the group ban server code and the anti-griefing measure, the viewer for which was promoted to the de factorelease viewer on Monday June 16 – release notes.
There has been some interest voiced at both the Simulator UG meeting and the Server Beta UG meeting, in the “anti-griefing measure” deployed to the three RCs this week. Commenting on this at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday June 19th, Maestro Linden said, ” I think I’ll be able to discuss the change next week,” (after it has been deployed to the Main channel as well). ” But right now, some people would unfortunately use the information as a how-to-grief instructional.”
Upcoming Deployments
The LSL functions for materials may be set to arrive on an RC in week 25. This depends on how this week’s RCs continue to perform, but assuming the anti-griefing measure on LeTigre is promoted to the Main channel, then that RC would theoretically be available for the LSL functions for materials, assuming no significant bugs are filed against it as a result of Aditi testing.
TPV Developer Meeting
A TPV developer meeting took place on Friday June 20th. The core items discussed in the meeting are reported below, with timestamps in the relevant paragraphs indicating the point at they are discussed in the video embedded here.
As has been noted elsewhere, the meeting was attended by Ebbe Linden, who took an impromptu Q&A session at the end of the meeting. This commences at around the 51:00 mark in the video. While this report does not cover that Q&A session, information on his comments about the Lab’s in-development new virtual world platform can be found in Ebbe confirms: “we’re working on a ‘next generation’ platform” (with audio).
My thanks, as always, to North for the video.
SL Viewer Updates
[0:01:18] The SL Share 2 viewer, providing Flickr and Twitter upload support and the snapshot filtering capabilities for both and for snapshot uploads to Facebook was updated to version 3.7.10.291134 on Thursday June 19th, bringing it to parity with the current release viewer code base
The Snowstorm viewer, released as a project viewer on June 12th was updated to version 3.7.10.291042 on June 19th, bringing it to parity with the current release viewer code base, and issued as a release candidate viewer. This has had a significant bug reported against it, which is currently being fixed. As such, it is unlikely that this RC will be in the running for promotion until after it has been refreshed with the fix and the updated version has been in the viewer release channel sufficiently long enough for the Lab to obtain meaningful statistics on its performance.
Avatar System Clothing Layers
[0:4:00] BUG-6258, “Popularity of Mesh Attachments Facilitates Need For More Alpha Layers” is a request to raise the number of alpha layers which can be concurrently worn (at the moment this is 5).
Rather than increasing the number of an individual layer which can be worn (such as alphas), the Lab is considering setting a global limit – so as with attachments, an avatar can wear as many clothing layers in any combination, up to the global limit (with attachments, this is set to 38).
The Lab is still investigating this approach in terms of feasibility and what the upper limit for clothing layers might be for an avatar. Until they do make a final determination on the issue, they have requested TPVs do not arbitrarily add to the existing layer limits, as there is a risk that anything the Lab does do on this front may conflict with alternatives put in place by TPVs.
SL Experience Tools
[0:07:10] The major technical announcement of the TPV meeting was that the long-awaiting Experience Tools will be entering a beta test phase in the very near future. You can catch-up on this in my initial Experience Tools overview.
Z-offset Height Adjustment Proposal
[0:39:06] One of the issues with the introduction of Server-side baking is that it broke the “Z-offset” capability common to many third-party viewers. This allowed the vertical height of an avatar above the ground to be adjusted, such that sits and kneels don’t leave the avatar apparently floating in the air, and which allow those with very tall / giant avatars or very small / petite avatars and those wearing full body mesh to similarly adjust their vertical placement relative to the ground / floor.
In response to the issue being raised as a bug report (see SUN-38, “As users of kneel/lay/sit animations and tiny/giant avatars, we need a way to change the body size in SSB sims”), the Lab, via Nyx Linden, introduced the hover feature, which allows an avatar’s standing height to be adjusted to some degree via an appearance slider.
