Month: August 2023

Space Sunday: of comets and of landers

Posted on by Inara Pey
An image from 20th December 2011, showing long period comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) as seen from the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert, Chile (the two structures are two elements of the Very Large Telescope at Paranal). Discovered on 27th November 2011 by Australian amateur astronomer (and comet hunter) Terry Lovejoy, C/2011 W3 is, like C/2023 P1 Nishimura (below), believed to have originated at some point in the past in the Oort Cloud (although it has likely made at least 6 passes around the Sun). Whether C/2023 P1 will have an impressive a tail as it reaches perihelion remains to be seen. Credit: Guillaume Blanchard

Astronomy is a field of observation / science / study that is pretty much open to anyone with a passion and understanding of things celestial to make a contribution, whether amateur or professional in the field.

Take Hideo Nishimura, for example. As an amateur astronomer living in Kakegawa, Japan, he decided to take advantage of the clear skies overhead on August 11th, 2023 and take some photographs of the sky using his telescope and imager. It wasn’t the first time he’s done this – like many other amateur astronomers he gets enormous pleasure out of imaging and studying the night sky. However, the results caused a little more excitement than expected in the Nishimura household when Hideo noticed that in one of his images, taken towards the direction of the setting Sun showed an object that shouldn’t have been there. After contacting the International Astronomical Union, which followed-up his observations via the Minor Planet Centre, Hideo was informed he has discovered a comet making what is likely to be its first – and only – passage through the inner solar system.

Now called C/2023 P1 Nishimura in his honour, the comet is believed to be an object originating in the Oort cloud, and was knocked out of its distant orbit around the Sun by collision or some other interaction, and has been gradually “falling” towards the Sun ever since.

Such objects are not uncommon – the “C” in the title of such objects indicates they likely originate from the Oort cloud and either end up passing through the solar system and long-period comets (i.e. taking anything from a couple of hundred years to several thousand to loop around the Sun) such as C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) seen at the top of this article. However, occasionally,  some end up accumulating sufficient velocity during their inward “fall” towards the Sun that rather than looping around it and staying in an elongated orbit, they are accelerated like a pebble out of a slingshot, escape the Sun’s influence altogether, to eventually vanish into interstellar space.

And that’s exactly what C/2023 P1 Nishimura looks set to do (the 2023/P1 in the title indicated its year of discovery and the fact it was the first such object to be discovered in the first half of August (the IAU splitting the months in two alphabetically for objects like comets – So January 1th through 15th is A; then January 16th to 31st is B, with February 1st through 15th C, and so on, with both I and Z ignored to avoid confusion with 1 and 2).

C/2023 P1 Nishimura (centre and naturally green-tinted), photographed by amateur astronomer Dan Bartlett from his back garden in June Lake California, USA on August 15th, 2023, using a Celestron EdgeHD 35.6 cm Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope and a Zwo ASI2600MC Pro imager. Via Astrobin

Currently, the comet is at a magnitude of around 9.4, meaning it can only be seen using telescopes of 15cm or larger. However, as it approaches the Sun, it is expected to grow much brighter, potentially becoming visible to the naked eye at around a magnitude of 4.9 in the period September 10-15th (during which time it will be at its closest to Earth, around 0.85 AU distant) and may by that time demonstrate a tail.

Between September 10th and 12th, period, the comet will be visible for a few hours before dawn in the constellation Leo. From September 13th, it will transition to being an evening object visible immediately after sunset. It will reach perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on September 18th, when it will appear to be in the constellation of Virgo, about 12° away from the Sun. Perihelion is also the point at which C/2023 P1 Nishimura faces its greatest threat: in passing around the Sun, it is possible the differential forces of its acceleration and the Sun’s gravity might cause it to break up.

C/2023 P1 Nishimura’s progress across the sky. Credit: Vito Technology, Inc.

Following perihelion the comet will start to move away from the Sun – and out of the solar system – offering those in the northern hemisphere with perhaps the best opportunities to view it, although it will diminish in brightness quite rapidly, and once again require a telescope to see it from October onwards.

Those who are interested in astronomy and use apps as an adjunct to their skywatching might like to know that both Sky Tonight and Star Walk 2 apps (the latter may require the purchase of an add-on), provide the comet’s trajectory and brightness in real-time, giving you the most accurate and up-to-date information on where to view it

These are some of the upcoming dates for observations. Note that use of naked eye, binoculars, etc., and visibility in general dependent on factors such as eyesight, location, amount of light pollution, etc.):

