Month: August 2018

2018 SL UG updates #34/2: CCUG summary with audio

Posted on by Inara Pey
“That’s no moon…” – Rider Linden teases with possibilities whilst talking Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP). Credit: Rider Linden

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on  Thursday, August 23rd, 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.

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

Release Candidate Viewer

As noted in my Simulator User Group updates and Viewer Release summaries, the Animesh viewer was promoted to release candidate status in week #33 with the release of version 6.0.0.518579 on August 13th, 2018. The three key points of this are that:

  • Animesh is one step away from being the de facto viewer release – although this is dependent on a range of factors, including the other RC viewer in the pipeline, the viewer’s performance whilst at RC, etc.
  • Animesh capabilities will now naturally be available more widely among users of the official viewer.
  • Third-party viewers are now officially allowed to incorporate Animesh in their offerings.

Server-Side

Animesh has been on general release server-side across the grid for the last couple of weeks, and thus far, no problems have surfaced with in. However, this could be due to a relatively low usage of the capability up until now, given it has only be available within project viewers.

Sample Content Rotation

As noted in past CCUG summaries and updates in these pages, a  workaround for rotation issue with uploaded models now means that some of the Animesh sample content provided by the Lab – such as the raptors used in the GIF file I often use to banner these reports – now crab sideways rather than walking forward when seen in the Animesh viewer.  Following a suggestion put forward at the meeting, Vir is going to see if the affected content can be updated so that it moves correctly and can be provided as samples for people wanting to play with Animesh without potentially confusing them.

It’s also been pointed out that the scripts used within the sample content are very specific to that content, and so could lead to problems if people try to pull the scripts and use them as templates. However, Vir is uncertain as to how generic the scripts can be made in order for them to work as templates.

Bugs

There are still a number of bugs the Lab is working on in relation to Animesh. These should be listed in the JIRA filter (link above), and are related to some Animesh editing issues, animation stop / restart issues, and some lagging, possibly due to the underlying skeleton lagging behind the animation playback (so the Animesh isn’t properly oriented as an animation starts to play, for example). Not all of these issues may be fixed before Animesh reaches de facto release status, but Vir is continuing to try to work through them.

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

Alex Linden from the product team has been working on internal testing with Rider, and is now in the process of moving the pieces into place to have EEP deployed the Aditi (the beta grid).  Rider believes that a project viewer should be surfacing “very, very soon” as a result.  The plans for the project viewer are:

    • Get the assets support in to the first release.
    • Hopefully include crepuscular rays (“Godrays”) and work on shaders for distance fogging and atmospheric density in the first release of the project viewer as well. However, as these are in fact another shader, they may not make it into the initial cure of the project viewer, depending on how things go.
    • Add the scripted ability to manipulate EEP assets at a later date, but before the viewer progress to RC status.

As well as discussing project progress, Alexa and Rider also indicated some of the things they’ve been playing around with while testing EEP.

Cthulhu the sun, Cthulhu the sun / And I say it’s all right – as the Beatles never sang: Rider Linden has fun with EEP. Credit: Rider Linden

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.

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

Resources

Current Status

Still awaiting the AIS updates (see below). Once these are in place there are a couple of other back-end pieces that require putting into place.

AIS Update

Both EEP and Bakes on Mesh are awaiting a AIS (Advanced Inventory System) update that will provide the necessary back-end support for both projects on Agni (and Main grid), as each is adding new inventory asset types to Second Life. Currently, it is believed that the work on support for Bakes on Mesh is a little further along to allow it to take advantage of the AIS update, and the latter may start being deployed in week #35 (commencing Monday, August 27th, 2018).

