Day: May 24, 2017

SL project updates week 21/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Costa Blanco, Costa Blanco; Inara Pey, May 2017, on Flickr Costa Blanco – blog post

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates and news.

  • On Tuesday, May 23rd, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the server maintenance package previously deployed to LeTigre in week #20, containing the updated server-side parcel access override settings (more below)
  • On Wednesday, May 24th, the RC channels should be updated with a new server maintenance package containing the parcel access override controls, together with a fix for BUG-100704, “[Server] If Anyone Can visit is selected after Allow Group was set only group members can enter”.

SL Viewer

The Maintenance viewer, version 5.0.5.326444, dated May 18th, 2017 was promoted to release status on Tuesday, May 23rd.

This viewer is notable for its inclusion of some improvements to Trash purging behaviour, and support for the parcel access overrides which as of this week are fully deployed across the grid.

I have an overview of this viewer, which examines both the Trash purging changes and the parcel access overrides in detail, as well as touching on the other updates included in the release.

Outside of this, the current pipeline remains as:

  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Voice RC viewer, version 5.0.5.325998, dated May 5th
    • Project AssetHttp project viewer,  version 5.0.5.325940, dated May 4th – This viewer moves fetching of several types of assets to HTTP / CDN – overview
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer, version 5.1.0.505089, dated May 11th
    • 360-degree snapshot viewer, version 4.1.3.321712, dated November 23, 2016 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images.
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Expect the two RC viewers to be updated to bring them to parity with the new release viewer viewer.

Infrastructure Updates

As noted in my week #20 updates (notably the TPV Developer meeting notes), the Lab is working on a range of infrastructure updates, together with updates to things like the teleport re-try throttle (which can place a considerable load on the “receiving” region’s simulator). It is hoped that these updates will a) help SL progress into the future, b) potentially offer further increases in the numbers of avatar regions can support.

Other Items

Changes to Mesh Upload Access

Linden Lab recently changed the requirements for being able to upload mesh content to Second Life. For more information, see my separate update.

Instancing Regions?

Note: this is not an actual project with the Lab, nor is it necessarily on the roadmap for SL development. What follows is purely in the realm of speculative discussion.

During the Simulator User Group Meeting on Tuesday, May 23rd, it was asked if instancing regions (notably private standalone regions) might some day be possible. That is, if there is a stand-alone region hosting a very popular event, a copy of the entire region might be spawned, which would then allow people into it to deal with the demand.

While there are a wide range of infrastructure, permission system  and other issues associated with it (how is the instance to be paid for? what about No Copy items, can they be reproduced in an instance of a region, where technically they aren’t a duplicate? How is the required hardware managed & what happens when demand for additional server space isn’t high?, etc.), the idea wasn’t ruled as being completely out-of-bounds. Right now it remains purely on the “someday maybe” wish list.