Date Magnitude / Visibility Approx location / status
August 26 9.2 – telescope Enters the constellation Cancer
September 5 6.9 – binoculars with 7x magnification or above Enters the constellation Leo
September 7 6.3 – binoculars / possibly naked eye Passes 0°16′ away from the star Ras Elased Australis (mag 3.0) in the constellation Leo
September 9 6.3 – binoculars / possibly naked eye Passes 0°20′ away from the star Adhafera (mag 3.4) in the constellation Leo
September 9 5.6 – binoculars / possibly naked eye Passes 0°20′ away from the star Adhafera (mag 3.4) in the constellation Leo
September 13 4.3 – naked eye Reaches its closest approach to the Earth at a distance of 0.29 AU in the constellation Leo
September 15 3.7 – naked eye Passes 0°10′ away from the star Denebola (mag 2.1) in the constellation Leo
September 16 3.4  – naked eye Enters the constellation Virgo
September 18 3.2 – naked eye Reaches perihelion the constellation Virgo (do not use optical aids when looking towards the Sun while it is above the horizon)
September 22 4.3 – naked eye Passes 1°30′ away from the star Porrima (mag 2.7) in the constellation Virgo
A projection of C/2023-P1’s position at 18:33 UTC, as seen from a location near :London, UK, as offered by The Sky Live – click for full size

Lunar Missions Update

My recent Space Sunday pieces have been in part covering two robotic missions to the surface of the Moon – India’s Chandrayaan-3 and Russia’s Luna-25.

Whilst having launched almost a month after Chanrayaan-3, Luna-25 – by dint of using a more powerful launch vehicle coupled with a somewhat more direct (“spiral”) flight to the Moon – actually arrived in a position from which a landing attempt could be made first.

An image taken on August 13th, 2023 from Russia’s Luna-25 mission as the spacecraft spiralled away from both the Earth (circled left) and the Moon (circled right) so it could “drop” towards the latter and enter an orbit from which it could reach the Lunar South Polar Region. Credit: Roscosmos

Thus, on August 19th, 2023 (UTC) the Russian lander – which had performed flawlessly throughout the mission to this point – commenced an engine burn which unfortunately did not go well.

Thrust was released to transfer the probe onto the pre-landing orbit During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the carrying out of the manoeuvre within the specified conditions.

– Roscosmos statement on Luna-25 released via Russia’s Telegram messaging service

The command to start the manoeuvre was sent at 23:10 UTC on August 19th, the engine burn intended to orient and position the vehicle ready for a decent and landing on August 21st. However, direct communications with the vehicle were lost at or around 23:57 UTC.

Later on August 20th, Roscsomos issued an update in which it was confirmed that all attempts to re-establish communications contact with the vehicle had failed, and the a preliminary review of the flight data received prior to contact terminating suggested the craft had deviated from its flightpath during the engine burn sufficiently that it afterwards crashed into the Lunar surface – although at the time of writing, investigations into the loss were obviously still very much in the initial phases.

The first detailed image of the lunar surface returned by Luna-25, on August 16th, 2023. It shows a portion of the Lunar South Polar Region from the far side of the Moon. Credit: Roscosmos

Meanwhile, on August 17th, the Chanrayaan-3 lander / rover combination launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in July successfully separated from their propulsion module, 12 days after initially arriving in an extended lunar orbit. Separation placed the lander / rover combination under their own power and allowed them to start their final set of manoeuvres in preparation for a descent and landing. The first of these was performed on August 19th, when the Vikram lander made the first of the small adjustments needed to bring it down to the 100 km altitude from which the landing attempt will be made on August 23rd.

In PR terms, both of these missions are relatively “high stakes” for both Russia and India. Chanrayaan-3 is intended to overcome the loss of the lander/rover combination which crashed onto the Moon on September 6th, 2019 as a part of the highly ambitious Chanrayaan-2 mission. That loss still overshadows the fact that the third element of the mission, the lunar orbiter, continues to orbit the Moon carrying out its own very successful science mission. In this, it will be joined by the Chanrayaan-3 propulsion module, which although not by definition a satellite, nevertheless carries a small suite of instruments intended to study Earth’s atmosphere from afar, and – according to the ISRO – also scan exoplanets to assess their potential for habitability.

Luna 25, meanwhile, was intended to herald Russian’s return to independent deep-space exploration 47 years after its last lunar mission (Luna-24) and 34 years since its last attempt at an interplanetary mission (Phoboos 2) – both of which were soviet-era missions. It was also intended to demonstrate Russia’s ability to be a major player in the China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) – the launch of the mission even having one of the senior Chinese officials for that programme, Wu Yanhua present.

An image returned by the Vikram lander, following its separation (with its rover vehicle) from the Chanrayaan-3 propulsion module on August 17th. This show a portion of the lunar far side, featuring the 22-km wide crater Giordano Bruno. This was created by an impact which may have been witnessed by monks at England’s Canterbury Cathedral in 1178. Close by to the North-west (north is at the bottom of this image) is the much older impact crater Harkhebi-J, lying within the still older Harkhebi walled plain, the remnant of a much older impact site. Credit: ISRO. 

