Month: December 2018

Sansar 2018 Product Meetings #50

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following notes were taken from the Sansar Product Meeting held on Thursday, December 13th, the last such Product Meeting for 2018. As usual, Eliot, the Sansar Community Manager hosted the meeting, with Ebbe, Landon, Aleks, Leslie, Kelly and Julia from the Lab.

High-Level Outlook for 2019

Plans are still being finalised for 2019 and Sansar, so there is some reluctance to talk in-depth about what is likely to be coming and when, however, some high-level bullet points for the platform mentioned in the meeting were:

  • Avatar improvements (e.g. face sliders, custom skins).
  • World (experience) creation easier.
  • Making it easier for people to collaborate and group themselves around “things”.
  • Improving the ability to make interactive content and games.
  • See Sansar be more event-driven.
  • Continue to ship updates at a high rate (the average for 2018 being one update per month).
  • Accelerate the rate of change that is being made with updates, as per that last three releases of 2018.
  • Continue to be responsive to feedback to updates and changes.

A major review of plans is taking place over the final working week of 2018, so early 2019 should see the Lab in a better position to offer some insight into what the year may be bringing to Sansar.

Attending Events

Sansar recently hosted its first ticketed event (sadly at a time far too late for most of us in Europe – hint, hint, Linden Lab) – Comedy Gladiators, hosted by Steven Hofstetter (read more here).  The event apparently went well, with the audience spawning multiple instances and able to see the activities on stage. However, one problem did arise in that people wishing to attend the same instance of the event at times found they couldn’t. The Lab is aware of this and looking to make changes that will allow people access the same instance of a popular event like this, and enjoy it together.

One idea is a “party up” system, that allows a party of named individuals access an instance together. This could be extended to things like team-based games / puzzles / activities, where you need to work as a group and / or work best with limited numbers – so each party of players accessing the game / experience would be delivered to a different instance, thus avoiding interfering with others who already have a game in progress.

In Brief

  • Sansar / Steam Desktop mode issue: there is an issue running Sansar via Steam in Desktop Mode that leaves the audio sliders in Settings non-responsive. This is being investigated by the Lab.
  • Improved camera(s) for 2019? a frequent request through 2018 has been better camera options for filming in Sansar. Idea put forwards include a true “flycam” mode that allows for free filming and avatar movement of the part of the person filming; the ability to create multiple (scripted) camera objects within a scene for filming (and the ability to cut between them when recording); having “flyable” scripted cameras, etc. Such ideas are being discussed by the Lab with no commitment (at present) on what might be delivered or when.
  • Freecamming when using a Sit Point: it is not currently possible to freecam (F4) when seated using the Sit point capability introduced with R28. This will be fixed.
  • “Bigger” Experiences: currently, the upper limit on experiences is 4km on a side (the equivalent area to 256 SL regions). There are currently no plans to expand beyond this, as it is the limit at which the physics aspects of the engine start to break down, and the Lab does not want to get into a Second Life scenario with having to work out how to stitch scenes / experiences together and cater for physically crossing being them.
    • Even working to the 4km upper limit is questionable at present, as Sansar does not have any means of LOD (level of detail) handling within it.
  • Finding Sticky Grab: the new “sticky grab” option introduced with R28 to prevent people picking up guns and then throwing them, rather than firing them (left mouse click), is currently a little obscure when setting it in Edit mode, so it is liable to be better surfaced in an upcoming release.
  • Improved Moderation: an upcoming point release (possibly to appear before Christmas) should allow user-to-user blocking (so not only can a troublemaker be muted, they can be blocked and vanish from your view  – and you vanish from their view).
  • In-client Store Improvements: it is hoped that 2019 will see the in-client Sansar Store achieve parity with the web version of the store (filters and filter options, etc).
  • Steam “Fall-off”: A lot has been made about the fall-off in incoming numbers of users from Steam. This was in some way expected, as at the launch on Steam, Sansar was featured on the Early Access home page (actually how I saw it had been launched), and also on the Steam VR section home page. Since the launch, Sansar is no longer front-and-centre on either page.
  • Avatar Rig: this will likely see changes in 2019. Work is already in hand to try to simplify it; other improvements will be made over time.

