The 2nd annual Unmasking a Cure Medieval Faire opened its gates on Friday, June 17th, and will run through until Sunday, June 26th. Whether you are into medieval role-play or not, the Faire is offering a host of events and activities right throughout the week, with something for just about everyone to try or enjoy – all with the aim of raising funds for RFL of SL.
The event, organised by a dedicated team of Unmasking A Cure RFL Team volunteers, features a wide range of events and activities and a programme of entertainments. There is, for example, the 4th annual UAC Grand Joust and the Round Robin En Garde! tournament, which is open to anyone for a L$150 donation to RFL of SL. There are also melees, mounted archery, horse races, live entertainment, DJs … for the complete programme, it’s probably best to refer to the Faire’s Events pages.
Unmasking a Cure – Medieval Faire – En Garde! tournament
Activities are focused around the Village square with its merchant stalls providing a host of Medieval goodies, including special items available through RFL vendors. Around this sit the main event areas for the Faire – the jousting tilts, the start of the relay horse racing track, the melee battleground and the En Garde! tournament area, together with meadows and gardens in which to enjoy quieter moments.
You can find out more about the DJs and the live entertainers through the Unmasking a Cure website, as well is obtaining more information on participating in activities. So, in a week when entertainment, celebrations and fun are liable to be foremost in people’s mind, why not take time to go all Medieval, and help Unmask a Cure?
On Tuesday, June 14th, the Main (SLS) channel received the same server maintenance project, as previously deployed to all three RC channels, comprising “minor internal changes”
There was no deployment to either the LeTigre or BlueSteel Release Candidate channels
After being in doubt (see part 1 of this report), the Magnum RC deployment did take place. This contained the same code as is currently on the RCs, other than some additional diagnostic code executed when some enters a region.
SL Viewer
The Maintenance RC viewer updated on Thursday, June 16th to version 4.0.6.316614, which includes two additional fixes:
MAINT-6446 Correct password length handling to match web sites
MAINT-6486 Recompile Scripts does not process beyond first object/prim.
The VLC Media plug-in project viewer updated to version 4.0.6.316258 on June 15th, which includes on additional fix:
MAINT-6488 [Win LibVLC] After using a drop down list on a web page, it remains stuck on-screen even when URL is changed.
All other viewers remain unchanged:
Current Release version: 4.0.5.315117 (dated May 11), May 18 – formerly the Quick Graphics RC viewer
Inventory Message RC viewer, version 4.0.6.315555, dated May 23rd – removal of deprecated and unused UDP inventory messaging mechanisms from the viewer
Project viewers:
Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions), version 5.0.0.316366, dated June 10th
Visual Outfit Browser viewer, version 4.0.6.316123, dated June 6th – ability to preview images of outfits in the Appearance floater
Oculus Rift project viewer, version 3.7.18.295296, dated October 13, 2014 – Oculus Rift DK2 support
Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.
Group Ban / Chat
A major annoyance among many groups is that when an irritant is banned / ejected from a group whilst already engaged in group chat, they can continue to engage in the chat session until they close the group chat session window / tab – see SVC-32. However, an upcoming change to the group chat services, currently undergoing testing on Aditi, will change this.
While subject to change prior to going live, the updates on Aditi worked so that:
If a person banned or ejected is in the same region as the person banning them, the banned individual sees a dialogue box displayed over their group chat:
Group chat warning following a group ban / ejection when in the same region as the person carrying out the banning / ejection
When they click on OK, the dialogue clears and the group chat closes. The group should also be removed from their group list, preventing them from re-joining the chat.
If the person being banned / ejected is in a different region to the person banning / ejecting them, there is no dialogue box displayed over their group chat. Instead, the chat window remains open, but any attempts to post chat messages result in the system message:
Message displayed when attempting to continue to use and open group chat after being banned / ejected from a group, when in a region different to that of the person banning you
The group will also remain in their group list until such time as they re-log. However, if they close the chat window and attempt to re-join it, they will receive the following message:
Message displayed on attempting to close / reopen the group chat after having been banned / ejected from a group
Currently, it appears as if this update will be included in a main grid Release Candidate update for week #25 (commencing Monday, June 20th).
Bento Fix
A fix for BUG10979 – “Scripted attachments attached to the new enhanced skeleton attachment points show as worn on ‘Invalid Attachment Point’ in the script limits floater” is available for testing on Aditi on the Fire Ant 1 region, if anyone wishes to try the fix. If all goes according to plan, it should also be on the main grid in a Release Candidate server maintenance package in week #25.
With thanks to Rex Cronon for the SBUG meeting chat tanscript.
The following notes and audio were taken from the weekly Bento User Group meeting, held on Thursday, June 16th at 13:00 SLT at the the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle. For details on the meeting agenda, please refer to the Bento User Group wiki page.
Note that this update is not intended to offer a full transcript of the meeting, nor does it present the discussion points in chronological order. Rather, it represents the core points of discussion, grouped together by subject matter were relevant / possible, whilst maintaining the overall context of the meeting.
Simon Linden and Whirly Fizzle wear horse avatars by Teager. Whirly has clearly been Torleyfied!
In addition, the pre-jump / jump / landing issue reported in my Bento update #14 (and see BUG-18239) This issue appears to have been related to issues of animations repositioning the avatar pelvis (also the avatar centre) causing conflicts as Vir explained in the meeting.
Eye Bug
Coyot Linden demonstrates the eye bug
Unfortunately, the new project viewer has introduced a fair number of new issues, which the Lab is now looking into, However, one which (as at the time of writing) was awaiting a JIRA, was raised for discussion at the meeting by Medhue Simoni.
In short, the problem is that models uploaded using the latest version of the viewer which do not have eye positions / animation set for poses such as a default stand pose (so they use the default eye positions and will move naturally), have the eyes incorrectly positioned as soon as the avatar is worn.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that even avatars uploaded using the latest version of the viewer (5.0.0.316366) which do display their eyes correctly can have the eyes reset incorrectly in a person’s view in the Reset Skeleton button is used. however, the eyes will also resume their expected position once any animation affecting them is played.
One possible culprit of the issue might be a new head slider, as discussed towards the end of the meeting.
Relative Bone Translations
A recent addition to the Bento project viewer is the ability to reset all bones in the skeleton. The idea is to correctly reset all bone positions in your view should an avatar deform when changing shapes. However, Gael Streeter has come upon situations where partial bone resets might be required, which prompted a discussion on the forum thread (see follow-ups here, here and here) and led to Tapple Gao offering a proposal (which also sparked further discussion in the thread) to address the issue via relative bones translations, which is also now a feature request.
While Vir Linden see the idea as a “nice to do”, it could entail some deep changes to the avatar system as well as having to extend the animation format; as such, it’s more likely to be something the Lab would consider for a “Bento follow-on” project rather than something they’d might try to implement at this point in time.
Leviathan Flux raises the matter of relative bone translations
Aki Shichiroji, wearing her Bento centaur settles down for the meeting
However, there is a significant set of issues facing makers of mesh heads / faces, while could be resolved through relative bone translations which avoid making the shape sliders unusable (which would be the case if they relied on repositioning the facial bones).
A concern was raised that any changes made at this point in time risked the breakage of Bento content which is currently a work-in-progress for creators; however, most of those present at the meeting took the attitude better a breakage now if it yields an improvement, than down the road, when breakage would be a much greater risk.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 