These are far from the only missions heading for the Moon over the next few years. Japan, for example, is due to launch its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) vehicle on August 25th (UTC). This is a technology demonstrator designed to make exploration more precise and economical, and which is cadging a ride on the H-IIA launch of Japan’s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM, pronounced “crism”) space telescope.

Unlike Luna 25 and Chanrayaan-3, SLIM will not be going to the lunar South Pole, but will be heading for a group of volcanic domes located in Oceanus Procellarum, 18oN of the lunar equator, where it will attempt to guide itself to a landing close to the Marius Hills Hole, a lunar lava tube entrance. Nevertheless, its landing will be as challenging as those for any mission to the Moon, and the loss of Luna 25 reminds us that lunar exploration is still a hazardous undertaking.

Also heading to the Moon – this time in November – will be Nova-C lander, the first private mission to the Moon to be carried out by Intuitive Machines under the mission title IM-1. Selected as a part of NASA’s  Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, the mission will deliver a suite of science instruments and mini-rovers to at Malapert A near the lunar south pole. I’ll likely have more on this mission and Japan’s XRISM and SLIM in a future update.

2023 week #33: SL CCUG meeting summary: glTF PBR; Senra

Posted on by Inara Pey
Chang’an, May 2023 – click any image for full size – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday,  August 17th, 2023. 

  • The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with viewer development work.
  • As a rule, these meetings are:
    • Held in-world and chaired by Vir Linden.
    • Conducted in a mix of voice and text.
    • Held at 13:00 SLT on their respective days.
    • Are subject to the schedule set within the SL Public Calendar, which includes locations for both meetings (also included at the end of these reports).
    • Open to all with an interest in content creation.

Additional note: this meeting suffered several drop-outs (for whatever reason) plus my own Internet connection also went out; as such this is not a complete reflection of the meeting and all topics.

Viewer Status

General Viewer Notes

  • There are a couple of issues with the Inventory Extensions RC viewer which need to be addressed before this progresses to being ready for promotion to release status.
  • The internal discussions on font changes in the Emoji viewer (see my last CCUG / TPV meeting summary) will likely be split into a separate project, allowing the Emoji viewer to progress forward as it is.

glTF Materials and Reflection Probes

Project Summary

  • To provide support for PBR materials using the core glTF 2.0 specification Section 3.9 and using mikkTSpace tangents, including the ability to have PBR Materials assets which can be applied to surfaces and also traded / sold.
  • The overall goal is to provide as much support for the glTF 2.0 specification as possible.
  • Up to four texture maps are supported for PBR Materials: the base colour (which includes the alpha); normal; metallic / roughness; and emissive, each with independent scaling.
  • In the near-term, glTF materials assets are materials scenes that don’t have any nodes / geometry, they only have the materials array, and there is only one material in that array.
  • As a part of this work, PBR Materials will see the introduction of reflection probes which can be used to generate reflections (via cubemaps) on in-world surfaces. These will be a mix of automatically-place and manually place probes (with the ability to move either).
  • The viewer is available via the Alternate Viewers page.

Further Resources

General Status

  • The communications bloat driven by multiple script-driven glTF materials updates generating multiple connections between the viewer and the simulator (thus impacting performance) continues to be addressed. The outcome of this work is liable to result in protocol changes as and when the work is complete.
  • A number of permission-related fixes have been implemented.

Lighting / Ambient Lighting

  • The issue over the rendering changes the glTF project will bring to Second Life. It has been well-established that the PBR system removes the forward render pipe (aka “non-Advanced Lighting Model (ALM)”) from the viewer’s renderer.
  • Equally, over the last several meetings (and as noted in my CCUG summaries covering PBR) there has been discussion on the fact that PBR utilises HDR + tone mapping with rendering  / lighting. This is a significant change to Second Life, particularly when it comes to the amount of rendered ambient light (until now SL has rendered a lot of additional ambient light), resulting in two related issues:
    • Because it is intended to mimic real-world ambient lighting, environments rendered on the PBR viewer with HDR + tone mapping enabled can look a lot darker than when viewed with a non-PBR viewer, and baked lighting really does not work (and can end up looking very bad) – scripted / direct lighting is required – something for which many store owners and users in general might not be prepared.
    • While disabling the ambient HDR rendering is possible within the PBR viewer (potentially eliminating the above issues), it conversely results in any PBR content within the scene looking “bad” or “broken”, risking content creators trying to find workarounds to the glTF specification in order to make their content “look good” under either lighting condition – something they absolutely should not do.
  • Discussions are still on-going at the Lab on how best to handle this conflict between PBR and non-PBR rendering as the latter is deployed and gradually gains broader use. As a part of this, it has been recognised that one of the most direct means to alert users is via communication.
  • To this end, a form of “best practices” and guidelines for PBR are being developed with the intention to make them available to users in advance of PBR being fully deployed / released. Expect to (hopefully) hear more about this via future CCUG meetings.