 

2018 SL UG updates 50/2: Content Creation Summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

Soul2Soul Highlands; Inara Pey, November 2018, on FlickrSoul2Soul Highlands – blog post

The majority of the following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, December 13th, 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.

SL Viewer Updates

The Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.0.1.522263, was promoted to release status on December 13th.

New Project Work

Vir Linden is now looking at a number of areas that might spin-out into a new project, although it is currently not clear what that project might be. The areas he is reviewing are:

  • Animesh follow-on – this may include avatar shape support  (which would allow more fully-rounded NPCs), and also more attachment-like behaviour for Animesh attachments.
    • Shapes are viewed as potentially being the easier of the two to handle, although will require additional work on the appearance messaging.
  • Mesh uploader improvements.
  • General viewer bugs.

Beq Janus has also been examining the mesh uploader and making improvements tied to the upcoming Firestorm Animesh release, and Vir is interested in the potential for some or all of these to be contributed to Linden Lab.

Beq’s updates to the mesh uploader include a better (and resizeable) preview window, a new costs breakdown panel, and more.

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, nor are they recognised as system wearables. Adding materials support may be considered in the future.

Resources

Current Status

As per my Current Viewer Releases page, the project viewer was merged with the Animesh release viewer (and at the time of writing was at release 6.0.1.522127, dated December 7th, 2018).

Anchor is currently engaged in investigating the hover height issue that can leave avatars of “non-normal height” (notably, but not exclusively, small avatars) floating 0.2 to 0.3 metres off the ground if non-height related changes are made after hover height has been set. This appears to have been introduced as  a result of a simulator update (See BUG-225893 “Hover height on assets has changed somehow” for more).

Left Channels

There appears to be some confusion over the left texture channels introduced with Bakes On Mesh. Essentially, these are unassigned channels, designed to work as the creator wants them to work. The assumption is that they would be used in a manner consistent with the use of the right arm / foot channels, but they are not populated by default. There has been a request to auto-populate them with the standard skin textures, but this is viewed as a possible update for any follow-on to the current Bakes on Mesh work.

Documentation

A wiki page explaining Bakes on Mesh is under construction, but not yet ready for public consumption.

Future Work

Nothing has been decided upon in regards to any Bakes on Mesh follow-on. Requests have been made to allow UUID based texture application via the Bake Service (to enable support for existing clothing layers designed to be applied via a scripted applier system). It’s not been determined if this will be done, or whether an alternative route will be taken, such as defining a new class of wearable. There should, however, be a LSL change to allow textures to be identified and used by name (although this may not have been deployed at the time of writing).

Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP)

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements allowing the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) to be set region or parcel level, with support for up to 7 days per cycle and sky environments set by altitude. It uses a new set of inventory assets (Sky, Water, Day),  and which include the ability to use custom Sun, Moon and cloud textures. These can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others, and can additionally be used in experiences.

The project also includes a new set of render shaders to support atmospheric effects such as rainbows, crepuscular rays (“God rays”), better horizon haze and fogging (but will not include rain / snow).

Resources

Current Status

Rider finalising work on the last of the SL functions for EEP support: llSetAgentEnvironment. This allows the environment parameters as applied to individual agents (avatars) within an experience (so if part of the experience requires the environment to be foggy at a certain point, avatars in the experience will have their view become foggy – but visitors who have not allowed the experience to control their avatar (e.g. because they are just observing) will not be similarly affected).

This support will hopefully be in the next set of simulator updates (currently still only available on the Snack RC channel). Once this work has been completed, Rider will be focusing on the viewer once more. The other anticipated aspect of simulator work – crepuscular rays – is “still coming”.

Complexity Calculations, Project ARCTan

There have been rumours that there may be a new function added to the Bake Service to handle complexity calculations. Vir indicated that while there has been some discussion on how and where to run the calculations (which will all be revised as a part of Project ARCTan), no decision has been made as to whether there will be changes to where the calculations are performed.

