Year: 2016

Project Bento User Group update 8 with audio

Posted on by Inara Pey
Project Bento – extending the SL avatar skeleton
Project Bento – extending the SL avatar skeleton

The following notes and audio were taken from the weekly Bento User Group meeting, held on Thursday, March 3rd at 13:00 SLT on Aditi. For details on each meeting and the location, 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 to Project Bento, grouped together by subject matter were relevant / possible, together with any additional discussion on potential future projects the Lab might be willing to examine for possible adoption in the future.

Skeleton and Viewer Status

Bento viewer work is now focused on finalising the new skeleton, working on bug fixes and investigating hooking the new skeleton into the appearance sliders where is can be done.

It’s anticipated that there will not be any further significant changes to the bones within the skeleton, although there has been some discussion on adding a couple of extra bones into the “hind” limbs. Content creators are therefore being encouraged to develop new test models utilising the skeleton, as available in the current project viewer (version 5.0.0.311861 at the time of writing).

A couple of issues have come to light with the additional bones. In the first, the alternate eye bones weren’t quite lined up with the original eyes, and this is being fixed. There  also appears to be some issues arising from the inclusion of additional spine bones, which is discussed below.

Appearance Sliders

The Lab has been investigating the potential of modifying the appearance sliders (controlled through the avatar.LAD file). This means taking some of the sliders that are based on morphs which deform the default avatar, and allowing them to also be utilised by the Bento skeleton when an avatar mesh employing the skeleton is worn. This work looks “promising”, although the number of sliders means that it is unlikely all of them will be dual-purposed in this way. However, as a part of this work, the Lab will be addressing the slider bugs which have been reported against the latest Bento skeleton as well.

Vir discusses the current status with the Bento skeleton and project viewer

Attachment Points

Some additional attachment points were added specifically for use with the new skeleton, and consideration is being given to adding some more (such as to the new “hind” limbs – which can be used for a variety of purposes other than “just” hind legs, as noted in my last update).  Currently, no clear preference for extra attachment points has been expressed by content creators working on Bento. One group of suggested attach points put forward in the meeting was for rear left leg and rear right leg (upper and lower). rear hip, rear groin, rear left foot, rear right foot, and rear back (for rideable centaurs/saddles).

Responding to this Vir indicated some of these may already be possible, and that others such as those for the hind legs / back are hard to determine as the joints are repositionable,. The suggestion for catering to some of these bones might be to reposition existing attachment point to suit, or the possible inclusion of a new hip root attachment point for the “hind” bones root.

The question was also raised on whether attachment points are lag producing in the same way joints can be. Vir indicated that lag isn’t really an issue with attachment points on their own (although animating them can obviously add an overhead). However, there are other issues with regards to UI / menu management which can make additional attachment points a problem.

For example, there is only a single menu structure available for selecting an attachment point for an item directly from inventory. So the more attachment points added, the more unwieldy the menu gets. The same issue isn’t so apparent when attachment an object from in-world, where the code allows for sub-menus to be added.

The Bento attachment points have added to an already large inventory attachment menu, although the in-world attachment menu has been broken down for easier locating on attach points (click for full size)
The inventory attachment point menu (left) is currently monolithic in nature, making it unwieldy when adding further attachment points, such as for Bento. Things are easier on the in-world attachment menu allows for easier addition of attachment points through sub-menus (right) – click for full size, if required

Another limiting aspect with attachment points is that there is a hard limit on the total number of joints which can be used (thought to be 255). so if an attachment point was added to every bone, this would likely be exceeded, so things like an attachment point for every finger would probably be out of the question.

Issue Updates

Work is continuing on issues of avatar deformation, but as yet there have been no major breakthroughs.

However, problems appea rto have arisen as a result of the new spine bones. In particular, quadruped avatars appear to “dip” their forelegs and shoulders forward when shifting between certain animations. The precise cause is unclear (this may not even be a new issue, just one that is exacerbated by the new bones), but it could be the result of an interpolation issues, an i-k (inverse kinematics issue) or even some issue relating to bipedal animations (a human avatar tends to lean into something like a walk, and this default movement might be affecting thing). However, the larger the quadruped avatar, the more pronounced the up-and-down motion of the forelegs seems to be.

wolf-2_001
The “scrunching” issue, possibly the result of a missing transform, but apparently related to the inclusion of the new spine bones

This problem is further compounded by a problem whereby if the avatar mesh is animated while ignoring the spine bones, then the avatar can end up being distorted following something like a relog; the spine bones must be keyframed in order for the avatar mesh to remain correctly formed.