Mirrors

  • Geenz Linden is currently refactoring the Hero probes which will be automatically selected for generating higher resolution reflections based on an avatar’s proximity to a planar mirror surface (and initially limited to 1 (or possibly 2 per scene  – the second being for Linden Water reflections, but this has yet to be confirmed).
  •  This work will see the Hero probes treated as their own class of reflection probes with their own filtering, etc., to avoid conflicts (debugging, etc.) with the “general” reflection matte manger. This will also better support the higher resolution of the Hero probes and possibly allow for additional Hero probes to be supported within the viewer in the future.

Building Tools

  • PBR will see a significant change to the Edit / Build floater as the project becomes more widely deployed, and this has started internal discussions at LL about the state of the in-world build tools, and what might be done to improve them for general use. Ideas put forward at the meeting included:
    • More flexible means of cutting holes in prims (e.g. offset from the Z axis of the prim), such as through the introduction of a Boolean support.
    • Making text entry within the floater consistent (e.g. clicking on some fields, the existing content is highlighted for over-writing, in others it isn’t).
    • Inclusion of a prim alignments capability (as found in some TPVs) as a default tool + making the alignment more flexible that just to the sides / edges of the bounding boxes of the objects.
    • A broader range of primitive shapes (e.g. simple step units) and improved tools for torturing prims to produce custom shapes.
    • Better exposure of some of the build options on the official viewer (e.g. making the Local Textures option a radio button option in the Texture tab, rather than hidden in a drop-down) to make them more visible.
    • Also making it clearer that an object includes Local Textures, such as via a pop-up, to remind the creator to apply an actual texture to the affected face(s).
    • Better tools  / support for making clothing.
    • Better UDIM support for UV maps.
  • These idea will be fed back into discussions at LL.

Senra Avatars

[Note: this section is abbreviated as I lost my Internet connection for some 14 minutes of the meeting & this was followed by the meeting being disrupted a further 2 times.]

  • Further discussion over the continued confusion / concern over the Senra avatar system (outside of the ongoing disquiet over the licensing agreement), including:
    • Frustration / confusion over the amount of conflicting information being offered by Linden Lab – e.g. the dev kit application form states applicants “must” own a store but Patch Linden has stated in a forum post that owning a store “is not” a requirement.
    • Negativity on the use of an application requirement at all:
      • Some see it as presenting an unnecessary barrier for some (e.g. users who just want to create Senra-related items for their personal, rather than commercial, use).
      • Concerns over privacy / security with the devkit application form being outside of SL (where it is subject to potential abuse) rather than – as with the Mesh Upload Status form  – being included within the Secondlife.com dashboard,  where it would be both secure and firmly linked to an account.
    • Further questioning as to why AvaStar has been determined to be a core requirement for the devkit, rather than simply relying on Blender.
  • More general frustration was voiced at the idea that the “Senra team” only appear to be willing to engage through the forum threads on the topic, and then only in what is perceived as being a narrow focus of engagement, with no-one appearing willing to attend the CCUG meeting – which given Linden Lab want creators to produce content for Senra would seem to be a pretty good place for them to actively address feedback in real time, at least in lieu of any Senra-focused meeting(s).

In Brief

  • While they are not in anyway directly connected or related, Cosmic Linden noted that her work on enabling PDR materials as terrain textures in the viewer is being used as a testbed for possible approaches to enabling PBR with avatar Bakes on Mesh – although the latter is not currently an active project.

Next Meeting

† 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 gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

Mountain meditations in Second Life

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

In continuing my mainland meanderings, which of late have tended to lean toward Heterocera (more by coincidence than design), I found myself on the north side of the continent and atop the peaks and plateaux of the continent’s mountain range as it seeks to encircle the inner sea and its atoll.

It is here, 200 metres above the highway that traces its way around the foot of the mountains, that a mesa-like plateau towers upwards, entirely cut off from the world around it by the sheer cliffs that fall away on all sides, offering not path or foot-borne means of reaching the steplike terraces of its upper reaches and top. Yet despite its seemingly inaccessible nature, this lonely plateau is nevertheless occupied and built upon, being home to a build by Don Setzer (with the aid of Albane Claray and Dante DeVulgaris (Gian Fetuccio)) entitled Meditation Mountain, and offered to the public as a quiet retreat and place of reflection.

Meditation Mountain, August 2023

This is a curiously fascinating setting, covering roughly a half full region in area, raising multiple questions for those who like to contextualise the places they visit in Second Life – as is often my wont -, whilst also being a place which might be enjoyed purely for its design and setting. Visits begin at the landing point, located at the uppermost terrace of the plateau and directly before the largest building within the location: a massive medieval / gothic style cathedral; a structure responsible (to me at least) for raising the first of the questions concerning this setting.

