Month: June 2023

2023 SL SUG meetings week #24 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Burrow Wood: Road to Nowhere, April 2023 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 13th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, June 13th:
    • The SLS Main channel servers were updated with a simulator release providing support for the new inventory thumbnails viewer capability soon to be forthcoming. See my recent TPVD meeting summaries for more on this capability. This project – or at least the simulator element – is apparently known as “Manicure” internally at the Lab!).
    • The Preflight RC channel was updated with simulator support for glTF PBR materials – see below for more on this deployment.
  • One Wednesday June14th, the BlueSteel RC channel will be updated with a maintenance release, which include:
    • The “bot detection” update (i.e. AGENT_AUTOMATED constant for llGetAgentInfo() – so only detects if that flag is set, not if an agent is a bot or not.
    • The second part of the LSD rezzing fix + lLinksetDataDeleteFound and llLinksetDataCountFound, among other things.

glTF PBR Simulator Deployment

  • The Preflight channel is a small channel compromising the following controlled access regions: Preflight 0] though Preflight 8, Rumpus Room 1  through Rumpus Room 5 and Testylvania Sandbox.
  • Access to these regions must be requested – but will remain limited; the purpose of this deployment is for small-scale testing of the PBR materials support on the Main grid.
  • A larger, more public deployment of the simulator PBR support code will be forthcoming, so those who do not have access to the Preflight regions should consider waiting for that deployment.

Viewer Updates

No changes to the crop of official viewers for the start of the week, leaving the available list as:

In Brief

PBR Terrain Work

To re-iterate:

  • This work is in development, but is a follow-on to the current PBR Materials project, not a part of it.
  • It is primarily viewer-side changes, allowing the application of PBR materials instead of the current terrain textures. It is *not* PBR terrain painting.
  • Extensions to the project are being discussed internally at the Lab, but the real focus will be on this initial work for the time being, and further information can be found in this official blog post.
  • Discussions on the work are held at the content Creation User Group meetings – see my  meeting summaries or attend the meetings in person.
The PBR terrain project will allow PBR materials to be used on Second Life terrain in place of textures. Credit: Linden Lab

Inventory Thumbnails

  • This is primarily a viewer-side project which keeps coming up for discussion at the SUG meetings.
  • It will allow persistent thumbnail images with a maximum resolution of 256×256 to be produced, which can be stored within inventory with the items they represent  such that they display an image of an item to be displayed on Mouseover.
  • Testing is currently underway to limit the impact the inclusion of thumbnails may have on inventory load time, texture memory use.
  • The viewer is not yet ready for a project viewer release, but the Lab is working on a blog post to outline more of the intended functionality of this capability.

In General

  • BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” has further fixes in the works. No estimated time for deployment.
  • There is still upset circulating about the reduction in Linden Water reflections as a result of performance optimisations to help offset the impact of PBR rendering in the viewer. Currently, there are no plans to offer higher quality reflections in the future, but it is hoped that evolving work on screen space reflections will offset so of the loss of quality.  For discussions on this, please see my Content Creation User Group (CCUG) summaries or attend the meetings in person.
  • A general discussion on updating Linden trees / plants, re-introducing the “wind” to sway trees, how physics calculations and costs are made / arrived at (with the latter noted as potentially being for a future (e.g. not this year) internal discussion at the Lab, so outside of the scope of comment from the La at present).
  • It was noted that there is a further simulator update in development which is hoped will reduce the hit simulators take when handling avatars arriving in a region (and with a focus on better handling of attachments). No ETA on when this will see the light of day.
  • A further discussion on region crossings and vehicles, which also rolled into vehicles hitting ban walls and avatars being ejected / vehicle returned, and a means of preventing this by forewarning on an impending region / parcel with access control enabled. Please refer to the video for all of this.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2023 SL viewer release summaries week #23

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, June 11th, 2023

This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Release viewer: Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.12.579987, dated May 11, promoted May 16.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No update.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Orcinus Isle in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Orcinus Isle, June 2023 – click any image for full size

Shawn Shakespeare pointed me towards Orcinus Isle, a homestead region designed by Lana (Svetlana Pexie), and which offers an engaging and intriguing setting that will be attractive to explorers and photographers alike.