Jessica Lyon demonstrates part of the avatar height offset issue: when seated using her preferred sitting pose, her avatar floats above a chair, and she has no means of adjusting the height so that she appears to be sitting in the chair
However, as a solution, it has a number of limitations (your shape has to be modifiable, it won’t work in cases where you are trying to adjust your avatar’s default sitting / kneeling pose height to prevent floating, as the hover option requires the avatar to stand in the default shape edit pose, etc).
In order to try to revisit the problem and possibly gain a more thorough solution, Zi Ree from the Firestorm team has written a proposal document entitled Height offset Proposal.
This clearly explains the issues in not having a more flexible approach to adjusting height offset, and also offers a couple of suggestions on what might be done to improve things. This was presented to the Lab at the TPV Developer meeting, together with a concise demonstration by Jessica Lyon of some of the issues.
Obviously the Lab hasn’t at this point committed itself to tackling the matter, but those from the Lab at the meeting were appreciative that the proposal has been written and the issues / possible approaches clearly laid out. There has been an agreement to look into further, and there might be some feedback at the next TPV Developer meeting (scheduled for July 18).
Cocoa Issues
[0:48:20] The Lab continues to work on the Cocoa issues affecting Mac users and there is some good news from them and Firestorm:
The Lab has a fix for the ALT-cam bug, which is expected to be in the next Maintenance RC viewer
Firestorm has a fix for the issue of severe typing lag when in a location with several other avatars (see: FIRE-12172). If successful, this is likely to be contributed to the Lab, and once in a Firestorm release, may see version 4.4.2 of that viewer blocked.
It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in Voice, brought to Second Life by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library.
As always, all times SLT / PDT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island.
Sunday June 22nd
13:30: Tea-time at Baker Street: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
Tea-time at Baker Street sees Caledonia Skytower, Corwyn Allen and Kayden Oconnell open the pages of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories first published in the Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927.
This week: The Adventure of the Three Gables
Steve Dixie, a ruffian (and coward) visits 221B Baker Street in an attempt to intimidate Sherlock Holmes. Only things don’t go as planned.
Having received his strange visitor, Holmes quickly deduces that Dixie’s boss, one Barney Stockdale, is involved in a case involving the very place Dixie was ordered to warn Holmes away from: Harrow Weald. Seeing an opportunity, Holmes secures Dixie’s cooperation in matters, before setting out for Harrow Weald.
One there, Holmes meets with a Mrs. Mary Maberley, who has lived at Green Gables for two years in relative peace and seclusion, has been subject to some strange goings-on since her son, an attaché in Rome, died. Despite several houses in the neighbourhood standing empty, Mrs. Maberley has been approached by a man wishing to buy Three Gables and all its furnishings, and is willing to pay well above the market price – and the contract he would have her sign in order to sell the house would prevent her removing anything from it.
Discovering further connections to Barney Stockdale, Holmes sets out to unravel the mystery …
18:00: Magicland Storytime
Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads some Tall Tales at Magicland Park.
Monday June 23th, 19:00: Space Wars
This week, Gyro Muggins reads Fortress Ship and Desert Fox Operation.
Tuesday June 24th, 19:00: A Dog’s Purpose, Continued
Reincarnation can be confusing for a human; reborn into different lives, trying to learn lessons of the past in order to discover one’s purpose … Imagine what it must be like for a dog.
That’s exactly what humourist W. Bruce Cameron has done in his 2010 best seller A Dog’s Purpose. Bailey, pup of a stray, is rather surprised to find himself reborn as a Golden Retriever after being euthanized. It surprises him even more when, after a happy life involving a young boy, a farm and more, Bailey passes from the world … Only to find himself occupying the body of a German shepherd bitch. Thus comes the realisation that he is serving some higher purpose.
The problem is, and as his lives continue, Bailey can’t figure out exactly what that purpose might be…
Travel with Caledonia Skytower and Kayden Oconnell as they continue their journey through Bailey’s heartwarming and funny tale of many lives, a dog’s-eye commentary on human relationships and the unbreakable bonds between man and man’s best friend; a story in which love never dies, and true friends are always with us.
Wednesday June 25th, 19:00: Tales of Despereaux, Continued
Following-on from Flora and Ulysses, Caledonia Skytower reads from Kate DiCamillo’s first novel to win a prestigious Newbery Award.
