Month: August 2018

2018 SL UG updates #35/2: CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
EEP! The Sky! Alexa Linden toys with the upcoming Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) capabilities to produce some eye-twisting skies. Courtesy Alexa Linden

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on  Thursday, August 30th, 2018 at 13:00 SLT.  These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

The choppiness in some of the audio segments where Vir’s voice drops out is due to issues with SL Voice. Topics blow are not necessarily presented in the order in which they were discussed, I’ve attempted to group items by subject matter.

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.

Resources

Current Status

In support of the server end of Animesh being grid-wide, and the viewer being in RC status, Vir Linden posted an update to the Animesh discussion thread in the forums.  The post underlines the point that now is the best time for some final testing of the initial Animesh capability before it rolls forward to a formal release in the not-too-distant future, when it will be harder to make changes out of concern for breaking existing Animesh content.

In particular, the post makes mention of the fact that moving forward, Animesh will see a behavioural change:

We will be enforcing a size limit on Animesh objects. This will give more consistent behaviour with other types of prims, for which size limits are enforced. The exact details of how this will work is still to be determined, but you should assume that Animesh objects cannot become arbitrarily large.

The reasons for this is that there is no upper limit imposed on rigged mesh objects (whereas all other types of in-world objects have a limit), and there is a concern that if Animesh is not capped, then people could make very large objects that generate rendering issues for those viewing it (see BUG-225331 for more), or as a means simply to grief.

What the limit is and how it is to be enforced is still TBA, but at the CCUG meeting, Vir indicated that the real-time bounding box calculations may be leveraged.

One bug the Lab are trying to poke at is “stuttering” with some Animesh motion. The underlying cause of this has yet to be identified.

Animesh and Resetting the Skeleton

Vir asked the question on when should a skeletal reset occur on an Animesh objects. For example: an Animesh dog has accessories that can be attached / detached by adding / removing from the linkset via script. Should the skeleton for the dog be automatically reset from the removal of an attachment, or should it be a manual reset by the user? Most attachments may not require a reset, unless they were altering the dog’s shape; however, forcing a reset could also mean any animations running on the Animesh would also have to be reset, making things a little complicated. The consensus opinion swayed towards leave things as is, rather than force a reset, and allow creators determine how to handle things.

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 viewer and 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.

This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing Bake  Service.

Resources

Current Status

Bakes on Mesh is still awaiting the main grid deployment of the AIS updates needed to support the new Bakes on Mesh (and EEP) asset types. As noted in my previous CCUG summary, Bakes on Mesh also requires updates to a number of back-end services (e.g. the Bake Service), and to the simulator itself, all of which have yet to be implemented. The viewer, meanwhile is more-or-less ready, but may see a further project status update.

Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements, including:

  • The ability for region / parcel owners to define the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) at the parcel level.
  • New environment asset types (Sky, Water, Days that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others.
    • Day assets can include four Sky “tracks” defined by height: ground level (which includes altitudes up to 1,000m) and (optionally) 1,000m and above; 2,000m and above and 3,000m and above, plus a Water “track”.
  • Experience-based environment functions
  • An extended day cycle (e.g a 24/7 cycle) and extended environmental parameters.
  • There are no EEP parameters for manipulating the SL wind.
  • EPP will also include some rendering enhancements  and new shaders as well (being developed by Graham Linden), which will allow for effects such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”)
    • These will be an atmospheric effect, not any kind of object or asset or XML handler.
  • The new LSL functions for finding the time of day according to the position of the windlight Sun or Moon have been completed,and are more accurate than the current options.
  • EEP will not include things like rain or snow.
  • It will still be possible to set windlight local to your own viewer.

Resources

Current Status

EEP is now described as being “very, very close” in terms of server-side support and a project viewer.

An issue with testing has been that a long-standing bug on Aditi (the beta grid) has meant that the Lab has been unable to set parcels them for sale, allowing users to purchase them (funds on Aditi are provided by the Lab – and are non-transferable to Agni! – so purchasing land there is effectively a zero-cost transaction to the user) and then carry out their own EEP testing. This issue has now been resolved by Rider and Ekim Linden, so parcels are now available on the beta grid for those wishing to test EEP once the EEP project viewer is available (as the necessary viewer-side update will initially be in that viewer), and assuming the server-side support hasn’t already been deployed to Agni to allow testing on the main grid.