The regions draws on several influences, which in turn can lead to additional influences playing on thoughts about it, leading to some interesting musings – or at least, that was the case for me.

The first of those influences is that of Perissa Beach, Santorini (or Thira) – which is also the first of the attractions for me with Lana’s build. There is a mysticism and beauty with Santorini which has long attracted me. Famed for being a part of the Minoan Civilisation, the island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history, which took place in approximately circa 1600 BCE, destroying much of the island and perhaps helping contribute to the legend of Atlantis.

Orcinus Isle, June 2023

Today, Santorini is both a site of archaeological import and also a major tourist attraction. With towering cliffs, its famous buildings perch along the cliff tops and hills – such as Oia – the natural bay formed by the flooded caldera crater and its beaches, it is easy to understand why. With their distinctive red and black “sands” of volcanic dust the beaches of Santorini – Red Beach, Black Beach, Vlychada – are eye-catching, if not always easily accessible. As such, Perissa, with its rich black shores, has become the most famous, attracting tourists from all over Europe and the world at large.

From there, as Lana notes, the build draws on her love of coastal cliffs, waterfalls and oceans and – in another twist of attraction for me – mythology, to present a setting of the imagination, two island rising out of the sea on shoulder of cliffs, linked by a single arch of rock spanning the gorge which separates them, lending weight to the idea that there were perhaps once a single landmass which at some point became mostly split.

Orcinus Isle, June 2023

What caused the division is down to the imagination; perhaps it was the work of the sea, relentlessly pounding a weakness on the cliffs, eating away at the rock over the ages, deepening an opened crack, drawing down the mass from above and washing it away down through the years. Perhaps this island is influenced by volcanic or tectonic activity, the forces of nature breaking it enough for the sea to take over and create the gorge and bringing down the rock above until only  the mast span remains.

Whatever the cause, the two island masses now sit apart, the northernmost offering the most varied topography, with lowlands curving around a deeply cut bay, quickly giving rise to the sing to a curtain wall of high cliffs across the bay’s width, down which falls plummet in force, most likely adding to the bay’s expansion down the centuries and generating clouds of water vapour that hover cloud-like over the heads of the cliffs. Stratified and uneven, the back of this island suggests it may have been laid down by some form of process, again perhaps one volcanic in nature, successive eruptions adding another linear deposit of hardened volcanic rock.

Orcinus Isle, June 2023

To the south, the second island is more even, its near flat top covered in a head of grass and home to the remnants of a church at its southern end, whilst both island present a ribbon of volcanic shingles of a beach further suggesting they were once a unified mass of rock. Although split by the eastern exit of the gorge splitting the land the beach and landscape at the foot of the cliffs on either side of the water are sufficiently enough alike in terms of elevation and shingle / grassland mix to suggest both once run uninterrupted down the east side of the island.

But what of the mythological links? These can be found in the region’s name: Orcinus. Rather than a direct reference to the genus of Delphinidae we tend to refer to as “killer whales” (although a number of these majestic creatures can be seen swimming off the islands, Lana uses the term in its original meaning: “kingdom of the dead”, and / or “belonging to Orcus”, the god of the underworld in Etruscan and Roman mythology (the name Orca also being applied by the Romans to the genus of Orcinus).

Orcinus Isle, June 2023

The use of the name within the setting might be taken as a reference to is somewhat foreboding look, the evidence of ancient fortifications having once stood proudly here, perhaps long before the arrival Christianity and the church-builders, providing evidence that this was once a fortress or outpost, and thus may have had its name aligned with the god of the dead thanks to its remote location.