The Tales of Despereaux is a story of four parts, each part told from the perspective of a different character. Despereaux Tilling, is a mouse, and the hero of the piece. Born a runt with big ears and eyes, he is an incurable romantic, given to reading tales about knights and princesses. Chiaroscuro is a dungeon rat with an obsession with light, bright things. Miggery Sow is a simply serving girl with an impossible dream.
Together, these three become bound in a tale of dungeons, betrayal, kidnap, redemption and a princess named Pea, as well as a host of other memorable characters.
Thursday June 26th
16:00: Freda in Progress
With Freda Frostbite.
19:00: Legends of the Brethren Court
Shandon Loring takes to the high seas with none other that a young Jack Sparrow, Pirate Lord of the Caribbean Sea, Captain of the Black Pearl, and the youngest Pirate Lord ever admitted into the Brethren Court. With the Shadow Lord seeking to destroy the Brethren Court and it’s down to Jack – sometimes helped, sometimes hindered, by his fellow brethren Pirate Lords – to prevent it.
—–
Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule. The featured charity for May-June is Habitat for Humanity: envisioning a world where everyone has a decent place to live.
Loki Eliot’s Cake Stage at SL11BCC – click any image for full size
Note: as per my usual policy, this article does not utilise the SL11B Community Celebration banner, indicating it is a personal piece, rather than any “official” communication on the event.
The SL11B Community Celebrations get underway at midday SLT on Sunday June 22nd, kicking off a week of music, events, partying and more.
This year sees eleven regions (one for each year SL has been open to the public) full of exhibits, event stages, activities and – shortly after midday – people!
For those wishing to jump to the quick and start enjoying things, here are the key landmarks, up front:
The Welcome Area, Live Stage and DJ Stage can be found in the southwest, northwest and northeast corners of the SL11BCC regions respectively, with the main stage occupying its traditional centre point, spanning half each of the two middle regions in the cluster.
These are all impressive builds – and kudos to their respective builders: Kazuhiro Aridian (DJ Stage), Aki Shichiroji (Live Stage), Loki Eliot (Main Stage) and Donpatchy Dagostino (Welcome Area, with the time capsule display below it).
Pygar Bu designed the SL11BCC Auditorium, located in SL11B Facilitate, which is a further eye-catching build.
Given the theme for this year’s event: The Empires of the Future are the Empires of the Mind, all three stages have a decidedly futuristic / sci-fi feel to them. When visiting Kaz Aridian as he was working on the DJ Stage, for example, I felt I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see Luke Skywalker passing by on his way fix a Moisture Vaporator on the orders of his Uncle Owen. Not that the stage is in any way directly modelled on Star Wars, it’s actually an entirely unique build; it’s just that it put me in that general mindset as I chatted with Kaz.
Aki’s Live stage also left me with an impression of other-worldliness. In the centre is a huge metallic head-and-shoulders statue of a gigantic helmeted figure, hands held outward and palms up to form the stage area. Around this are tall structures with a slightly industrial aspect around them, somehow suggestive of a city on a distant world.
Aki’s brilliant Live Stage – the giant robot android literally has performers in the palms of its hands
However, there is no mistaking the inspiration for Loki’s Main Stage (calling it the “Cake Stage” this year somehow doesn’t seem to do it justice): dominating the SL11BCC regions sits none other than Tron’s MCP.
It’s an astonishing tour de force of mesh, materials and more – this is one where you’re going to want to enable ALM in your viewer if you can (remember, you don’t also need to enable shadows as well, so the performance hit shouldn’t be too great – allowing for the numbers of people there and your GPU!). It’s also worth having a little play with your windlight settings as well, as the entire build can look even more astonishing under various lighting conditions.
