Month: September 2019

Sansar Product Meetings week #37: feedback and Q&A

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following notes were taken from my audio recording of the September 12th (week #37) Sansar Product Meeting, which took the form of a Q&A  / feedback session. As always, key points are summarised, but please also refer to the official video. Note that streaming may have been curtailed prior to the end of the meeting; as I was watching the stream, I have no idea if questions continued to be addressed after streaming ceased.

“Major” Launch and Challenges

  • Sansar is preparing for a “major” launch with one or more partners on September 24th.
  • This will apparently see several more Core Portals at the Nexus come in to use (according to the Nexus maps, one was already reserved the Monstercat, LL’s music event partner).
  • In the run-up to this, there are two Sansar challenges:
    • Future Fashion: design an outfit that can be featured on the main Sansar Store page and which fits with the theme of the upcoming launch. This runs until September 23rd.
    • Attack of the Clones: a series of running (I believe) challenges for users to create avatar likeness of famous people using Sansar’s facial morphing capabilities (not made outside of Sansar and then uploaded). The first selection of faces runs through until Monday September 16th, and features the faces of Ripley (aka Signourey Weaver) from the Alien franchise, Lando Calrissian (aka Billy Dee Williams, not Donald Glover) from the Star Wars films or someone called Pow3r (no, I’ve no idea who this is either). I gather entries are to be posted to Flickr.
Clone one of these three in a Sansar contest. Don’t ask me if it’s just for fun or if there is a prize, as the info is apparently conveniently buried in a Sansar Discord channel.

I’m unable to give further context to these challenges, as the details are buried somewhere in Sansar’s Discord pages (where contests and competitions apparently don’t even have their own channel).

User-Created Guides

A new section has been created in the  forums for specifically for user-created guides, tutorials and tips.

Q&A

Avatar Related

  • Can a texture wheel be added for selecting textures for skins, nails, eyes, etc? No, but texture layering will be in a future release.
  • When will it be possible to change custom skins on an avatar, rather than having to change the entire avatar look? Soon, but dependent on the Sansar licensing system being extended to cover the avatar. This also goes for selling facial presets.
  • Will the baked shadowing issues for under the arms, under the nose, etc., be fixed? There is an upcoming point release to fix the underarm shadows, and may address under the nose, etc.
  • Marvelous Designer related:
    • Will Sansar all the import of more than one materials face from Marvelous Designer? It should, so this may be a bug and will be investigated.
    • Better pining for clothing when editing MD clothing  is being investigated.
  • Body morphing and shape:
    • Full body morphing, when deployed will only be for the system avatar and avatars built off of it. An update system will be supplied to transition all such avatars over to body morph support.
    • Body morphing will not be available for fully custom-built avatars; what will be provided in the future is the ability to transform bones prior to upload.
    • The female avatar will remain “as is” (oddly elongated) for reasons previously indicated (to give a better baseline for body deformation for both male and female avatars, and to allow gender-neutral clothing).
    • It is hoped full body morphing will help alleviate this by allowing users the freedom to alter their body shapes, and allow LL to provide a greater range of starter avatar shapes for incoming users.
Avatar proportions: both male and female body proportions are roughly in keeping with the “norms” – but the female appears to have been vertically stretched (head and body) in order to match the male avatar, resulting in an odd, thin and hipless look