“Orcus” also has another connection to mythology, in that it is at times seen as being the origins for Tolkien’s “orcs”; from this use, countless other fantasy games and works of fiction have borrowed the concept of the orc. However, whether Tolkien directly derived his creatures from the name (by way of Anglo-Saxon) is debatable – not the least by Tolkien in his lifetime. However, there is something decidedly “Tolkienish” to the ruins and landscape here (or at least, faintly Nordic), which adds to the allure.

Orcinus Isle, June 2023

Wild and open and with numerous places to sit (not all of which may be easy to reach!), Orcinus Isle is an engaging and photogenic visit.

SLurl Details

Second Pride 2023: a pocket guide to the celebrations

Posted on by Inara Pey
Second Pride, 2023: main stage

SL Pride, the event celebrating diversity organised by and on behalf of Second Life’s LGBTQ+ community officially opened on Friday, June 9th, 2023 and runs through until Sunday, June 18th, 2023.

Given the uncalled for backlash and targeting of the LGBTQ+ community and against gender rights within western nations, coupled with the overall suppression of the community around the world, the theme for this year’s event is, appropriately a message of strength.

NOT GOING BACK – NOT BACKING DOWN

– Second Pride 2023 Theme

As with recent years, the 2023 Second Pride event is hosted across two regions – Second Pride East, with its traditional urban theme, and Second Pride West, with its similarly familiar beachfront and pier design. Straddling the two is the central park and events area, with the landing points for both regions sitting-side-by-side and facing one another across the region boundary.

Second Pride 2023: Dim Sum Gardens

Also as with previous years, the regions utilise a Second Life Experience to assist with teleports, etc., and if you have not previously visited the event or joined the Experience, doing so is recommended. Posters at the landing points will also provide visitors with information on the festivities and entertainment, which will be focused on the main stage in the park, the Beach Stage, located alongside the beachfront with its Second Pride Boardwalk and associated amusements, rides and stalls, with smaller, more intimate events also being held at the Bandshell / City Venue.

And if that weren’t enough, the Bijou Theatre will be hosting a series of special performances and light shows. When you arrive there, just walk the red carpet to the doors and you’ll be TP’d directly to the theatre proper. Details of the shows – and on the more than 70 live performances and events taking place through the event, please refer to the Event Schedule on the Second Pride website.

If you’re new to the LGBTQ+ communities is second Life and wish to learn more, you can drop into the Second Pride Community Resource Centre, while those who wish to sit in quiet contemplation, the Second Pride Memorial Chapel with its message of Solidarity, is available. Or you can just relax at the Dim Sum Gardens or simply tour the two regions!

Second Pride: boardwalk and pier

Funds raised at this year’s even will benefit:

LGBTQ Freedom Fund: is a US-centric organisation which is focused on securing the safety and liberty of people in US jails and immigration detention centres, with a focus on LGBTQ individuals. Because of whom they love / hoe they identify, a tangle of discrimination and poverty disproportionately traps LGBTQ people in cycles of crime and incarceration, with the impact particularly felt by transgender, brown, and black individuals.

In tandem with provide financial support to secure the release of LGBTQ+ people unfairly incarcerated, the fund works with the public and policymakers to curb the mass detention of LGBTQ individuals, given the fact that sexual minorities are three times more likely to be incarcerated than heterosexual individuals. The sweep of criminalisation is extraordinary, with some estimates suggesting that, at some point in their lives, 70 percent of low-income LGBTQ people are homeless – and as a result can be considered vagrants and subject to arrest and indefinite incarceration in many US states.

The It Gets Better Project: founded as a non-profit organisation in the United States in 2010, the Project now involves international affiliate organisations across 19 countries. Together they are able to reach millions of young people around the world, promoting the vision of a world where all LGBTQ+ youth are free to live equally and know their worthiness and power as individuals. A huge part of this work is in outreach through storytelling – those within the community telling their stories and inspiring / encouraging others. The Project additional fosters community-building and promoting open discussions on the challenges young LGBTQ+ people have to face as a result of their sexual orientation and gender identity journey, and to positively influence the outlook of both those who identify as LGBTQ+ and those who do not.