The landing point sits as a crossroads of paths, one arm of which leads to the doors of the building while its opposite number points away from it and to a terrace looking out over the lowest step of the plateau. The two remaining paths lead visitors to the gardens running along either side of the cathedral. One of these reaches as far as the north arm of the cathedral’s transept, where the mesa abruptly narrows and a cliff drops away, leaving a precarious-looking set of trestle-mounted wooden steps descending to a man-made terrace and seating area as it extends outwards from the cliffs as a high perch.

Meditation Mountain, August 2023

The path on the southern side of the cathedral parallels a second (and gravel-topped) path marking the edge of a cliff prior to the two roughly meeting. The gravel path then switchbacks its way down the cliff to where a second broad tabletop of rock sits as the home to a further garden. This is dominated by a a Romanesque temple-style building face a copse of trees across a rock incline, grassy paths rising on either side to border (and run under) the trees to jointly and separately offer the way to where the turn towards one another and meet, a fenced meadow to one side, complete with horses quietly grazing, and a walled garden on the other; the latter has its walls and gates so heavily covered in ivy and vines it is almost possible to miss it.

At the western end of the gardens surrounding the Romanesque temple there sits another of the wooden stairways rising back up the eastern end of the cathedral’s bulk. A place connects this to a third such stairway offers the way down to the western  end of the setting. This sits as a promontory extending outside from below the cathedral, home to a helipad and waiting helicopter, thus revealing how visitors might otherwise visit this high retreat. This sits before – of all things – a spa pool of distinctly modern design and which itself sits before the gigantic maw of a long cavern running directly under the cathedral.

Meditation Mountain, August 2023

Open at both ends, the cavern is filled with vegetation, ponds, trails, places to sit and – for those willing to seek it out – the way down to an hidden cave. As open at its western end as at its eastern, the cavern provides access to another broad step of rock, this one covered in wild grass and flowers and reached via a stone bridge spanning a swift flowing stream cutting across the rock between two sets of falls. Stepping stones offer a path across this meadow garden, lading visitors to a rock pool sitting as a home for waterfowl, fish and birds.

Alongside the falls giving rising to the stream sits a path zigzagging its way back up the rocks to another path. This connects back to those at the walled garden and its neighbouring meadow, thus forming something of a complete loop around the setting for visitors to follow.

Meditation Mountain, August 2023

The fascination with this sitting comes in the question: just how did the cathedral – now given over as a place of introspection and music rather than as a religious centre – come to be here? There are no obvious paths up the high cliffs to reach it; so was its masonry hewn can shaped from the very rocks on the high table on which its stands?

Or is it perhaps only neo-gothic in style and of a far younger age than its design might suggest? Young enough to allow the materials used in its construction to arrive in the same manner as some of its visitors: by air? Certainly, the thoroughly regular cut of its facing stonework and that of the Romanesque temple (itself a salon rather than place of deity worship) suggest modern tools may have played a part. But then why build since a monumental structure in so inaccessible place? How these questions are answered lies within the realm of individual imaginations, so I’ll leave you to visit and create your own back-story to the setting.

Meditation Mountain, August 2023

There are one or two rough edges to the setting, particularly in terms of texturing and overlaps, and I admit that to may eyes, the wooden stairways detract from the overall design; give the nature of the setting, I’d have thought stone stairways set into / onto the rocks would have been more fitting. But this is just a personal opinion; when taken as a whole, there is no denying Meditation Mountain is an interesting and unique design, one with many opportunities for photography.

SLurl Details

Meditation Mountain (Phasma, rated Moderate)

2023 SL SUG meetings week #33 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seogyeo Town, Seogyeoshire, May 2023 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday,  August 15th 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, August 15th, all simhosts on the the SLS Main were restarted, but remain on simulator version 581251.
  • On Wednesday, August 16th, the Blueteel RC channel should be updated with simulator update 581292. Included in this release are:
    • The ability to (once more) see channel names via Help → About (and potentially announced via pop-up within TPVs supporting this capability).
    • Objects rezzed by scripts will now be correctly returned by estate managers + the throttle on llReturnObjectsByOwner has been removed.
    • GroupMemberData (used by viewers to return information about the members of a group) has been intermittently returning “well-formed but incorrect data” for several years. With this update, it should return “well-formed and correct data”.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

  • The simulator update “Dog Days” is being packaged for QA. 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.
    • PRIM_CLICK_ACTION is added to llSet/GetPrimParams so you can set the click action on prims in a linkset.

Viewer Updates

  • Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 6.6.14.581315, issued on August 15.
    • Ability to display user-customized keybindings in chat, making it easier to provide key binding instructions to end users for vehicles, HUDs or anything utilising custom keybindings. See URI_Name_Space for more.
  • The Inventory Extensions RC viewer updated to version 6.6.14.581357 on August 14.

