Day: August 29, 2023

2023 SL SUG meetings week #35 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Briarwood Wildlife Refuge, June 2023 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday,  August 29th 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

  • There was no deployment to the SLS Main channel, leaving all simhosts on that channel running on release 581251, although the hosts were all restarted.
  • On Wednesday, August 30th, there will be a further attempt to deploy simulator update 581292 (“Bugsmash”).

Upcoming Release

  • Week #36 should see the RC deployment of the “Dog Days” simulator release. This includes:
    • The unbinding of the Experience KVP database read / write functions from land (users will still require an Experience to access the KVP database).
    • A scripted ability to set CLICK_ACTION_IGNORE, allowing an object to be clicked-through to reach an object behind it – a flag supporting this is included in the Maintenance U RC viewer promoted to Release status in week #34.
    • PRIM_CLICK_ACTION is added to llSet/GetPrimParams so you can set the click action on prims in a linkset.
  • An upcoming release is “Fall Colours”. Among other elements is a new LSL function, llIsFriend – essentially “Is the avatar touching this object a friend of the object’s owner?”, and then act accordingly. Rider Linden put out a general request for suggestions as to what else should go in this release, which led to an discussion on possible notecard-related functions and options, as per the meeting video.

Viewer Updates

No updates to the official SL viewers at the start of the week, leaving the current list as:

Note: the alternate viewer page also lists “Win32+MacOS<10.13 – 6.6.12.579987” as an RC viewer. However, the Win 32 + pre-Mac OS 10.13 was promoted to release status on July 5th, and viewer version 6.6.12.579987 points to the Maintenance S viewer, promoted to release status on May 16th.

Potential for Improving Vehicle Control Options

Further to the last meeting, Leviathan Linden gave the following update.

Right now I’m looking into exposing game controller buttons directly to LSL. All the other vehicle related ideas will have to wait until after this is done. The work is in progress, but one thing I learned is… our current game controller detection logic can’t capture all of the buttons/axes of a typical Xbox style controller. The logic is limited to 6 axes of motion and the Xbox controller I’m using has 8 axes. So I’m currently trying to hack in a different device detection [cross-platform] lib[rary] to see if I can get it working without breaking the SpaceNavigator support. … My hope is to support variable number of buttons and axes.

As might be expected, this led to a discussion on the potential game controllers offer Second Life.

In Brief

  • There are anecdotal reports that the issue of the Friends on-line list not correctly updating after log-in, etc., is now subsiding.
  • Monty Linden is continuing to look into issues of the simulator / viewer freezing during avatar arrival, although this work may be suspended whilst Monty is out-of-office for a while.
  • A discussion on options to use scripted function to gain information on the inventory contents of rezzed objects, per feature requests BUG-7395, BUG-34184, and BUG-202886.

† 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.

The ruins of Grauland in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grauland, August 2023 – click any image for full size

For summer 2023, Jim Garand offers a new iteration of his Grauland region (and home to his M1 poses store, located in the sky over the region).

Partially surrounded by off-region landscape elements (ALT-zoom out a distance and then tap ESC to race your camera back to your avatar if the off-region elements don’t render – this will hopefully cause them to pop-up), this is an engaging simple region design of a tropical or sub-tropical nature that mixes a cocktail of features and locations and encourages the imagination to take a sip and take flight.

Grauland, August 2023

Sliced almost entirely in two by the presence of an east-west oriented water channel, the region presents a landscape similarly oriented along the same cardinal points across both of the resultant land masses, with the uplands to the east and lowlands to the west, where sits a saltwater mangrove swamp. To the east and within the uplands, a waterfall drops from sheer cliffs into a broad pool, the water from it flowing east to enter the wetlands to mix its waters with the sea – although how much longer this is to remain as the sole route for the out flowing water to take is open to question.

This is because all that separates the pool from the waters to the east is a low rock-and-shingle bar, its presence suggesting the cliff at this point which may have once connected the two land masses has collapsed. It forms a low barrier ripe for the tide to wash away as it seeks to reach the cove, watched over by a single thumb of rock sitting just beyond the shingle.

Grauland, August 2023

However, the major point of interest for this setting lies with the ruins scattered across the landscape. Comprising hewn but unfaced blocks of stone, these take a variety of forms of mixed potential use. For example, one might be taken to be the remnants of some form of small fortification, with the footings of three round towers linked by curtain walls form a triangular courtyard; another overlooks the wetlands as the water channel passes below.

Across the water – spanned by a stone bridge – is a more extensive collection of ruins. In part, these suggest they may once have been a part of a western religious centre; the layout of the main structure resembling as it does that of a Norman-era church. However, the stonework seems to by far older than might be associated with such as structure. Perhaps the neighbouring ruins predate the church, and their stones were used in its construction. Let your imagination offer up stories of its own.

Grauland, August 2023

A stone stairway climbs the hill behind the ruins to where what’s left of a tower sits alongside of an open pool forming the head of the waterfall. From here it is possible to look back to the southern highlands and the strange arrangement of stones crowning the hill there. Quite what these are is also open to the imagination. Are they all that are left of the raised floor once belonging to a temple or palace, or something else?

More mysteries can be found down in the waters of the wetlands. Here among the mangroves and pines are two statues on raised plinths, offering hints of both Roman and Greek mythology. Also to be found over the waters here is a hanger belonging to the Grauland Flying Service – a place connected to the land via a wooden boardwalk. Its presence suggests this might be a remote destination for charter flights by those wishing to explore / study the ruins.

Grauland, August 2023

One the same side of the setting as the hanger is a cabin. Makeshift in nature it nevertheless offers a cosy retreat – but to whom is again open to the imagination – although whoever it is would appear to be a keen musician.

As with all of Jim’s builds, this iteration of Grauland offers multiple opportunities for photography, while the places to sit also scattered across it give plenty of choice for those wishing to sit and pass the time. And don’t worry about the jaguar (possibly acting as a stand-in for a panther?); he’s more interested in keeping to the shade (or having his picture taken!) than in hunting anyone!

Grauland, August 2023

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