In Brief

  • The Firestorm Animesh release is currently with the preview group (I’ve been using it for the last couple of weeks in different iterations), and may go to a broader “public beta” release before being formally issued. If the “public beta” happens, the fully release for the update will likely occur early in 2019.
  • In my previous CCUG update, I reference the changes made to the rate to updates made to the rate of rendering cost calculations. This was due to Animesh having unintended consequences (such as repeatedly showing the complexity alert dialogue (e.g “You may not be visible to X %age of avatars”). During the Firestorm 6.0.1 beta testing, this change resulted in complaints from content creators, leading to a decision to back it out of the upcoming Firestorm release.

Inspired by Monet in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Junbug; Inara Pey, December 2018, on Flickr
Junbug – click any image for full size

Annie Oh (Annie Brightstar) dropped me an IM suggesting Caitlyn and I pay a visit to Junbug, home of *{Junbug}* Fantasy and Vintage fashion, as the region had been recently redesigned by Minnie Blanco (Minnie Atlass), whose region designs we’ve always enjoyed (see here, here, here and here for more).  And I have to say that for anyone who loves artist – particularly the French Impressionist movement, this is a must-see location.

[It is] loosely inspired by Monet’s Giverny garden After discussions we agreed upon a garden across from water. All designing / artwork is a process and I take my inspiration from RL photos/art. I wanted to reflect Juno’s fantasy, vintage fashion designs with a romantic feeling water-scape in some way. Hence the romance of impressionism!

– Minnie Blanco on her design for Junbug, December 2018

Junbug; Inara Pey, December 2018, on Flickr
Junbug

Anyone who is reasonably familiar with Monet’s work will instantly feel they are inside one of his paintings on arriving in the region. Minnie has, through careful selection of plants (colour), design and windlight, fully captured the look and “feel” of one of Monet’s paintings, particularly, as Minnie notes, those that focus on his great life’s passion: the garden at his home in Giverny.

Junbug; Inara Pey, December 2018, on Flickr
Junbug

For example, the first impression (no pun intended) on arriving and looking over the water to the little bridge facing the store from afar was Monet’s 1899 painting, Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies.

As we continued to look around and walk along the path circling the pond at Junbug, further influences  – or perhaps reflections might be a better term – of Monet’s art came to mind. There’s the subtle mix of colour and blending in the blooming of flowers as seen in his 1900 oil on canvas Le Jardin de l’artiste à Giverny, and Garden Path at Giverny (1902), while the pond itself offers echoes of his extensive Water Lilies series.

Junbug; Inara Pey, December 2018, on Flickr
Junbug

A small, simple setting, the garden is completed by the presence of waterfowl on or near the water, and birds singing from various points around the path (such as the stone bridge close to the store) or hopping and flitting around the paths or circling overhead. In adding their voices to the scene, they increase the spring / summer feel to the region.

There is also a touch of French flavouring to the garden and store – the latter has the presence of a grand maison, for example. Meanwhile, a number of the selected elements in the region, such as the pavilion and the little rowing boat, have French-leaning names / pose systems.

Junbug; Inara Pey, December 2018, on Flickr
Junbug

For those seeking a place to sit and enjoy the setting, the rowing boat offers a mix of individual female and male poses, while the benches along the waterfront near the store offer a mix of individual and couples sits, as does the bench in the pavilion. A further bench can be found close to the little wooden bridge, but using it will require getting past the grass growing around it, which interferes with direct clicking.

Set under a tranquil sky suggestive of a mild spring early evening, this is an utterly delightful setting, a painting made real, if you will, and well worth the time spent appreciating it. And given the inspiration behind it, I hope you’ll forgive my attempt to render it as a painting! Our thanks again to Annie for passing on the details.

Junbug; Inara Pey, December 2018, on Flickr
Junbug

SLurl Details

Sansar R28, the Ready, Aim, Fire! Release

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sitting in my Home Space – one of the new elements in Sansar

On Tuesday, December 11th, Linden Lab issued the Ready, Aim, Fire! (aka R28) update for Sansar, the last planned release for 2018.

Interaction is very much a theme for this release, as is helping new users feel more at home, as well as providing a point of entry when logging-in to Sansar at the start of a session. The release also includes a very long list of scripting updates, some of which are to support the new interactivity functions.

This article is designed to provide an illustrative summary of the release, but do note the lack of an VR headset and controller on my part means that any features described in detail here are looked at from the Desktop Mode.