Elevated information highways span the width of the SL11B regions, their arrow-straight lines leading directly into the huge cylinder of the Main Stage as ribbons of data twirl and twist in the air around it. Step into the Great cylinder and more awaits, as lights play across material surfaces, the central round stage glittering in reflected light. Make sure you look up as well; there’s a remarkable light / data show going on overhead – complete with suspended platforms over the main dance area for the more intrepid dancers. Keep an eye out, as well, for the hidden gifts. After all, a Program isn’t anything without his / her Identity Disk …
I admit to loving the imagery Loki’s Main Stage evokes when seeing it; so much so that I couldn’t resist having a little fun … :).
If I could insert my Identity Disk into the data stream, would my User get my message? – Having a little fun at Loki’s Cake Stage
The full list of performances throughout the week can be found in the main SL11BCC performance schedule, together with details of events at the Auditorium. Direct links to the schedules for each stage and the Auditorium are as follows:
You can also find a list of exhibitors at SL11BCC starting here (use the menu to display exhibitors by SL11B region). Oh, and don’t forget the Big Hunt taking place throughout the celebrations.
Should you feel in need of a break from all the hustle and bustle and dancing, many of the individual exhibits in the regions offer places to sit, rest, and contemplate. So too, does the SL11BCC Auditorium, which sits amidst trees and flowers and features winding paths, water and, of course, plenty of seating for the events which will be staged here. In this, Pygar’s design strongly counterpoints the general “busy-ness” of the rest of the regions, forming something of an oasis within the crowds, so to speak.
While 11 regions may well sound a lot smaller than the previous SLB events, it doesn’t mean there is necessarily less to see in terms of creativity and diversity of exhibit builds. I’ve barely had a chance to scratch the surface of things (and I’ve been sort-of helping-out “backstage”, so have had many opportunities to drop in on the regions!). I will say, however, that I’ve already found one or two personal favourites, and – time allowing – I hope that over the coming days I can bring you shots of the builds I’ve particularly liked, and why they appealed to me.
So, with things ready for the off from midday on the 22nd, and running through until Sunday June 29th (although the regions will be around after that date, just without any performances, etc.), it only leaves me to wish Second Life a happy 11th anniversary, and to leave you with a brilliant preview video by Pallina60 Loon.
Update Wednesday July 9th: Dolphin Linden also attended the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday July 8th, where he further discussed the Experience Keys (Tools) project. As that discussion covered some of the information given here, I have provided a further update on the additional information provided by Dolphin at that meeting, to serve as a companion piece to this report. Please do ensure you read that article as a follow-up to this one.
During the TPV Developer Meeting on Friday JUne 20th, Linden Lab gave advanced notice to third-party viewer developers that the long-awaited Experience Tools project will be entering a beta phase in the near future – possibly within the next month.
Dolphin Linden is one of the people working on the Experience Tools / Keys
The notice came via Troy and Dolphin Linden, two of the key players from the Lab working on the project, who between them gave an overview of what it is and how it should work, and answered questions from TPV developers.
There has been considerable interest in this project at Simulator User Group and Server Beta User Group meetings over the last several months, particularly as mention of the tools has been made in various RC deployment release notes, and the fact that they are currently on the Magnum RC. However, until the June 20th meeting, the Lab has remained tight-lipped on the matter.
The notes which follow were taken from an audio recording I made of the meeting, and the salient extracts from that audio are included at the end of this article (see also North’s video recording of the meeting). I’ll have a summary of the TPV Dev meeting itself available soon.
What Are Experience Keys?
Experience Tools is essentially a new means of providing a set of “blanket” permissions against a range of actions which might be taken on an avatar participating in a defined activity (e.g. allowing the avatar to be animated, teleported, have items attached, etc., in accordance with the requirements of the activity). The idea is that rather than having to constantly give permission for objects, etc., to act on your avatar while participating in an immersive activity, you give a single OK at the start of your participation, and then no longer be distracted by additional dialogue requests. The permissions within the Experience Tools comprise:
PERMISSION_TAKE_CONTROLS
PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION
PERMISSION_ATTACH
PERMISSION_TRACK_CAMERA
PERMISSION_CONTROL_CAMERA
PERMISSION_TELEPORT
Note that permissions such as DEBIT (i.e. take money from your L$ account) are explicitly excludedfrom the Experience Tools, and must still go the normal route of requesting permission from the user.