Nexus / Codex Portal Related

  • There is a degree of negativity from some creators towards the Nexus. Given it is less than a month old, it is difficult to tell if this is simply personal discomfiture over such a clear change from the past for those with long-term experience in using the Atlas or whether it is genuinely leading to a bottleneck in discovery / exploration by incoming users.
    • The Lab is monitoring traffic flow through the Nexus, but no changes are being considered at the moment.
    • Changes will be made if the metrics tend to show the Nexus is bottlenecking discovery.
    • improving discoverability within the Prime Portal is being considered, such as adding more searchable categories to the Portal (presumably things like “Science Fiction”, “Games”, etc), and better surfacing of particularly popular worlds.
  • A more elegant means of toggling between logging in to the Nexus or a user’s Home Space is being considered.
  • New loading screens for worlds are to be deployed fairly soon. They will come in two phases: improvements to the loading screen space, followed by UI improvements.
    • These will be tied to the Sansar “backstory”
    • A request has been made for load screen to contain more information, such as the descriptions, creator name(s), etc., from the Atlas / Codex / Prime Portal entry. This will be considered.
  • Can portals be made more interactive (e.g. walk through to move between worlds)? Could an image of the destination world be displayed within and active portal? Both ideas are already being considered.
  • An upcoming change to the Codex will mean that the master instance of any world that is used to create an event space host an event will be added to the Codex of all users attending the event, always direct “re-visits” to that world.
  • The current cap of 20 avatars per Nexus instance will be raised in the near future.
  • The Nexus might be considered as the venue for seasonal events organised by Linden Lab.

General Questions

  • Valve Index support:
    • The headset has been tested and appears to work, but not clear if some client-side changes will be required.
    • No plans as yet to implement the Valve Index finger tracking.
  • Chat / messaging related:
    • Will direct person-to-person Voice calls be enabled? Not really been discussed.
    • Will capabilities such as spell check be added to text chat? No plans, but perhaps in the future.
    • Can an audible notification be added for incoming messages? Will be added to the list of things under consideration; if implemented, will include an option for be disabled for those who don’t like it.
    • Work on chat / messaging features and improvements have been somewhat pushed aside due to the work going into the Nexus, etc., and Avatar 2.0, the questing system and the XP system – but they are something LL plan to get back to.
  • Camera related:
    • Freecamming from sit points: can the F4 (Desktop mode) freecam capability be made available to users when using sit points (in chairs, etc). Under consideration.
    • Will it be possible to focus on in-scene objects and then zoom into them, a-la Second Life? This is on the Lab’s wish list for the Edit mode, but is not a priority.
    • Better zooming at the avatar’s lower body in look book when dressing / adjusting clothing has been requested.
  • Will the ability to upload / edit terrain heightmaps be returning to Sansar? No current plans to do so.
  • Will an Abandon button be made available for users to remove unwanted and incomplete quests from their quest log? Yes, likely to appear in the next-but-one release.
  • Will it be possible to have “neighbourhoods” in Sansar – experiences with individual plots where users can place their own “pod” to live? Unlikely.
    • Landon McDowell, the Lab’s Chief Product Officer indicated that while it is not officially part of the development roadmap for Sansar, ways in which to “stitch” worlds together are still being thought about at the Lab – something Ebbe Altberg alluded to possibly happening back before Sansar made its initial closed Alpha début.
    • The main mechanism that exists – and will continue – in Sansar for “linking” worlds is for creators to drop portals to one another’s worlds (a-la region-to-region teleports in SL).
  • Feature requests and feedback: there are multiple channels through which feature requests and feedback for Sansar can be put to LL (e.g. the feature request form thread, product meetings, Discord, general forum discussion, etc.). LL is looking to try to rationalised this and formalise a process for gather feedback / requests and reviewing / vetting / prioritising against current plans etc.
    • It had been indicated (2017/18) that LL would look to move away from ZenDesk for their bug / feature / documentation / community / blog tool. However, it now appears they are somewhat hoist by their own petard, and unwilling to pivot away from it due to the investment in building a knowledge base.

The caverns and castle of Abrahamstrup in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Abrahamstrup, September 2019 – click any image for full size

It’s been a while since I’ve last written about Binemust, the Full region held by Biné Rodenberger, a place we’ve oft enjoyed visiting for its landscapes and gardens both above and below the region’s waters. However, we were recently drawn back due to Biné having spent the last few months creating something very new and different for the region, and which she recently opened to the public.