Second Pride 2023

With entertainment, shopping, camaraderie, friendship, fun, support and more, do be sure to make time to visit SL Pride, share in the entertainment, tour the regions, have fun – and donate to the supported charities.

SLurl and Link Details

The Second Pride regions are rated Moderate

2023 week #23: SL TPVD meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nederlanse Bergee, April 2023 – blog post†

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, June 9th 2023 at 13:00 SLT. These notes are via a combination of my own chat log transcript of each meeting, and / or the video recording made of each meeting by Pantera Północy and embedded at the end of this article. My thanks, as always, to her for recording these meetings.  Note that the following is a summary of the meeting as a whole, and not a transcript of everything discussed.

Meeting Overview

  • The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development.
  • As a rule, these meetings are:
    • Generally held once a month  the third or fourth Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre. See the SL Public Calendar for specific meeting dates.
    • Open to all with an interest in viewer development.
    • Conducted in a mix of text and voice.
  • The notes herein are drawn from a mix of my own chat log and audio recording of the meeting, and are not intended to be a full transcript.

Official Viewers Status

  • The Maintenance T RC viewer updated to version 6.6.13.580419 on June 7th.

The remaining official viewers currently in the pipeline remain unchanged through the week:

General Viewer Notes

  • The glTF / PBR material viewer (and project) are in bug fixing mode, specifically with some QA questions / concerns on the server side of things.
  • Inventory thumbnails viewer: work is progressing, and the simulator support code has been deployed to the simulator RC channels and is expected to go to the SLS Main channel in week #24.This will potentially allow the first release of an Inventory Thumbnails project viewer.
  • LL has completed the move of viewer builds to Github Actions, and has now successfully completed the first viewer builds along this new process. Th next step is to move all viewer-related work away from Team City completely.
  • This work also means that the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) for media handling is being updated.

In Brief

  • Prototyping is underway for the support of planar mirrors in SL and for the application of PBR materials on terrain (note, again, this is not PBR terrain painting, it is using PBR materials in place of the default terrain textures – see this blog post for more).
    • A test build of a viewer supporting the application of PBR materials for terrain has been made available through the Content Creation Discord server for limited testing, and feedback is being taken on this.
    • Work is underway to allow triplanar mapping for terrain repeats.
  • BUG-232037 “Avatar Online Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” was raised again, although more strictly a simulator issue. The precise cause(s) of the problem are still being investigated. Anecdotal evidence from some quarters claims the issue is getting worse, but whether this is objectively the case is questionable.

 Next Meeting

  • Friday, July 7th, 2023.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

RFL 2023: it’s the Weekend to Relay in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Relay for Life of Second Life, Relay Weekend, June 10-11th, 2023

Saturday, June 10th and Sunday June 11th mark the annual Relay for Life of Second Life Relay Weekend, raising money for the American Cancer Society and their projects to help and support cancer sufferers and their families and caregivers the world over. With American Cancer Society (ACS) regions forming the anchor-point for the event, 35 regions have been combined to provide the weekend’s track, which all Second Life residents are invited to walk for a part of the weekend and show support for those who have been stricken by cancer and / or remember those in their own families / circles of friends who have been lost to the disease/ are living within its shadow.

The theme for this year is Hope Floats, and this is reflected in the multiple camps and places to visit which line the RFL walk as it loops through the regions. The event officially opens at 10:00 SLT on the morning of Saturday, June 10th, with the opening ceremony taking place on the ACS2 and ACS 3 regions. Immediately following this is the first of a continuous series of laps around the walk, which will continue through until the closing ceremony at 10:00 SLT on the morning of Sunday, June 11th.