What is an “Experience”?
An “experience” in this context can be almost any immersive / interactive environment within SL where the user needs to provide permissions for objects, etc., to interact with their avatar. A list of examples of experiences might include:
A game or puzzle or hunt or quest which requires the use of a HUD and / or which requires certain items are attached to an avatar
An amusement park where every ride requires the user gives explicit permissions to every ride they take
A tour of an art or historical installation which utilises multiple teleports and / or the use of HUDs.
As noted above, within an experience, the user only needs to give permission to scripts and objects to interact with their avatar once, when they agree to participate in the experience.
Linden Realms, launched back in late 2011, was something of a precursor to Experience Tools, inasmuch as by entering a Linden Realm game area, players gave implicit permission for certain actions to be carried out on their avatars – HUD attachment, teleporting – without the need to explicitly allow each activity within the game. The difference between it and Experience Tools, is that with the latter, users must still explicitly give that initial permission for objects, etc., within the experience to interact with their avatar.
Linden Realms, launched in 2011, was something of a precursor of what has evolved into Experience Tools / Keys
During the initial deployment, experiences using the Experience Tools will be restricted to running at the region / estate level for private islands / estates and parcel level for mainland. They will require white listing by the land owner in order to run. However, it is possible that the capabilities will be extended in the future to allow grid-wide experiences to be created (e.g. a grid-wide hunt involving multiple regions / mainland parcels). When / if implemented, this will mean:
Private estates / regions with access restrictions will have an additional level of access which will allow anyone participating in a grid-wide experience running on that estate / region to access it. However, should they revoke the experience permissions while on such an estate / region, they will be teleported away in accordance with the estate’s / region’s access controls
If a user opts not to take part in a grid-wide experience at one location, their refusal to do so applies to all locations running the same experience (so they do not have to keep refusing to participate when travelling around the grid).
See How it Will Work, below, for further information on allowing / refusing experiences and revoking permissions.
The confirmation that the Lab are working on the platform – and may well have been for around the last two years (see: Rod Humble hints at more virtual worlds in LL’s future, October 2012) – have fuelled rumours and speculation about the future of Second Life (remembering that any new platform is still some way into the future). As a result Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global communications contacted me with a copy of an official reply the Lab is circulating in response to enquiries on the matter, and has given me permission to reprint it here:
Hi Inara,
Just saw your post – thanks for taking care to get what Ebbe actually said. Below is the comment I’ve just sent along to a couple of folks who asked for clarification, which mostly reiterates what it sounds like you already know. Still, I just wanted to send it along in case it were useful.
Best,
Peter
more/…
Linden Lab is working on a next generation virtual world that will be in the spirit of Second Life, an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king. This is a significant focus for Linden Lab, and we are actively hiring to help with this ambitious effort. We believe that there is a massive opportunity ahead to carry on the spirit of Second Life while leveraging the significant technological advancements that have occurred since its creation, as well as our unparalleled experience as the provider of the most successful user-created virtual world ever.
The next generation virtual world will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don’t want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start. That doesn’t mean you necessarily won’t be able to bring parts of your Second Life over, just that our priority in building the next generation platform is to create an incredible experience and enable stunningly high-quality creativity, rather than ensuring that everything could work seamlessly with everything created over Second Life’s 11 year history.
Does this mean we’re giving up on Second Life? Absolutely not. It is thanks to the Second Life community that our virtual world today is without question the best there is, and after 11 years we certainly have no intention of abandoning our users nor the virtual world they continually fill with their astounding creativity. Second Life has many years ahead of it, and in addition to improvements and new developments specifically for Second Life, we think that much of the work we do for the next generation project will also be beneficial for Second Life.
It’s still very early days for this new project, and as we forge ahead in creating the next generation virtual world, we’ll share as much as we can.
If we had one message to share with Second Life users about this new project at this point, it would be: don’t panic, get excited! Again, Second Life isn’t going away, nor are we ceasing our work to improve it. But, we’re also working on something that we think will truly fulfill the promise of virtual worlds that few people understand as well as Second Life users.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 