Abrahamstrup as the region is now known, presents a great mountain of an island rising from the sea and topped by the stern walls of a tall, blocky castle keep, sans surrounding curtain walls and courtyards. The island rises steeply from a narrow ring of shingle beach, the rock offers no real means to ascend to the great keep – at least from the outside. How then, to reach it? The About Land description holds a clue:

A Mountain Island – A Labyrinth of Caves – A Castle.

Abrahamstrup, September 2019

And indeed, on the shoreline facing the landing point – located on a deck built out over the water and home to a small shack – is an entrance to a cave or cavern at the foot of the mountain, the board walk connecting deck to shore pointing a crooked finger towards it.

Those arriving are offered an introductory note card that explains more about what to expect, together with a flashlight. Whether the latter is required largely depends on personal choice – and possibly whether visitors opt for the local environment settings or tinker with them viewer-side. During our first visit, I opted to initially go with my preferred viewer-side settings before switching back to the region’s environment. For the pictures shown here, I used ~Clouds Fluffy White Elven Sky, by Stevie Davros, tweaked a little, together with the region’s settings.

Abrahamstrup, September 2019

Crossing to the shore and entering the first cavern gives a hint of the engaging curio of exploration that awaits: a great façade modelled on that of Al Khazneh (The Treasury) at Petra in Jordan faces the cavern entrance, while to one side, glowing flowers suggest a path to the heavy door of the façade. Across the cavern, a large sign suggests people EAT – with places to do so close by –  while another offers the invitation LET’S GET WEIRD.

Pass through the massive wooden door of the façade, and the path plunges downward into the first chamber of a network of caverns and tunnels. Each of these caves – about which I’d prefer not to say too much lest it spoil discovery – offers a certain setting, with those underwater offering a feel for actually being underwater, despite the flaming torches lining the tunnel walls (having the viewer’s Advanced lighting Model enabled  – Preferences → Graphics is strongly recommended during a visit), giving them a wonderful fantasy feel.

Abrahamstrup, September 2019

Along the way through the tunnels is a sign offering the direction to reach the castle, but when exploring for the first time, I recommend ignoring it and going in the other direction. This allows you to visit the rest of the caverns and tunnels first and avoid possibly missing what’s on offer. One of these tunnels may lead you back outside through a narrow cleft sitting above the eastern beach, if so, there are some local points of interest to see before re-entering the tunnels once more.

When you are ready, the ways to the castle can be found within one of the underwater chambers. And yes, I did mean “ways” – there are two teleport options available: a door to the very top of the keep’s central tower (use the pail of flowers and candles through which you emerge onto the roof to make a return), and a mirror that leads into the castle itself.

Abrahamstrup, September 2019

Throughout her time in Second Life, Biné has been a patron of the arts, and this has always been reflected in her region designs, as continues to be the case within Abrahamstrup. In fact, it is the presence of pieces by number of artists within this design that also make me hesitate in revealing too much of what lies within caverns and castle rooms. However, careful exploration will reveal pieces by the likes of Cica Ghost, Haveit Neox – whose alien and telescope found within the main hall of the castle offer something of  a nod towards his Paper Tower (see: A Carnival of Architecture to say farewell to a landmark) -, Bryn Oh and Kilik Lekvoda.

Set off to the north-east corner of the region and sitting on its own black rock island is a further curio: a Russian (Soviet era?) communal swimming pool, apparently broken and battered by time and perhaps tide. Sitting almost like an industrial era left-over, it presents a very different setting to castle and caves, and can be reached via the shoreline beach from the landing point.

Abrahamstrup, September 2019

My one regret with Abrahamstrup is that in order to make room for it, Biné has had to remove most of her marvellous underwater gardens – long a highlight of visits to Binemust. True, for those who plunge below the waves, some elements remain, but the gardens, paths, sunken trees and artistic corners have, for a time, vanished. Nevertheless, the island with its caves and waiting discoveries, together with the high castle keep offer more than enough to keep explorers and photographers happy, making Abrahamstrup a worthy visit.

Note: visitors must have Payment Information On File to access Abrahamstrup.