At the time of writing, there were no release notes available, only a release blog post. Whether this actually constitutes the release notes or not, I’m not sure – so a check on the Sansar Help page might be in order to see of any release notes appear. Similarly, in checking the scripting API documentation, it appeared this documentation was also awaiting update. so again, a check should be made for the addition of information on the new API elements and script updates.

Initial Notes

  • As with the majority of Sansar deployments, this update requires the automatic download and installation of a client update.
  • Updates in this release mean that on logging-in for the first time following the update, users will be placed in their Home Space after selecting their updated avatar.

Home Space

I’ll start with Home Space, a new “home location” so to speak. All users are dropped into Home Space, which resembles an open-plan skybox like apartment with three “rooms”, either when logging-in to Sansar for the first time or at the start of a new session (so in the latter regard it both appears as the back-drop image when logging-in to Sansar and replaces being dropped into the Atlas at the end of the log-in process).

As a physical environment, you can walk around your Home Space, sit on the chairs (albeit it using the teleport > /sit “cheat” and – for new users in particular – offers a starting point for the new UI tutorial (see below for more on this).

Images of the new Home Space taken in Sansar’s new “mouse look” view, showing the various areas. Note the “under construction” teleport portal, also shown enlarged in the last image, that will link Home Spaces to an upcoming new social hub experience. click on any image to view slide show

Note that Home Space is only accessible (for the time being?) when logging-in to Sansar at the start of a session; there’s no option to go back to it once you’re entered an experience, unless you re-log. Should you edit your avatar’s appearance (Create > Style My Avatar) from within an experience, you will still go to look Book and then back to the spawn point for the experience at the spawn point, as per previous Look Book behaviour.

Within The Home Space there is a hint of things to come: on one wall, and marked as “under construction” is the entranceway to the upcoming “Social Hub”. Reached via automatic teleport, this will be a new experience people can jump to and mingle, again with the intent to make it easier for newcomers to meet others. Some of the objects in the Home Space can also be grabbed, allowing basic interactivity to be tried – although the random nature of the tutorial pop-ups perhaps makes this a little hit-and-miss.

UI Tutorial

The new UI Tutorial is designed to help new users start to understand the Sansar Client UI (although it will also display for existing users logging-in to R28 for the first time). The tutorial comprises a selection of pop-up displays to controls and yellow hover tips that are displayed within the client. These can be displayed in both the Home Space and within initial experiences a new user visits.

Some of the UI tutorial pop-up (left) and tool tips displayed for new users. The pop-ups appear at the bottom centre of the UI window

The tutorial – while a good idea – seemed to be somewhat random. It’s wasn’t until my fourth log-in, for example, that I saw the pop-up for grabbing items. While not vital, given there are objects in the Home Space that can be grabbed, making this a little more predictable (coming up with the Walk and Teleport pop-ups, perhaps?) would perhaps be more useful.

Emote Menu and Emotes

New to both Desktop and VR modes for Sansar is the Avatar Emote menu. Access via the Socialise button (or CTRL-E in Desktop Mode), this displays a “dial” pop-up, with the available emotes (aka gestures or animations) on the right, and any emotes you may have already used in your current log-in session displayed on the left (if you have not used any emotes, this area will display an alarm clock like icon).

The new Emotes Menu. Note that Recent Emotes (on the left), are only displayed if you have used one or more emotes in the current session

Emotes are selected from the right of the menu, by scrolling up / down through them and clicking on the desired option. Recent emotes (if displayed) are accessed the same way. For VR users, an added bonus is that moving your head or arms will no longer cancel a playing emote (just walk forward, as per Desktop mode).

Note that the chat commands (“/sit”, etc.) are still fully supported, as is the ability to assign custom emotes to replace the default options.

Continue reading “Sansar R28, the Ready, Aim, Fire! Release” →

2018 SL UG updates 50/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Cold Ash; Inara Pey, October 2018, on FlickrCold Ash – blog post

There was no Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, December 11th, 2018. Notes are therefore a little on the light side.

Server Deployments

As always, please check with the server deployment thread for updates and latest news.