Another EEP teaser from Alexa Linden

Other Items

Animations: Obtain by Name or UUID? A Case of Permissions

The middle of the meeting saw a discussion on whether calling animations by name or UUID is “more secure”. In short, calling by name requires the animation to be in an individual’s inventory, and thus seen by the Lab as more secure in preventing theft. Calling by UUID opens the potential to animations being physically obtained from the CDN should the UUID be unfairly obtained.

The question was prompted out of concern that is it possible to remove animations (and other items) from No Modify objects ad use them elsewhere – which (it seemed) one or two creators want to prevent. This comes down to more to how the permissions system works, more than anything else (No Modify means an object cannot be physically altered or added to; it does not mean its existing contents cannot be removed). Preventing the removal of an objects contents (whether animations or anything else) would require a significant overhaul of the permissions system.

Link / Unlink Permissions for Experiences

A request was made no adding the ability for experiences to be able to request permission to link / unlink objects without the need for individual requests to be made for each link / unlink operation – something which could be useful with Animesh. This has been discussed in the past, but is seen as being a larger project than something specific for Animesh, although it is seen as a useful capability (along with the means to offer mod keys for No Modify objects). Right now it is unclear what form such a project to provide capabilities like this would be, or where it would fit in the overall SL enhancement roadmap.

In Brief

  • Release Candidates and Project Viewers: generally speaking, if you are using either a Second Life release candidate viewer or a project viewer, you will not be automatically updated to an other viewer version, but you will be updated to the next available version of the RC or project viewer you are using, by the viewer update process. The exceptions to this are with RC viewers – such as the promotion of the viewer to release status (you will receive updates to later release promotions unless you opt to use another RC), or the RC is withdrawn (you will generally be updated to the current release viewer). Details on the release candidate viewer process can be found in my 2013 post: New viewer release process implemented.
  • Experience Keys: Oz confirmed that there is a plan to allow Premium users to have more than one experience key (allowing them to make multiple individual experiences, rather than having to use the same one for different purposes). The time frame for when this will be implemented is still TBD, as it requires a certain amount of back-end work.
  • Date of next meeting: Thursday, September 13th, 2018.

2018 Sansar Product Meetings week #35: release R25 preview

Posted on by Inara Pey
Horizon Maze – that’s me, bottom centre, for a sense of scale – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Sansar Product Meeting held on Thursday, August 28th. These Product Meetings are open to anyone to attend, are a mix of voice (primarily) and text chat. Dates and times are currently floating, so check the Sansar Atlas events sections each week.

Attending this meeting were  Nyx, Derrick, Aleks, Torley and Ebbe. Unfortunately, I was AFK for part of the meeting, and while I was gone, my client disconnected from the meeting location, so I missed some 25 minutes of discussion.

Next Release

At the meeting, Cara confirmed that Permissions / Licensing will not be part of the next release (R25), due to some last-minute issues that need to be addressed. However, items slated to appear include (note this is a limited list, due to my being disconnected from the meeting whilst AFK):

Commerce

  • The initial release of the Sansar Store within the client.
    • The Client version of the store will allow items to be browsed. However, for purchasing, the user will be transferred from the client version of the Store to the web version in their browser.
    • The ability to purchase goods from within the client will be added in a future update.
  • A shopping cart capability in the Sansar Store on the web.
  • The gifting of Sansar Dollars to another avatar will be possible with the next release, although it is be subject to the 15% commission payment to LL – so a gift of S$100 from one avatar to another will in fact be S$115 for the avatar making the gift. The 15% commission charge serves a dual purpose:
    • It is in line with the Lab generating revenue through transactions.
    • More importantly, it prevents users avoiding paying any commission to the Lab by paying one another directly for goods and services.
    • Gifting of goods will be possible in a future release.

Events

  • The next release will allow custom images to be added to people’s events, rather than having to use the experience image.