SLurl Details and Links

2019 SL User Groups 37/2: Content Creation summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Athenaeum, July 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, September 12th 2019 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.

Animesh Follow-On – Project Muscadine

Project Summary

Currently: offer the means to change an Animesh size parameters via LSL.

Current Status

  • The viewer updated to version 6.4.0.530473 on Wednesday, September 11th – however, this is to parity with the EEP RC viewer, rather than any new features being added.
  • Viewer work is currently on the back-burner for now, while Vir is working on ARCTan. As such, it’s likely that the project will proceed with small updates  – such as those in the current project viewer – rather than gathering together a larger number of updates and releasing them together.
  • A potential update still under consideration is to revise the current throttle (limiting Animesh character to updating twice every 10 seconds). This was put in place to prevent people using the system as an alternative means of animation (and potentially thrashing performance)s.
    • Some have done informal testing with up to 20 Animesh characters changing shape under scripted control as fast as the current throttle allows and using 115 parameters, apparently with little performance impact.
  • Animesh objects currently count towards the overall avatar imposter limit – although it is possible these might be split.
    • The “pro” side of this is that Animesh objects have a fairly fixed rendering complexity.
    • The “con” side is how things might change if Animesh characters start having attachments.
    • It would also mean further complexity with graphics settings in the viewer.

Environment Enhancement Project

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements (e.g. the sky, sun, moon, clouds, and 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 includes the ability to use custom Sun, Moon and cloud textures. The assets can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others, and can additionally be used in experiences.

Due to performance issues, the initial implementation of EEP will now likely not include certain atmospherics such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”).

Resources

Current Status

  • Work continues on rendering bug fixes.
  • There is still no indication as to when this might be promoted to release status.
  • A lot of EEP documentation is currently in the forum threads. There has been a request to move this to the wiki – or at least is the Knowledge Base, which is current a focus for documentation from the Lab.

ARCTan

Project Summary

An attempt to re-evaluate object and avatar rendering costs to make them more reflective of the actual impact of rendering both. The overall aim is to try to correct some inherent negative incentives for creating optimised content (e.g. with regards to generating LOD models with mesh), and to update the calculations to reflect current resource constraints, rather than basing them on outdated constraints (e.g. graphics systems, network capabilities, etc).

Current Status

  • Progress has now resumed, with Vir working on hooking new data gathering code into the viewer code base to allow more widespread data gathering.
  • The code currently isn’t available in a public viewer repository (in part because it is not ready).
  • It has been suggested that allowing Firestorm to use the code would potentially allow for a broader cross-section of representative data to be gathered. However, the core data gathering code is baked into viewer, and making that alone available for FS to adopt at this point in time could be difficult.
  • There are concerns that major changes in the costs of in-world objects could see an increase in Land Impact values that could in turn see large amounts of content returned.
    • This is something the Lab is concerned about as well, and it has previously been indicated that if this proves to be a significant risk, then steps will be taken to mitigate this – see Project ARCTan in 2018 SL UG updates #7/3: TPV and Web Meetings.
    • It’s been suggested that ARCTan could offer a new “invisible” mesh asset type: anything that is created uploaded after ARCTan is (eventually) deployed must conform to ARCTan; mesh in-world prior to ARCTan is not governed by ARCTan – as was done with Materials. Vir indicated this might be one option, at least during the initial roll-out of ARCTan.
  • There is a lot of chatter / speculation in the forums about what ARCTan “might” or “will” be; Vir’s response to this is again that no decisions have thus far been made by the Lab as the project is still in its early stages. Therefore, people should not put too much stock in forum thread unless it is posted by the Lab.
  • It’s important to note that beyond data gathering, LL haven’t even decided how ambitious the project will be overall.

Bakes on Mesh

Project Summary

Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos and clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies and heads.