The rest of the available official viewers remain as:

  • Release viewer version 6.6.13.580918, formerly the Maintenance T RC viewer, July 14.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • glTF / PBR Materials viewer, version 7.0.0.581126, June 26.
    • Maintenance U(pbeat) RC viewer, version, 6.6.14.581101 July 21.
  • Project viewers:

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.

Scripting Discussion

  • LSL contains a number of long-standing code errors / issues / limitations which have been around so long they have either become expected behaviour or have had a number of work-arounds implemented. This makes any attempt to correct the code difficult, as it can result in unintended script breakage, and because of this, LL has tended to take the attitude of, “we aren’t going to fix that because it is too ingrained.”
  • However, one idea now being considered for allowing such script issues to be fixed and hopefully avoid the potential for script breakage in the process, is to introduce a “compatibility” mode to LSL.
  • Such a mode would be set via some form of option (check box or button or something).
    • By default, with would be “off”, for all scripts (existing and new), and they would as they do now (“classic” behaviour), preserving any “incorrect” behaviour.
    • When toggled “on” for a script, the script will run in the “updated” mode, allowing it leverage the corrected LSL code / functions and any future behavioural changes.
  • This led to an extended discussion on the approach – which was broadly favourably viewed – which touched various ideas such as version numbering and other methods of differentiating “versions” of LSL (given it does not itself have any built-in notion of versions), the historical context on the introduction of Mono, the use of compilers

General Discussion

Please refer to the video for the following:

  • There is said to be increasing reports of avatars failing to load correctly following teleporting into a popular location (notably those at altitude) and of inventory attachment queuing and loading taking longer. Some thinking is that this may be interest list related, however, Bug reports have yet to be filed to allow for investigation.
  • Leviathan Linden put out a request for feedback:
I’ve been thinking about how to improve vehicles in SL so I’m soliciting input for the next week or so. You can email me directly (leviathan-at-lindenlab.com) you can IM me, or I’m even willing to schedule a chat/voice session if anyone wants to talk about vehicles: cars, airplanes, boats, motorcycles, etc. What got me on this subject were two things: (1) the idea of giving LSL scripts direct access to game controller inputs (joystick, button state, etc), and also (2) different API for configuring vehicles. For example, maybe airplanes would be better described using a thrust, stall-speed, attack-angle, aileron state model.
  • The above led to some additional discussion on options – as per the last 20 minutes of the meeting.
  • Rider Linden noted that during the LL engineering meeting in week #33, the subject of improved camera controls. Nothing firm on what might be done, but again, this sparked discussion during the last 10 minutes of the meeting.

 

† 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.

Firestorm 6.6.14: maintenance catch-up and new features

Posted on by Inara Pey
On Monday August 14th, 2023 (SLT), the Firestorm team released version 6.6.14.69596 of their viewer.

This is another release which might be described as more a maintenance update rather thana major features release, intended to keep Firestorm in step with the current official viewer code base. However, it does include some new capabilities.

When reading the following, please note:

  • This article is not intended to over every update  / change / improvement within the release. These can be found within the Firestorm 6.6.14. release notes, which also provide full credit details for the changes.
  • This review focuses primarily on the new features included with Firestorm 6.6.14, together with an overview of its parity with Linden Lab’s official viewer code base and and overviews of various updates, improvements and fixes I believe will be of specific interest to Firestorm users in general.
 Table of Contents

Finally, I have not had time to personally try this release to any great extent, so am not offering any personal feedback on it.

Update, August 17th: a JIRA has been filed that rigged meshes viewed in this version of Firestorm using the Local Mesh (BETA) capability (i.e. visible only to the person testing the mesh) introduced in Firestorm 6.6.8 may result in issues. If you are a content creator who uses the Firestorm Local Mesh (BETA) for viewing your rigged mesh creations, please see FIRE-33157. 

General Notes

Installation

  • Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
  • There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
  • Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 6.6.14.

Version Blocking

As per the Firestorm’s teams standard practice of only supporting 3 active versions of the viewer at any time, note that version 6.5.6 will be blocked from accessing Second Life three weeks from the date of version 6.6.14’s release.

Special Note: Windows 32-Bit Support

This release of Firestorm is likely the last to fully support the 32-bit version of thee Windows operating system. This is in keeping with LL’s announcement that Windows 32-bit is not longer a supported operating system (see: End of Support for Second Life 32-bit Windows Viewer and Updated Minimum System Requirements for MacOS to 10.13 or Second Life: Win 32-bit support ending; MacOS system requirements updating). A further reason for this is that as a part of the forthcoming switch to using physically based rendering (PBR) under the Kronos glTF 2.0 specification, Linden Lab will only be sub-licensing the 64-bit versions Havok physics library used within the viewer – it is further possible that in the future, other libraries needed by the viewer will only be supported in their 64-bit versions.