General

  • A teleport sound will be added, allowing those within an experience to hear when someone has teleported.
  • Avatar-to-avatar collisions will be turned off. This should hopefully prevent narrow passages, doorways, etc., from being blocked by an avatar standing in / in front of a confined space.

Permissions / Licensing

Although it will not be part of the next release, Nyx provided more insight into the permissions that will be available when the system is deployed. These will comprise:

  • Permission for content to be resold, including how much money should be earned by the creator, whether the item is directly re-sold or used as a component within another creator’s item.
    • Included in this is the ability to specify what properties within an object can be further modified by a purchaser. This will allow purchasers to set properties within an object without the creator having to give up the right to earn from any re-sale of the object.
  • Full permissions on an item – essentially an open-source licence for the object and its contents to by used howsoever a buyer wishes, including claiming it as their own, so that no further income is earned by the original creator.
  • There is apparently one further permissions category to be added, and may follow the initial deployment of the permissions system when it happens. However, Nyx did not go into specifics on this.

CDN Asset Distribution

It is hoped that asset delivery for experiences will be moving to CDN (Content Delivery Network) distribution / delivery will be happening in the very near future. This means that rather than having all the data for an experience being delivered from the Amazon services, content assets could be delivered from a “local” CDN cache. It is the approach currently used for asset delivery within Second Life. It is hoped that this move will reduce the load times for those experiences that have had their assets previously cached within a “local” CDN node.

General Discussion

Store

  • There have been further requests for additional store categories (e.g. “Trees and plants”), with ideas being requested. The Lab fully intends to keep adding to the categories list as it become clear what is needed.
  • It has been requested that sub-categories are better surfaced. For example, being able to mouse over the Avatar category, and have the category list expand to show all of the avatar sub-categories, rather than have to go to the Avatar category list, then click for a drop-down of sub-categories. The Lab had been working on something similar to this, but the work was sidelined; it may be resumed.
  • Work is proceeding on making notifications visible to VR users, although this will not be in a forthcoming release.

Edit Server Issues

Some issues have arisen with the move to the Edit Server infrastructure. These include scene settings failing to persist, and scenes reporting as being saved when they have not. One issue with settings failing to persist is the sky being set to 0 – so everything is black when entering the scene in Edit mode. The way to fix this is to go to the scene settings and adjust the sky distance. The Lab has been trying to reproduce the issue with scene settings failing to persist, but so far have not been able to do so.

People having specific, repeated issues with scene settings can made a copy of the scene and contact the Lab, who will take the copy and run it on their test environment for further investigation.

In Brief

  • Support for Nvidia RTX: not currently being planned.
  • Improvements are being made to the Chat App, including quality of life improvements for viewing chat, and (hopefully) timestamps again chat items.
  • Support for custom avatar animations, including the ability to sell them, is planned for the R26 release.
  • Work is progressing on customisable controller options for VR handset – no release date as yet.
  • A virtual keyboard for VR users is also being developed, but not details on how it will work as yet.
  • Disabling capabilities in run-time: this has come up on a few occasions. There is concerns that if there is not a simple, direct way to inform users as to what is / is not permitted in an experience (e.g. having teleports allowed in one experience, but disabled in another), they could become confused when hopping between different experiences.
  • Cancelling an experience load: an option will be coming to allow users to abort loading an experience which is taking – for them – too long.
  • Consideration is being given to changing the Atlas in terms of how experiences are listed (is concurrency the best approach?). This may include providing categories under which experiences can be listed (e.e. Games, Educational, etc.), to make searching and listing experiences easier.

A quirky Peace of Mind in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind – click any image for full size

Peace of Mind is a Mainland parcel a little over a quarter region in size, held and landscaped by Talacious (Talacious Tigerpaw).  It’s a quirky design that offers as much vertically as it does horizontally for the willing explorer, so a stout pair of walking boots might be recommended!

The About Land description offers a warm invitation to arrival to explore, relax and have a little fun, with Talacious noting she has a passion for landscaping, design and art, and hopes that people find a little peace and tranquillity when visiting.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

Visitors arrive on the beach, a narrow sliver of sand sitting between high craggy shoulders of rock that reach back inland. Water tumbles – a little erratically in places – from one of these high mesas, eventually finding its way down to the beach where it rolls over the sand and into the sea.