In Brief

  • In-world meshes bigger than 64m on an axis: there are no current plans to allow the upload of in-world meshes that exceed the 64m limit.  The main reasons for this are:
    • Vertex resolution: the larger the object, the greater the distance each vertex integer has to span, leading to inaccuracies in positioning (think prim drift for mesh), together with resolution degradation.
    • More particularly, the griefing potential and possible performance issues (e.g. rendering load on the viewer and possible implications for the physics engine).
  • Sim surrounds: partially in line with the above (and also ARCTan, below, given the use of sculpts), the Lab is interested in learning more above how people might like sim surrounds to be addressed. Some ideas offered include: making surrounds a specific form of large mesh with physics automatically disabled at upload (possibly used with a special field within the Estate / Region floater they can be “dropped into” to be applied; continuing with sculpts (with their 1 LI advantage over other potential land impact loads & their potential to have a relatively low number of vertices and thus form relatively economical content).
  • Project ARCTan: the project to recalculate object and avatar complexity will be progressing, however, it involves input from Graham Linden, who is currently focused on the shader / rendering work for EEP.   However, data collection is continuing.
    • People are starting to question what this will mean for sculpt(ie)s in SL – the majority of which tend to be horribly inefficient in terms of rendering. The short answer to this at the moment is the overall impact hasn’t been determined.
  • Real-Time bounding box tracking: the question was asked whether the new bounding box calculations introduced as a part of Animesh will include “unused” joints (e.g. if the hind legs in the skeleton are not rigged to, are they included in the bounding box calculations?). short answer: no; with the exception of the original (pre-Bento) base skeleton joints (as used by the system avatar).
  • Next Meeting:  Thursday, August 30th, 2018.

September 13th 2018: Town Hall meeting with Ebbe Altberg

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab has announced the next in their series of Town Hall meetings, this one again featuring Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg. The event will take place.

Unlike the April 20th event, this will be a single event rather than offering two time options for users to chose from when attending. The date and time being:

Thursday, September 13th 2018 from 09:30 SLT onwards.

Once again, users are invited to offer questions for consideration via a forum thread.

The blog post announcing the event reads in full:

With SL15B behind us (and SL16B to look forward to!) we thought it was time to have another Town Hall, and give Residents a chance to ask about Second Life and hear the latest news on what is being worked on and planned in Second Life. We’ll also share specific updates on our product development roadmap, as discussed earlier this year.

Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg will be appearing at a  “Town Hall” chat session on Thursday, September 13th 2018 at 9:30 a.m. (SLT/Pacific). This is your chance to interact directly with Ebbe as he discusses 2018 and beyond. 
Got a question you want to ask? Post it in the Community Forum thread “September 2018 – A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg” in advance of the Town Hall. Questions will be selected from all submissions made prior to Sept. 10, so make sure to weigh in now!

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Sept. 13 to see if your question is selected. On that day, you can join us live for the Town Hall meeting. Location will be publicized closer to the event – stay tuned!

I have a full transcript (with audio and video) of the April 20th event for those wishing to catch up with what was said then, and I full plan to attend the September 13th event and offer both a transcript / summary of the session, again with audio recordings of the answers given to questions.

Athenaeum: scenic beauty with an adult twist in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Athenaeum; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrAthenaeum – click any image for full size

Athenaeum is an Adult-rated region we were pointed toward (once again!) by Shakespeare and Max. The name piqued my curiosity for two reasons: the school for promoting literary and scientific studies founded by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and the Athenaeum Club in London; founded in the 1820s for those of both sexes with intellectual interests encompassing the likes of science, engineering, literature and the arts – although it is not necessarily exclusive to these disciplines.

A full region designed by Dema (Dema Fairport), Athenaeum also caters for those with a specific grouping of interests, albeit those of a distinctly adult nature, and offers a welcome to all visitors, no matter what their gender preference or sexual orientation.  It is also, and more particularly, a quite breathtaking region in its design and execution.

Athenaeum; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrAthenaeum

Within her Profile, Dema offers a description that builds on the limited space within the About Land Floater to perfectly encapsulate the aim of  region, making it clear that while adult in nature and leaning towards more Adult-oriented interactions, Athenaeum is not in any way a “sex sim”; far from it. The emphasis is on a refined, cultivated approach to adult activities within Second Life.