Those who are using the 32-bit version of Windows (estimated as around 2% of the Firestorm user base) are advised to check their systems – and if they are using hardware capable of supporting a 64-bit version, to make any necessary upgrades that may be required (generally in the area of RAM), and switch to Windows 64-bit.

An important point to note with this is that 32-bit versions of Windows will not be blocked from accessing Second Life. Rather, viewer upgrades (including the use of required build libraries) will no longer be checked for compatibility with Windows 32-bit. For Firestorm in particular, current 32-bit builds will remain available for the time being; however, no guarantee is given that this will continue to be the case with future releases.

Linden Lab Updates

Firestorm 6.6.14.69596 is fully merged up to the  Linden 6.6.14 code-base, per the notes below.

Maintenance T – Maintenance Transparent Translation

  • Viewer version 6.6.13.580918, July 2023.
  • Primarily focused on the shift of translation services (accessed via Preferences → Chat → Typing → Translation) from Microsoft Bing to  Microsoft Azure and DeepL. Also includes a range of Profile-related updates.

Maintenance S – Superlative Supports

  • Viewer version 6.6.12.579987, May 2023.
  • Predominantly translation updates.

Performance Floater & Auto FPS

  • Viewer version 6.6.11.579629, April 2023.
  • The official implementation of the Performance Floater & Auto FPS feature first implemented in Firestorm 6.5.3.65658 see my review here.

Maintenance R – Resident Inspired Improvements

Maintenance Q Viewer – Quality Contributions

  • Viewer version 6.6.9.577968, February 2023.
  • Assorted quality of life improvements in the viewer.

Maintenance P Viewer – Preferences, Positions and Paste fixes

Firestorm New Features

Building: Select (and Replace) All Matching Textures

A new option – Find All – within the Build / Edit floater’s Texture tab, allows all faces in an object or linkset using the same diffuse (texture) or normal or specular map, to be updated at once.

  • Right-click on the item / linkset to be updated and select Edit from the Context / Pie menu.
  • In the upper part of the Edit / Build floater click the Select Face radio button – (1) in the mage below.
  • Click the floater’s Texture tab to open it (shown in the image below), and:
    • Use the Texture / Bumpiness (Normal) or Glossiness (Specular) radio buttons – (2) in the image below – to select the map type to be updated.
    • Click on a face of the object / linkset containing the map to be updated. The face will be highlighted, and the selected map will be displayed in the Texture Swatch box on the Edit / Build floater  – (3) on the image below.
    •  Click on the Find All button to select ALL of the object faces containing the selected map – (4) in the image below.
  • When you are satisfied you have selected the correct map / surfaces, click the Texture Swatch in the Edit / Build floater to open the Texture Picker floater and pick the map you wish to use and apply it to all the selected faces in the usual manner.
The Find All button for selecting all instances of texture / normal / specular map used on an object / linkset. See notes above for an explanation of the numbers

Building: Strip Unwanted Alpha Channels During Image Uploads

Images uploaded to Second Life can include an empty / almost empty alpha channel which can lead to rendering issues  (such as textures flipping back and forth on one another as the camera moves, impacting rendering performance) when the texture is viewed in-world. While such empty / near-empty alpha channels may be intentional, they are generally an accidental or unwanted artefact, and should be removed from the image to avoid issues such as those mentioned above.

To achieve this, Firestorm 6.6.14 introduces an automatic scan of images being uploaded to Second Life to check for alpha channels which are either empty or almost empty.

  • If such channels are found in an image, the Upload Preview floater will display an additional warning and checkbox: Empty Alpha Channel Will Be Removed (see the image below, left).
  • Leaving this warning checked will cause the the unwanted transparency information to be stripped from the image when it is uploaded.
  • If there is a need to have the transparency information uploaded with the image, the warning should be unchecked. However, note that doing so will display an additional caution and explanation on the impact of including alpha channels in images, together with two buttons, as shown in the image below, right.
  • Click the required button displayed by the caution to clear it, then click the upload button to proceed with the image upload.
Stripping unwanted alpha channels from images at upload

Additional notes:

  • The alpha state for the image, once uploaded – “no alpha” or “with alpha” – is displayed at the bottom of the upload floater, alongside the uploaded image size (as arrowed at the button of the image on the left, above).
  • The Uploaded Size field has been fixed to correctly show the size of the uploaded image in all cases. see: FIRE-32944.

Inventory: Show Only Coalesced Objects

Show only coalesced objects in Inventory

Firestorm 6.6.14 adds a new inventory option to display only coalesced objects (i.e. multiple items returned to inventory as a single group, rather than being returned individually).

  • The option can be found within the Inventory gear icon menu (the gear icon being located at the bottom left of the Inventory floater), directly under those for showing only Modifiable, Copyable or Transferable items in inventory.
  • Toggle the option on (check mark visible) and off (no check mark) as required.
  • Note the option works in cooperation with all other options in the menu.
  • This feature was added in response to FIRE-31369.