One possible explanation for this latter issue is that there might be a missing transform in the hierarchy data, such that the weights associated with a joint are skipped, together with any child joints, causing the model to collapse.

As it is, the model in question, animations, etc., are being passed to the Lab so that they can investigate and test things.

Other issues have also been seen with the additional spine bones, which might be down to order of use or correct alignment, as the method by which they have been implemented, in order to preserve backwards compatibility with the avatar skeleton, is complicated.

Continue reading “Project Bento User Group update 8 with audio” →

The Edge: fashion and art in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Edge Gallery - Miele Tarantal
The Edge Gallery – Miele Tarantal

Opening Sunday, March 13th, 2016 at 14:00 SLT is the inaugural exhibition at a new Second Life gallery. The Edge Gallery,is the latest addition to the Windlight Magazine family, forming a part of the magazine’s The Edge brand managed by  Eleseren Brianna.

The Edge is the fashion division of Windlight Magazine, with a focus on the artistic and cultural side of fashion in both Second Life and the physical world. Eleseren, an accomplished Second Life model and designer and the 2015 Miss Virtual World, serves as both editor for The Edge and curator of The Edge Gallery.

The Edge Gallery - Wicca Merlin
The Edge Gallery – Wicca Merlin

The inaugural display brings together artwork by Honey Bender, Wicca Merlin, Danity Mynx, Tempest Rosca, Miele Tarantal and Joanne Vuitton. Many of the images are original pieces by the artists, and are presented in a variety of mediums.

The Edge Gallery is a clean, modern design, reflective of its purpose to showcase fashion-focused art, and the opening will be marked with a performance by live singer  Saintess Laria at 14:00 SLT on March 13th. The exhibition runs through until April 23rd, 2016.

The Edge Gallery - Honey Bender
The Edge Gallery – Honey Bender

SLurl Details

Of whalers, priests, faeries and St Patrick

Posted on by Inara Pey

It’s time to kick-off a week of story-telling in voice, brought to our virtual lives by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s Second Life home at Bradley University, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, March 13th 13:30 Crazy Eights: Tea Time at Baker Street

Crazy Eights sees Caledonia, Corwyn and Kayden reading from The Return of Sherlock Holmes every Sunday from the living room of 221B Baker Street.

Inspector Hopkins, Holmes and Watson at the murder scene (1904, Stanley Paget, Strand Magazine)

Peter Carey, once the master of the whaler Sea Unicorn, prone to drunkenness and violence, having assaulted not only his wife and daughter but also the vicar in Forest Weald, where the family have settled in his retirement from the sea. Even so, when he is found run-through with a whaling harpoon and pinned to the wall of the outhouse where he spend most of his time, it appears to be a most gruesome and violent death, driven by a hatred beyond anything caused by the man’s behaviour.

The murder has left police inspector Stanley Hopkins mystified. No footprints or any other evidence of force entry and violence have been found at the scene. What’s more, it appears Carey was killed around two o’clock in the morning, yet he was fully dressed as if expecting a visitor. The only clues found are a pouch of seaman’s tobacco – yet Carey was thought to be a non-smoker – and a small notebook.

Reading the notebook, Holmes deduces that writing in it relates to the Canadian Pacific Railway and what appears to be stock exchange information. This, together with the unusual method of murder lead him to agree to return to Forest Weald with Inspector Hopkins, and so he and Dr. Watson embark on The Adventure of Black Peter.

Monday March 14th 19:00: A Few Miles and Prometheus

carmodyGyro Muggins continues a 3-part reading of tales concerning one of Philip José Farmer’s many memorable characters: Father John Carmody, and ex-con who painfully grew a conscience, but is still not entirely beyond benefiting himself.