Resources

Current Status

  • There has been extensive discussion on Bakes on Mesh in the forums, including ideas on future extensions, some of which are being pulled in by the Lab for additional consideration (which is not to say they will happen).
  • There is an unofficial list for BoM support (last updated at the end of August) which may help those interested.
  • Cathy Foil has been investigating the local edit issue she reported at the last meeting (see:) wherein odd results when using the appearance editor that correct themselves on exiting the appearance editor and when baked via the Baking Service. In her case, it appears the problem was due to a slip-up at her end of things involving a mesh with different UVs, although a Jira has been filed on a related issue.
  • There is a report that eye textures applied via BoM appear darker than if applied directly to the mesh. A Bug report is to be raised on this.

Art vignettes at Solo Arte in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Solo Arte, September 2019

Currently open at Solo Arte is an art garden created by Terrygold and MelaniaBis that features the work of invited artists displayed in a series of pods. At the time of my visit, the garden featured the work of CioTToLiNa Xue, Dekka Raymaker, Annalisa Muliaina, and Terrygold, together and an exhibition of art by Magda Schmidtzau. These are individual exhibits, rather than a combined installation – Magda’s art being the most recent addition. As noted, Each artist has their work displayed in an individual pod, with the the pods either placed on, or close to, the garden’s lawn.

In this, the setting has something of a feel of the Explore and Enjoy exhibition from 2018, also designed and curated by Terrygold and MelaniaBis (see:  Solo Arte: “explore and enjoy” in Second Life), albeit on a more modest scale. I have no idea if further pods will be added given the available space, although there appears to be room for more, if required. As it is, the four available at the time of my visit made for a contrasting group of 2D and 3D displays.

Solo Arte – Magda Schmidtzau (l) and CioTToLiNa Xue (r) – September 2019

Truth be told, I don’t have too much to say about the individual exhibits, as they all tned to speak for themselves. CioTToLiNa offers New Trips, which carries something of an echo of her piece from Explore and Enjoy, while Terrygold presents  a piece from her 2018 installation, Rusted Farm (see: A Rusted Farm in Second Life), while Magda’s 2D art is, as always, captivating in it richness of avatar studies.

However, the reality is these are art vignettes that should be seen for themselves – and in the case of Dekka’s, tried, as it is interactive – so I’ll leave you yo pay them a visit.

Solo Arte, Dekka Raymaker – September 2019

SLurl Details

 

Second Life mobile apps: a (belated) update

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos © and ™ Linden Lab and Apple Inc

As I’ve previously noted, Linden Lab is working on an iOS client for Second Life, the first phase of which will be focused primarily on chat.

Keira Linden, who is now a Product Manager at the Lab, is heading up the project, and at a recent open-source developer meeting (held every Wednesday, but at a time I can rarely make), she offered some feedback on the upcoming app, with Oz Linden, the Technical Director for Second Life providing some additional comments on the Lab’s approach to mobile.

You can read an excerpt of the meeting’s transcript that encompasses the discussion in the forums – with thanks to Arielle Popstar for posting it – and the following is a summary of the comments made, grouped by topic.

Summary of iOS Specific Comments

  • The iOS app is to be deployed in stages, starting with – as previously noted – the chat capabilities. This will support IM and group conversations, and will likely include the capability to search for friends and non-friends alike.
  • It appears This initial release of the app will not support local chat, with Oz Linden noting:
Unlike other current apps, the plan is that your avatar will be in a separate space inaccessible to others, so it won’t just be standing somewhere not moving, so you won’t have a regular ‘location’ at all to chat in.

– Oz Linden, Open Source Dev meeting, August 14th

Presumably, this will change in later releases.