Artistic, adult environment focusing on the kink friendly community. Come with an open mind and relax with your special someone by the pool, the veranda, library or the many relaxing areas along the beach or in the woods. Meet others of like minds. who enjoy the kinkier aspects of SL in a safe loving environment free of judgements.

Athenaeum; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrAthenaeum

The landing point sits towards the centre of the region, and is located on a stone bridge reaching over one of two river gorges that slice through the land, splitting it into three major parts. To the southern end of this bridge steps rise to a shelf of rock on which sits an ageing hunting lodge, now converted into a place with an ambience – on the ground floor at least – of a private club. Within its rooms are leather arm chairs, great bookcases filled with tomes awaiting reading, fires in the hearths, bottles of port and cigar humidors on some tables, coffee and After Eight mints on others, and just the most subtle of hints as to some of the activities that might follow conversations in these rooms; activities which themselves might be enjoined in the rooms above, going by their décor.

The swimming pool mentioned in Dema’s description is to the found to one side of the flagstone terrace sitting behind the lodge,  which also offers a place for dancing under open skies and further hints of the more adult pursuits visitors might engage in. The house and terrace overlook a small finger of an island just sitting off the coast to the west, with a ribbon of beach awaiting explorers, somewhat curtained from prying eyes above by tall fir trees. Reaching this is a matter of backtracking to the bridge and then finding your way by steps and cinder track down to the foot of the plateau, and then around it to where a little wooden bridge connects the island to a second sliver of sand in the lee of the cliffs.

Athenaeum; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrAthenaeum

Travel north along the stone bridge of the landing point, and the way is open to reach a broad, shallow cove on the north side of the land. Here time can be spent on the beach or in the water or resting in the tree houses sitting to one side of the cove, overlooking another DJ spots and ground-level seating areas.

Between the steps from the bridge and the rocky arch leading to the cove, the way is cut by a cinder track. Follow this downhill to a surfaced road, and you’ll find yourself passing buildings offering some unique perspectives on fetishism. There’s a celebration of the physical world photography of New York’s Darque, sitting alongside the Kink History Museum that traces the history of kink from ancient through to modern times, before the road ends at a cosy waterfront café.

Athenaeum; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrAthenaeum

And all of this barely scratches the surface of the region. The landscaping is rich and natural, with cinder tracks and trails winding inland and to various points on the coast or overlooking it, with numerous secluded spots and settings with an edge of romance to them for couples and groups to enjoy. To the south-east, reached via paths leading under trees and across meadows can be found more contemplative spots, complete with Buddha awaiting those who will visit; further west, horses graze alongside their barn, while vine-draped trellises offer arched invitations to perhaps step off of  the tracks and paths and just wander, and a small headland offers a camp site overlooking the cove and its beach.

Gloriously photogenic (visitors are invited to share their images on the Athenaeum Flickr group), with its adult twists tastefully presented, Athenaeum makes of an interesting and potentially engaging visit.

Athenaeum; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrAthenaeum

SLurl Details

Sisi Biedermann’s Wonderful World in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sisi Biedermann – What a Wonderful World

Now open at the Lin C Art Gallery, curated by Lin Carlucci, is What A Wonderful World, an exhibition of the extraordinary art of Sisi Biedermann.

I’ve reported on a couple of exhibitions featuring Sisi’s art of late – and with good reason; her work – all of it original pieces she has painted and composed – is quite unlike art produced within Second Life and exhibited in-world – nor is it quite like any real world art uploaded into Second Life by artists. Rather, and in a sense, thanks to Sisi’s imagination, style, and rich use of colour and ideas, to me it straddles the two. So many of her pieces could depict settings and situations waiting to be created in-world, whilst all offer doorways into fantastical worlds that come to life as virtual places within our imaginations.