This first lap of the track is reserved for those dealing with cancer or who have survived its impact on their health, together with their family members and caregivers. However, residents as a whole are encouraged to line the track and show their support for them as they make their way around it.  After it comes the Parade of Teams: those groups active within Second Life who are active in both supporting ACS through organising and running their own fund-raising events, and who help to make this weekend the  Relay Weekend the event it is.

Relay for Life of Second Life, Relay Weekend, June 10-11th, 2023 – learn about ACS Hope Lodges

After the Parade of teams, from 14:00 SLT onwards on June 10th, through until 09:00 SLT on June 11th, there will be a series of hourly themed walks around the track, open to anyone to join for as long as they choose. As always, participants are invited to join in with the theme, all of which are listed below (all times SLT).

Saturday, June 10th
 Sunday, June 11th
11:00
Survivor/Caregiver Lap		 00:00
Space Walk among the Stars
Kirk or Spock? Baltar or Six? Ground Control or Major Tom? Go sci-fi!
12:30
Parade of Teams		 01:00
Mount Up and Ride
Ye-haw! – but why stop with riding horses?
14:00
Purple Power Hour
The Name sez it all!		 02:00
Your Pets Want Out
Bring your pet for a walk.
15:00
Under the Sea
Are you mermaid? Merman? Grouper or Penguin? Seas creatures unite!		 03:00
Small But Mighty
Dinkies and Tinies unite!
16:00
Unicorns, Fairies, Fantasy+
Come as your favourite fantasy character or dressed for your favourite genre		 04:00
Wild Wild West
NOW is the time for horses, big hats and cowpokes!
17:00
Over the Rainbow & Into the Clouds
Clouds, rainbows, pride		 05:00
Skate into the Morning
Make like Marty Mcfly or don those rollerskates and roll!
18:00
Ride the Wave, Dude
Surf’s up and beach parties are the order of the hour!		 06:00
Fight Back Hour
ACS, Relay, or Team shirts
19:00
Relay Sock Hop
Poodle skirts, vinyl, diners		 07:00
PJs, Coffee, and Curlers
For the all-nighters: wear your coffee and drink your PJs (!)
20:00
Light It Up
Torches, candles, neon lights, etc.		 08:00
Making Strides
Pink, Strides (breast cancer) awareness
21:00
Luminaria Ceremony
~ Remember ~		 09:00
Floating to the Finish Line
Carry (ride?) balloons around the track
22:00
Fly Your Kite
– or that of your team, if you’re a team member!		 10:00
Closing Ceremony
23:00
Relay Snow Storm
Dress up warm or get those Xmas Hols glad rags out!		 11:00
Dancing in the Streets
make like Martha and the Vandellas or Mick and David and dance around the track!

Luminaria Ceremony and Lanterns

At 21:00 SLT on Saturday, June 11th, the track will be in darkness and silence, with all those in the Relay Regions are asked not to engage in open text or voice chat but to walk the track in silence or stand to one side, as the names of those to be remembered are read.

It is a time for each of us to reflect on how this disease has touched us personally.  And it is a time for us to look inside ourselves with quiet reflection and find hope.  Because no matter what our experience has been with cancer, we all share the hope that we will one day live in a world where our children, and their children, will never have to hear the words “you have cancer”.

– Relay for Life of Second Life event web page

Along the sides of the relay track are the Luminaria lanterns that can be used to commemorate and / or honour someone you know who has succumbed to or survived cancer. Lanterns can be lit for a minimum donation of L$50 (all proceeds to Relay for Life of Second Life). Donations can can be made by clicking  a lantern and then either selecting a set amount or typing in an amount of your choice. You can also optionally enter whether you are lighting the lantern in memory or in honour of someone, and also add their name and / or a message.

Relay for Life of Second Life, Relay Weekend, June 10-11th, 2023

So, get ready to join the fun and help raise money for a very worthy cause!

SLurl Details

  • American Cancer Society (American Cancer Society, rated General)
  • ACS2 (opening / Closing ceremony, rated General)
  • ACs3 (opening / Closing ceremony, rated General)