In A Few Miles, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Carmody is ordered to the planet Wildenwoolly (think about it 🙂 ), but is given no funds for his journey and must therefore find his own way there. This proves taxing, with even reaching the space station where he might gain passage to his intended destination proving problematic. So problematic, in fact that he ends up “expregnated” by a large earthbound bird called a horowitz.

With the egg now attached to his chest until such time as it hatches, Carmody finds himself the centre of scientific curiosity and study, something that might well allow him to achieve passage to Wildenwoolly under a lot more comfortable circumstances than he’d envisaged when first dispatched by the priesthood. However, as told in the sequel Prometheus, things take a bit of a right turn when he finds himself on Feral, the planet of the horowitzes, and cast in the role of educator for these strange birds, and as a sort of latter-day Prometheus, bringing them moral enlightenment.

Tuesday March 15th, 19:00: Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish

Caledonia Skytower reads selections from Morgan Llywelyn’s 1984 historical fantasy novel depicting a hypothetical 4th century migration of Galicians to Ireland, led by Amergin the bard.

Wednesday March 16th 19:00 Crazy Eights: The Hunter’s Moon

HuntersAoife Lorefield continues reading the second in the Crazy Eights series of monthly Featured books

When she arrives in Ireland to visit her cousin Findabhair (Finn), American Gwen expects a fun backpacking trip to sites of the fairy lore they’re both fascinated with. What neither cousin knows is that it’s the summer of the Hunter’s Moon, a dangerous time for mortals to meddle in the kingdom of Faerie.

Whilst camping out, Finn is kidnapped by the handsome Faerie king, and Gwen must rescue her. In attempting to do so, she travels between modern-day and mystical Ireland. And when she does finally reach Finn, she finds her biggest challenge might be actually persuading her cousin she is in need of rescue!

Thursday, March 17th Saint Patricks Day Special

19:00 Darby O’Gill and the Good People

Initially released in 1903, this is a novel where each chapter is effectively a short story, following the adventures of Darby O’Gill in Ireland.

So, join Shandon Loring for a Saint Patrick’s Day walk through Darby O’Gill adventures. perhaps it will be the tale of his sojourn in the mountain home of the fairies, when he wins his freedom (and fairy gold) from King Brian Connors. Or perhaps it will be how Darby O’Gill encountered a Leprechaun or the tale of how How the Fairies Came to Ireland, or perhaps it will be the story of how Darby must match wits with the banshee and her ghosts, or meet his doom!

21:00 The Quiet Man

quiet-manReleased in 1952, John Ford’s The Quiet Man is regarded as a classic Irish-American romantic comedy / drama. Starring John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara (and assorted members of their RL families!) and Barry Fitzgerald, it is a popular choice among critics and film-lovers.

The screenplay for the film was drawn in a large part from a short story of the same name originally published in 1933 in the Saturday Evening Post, and penned by Irish author, Maurice Welsh. Together with a number of other short stories by Walsh, The Quiet Man was gathered into a single volume of his short stories, The Quiet Man and Other Stories, which dealt with many recurring characters living in rural Ireland of the 1920s, and set against the backdrop of the civil unrest which affected the country at that time, while examining the complexities and occasional intrigues of life, love and Irish traditions.

Join Caledonia Skytower as she reads Walsh’s original tale of The Quiet Man, Paddy Bawn Enright.

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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 March / April is Project Children, building peace in Ireland one child at a time.

Additional Links

Phishing: Lab issues reminder on account security

Posted on by Inara Pey

There has recently been another round of phishing attempts to get second Life Users to try to provide their account credentials.

As a result of these attempts, on Friday March 11th 2016, Linden lab issued a reminder to users on the subject of account security in the form of a blog post.

In keeping with the request from the Lab to share the information,  I’m reproducing the blog post in full below:

As with any online service, Second Life Residents may from time to time be targeted with phishing attempts, which try to trick users into providing personal information and account credentials.

These attempts may include messages – including in-world IMs and emails trying to appear as if they were sent from Linden Lab – that prompt you to click on a link and/or provide personal information.