  • Further capabilities for the app are being discussed internally at the Lab, and these discussions include prioritising capabilities for release as the app is enhanced.
    • At some point in the development cycle, Keira will be reaching out to users to gain feedback on what are considered to be the important capabilities / options, in order to help the Lab prioritise future enhancement of the app.
    • Overall, the plan is to add as much functionality as possible as the app continues to be developed beyond the initial release.
  • There are no dates for when the app might be made available for testing – but the development work is considered a “high priority” by Keira and within the Product Team.
  • The precise framework for testing hasn’t been finalised, but will be announced via the forums when decided upon.
    • Side note: it had been previously indicated that when the app is made available for testing it will be through Apple’s beta testing environment for apps, and users wishing to test the app will need to have TestFlight installed on their iPhone (or iPad). It’s not clear if this is still the case – but given Apple’s requirements, I would assume so.
  • Currently, the Lab isn’t focusing on providing any graphics support (a-la the 3D world view in Lumiya), with Keira commenting:
We haven’t focused too much on the graphics side, as we’ve been working on chat and security, but I’ll be sure to include that consideration when we get there.

– Keira Linden, Open Source Dev meeting, August 14th

Summary of Overall Approach to Mobile

  • When starting the project, consideration was given to developing mobile apps in a multi-platform framework, but the decision was made to develop natively for different platforms was the better way to go.
  • The decision to go for iOS over Android for the first app was largely made on the basis that Android was better supported at the time (late 2018) by 3rd party apps (including Lumiya).
  • The Lab believe that by focusing on one platform at a time will, ultimately allow them to roll out individual apps and enhancements to those apps faster.
  • Once the Lab is happy with the status of the first app, they will consider porting it to “other platforms”.
  • Concerns have been raised over the potential of a mobile app to increase ad-hoc group chat griefing. Both Oz and Keira indicated there are various server-side means of cutting back on such griefing under consideration as a part of a broader project that’s not directly linked to mobile app development.
  • A browser-based streaming solution is currently excluded from consideration, purely on the basis of cost-effectiveness to users (e.g. considering the pricing model for Bright Canopy), with Oz Linden commenting:

We’ve done several experiments with streamed viewers, and are watching the evolution of the required server side costs and capabilities. So far, we don’t think there’s a viable business model (that is, we’d have to charge too much), but we expect competition and technology to eventually change that.

– Oz Linden, Open Source Dev meeting, August 14th

In addition to the above, and more recently – during the second segment of Lab Gab – Reed Linden indicated that the Lab has a number of initiatives related to mobile support, including optimising the SL Marketplace for use on mobile devices. Please refer to my summary (with video) of that session.

Related Links

Again, thanks to Arielle Popstar for posting the  transcript excerpt.

Lab Gab episode 2 with Reed Linden – a summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Image courtesy of Linden Lab

The Second episode of Lab Gab streamed on Wednesday, September 11th, hosted by Xiola and Strawberry Linden, and featuring special guest Reed Linden.

Running to just under 44 minutes, this was an informative segment, although there were a number of questions asked that where outside of Reed’s specific remit and which he was only able to answer in general terms (Land, Linden Homes, pricing, etc.). Most of these are not summarised below, and I refer people to the embedded video for comments.

About Reed Linden

Reed Linden, aka (at present) Penguin Fabuloso, has been with the Lab for just over eight years, having joined in August 2011. He started in the support team, serving there for three years, then moving to the Engineering team for a time. While there, Grumpity Linden, Director of Product for Second Life, selected him to join the Product team.

As a Product Manager, Reed has particular responsibility for the Lab’s Second Life web infrastructure –  the Marketplace, Profiles, main domains like secondlife.com, and so on). He’s also been involved with Bakes on Mesh, and has knowledge of account management (including Premium), billing,  and – given his time there – support.

Reed Linden (c), flanked by Xiola (l) and Strawberry (r)

He views his progress through the Lab as uniquely reflective of the manner in which knowledge of the platform is distributed: those who potentially know the most about SL are the users who put it to work every day, coding, building, uploading, texturing, creating, and so on. The next level of knowledge below that is the support teams who handle hundreds of user requests on a daily basis, and get to use the broad spread of the platform’s tools and capabilities. Then, after support come the engineering and product teams, who have sharply defined focuses on Second Life.