Sisi Biedermann – What a Wonderful World

Sisi’s work is broad-ranging, although there is a focus perhaps on wildlife and fantasy art. It is also so skilfully executed, it is possible to become a lost in her techniques (which, I’d hazard a guess mix both traditional and digital approaches – but I have not had the opportunity  to discuss this with her), as in the stories contained within each painting.

What is particularly captivating about many of Sisi’s pieces also lies within the manner in which she presents them. Some may appear to be oil or watercolour on canvas, others as tiled mosaics, and others appear to have been embossed. Which approach is used doesn’t appear to be as result of random thought; often times the presentation and finish to a piece is as much a part of its story as the images itself. Take The Boy in The Moon, for example, with the embossing of a net-like finish over the piece as the boy dangles his rod from a crescent Moon; or the finish impressed on to My Amazing Garden that allows the imagination to feel the texture of flower petals and the soft brush of dandelion heads…

Sisi Biedermann – What a Wonderful World

With around fifty pieces on display, this is the largest exhibition of Sisi’s work I’ve seen, and my only small regret is that none of the wildlife pieces see at exhibitions she’s held earlier in the year aren’t also more in evidence here. This is obviously to avoid any feeling of repetition in displaying her work – but such is the sheer beauty and power contained within her animal images, it would have been nice to have seen a fox or a giraffe or similar here…

And if you think 50 is a lot of pieces to display – where Sisi is concerned, I assure you it isn’t. As I’ve intimated, these are more than just paintings, they are stories, and as such, they are each as individually engaging to the eye and imagination as the last.

Sisi Biedermann – What a Wonderful World

What A Wonderful World will remain open through until Thursday, September 13th, and should not be missed.

SLurl Details

2018 SL UG updates #34/1: server, viewer, and mobile SL rumours

Posted on by Inara Pey

Erebos Harbor; Inara Pey, July 2018, on FlickrErebos Harbor – blog post

There was no Simulator User Group meeting for week #34 2018, so the project notes are pretty brief.

Server Deployments

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

  • On Tuesday August 21st, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with sever maintenance package 18#18.08.10.518612, comprising an update to the HTTP delivery of off-line IMs and notifications that should ensure group notices and Friend requests are correctly delivered. This release was deployed to the main RC channels in week #33.
  • There is no planned deployment or restart for any of the RC channels, also leaving them on server maintenance package 18#18.08.10.518612.

SL Viewer

  • The Second Life Voice viewer, version 5.1.8.518593 and dated August 14th, was promoted to de facto release status on August 20th, 2018.
  • A new Love Me Render viewer, version 5.1.8.518751, was released on August 20th, containing assorted viewer rendering fixes for the following issues / requests:
    • Applying planar texture alignment to prims with diffuse and normal maps fails.
    • Align Planar Faces does not work on normal or specular maps.
    • Handle dual-graphics systems more robustly.
    • Derendering Avatar type also derenders some rezzed mesh objects.
    • Selecting mesh objects make several HUD-related items invisible.
    • Negative horizontal & vertical offset values for normal & specular maps always revert when closing build floater.
    • Add info to text debug display for cache hit rate and fetch timing.
    • Grids.xml with a single grid instead of an array in LLSD can crash viewer.
    • Objects with Alpha Masking > 0 do not rendering correctly on avatar.
    • With transparent texture and alpha masking at cut-off 1, the underlying colour shows through in small patches.
    • [DRTSIM-383] Changing the horizontal offset value also changes the vertical offset while editing specular maps in the build floater.
    • Incorrect values of Rotation degrees field with checked Align Planar Faces check box in different tabs.

The remaining SL viewer pipelines are currently unchanged:

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Animesh RC viewer, version 6.0.0.518579, August 13.
    • 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. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

SL iOS / Android Clients / Streaming SL

Speculation is running rife in some quarters that the Lab is developing a mobile client for iOS / Android following the publication of a job opportunity for a Second Life Senior Mobile Engineer.