Three opportunities for initial exploration are offered from the beach: a short climb up stone steps to a caravan, oddly perched on a shelf of rock and now so much a part of the landscape, nature is taking up residence on the outside as much as someone ins living on the inside. More stone steps run up alongside the caravan and to the conservatory sitting above and behind it, while a wooden bridge spans the water in its rush to the sea, offering the way to one of several routes up into the high cliffs and rocks surrounding the setting.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

Those climbing to the conservatory will find it is home to a warm-looking bathing pool, while the path branches left and right – offering a further choice in routes of exploration. While you take is entirely up to you; suffice it to say both – and the path winding upwards from the log bridge down by the beach – offer routes of discovery.

Trails wind between the trunks of tall pines and other trees and slide between tall cliffs and hunched rocky outcrops, leading the traveller past local wildlife, over pond and root and through the occasional shower of rain, before inevitably winding upwards. As they do so, the paths climbing the cliffs may change from bare rock to tiled step (or back again) or from grassy trails to dirt tracks, all of which twist and climb – sometimes very steeply – up to the high plateaus above.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

These high tables are home to more curios awaiting discovery – a pair of trees houses here, with the remains of an old van that must have had a bugger of a time climbing up the steep trail; a house cut into a hill there, surrounded by sunflowers that reach down into a little box canyon where yet another cottages sits, roof covered in grass and more sunflowers growing above it bay windows. Just below the house-in-a-hill sits a Tuscan villa, a paved set of steps reaching up from it to a narrow promontory on which sits a further tree house, even as hollow logs offer a bridge to a large house standing on the headland, and the destination of the rocky path winding upwards from the beach. This last appears to be the house of Talacious; however, like the other buildings sitting both high and low, it appears to be open to the public.

With the many different paths and bridges connecting them, finding one’s way around and between the houses is something of an adventure, and reveals some of the more quirky elements of the parcel – such a  set of stone steps supported on nothing more than a wish, leading the way to vine-arched bridge spanning the gap between one plateau and another. Meanwhile, the path winding down from from the garden of the twinned tree housesoffers a way past a cavern, also awaiting exploration.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

However, said cavern is not the “secret caves” referred to in the About Land description. This requires a little discovery. Clues are provided, and I don’t want to spoil the fun. Suffice it to say: look for the “arrowed” paths  in the grounds of one of the houses, or the sign board watched over by rabbits (then touch the rock behind it). And when you do find your way into the caves, be sure to follow the paths all the way down and to give the wall below a certain sign concerning life a tap …

Peace of Mind is, as I’ve mentioned, a quirky place. It is rich in detail, albeit with a few rough edges that could do with a little attention (waters falling into grass and vanishing, or floating above the beach as it flows to the sea, for example, while the odd tree floats rootless above the ground). But these are not sufficiently problematic as to spoil the overall effect, and it’s clear that Talacious has poured a lot of her own personality into the parcel’s look and feel, together with her sense of fun.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

So if you are looking for something just that little bit different to explore, Peace of Mind might be for you.

SLurl Details

RFL of SL: brainstorming ideas for 2019 and beyond

Posted on by Inara Pey
via slrelayinfo.com

Following on from their blog post concerning the restructuring of volunteer services (see here for more), the RFL of SL team has announced an “open house brainstorm session” on Wednesday, September 5th, 2018.

To be as inclusive as possible on a global basis, the event will comprise 3 core sessions (all times SLT): 07:00-09:00; 12:00-14:00 and 18:00-20:00.

We want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to share their ideas for growth and for how we can make the 2019 Relay season the best it can be.

This will be a ‘revolving door’ concept that allows you the chance to come and go as your schedule permits within [the] three different time-frames.