From this is should come as no surprise that he sees the community as his favourite aspect of the platform, together with the manner in which it can bring people together from around the world, and help them find a voice or outlets or connections – and even to find love. In this latter regard, he reveals that not only have SL residents built their physical world relationships out of a Second Life meeting (a-la the Love Made in SL series), but also that some LL staff have met their physical world partners through SL!

Web Properties – Project and Updates

  • As a part of his web infrastructure responsibilities, he has been running the work to bring Profiles back into the viewer. This involves two key elements:
    • Moving user profiles back to their own floater in the viewer, rather than pulling in the web profile. This element of the work is currently available for testing in the Legacy Profiles Project Viewer, which can be found on the Alternate Viewer Page.
    • A further aspect of the work is to move Profile Feeds into a dedicated tab within the Profile floater.
Left: SL Profiles will be returning to a dedicated floater (rather than using a panel to display the web-base user profile). In the future, Profile feeds will also become a part of this floater with their own tab. Right: recently delivered to the Marketplace (among other updates) is the ability to list all the gifts you have received (MP → Account Name → My Account Page → Received Gifts)
  • Reed also highlighted three recent updates to the Marketplace:
    • Notification of purchase – when you visit a Marketplace listing for an item you have previously purchased with the account you are using, the date purchased is displayed at the top of the listing.
    • The gifts received listing (see above).
    • The ability for store owners to nominate store managers.
  • Some of the upcoming Marketplace features touched upon include:
    • Optimising the Marketplace for mobile use.
    • Purchase notifications: store owners will receive a viewer notification of purchases made through their Marketplace stores. This will be an opt-in capability, so as to avoid those with popular brands from being constantly spammed with purchase messages.
    • Refunds: the ability for Merchants to offer refunds through the MP is being looked at.
    • Continuing work on quality-of-life capabilities within the MP, together with bug fixes.
  • Search is being strengthened right across all of the Lab’s web properties.
    • For the Marketplace, this will include listing top-selling products first within search results
    • Better granularity on searches will potentially be supported, together with better filtering
  • There are also projects in progress or on the horizon related to improving the Destination Guide and for Events (this has been mentioned in one or two technical user group meetings, but again without specifics being given).

Bakes on Mesh

  • As a Product Manager, he is very pleased with the take-up of Bakes on Mesh (BoM) – as is the Lab.
  • LL have been tracking take-up among mesh head / body makers, etc., and the gradual adoption of the BoM viewer code by TPVs.
    • There is an unofficial list for BoM support (last updated at the end of August) which may help those interested.
  • The hope remains that BoM will encourage more lightweight content in terms of graphics resources (e.g. less complex Mesh heads and bodies, plus the ability to bake down multiple textures into a single composite).

General Q&A

  • As a hobby, Reed enjoys painting model miniatures (D&D being specifically mentioned) and building dioramas.
  • Work on an iOS client was re-iterated. No new updates, as this is not one of Reed’s areas of work, so those interested can refer to a summary of comments by Kiera and Oz Linden on the work (including a link to a transcript of the comments), and my July mini-update on this project.
  • Last Names: yes, still being worked on, but a complex project. Again, see my June update, which includes the most relevant comments from LL.

Feedback

An informative segment, with Reed providing a lot of hints  – he touched very loosely on possible new Premium account options, for example – as well as outright information for those who do not attend the various in-world user group meetings or follow summaries of said meetings as provided on this blog and others of a similar nature.

Some of the questions did hit on the issue of keeping people aware of a specific guest’s area of expertise; even when warned Reed is not directly involved in viewer development, land management, etc., a number of questions on those subjects came up (and were dutifully asked). However, these fortunately did not interrupt the overall flow of the session to a great degree.

Voice quality continues to be an issue; I assume the participants are using the SL voice binary rather than hooking Skype or an alternative service into the mix. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed once the upcoming voice update viewer goes into circulation and Lab staff can use it.

No details on what the next segment will be about – so it’s a case of watch the official blog posts.