To help keep yourself safe from these tricks, remember: 

  • If you receive a suspicious email, forward it to phishing@secondlife.com and delete it.
  • If you receive a suspicious IM, file an abuse report against the sender even if the sender looks like your friend. After stealing an account, a fraudster often tries to trick the victim’s friends.
  • If you feel your account has been compromised, contact Second Life Billing through the Support Portal right away. (Better yet, call us at the number provided on the Support Portal)
  • Keep your anti virus software up-to-date and scan for viruses regularly.
  • You can change your account password; do so frequently to keep your account secure. If you suspect you’ve already clicked a phishing link, change your password immediately.
  • If you have multiple accounts, use a different password for each account.
  • Never reuse your Second Life password for your email account or any other website.
  • Your password should be easy for you to remember, but hard for others to guess.
  • If you think you entered your credit card information into a fake email or website, contact your bank immediately!

For more info, check out this page on the wiki.

Help your fellow Second Life Residents keep their accounts secure by sharing this post with them. Bookmark it, and the next time you see phishing attempts in group chat, share this post to help educate others. You can help put phishers out of business.

 

 

At home at The Mill in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Mill; Inara Pey, March 2016, on FlickrThe Mill – click any image for full size

“Because it all started with a Mill and a sink. Welcome to our house, decorated by us. Hope you like it as much as we do!” So reads the description for The Mill, the homestead region designed by Maxie Daviau and Shakespeare (Skinnynilla). And to be sure, there is absolutely nothing not to like about this picturesque location, positively packed with sights and photo opportunities, as well as offering numerous places to simply sit and relax.

The landing point delivers visitors close to the centre of the region, on its eastern, lowland side. The fork in the dirt track where you arrive is an open invitation to start exploring, forward toward the rugged uplands of the west side of the region, eastwards and south towards a wooden windmill, or north towards the lighthouse sitting on a shoulder of the hills.

The Mill; Inara Pey, March 2016, on FlickrThe Mill

Caitlyn and I opted to follow the track north, towards the rocky hills, a set of stone steps leading us upwards. As we climbed, and amidst the singing of the birds and distant caw of gulls, came music of a different kind carried on the breeze. This comes from a little radio sitting within a little shack, slightly tired in appearance, wood bleached and weathered, tin roof rusting.

Tired it may look, but the shack is clearly home to someone. Flowers are tended in buckets outside, a hammock sways in the breeze and washing hangs on the lines to dry. A garden hose and sprinkler curled around an old tree stump raised on one side of the shack suggests whoever lives here enjoys a slightly bohemian touch to their life, and happily so, given the books and general bric-a-brac scattered around.

The Mill; Inara Pey, March 2016, on FlickrThe Mill

Behind the shack, a path leads on upwards to the tops of the rugged hills, the way marked by a rope path. Here sits old ruins, split by a deep box gorge. To one side sits the remnants of a small castle or fortified house, now occupied by trees, bent as with age by long exposure to the wind, their stooped forms suggesting they are ancient guardians of this place. Across the gorge, and reached by the stone span of a bridge, sits a ruined chapel and nearby tower, another path from them leading back down to the lowlands for those who wish to explore in that direction.

To the north of the homely little shack, the path will take visitors up over the rocky hills or down stone steps and past a walled garden and greenhouse and, via more steps, to the lone figure of the whitewashed lighthouse. With the warm and comfortable lounge and bedroom inside, this would seem to be the rest of the home started at the shack, the cosy little garden forming a homely link between the two.

The Mill; Inara Pey, March 2016, on FlickrThe Mill

A beach beckons from below the lighthouse, and can be most quickly be reached via a zip slide which passes over a small inlet. Stone and board paths then led you onward, over water or across sand, towards the old wooden mill, sails slowly turning as it faces the revolving eye of the lighthouse across the land.

Fabulously and naturally landscaped while avoiding a reliance on mesh to achieve its look, The Mill is an incredibly eye-catching environment. There is far more to see then I’ve described here, including lots of special little touches (such as the Triumph TR3 sitting nonchalantly at the entrance to the gorge, the tea and toast in the shack, the little union flags all pointing to a certain Englishness here…). And when you have finished exploring and photographing, there are plenty of opportunities to sit and relax and snuggle; something Caitlyn and I did after all our wanderings, passing the evening chatting together and simply enjoying the sights and sounds of the island.