– from the RFL of SL blog post on the open house sessions

In particular the RFL team are looking for feedback in four core areas of RFL activities within Second Life:

  • Ideas on businesses, groups, and communities not currently engaged in supporting RFL of SL, and how they might be encouraged to do so.
  • For 2019, the Activities Regions will be replaced with a “5 Days of Relay” concept to allow new communities and new partners to host events/activities in the week prior to the main 24-hour event, and the RFL of SL team would like to hear feedback on opportunities to engage with new communities / partners and grow involvement with RFL of SL.
  • Additional ways in which cancer survivors and their caregivers might be more involved in the 24 hour relay weekend activities beyond the opening lap and gift bag.
  • Potentially moving the RFL season to be more effective with fund-raising.
    • The blog post notes this would likely comprise kicking off in January, along with the ACS national registration challenge, then holding the relay weekend in May, which would place it within the time period of ACS “signature” events held worldwide.
    • In particular, the team would like to hear about practical considerations that need to be kept in mind for such a move to be successful.

In addition, the team would to hear ideas on tactical ways that RFL of SL can help present the American Cancer Society as a service-first organisation that is available to cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers in Second Life.

We have met with so many people in the last few weeks and have identified several thoughts that were consistent from one person to the next; but we recognize that there just isn’t enough time to meet individually with everyone. So we’re using this open house concept for the final brainstorming session to give everyone the chance to participate in the creative and strategic direction of Relay For Life of Second Life. I’m excited about this because we get to hear from as many people as possible, and I’m especially looking forward to learning what creative ideas our volunteers and supporters have.

– Stingray Raymaker, Director of the American Cancer Society in Second Life,
on the open house meeting

As noted above, the three sessions will be run on a “drop in” basis, with those wishing to participate free to join or leave any session at any time at their convenience, or to attend more than one session if they wish. The sessions will all be held at the American Cancer Society HQ in-world.

A sense of Confinement in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
DaphneArts: Confinement

Confinement is a complex installation located at DaphneArts, featuring a concept and art by Mi (Kissmi), with the physical space and overall presentation of the elements making up the installation by DaphneArts curators Angelika Corral and Sheldon Bergman (SheldonBR).

Mi says of the piece:

Confinement is our lot – from the beginning, in the womb, and even before, as soon as the idea of our conception germinates in the minds of our parents, enclosing us.

In other words, how we might grow as individuals is subject to a series of constraints which encompass us from the moment of conception through until death. Mi sees these constraints as falling into four main categories: geographical, mental, physical and social, and the visitor is invited to consider each of these both visually and aurally.

DaphneArts: Confinement

To fully achieve this, it is necessary to ensure your are correctly set-up to experience Confinement. This means ensuring you have Advanced Lighting Model enabled within your viewer (Preferences > Graphics > check the Advanced Lighting Model check box), you accept the local Windlight setting on arrival (automatic if you are using Firestorm; if you are using any other viewer, the preferred Windlight is Phototools – No Light by William Weaver. Should you not have this available with your viewer, try opting for Midnight or a similarly dark setting). Most importantly, you must accept the local HUD when offered and allow this to attach – without it, you will miss the greater part of the installation. Once attached, the HUD will display introductory text, which can be clicked away once read and the instructions followed. You are then ready to proceed.

This involves walking along a walkway constructed of massive cubes, while walls of these great cubes dominate the view left and right, separated from the walkway by deep chasms.  As one progresses, each of the four categories of confinement are revealed in turn, starting with Geographical. Images by Mi are illuminated, and the HUD presents visitors with the opportunity to hear a reading in French by Mi intended to encompass the symbolism of the confinement – and to read the words, presented in both French and English (note that due to the limitations of SL, the words may lag behind the reading; this is unavoidable).

DaphneArts: Confinement

For Geographical, the reading is taken from the lyrics to né quelque part (“born somewhere”), first recorded by Maxime Le Forestier in 1987; for Mental Confinement, we are presented with Un grand sommeil noir (A big black sheep), by the 19th Century poet Paul-Marie Verlaine; for Physical Confinement and Social Confinement, Mi presents two poems by Jacques Prévert: First Day and Familiale, respectively.

Each of these reading is accompanied by a series of images by Mi, also designed to be representative of the confinement they represent. Like the readings (including né quelque part, when the lyrics are separated from the music), these are stark pieces; abstract in nature, are designed not so much to illustrate, but to encourage, along with the spoken words, our deeper contemplation on the nature of each type of confinement we live within: those born – no pun intended – by the place and time of our birth; the confinement we face in terms of mental development – both our own capability and the opportunities society gives to us;  and the constraints we have to face within both life itself and in society’s expectations of the roles we will ultimately play.