  • On Tuesday, December 11th, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server maintenance package 18#18.12.04.522206, previously deployed to all three main RC channels, and comprising region stability improvements; simhost deployment improvements and logging improvements.
    • Part of this update includes the removal of a lot of mesh-related logging that had been required during testing, but has been surplus to requirements. However, as the code was never removed, it resulted in a lot of unnecessary logging as mesh became more popular.
  • On Wednesday, 12th December the RC channels should be updated with server maintenance package 18#18.12.07.522390, comprising voice service adjustments.
  • The Snack channel, home to the Environment Enhancement Project (EEP), received a further simulator update, version 18#18.12.07.522390.

SL Viewer

At the time of writing, there have been no updates to the current batch of official viewers, leaving the pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.0.0.520636, dated October 18, promoted November 14. Formerly the Animesh RC viewer – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.0.1.522045, December 6.
    • Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.0.1.522263, December 5.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 5.2.0.520057, September 28.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.9.519462, September 10. 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.

Cica’s Lullaby in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cica Ghost: Lullaby

Cica Ghost’s latest installation, Lullaby, opened on Tuesday, December 11th. It’s a curious piece, something of a celebration of the creatures that might be said to come out at night, together with touches of some of Cica’s previous installations.

For the byline to the installation, Cica has chosen the chorus from Lullaby for an Insomniac, by Kate Nash. Sung  acapella (albeit with an instrumental ending) the song fits the installation very well, offering something of a gentle subtext to the setting – although too deep an examination of song and installation should perhaps be avoided.

The idea was first, but I often listen Kate, so maybe it was influence. I listen her often when I work. I made the girl a few days ago; it was only house at first, but then she needed somebody to think of.

– Cica Ghost on Lullaby

Cica Ghost: Lullaby

The girl and house in question, can be found towards the middle of the strangely undulating region, perched on a curious table of rock and reached by a ladder impersonating part of the sine curve. She sits atop the house, staring into the distance, lost in thought, the landscape darkened by a greenish night. Her attitude suits the refrain of the chorus perfectly – a girl who is missing someone, and who finds herself unable to sleep and with little interest in how she looks or the state of her surroundings.

Her indifference to her surroundings is a shame, because across this weird landscape with its abrupt hills and valleys and unusual rock formations, the creatures of the night have all come out to play: flying bugs, spiders, curious worms with friendly, anthropomorphic “faces” courtesy of eyes sitting on slug-like stalks and very human tongues lolling happily, and heart-shaped flowers with large, unthreatening eyes. Even some of the hills have eyes, revealing themselves as the domed heads of creatures nestled far enough underground while still able to see what is happening around them.

Cica Ghost: Lullaby

All of this night, in other circumstances, sound like the stuff of nightmares, particular given the giant snail watching over the landing point – but it is not; it is a night-time setting of playfulness. None of the creatures are in any way nefarious; most are going about their business without concern for whatever else might be happening, although one or two do appear to be a little curious about the stranger in their midst, sitting on her odd perch.

Also to be found in the region are echoes of some of Cica’s past works: a bear stands up on one of the hills, for example. While he may be without a shirt, he and the flittering night bugs bring forth memories of The Bees and the Bears. The three frogs sitting close to the landing point directly reflect Frogs; a spider’s web offers a faint echo of Arachnid, even the girl herself, sitting atop her house, is reminiscent of Moonlight.

And here lies the gentle  – if perhaps unintentional – subtext of the installation. Just as Lullaby for an Insomanic reflects on the things we have and the sentimental value they can have, so do these aspects of Cica’s Lullaby gives those familiar with Cica’s work pause to remember her past installations and the joy and other emotions they gave us when they were present in Second Life.

Cica Ghost: Lullaby – Cica takes flight

There aren’t too many places to sit within Lullaby (they are there, but you’ll have to find them!). Instead, and tucked away on the top of one of the odd stalagmite-like rock formations Cica offers a free flying bug. Simply take it, Add or Wear it, and use the WASD / arrow keys, together with PAGE UP and PAGE  DOWN to fly yourself around.

Lullaby should remain open through until early January for visitors. There are several tip jars scattered around the installation, so do please consider a donation towards this and Cica’s future work in Second Life.

SLurl Details

  • Lullaby (Ai Atoll, rated Moderate)