The Mill; Inara Pey, March 2016, on FlickrThe Mill

SLurl Details

SL project updates 16 10/2: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Heritage: Wrecks
Heritage: Wrecks – blog post

The following notes are primarily taken from the  TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, March 11th, 2016. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report, my thanks as always to North for supplying it, and time stamps in the text relate to this recording.

RC Viewers

[00:00] All three RC viewers currently in the release channel have been updated as follows:

  • The HTTP / Vivox RC updated on Wednesday, March 9th to version 4.0.2.312094
  • The Maintenance RC viewer updated on Thursday, March 10th to version 4.0.2.312269
  • The quick Graphics RC viewer updated on Friday, March 11th to version 4.0.2.312297

All three of these viewers are now showing lower crash rates than the current release viewer, so one is mostly to be promoted at the new de facto release viewer early in week #11 (week commencing Monday, March 14th). [00:50] However, this is unlikely to be the Quick Graphics RC viewer, as there is at least one remaining bug which is in line for fixing prior to the viewer being promoted.

Project Viewers

[01:40] Work is progressing on updating the Oculus Rift project viewer, but problems have been encountered with the latest Oculus SDKs which are proving to be non-trivial to correct. The Lab hasn’t given up, but it does mean any update to this viewer is liable to be a little later rather than sooner.

[02:30] Working is also continuing with the final definition of the Bento skeleton, as well as investigations into hooking the skeleton into some of the shape sliders. This work is liable to see a further release of the viewer with the further skeleton updates before it hopefully moves fully into a bug fixes phase (which could be extensive).

64-bit Viewer Update

[13:21] The lab is making good progress on the Windows and Mac 64-bit versions of their viewer. This has been thanks in part to the work completed in updating the viewer build tool chain during 2014/5. As a result, it is possible that 64-bit project viewers might be appearing in the next few weeks, allowing for an update to the Havok libraries.

TLS Update

[02:58] Beehu Linden requested all TPVs ensure they are able to support TLS 1.2. The Lab is now actively engaged in removing support for all earlier version of TLS (which includes all versions of SSL).

As previously noted, this work is being carried out in respect of compliance requirements. It means that once complete, anyone who is using a viewer that does not have the requisite TLS 1.2 code updates (already in the 4.0+ versions of the official viewer and all viewers utilising the code base from the Lab’s 4.0 viewers) will not be able to do any interactions with cashier or anything that involves money and Second Life.

The next release of Firestorm, tentatively scheduled for around the mid-week of week #11 will have TLS 1.2 support.

Other News

New Registration API

[06:10] As I’ve recently reported, and Ebbe Linden indicated in his VWBPE address, there has been a delay in the roll-out of the new trial community Gateway programme due to issues with the new user registration API (one of them being a user signing-up through it cannot pick their avatar, they are given either the default male or female Character Test avatar).

These issues are being addressed, and an updated registration API is due to be released later in March or early in April. However, this version will not have the new feature set indicated by Ebbe in the VWBPE address, but will work “better” than the current API.

The new features as indicated by Ebbe are still expected to be released, but will come after this initial update, and currently do not have a firm ETA, although it is not anticipated there will be an extended delay between the initial update and an update with the new feature set.

Grid Status RSS Feed

[07:13] The Lab is updating  the Grid Status page RSS feed. This involves a new feed format, and a test URL has been available (http://beta.status.secondlifegrid.net/feed) has been available for those who may poll the RSS feed for updates (e.g. to display grid status updates on viewer log-in splash screens or on a web page, etc) to be able to test they can receive and display the new feed. This work as part of a switch the Lab is making to a new hosting provider for a number of their web services (e.g. the knowledge base).

There is no confirmed ETA as to when the cut-over will occur; the Lab is waiting on feedback from the hosting provider, but the hope is the switch will be made around mid-April, possibly earlier. When it does happen, there will be no need to change any URLs, because the Lab will point their DNS to the new location.

FMOD Studio

[19:30] The Lab has traditionally utilised FMOD (up until its demise) and more latterly FMOD Ex within the sound system for the viewer. However, as a part of the 64-bi viewer build, they may dip into using the full FMOD studio.