DaphneArts: Confinement

Beyond the fourth confinement, the way leads down to a lower level, stairs lit by the naked flames of candles cupped in stone hands as the darkness closes around. In descending these steps, it is easy to feel as if one is descending into a sepulchre; or that the descent marks the passing from life to death. In echo of this, the hands towards the bottom of the stairs become more grasping in nature, as if trying to reach out from the walls and grasp the life from those passing.

Finally, the path leads by candlelight to a last figure:  a woman caught between death (the hand at her throat) and life (the candle emerging from her midriff). And thus the circle is closed; our ultimate confinement lies within the unknown: we emerge from it in birth, and descend back into it in death.

One since June 2018, Confinement is a layered installation deserving of time and consideration when visiting.

SLurl Detail

2018 SL UG updates #35/1: server, viewer, bugs

Posted on by Inara Pey

Black Kite; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrBlack Kite – blog post

Server Deployments

Update: the RC channels received a new server maintenance package on Wednesday, August 28th. Maintenance package  18#18.08.24.519036, comprises an update for the new land auction system.

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

  • There was no SLS (Main) channel deployment on Tuesday, August 28th. Regions on the channel, however, were restarted.
  • At the time of writing, it is unclear as to the status of any deployment to the three RC channels, which are listed as “TBD” in the deployment thread. As nothing was mentioned at the Server User Group meeting, I’m assuming there will be no deployment.

It there is no RC deployment, it will leave all of the main grid channels om server release 18#18.08.10.518612.

SL Viewer

At the time of writing this update, there had been no viewer SL viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 5.1.8.518593, dated August 14, promoted August 20. Formerly the SL Voice RC viewer – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Animesh RC viewer, version 6.0.0.518949, August 24.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518751, released on August 20.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518305, August 7. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

It is anticipated the Love Me Render and Bugsplat RC viewers will be updated this week to bring them to parity with the release viewer code base. It is also anticipated that the next Maintenance RC viewer could be appearing during the week.

EEP / BOM / AIS

As I’ve noted in my most recent CCUG and TPV Developer meeting summaries, it had been anticipated that a new AIS (Advanced Inventory Service) update would start to be deployed in week #35.This would include the necessary support for the new asset types to be used by both the Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) and the Bakes on Mesh (BOM) project. However, at the Server User Group meeting, Rider Linden had indicated that a last-minute bug had cropped-up with the AIS update, was has delayed its deployment. However, it does not appear that this is related to the server RC channels having a “TBD” status against them.

Bug Hunting

Sim Surrounds Issue

BUG-225295 “Sim Surrounds often fail to rez” indicates that some people are having problems seeing region / sim surrounds render in their viewer. The problem was first reported by Firestorm 5.1.7 users, but also reproduces on the SL 5.1.7 viewer code-base, and it is thought the issue might relate to changes made in the previous Love Me Render viewer.

“Bug of the Week”: Animations Issue

The superbly named Hexadeci Mole has raised a curious bug report in the form of BUG-225288, “llStopAnimation is stopping all animations on detach instead of only the one specified”. This occurs when a scripted object starts an animation when worn, and stops the animation when detached (as intended) also causes all other animations to stop, and stops animations played from inventory. The bug appears to be a duplicate of SVC-7596, and as Whirly Fizzle observes, only seems to reproduce when the attached objects instance key is lower than the wearing avatar’s own avatar key!

Simon Linden has had a look at this issue and commented:

Fwiw I did an initial investigation into that bug — and was surprised. It’s actually pretty simple code, removing the current animation and sending an update. It may be a more fundamental design problem … SL isn’t set up to cleanly stack and merge animations and then remove parts of it.

Retrieving Grid Statistics Page via llHTTPRequest

BUG-216320 has been causing problems for a while. Essentially, trying to retrieve grid statistics via a script results in a 499 error, although queries via web browsers will still succeed. Oz Linden summed-up the status of work on this thus:

It turns out that it was two independent problems. We’ve fixed one, but the other is still pending.