The potential for offering a mobile (or even a streamed viewer experience through a browser) was most recently publicly discussed by both Ebbe Altberg and Oz and Grumpity Linden at the SL15B Meet the Lindens events in June 2018. I’m embedding the audio from those sessions here, together with links to the summaries of what was said, for those who prefer reading over listening:

DiXmiX 2017-2018 retrospective in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
DiXmiX Gallery: Cecilia Nansen Mode (December 2017) and Uma Sabra (September 2017)

DiXmiX Gallery is one of the most prolific galleries in Second Life in terms of the frequency of exhibitions. With three halls available for art, the gallery can feature up to three artists a month on a rolling basis, sometimes with exhibitions in the respective halls overlapping one another in their duration, a move which further helps to keep visits to the gallery fresh.

For the four weeks from August 17th, 2018, curator Dixmix Source is hosting a slightly different exhibition from the “norm” at the gallery: it is something of a retrospective of exhibitions held through 2017 and 2018, with the work of some 30 artists on display across all three halls and within the basement gallery of The Womb. As such, it is an opportunity to both revisit memories of past exhibits and  – for those unfamiliar with the art displayed at DiXmiX – the opportunity to sample its scope of the art to be found there.

DiXmiX Gallery: Oyo and Magic Marker (April 2018)

The artists included in the exhibition are (dates in brackets refer to reviews in this blog): Elo (elorac Paule), Maloe Vansant and Uma Sabra (September / October 2017); Purple Leonis ONeill (Nel4481), Juris Bergmanis (JurisJo) and Imani Nayar (October 2017); Cecilia Nansen Mode (December 2017); Titus Palmira, Gaus (Cicciuzzo Gausman) and Burk Bode (February 2018); I’m A Magic Marker, Oyo and Mr. S (April 2018); Giovanna Cerise (May 2018); A. DeLauren (AlessaMendoza), Kimeu Korg and Kato Salyut (June 2018); together with Goodcross; Huckleberry Hax;  Vallys Baxter; Lou Shadow; Moon Edenbaum, Nur Moo, and DixMix himself.

The exhibit also incorporates  Bicycles (July 2018), relocated for this exhibition, a selection from Melusina Parkin’s Less is More (February 2018) and the Best of The Womb, featuring  Nath Baxton and Joslyn Benson, all of which can be found in the basement gallery, The Womb.

DiXmiX Gallery: Juris Bergmanis (October 2017)

DixMix is very much a gallery that leans towards avatar studies within the exhibitions it hosts – which given Dixmix himself is very much an exponent of the art of avatar studies, is an entirely natural bias – and this is very much reflected in this retrospective exhibition. As such, those pieces that focus on other elements of artistic expression, such as physical world art (represented here by Huckleberry Hax) and SL landscape art (notably, but not exclusively, Juris Bergmanis), tend to particularly capture the eye in scanning through the gallery. But don’t let this deceive you; there is a richness of narrative this is striking in every single image presented.

Several exhibitions at the gallery have been built around a theme by the artist, and capturing this in just one or two images isn’t really possible. Take Celicia Nansen Mode’s Within the Voice of Björk from December 2017, a captivating interpretations of female form, moods and feelings, beautifully through images and the music of the Icelandic singer (and still one of the most memorable exhibitions I’ve seen at DiXmiX). It was a stunning exhibit, but one not easily recaptured hen presenting just two of the images from the collection.

DiXmiX Gallery: Elo (September 2017) and Purple Leonis (October 2017)

However, Dixmix has sought to get around this issue where possible. With 12 Photographers and 1 Chair by Mr. S, and Bath Stories by Nur Moo, for example, the complete set of images for each are presented as a framed slide show, allowing all of them to be seen in turn. Sadly, due to the use of music with each of Celicia’s pieces, this approach wasn’t possible for With the Voice of Björk.

As noted, the exhibition is stated to run for the four weeks from August 17th, and offers an ideal introduction to DiXmiX gallery and the general style of art displayed there for those who have yet to visit, and a trip down memory lane for those of us who frequent the gallery.

DiXmiX Gallery: Oyo (April 2018)

SLurl Details