The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group meeting, held on Thursday, November 9th, 2017 at 13:00 SLT. For the purposes of Animesh testing, the meetings have relocated to the Animesh4 region on Aditi, the beta grid – look for the seating area towards the middle of the region. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
Medhue Simoni live streamed the meeting, and his video is embedded at the end of this article. Time stamps in the body text will open the video in a separate tab for ease of reference to the relevant parts of the text. However as these notes present the meeting in terms of topics discussed, rather than a chronological breakdown of the meeting, so some time stamps may appear to be out of sequence.
Animesh (Animated Mesh)
“I like the name ‘animated objects’ because I think it’s unambiguous, but it takes a long time to type!” – Vir Linden joking about the name “Animesh”.
Project Summary
The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and server-side changes.
In short, an Animesh object:
- Can be any object (generally rigged / skinned mesh) which and contains the necessary animations and controlling scripts in its own inventory (Contents tab of the Build floater) required for it to animate itself.
- Can be a single mesh object or a linkset of objects (link them first, then set them to Animated Mesh via the Build floater > Features).
- Has been flagged as and Animesh object in the project viewer, and so has an avatar skeleton associated with it.
- Can use many existing animations.
However Animated objects will not (initially):
- Have an avatar shape associated with them
- Make use of an avatar-like inventory (although individual parts can contain their own inventory such as animations and scripts)
- Make use of the server-side locomotion graph for walking, etc., and so will not use an AO
- Use the avatar baking service
- Will not support its own attachments in the initial release.
These are considered options for follow-on work, possibly starting with the notion of a body shape (to help with more fully-formed NPCs).
Resources
- Animesh User Guide
- Animesh test content
- Animesh LSL methods:
- Animesh feedback thread
Viewer Progress
[3:51-5:33] The project viewer updated to version 5.0.9.329815 on Thursday, November 9th.
- The major change is that Animesh linksets can now include non-rigged items (e.g. prims), and allow the root objects to be a prim rather than a rigged mesh.
- Animesh objects should now render the same way as mesh attachments and generate shadows.
- The viewer also includes a number of bug fixes.
[42:25-44:50 + text chat] However, while the root of an Animesh object can now be a prim, this doesn’t mean mesh objects such as pets can be dropped in-world (e.g. so someone could “pick up” their Animesh pet, carry it, then put it down again somewhere else), because the code required for “dropping” mesh is not provided on the simulator on the ground that dropping meshes can cause physics issues.
Animesh Attachments
Note: there is an extensive discussion in text chat around this subject from the 13:00 minute mark which continues throughout the meeting.
[12:59-18:06] One of the major subjects of discussion with Animesh is enabling attachments to be added to existing Animesh objects (see here and here). In short, many pets and characters are created as No Modify objects, to help protect their capabilities. Thus, as No Mod objects, Animesh characters cannot be accessorized (the owner of an Animesh horse cannot add / remove a saddle from an Animesh horse, for example). As Piscine Mackenzie explains in the forum, with highlights by Medhue Simoni, making Animesh pets / characters Modify opens them to the risk of exploitation.
One proposal has been put forward via feature request BUG-139168. Vir Linden has also put forward a number of ideas. Of these, the mod key proposal (2nd bullet point in Vir’s notes and somewhat aligned to BUG-139168) is seen as a potential solution, with LlAllowInventoryDrop used to avoid the need for the root Animesh object having to be modify (and leaving it exposed to the exploits outlined by Piscine and Medhue). Vir is currently seeking further feedback from people on this being a possible approach, or if there are other potential alternatives.
- [21:11-22:51] Two concerns on this approach are that a) any scripted mod key capability could be withdrawn at any time by the creator, potentially leaving users with broken content. However, there is no obvious means of safeguarding against this (unless it is made some kind of one-time function operation by the Lab, if possible); b) there is a risk the mod key could be accidentally exposed / leaked in being shared between those using it.
- [25:52-26:12] The most “obvious” means of handling this issue would be to implement a change to the permission system to cater for the specific user-case of allowing attachments to be added to Animesh objects. However, the Lab is hesitant to consider such changes due to the risk of unintended impact, risk of content breakage, etc. As such a precise proposal on how to update the permissions system and the use cases it would meet would have to be properly defined for consideration.
- [28:15-30:40] A suggestion is made to have a new flag “only allow scripts compiled by the object creator run on this object”. However, this could limit cases where models are built by one person, animated by another and scripted by someone else, or situations where a creator is using full permission scripts sold by another creator, etc., and so seen as potentially less than ideal.
- [56:07-1:01:56] Determining whether Animesh attachments capabilities (e.g. using the mod keys idea) can or cannot be implemented relatively easily is seen by the Lab as a critical aspect to moving Animesh towards a release. If doing so proves problematic, the project will likely move ahead without such a capability being implemented. In the meantime, as there isn’t currently an available solution, creators are advised to handle Animesh the same as any other product they are developing for the time being, and focus on Animesh at the functional level.
- [1:01:57-1:05:05] An example of complexity is defining how a mod keys capability would work. If it is limited to one specific group of people creating a poduct line, it is relatively easy to control. However, if a creator wants too support an ecosystem whereby other creators can all offer attachments for a product, then it becomes far more complicated in terms of keeping the mod key secure.
Given the complexity of this subject, continued discussion through the Animesh forum thread is encouraged.
Animation Playback Speed
[51:47-52:37] It has been noted that the speed of the animation depends on the distance from the viewer’s camera to the animated object – see BUG-134259 and this MP4 (note particularly the two elephants). This appears to be the result of the debug UseAnimationTimeSteps being set to TRUE (default viewer behaviour). Setting it to FALSE fixes the issue, and doesn’t appear to cause any other performance impacts.
Land Impact and Other Limits
[54:53-56:05] It’s unlikely that the current baseline limits (LI, tri count, rendering), will be altered until there is confidence that the viewer functionality is relatively stable in terms of features, bugs, etc., at which point reliable performance testing can begin. Once this point is reached, then the Lab will be able to gather reliable data in order to start adjusting / potentially relaxing the limits.
Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)
Project Summary
A set of environmental enhancements, including the ability to define the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) at the parcel level; a new environment asset type that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others; scripted, experience-based environment functions, an extended day cycle and extended environmental parameters. This work involves both a viewer updates (with a project viewer coming soon) and server-side updates.
Current Status
[8:25-10:32] Rider Linden is “very close” to removing the old windlight environment code from his EEP version of the viewer, allowing it to use all the new EEP assets, allowing the local environment to be set via windlight inventory assets.
Once this can be done, test regions capable of supporting the assets will be established on Aditi (the beta grid), and a project viewer will be made available for more general testing.
Bakes on Mesh
Project Summary
Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos, clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies as well as system avatars. This involves server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, and may in time lead to a reduction in the complexity of mesh avatar bodies and heads. The project is in two phases:
- The current work to update the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures.
- An intended follow-on project to actually support baking textures onto avatar mesh surfaces (and potentially other mesh objects as well). This has yet to fully defined in terms of implementation and when it might be slotted into SL development time frames.
This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing baking service.
Current Progress
[35:41-36:33] The performance testing has been carried out, and the results point to the need for additional bake host servers to account for the additional load in handling the higher resolution textures.
Other Items – In Brief
- [36:30-37:29] Region crossing loads: the question is asked about what is the biggest load / cause of lag on region crossings (direct or TP). The short answer is scripts. That is, suspending them, saving their state, packaging them, handing them off to the next simulator, unpacking them alongside everything else (e.g. the avatar and / or vehicle they are running against), setting them back to running from their saved state. Obviously, the more individual scripts an avatar (+ vehicle, where used) is running (regardless of individual script size), the bigger the load placed on the hand-off process / receiving region.
- [47:03-47:19] Materials system update: this is frequently requested, but currently the Lab do not have any plans to revisit the materials system.
- [49:32-49:45] Cannot pathfind through a hollow object – intentional? Short answer – yes; physics simulations going into concave objects is expensive
- [49:45-50:18] Will RenderVolumeLOD be revisited? – Short answer – yes, as a part of the work in re-evaluating rendering costs, land impact, etc.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 