Blacklisting: Blacklist Animations via the Animation Explorer

With this release, it is possible to add any animation associated with your avatars and listed by the Animation Explorer to the Firestorm Asset Blacklist:

  • Open the animation Explorer (World → Animation Explorer).
  • Select the animation to be blacklisted and click the Blacklist button in the lower right section of the Explorer floater.
  • Repeat for any other animations, as required and close the floater when done.
  • Blocked animations can be reviewed / unblocked via the Asset Blacklist floater (World → Asset Blacklist).

Notes:

  • Blocking only applies to animations played through the simulator. Those played locally (i.e. within your viewer) will still be seen by you as playing, even if blocked.
  • A Blacklisted animation my still be seen by others for a brief period after blocking, as it will take a second or so for the block information to be propagated through the simulator.

Audio Streaming: Stream Title Floater and Track History

It is now possible to display information on the current song title and artist playing on the parcel audio stream (if active), and a history of the last 10 played music tracks. The information is displayed is its own floaters, accessed via the menu bar → World → Stream Title.

Enabling the music stream information, together with the additional recently played history (ported from Kokua)

Additional Firestorm Improvements of Note

Inventory

  • Reload Received Items: a button within the Received Items section of the Inventory floater will refresh the list of items in the section.
Received Items reload button
  • Ungroup folder: A request to confirm has been added when ungrouping a folder in inventory.
  • Inventory offer sound: the Inventory Offer sound (Preferences → Sound & Media → UI Sounds 3 → Inventory Offer) will now play when Automatically Accept New Inventory Items and the following Log Auto-Accepted Inventory Items to Chat are enabled (both under Preferences → Privacy → General). This is is response to FIRE-32396 .

Building and Scripting

  • Local Mesh:
    • Floater improvements: the floater can now be resized, lists will now scroll, and clipping of text on the Settings tab has been fixed. All in response to FIRE-32624.
    • Floater should now recognise and load all forms of “.DAE” (e.g. Dae DAe DAE dAE and daE). See FIRE-32180.
    • Meshes exported with Autodesk Collada should not longer fail, fixing FIRE-32599.
    • Scaling and rigged mesh handling corrected in accordance with FIRE-32604 and FIRE-32681.
  • Script Editor: A fix for the unindent after } when a previous line had a word wrap. See: FIRE-19959.

Animation Playback Floater and Preferences

The additional information displayed in the Animation Playback floater (Priority, Duration, Loop, Ease In, Ease Out and Joints) can now be toggled on/off using a drop-down button (see below).

Firestorm Animation Playback floater: advanced animation information can be shown / hidden via the drop-down button

In addition, the default state of the Playback Floater can be set via Preferences → Firestorm → Build 2 → Always Expand Animation Preview Advanced Information. By default the option is unchecked, meaning the advanced information will not be displayed when the Animation Playback floater is displayed.

General UI / Floater Updates of Note

  • Profile updates:
    • The View Profile option has been removed from the Context menu for your own avatar, as its already listed in the Community sub-menu. See: FIRE-32304.
    • Profile description text should not longer be truncated in some cases. See: FIRE-32901.
    • Unsaved text in the Notes tab of another avatar’s Profile should no longer be discarded when the Profile owner enters or leaves the region at the same time. See: FIRE-32926.
  • Area Search: updates have been made to Area Search to prevent some of the aggressive culling which is impacted Area Search results.
    • However, to get the best results when doing an Area Search, you will still need to turn slowly on the spot once, to fully load all the objects.
    • In addition, once an item is added to the Area Search it will/should not vanish a few seconds later as had been the observed behaviour with previous releases.
    • There are all partial fixes for FIRE-32688.
  • Assorted floater design, typographic corrections, layout corrections and tooltip updates, per the release notes.

Other Updates of Note

Asset Cache Update

Until now, automatic purging of the Asset Cache would only commence when the “max_cache” value was exceeded. This essentially meant that a) the Asset Cache could exceed this value, and b) once started, automatic purging would be pretty much constant, impacting viewer performance.

With Firestorm 6.6.14, this has been changed:

  • The “max_cache” value means just that: the largest size the Asset Cache will reach.
  • Two thresholds are set via debug settings:
    • A” high water” threshold set to 95% of the “max_cache” value. When this is reached, purging of the oldest caches files will commence.
    • A “low water” threshold set to 70% of the “max_cache” value. When this is reached, automatic purging will stop.
  • These two values  will ensure:
    • The “high water” threshold leaves 5% capacity available within the Asset Cache, allowing incoming data from a simulator to be properly caches during any automatic purging.
    • The “low water” threshold means that automatic purging, once started, will not be constant, potentially impacting viewer performance.
  • This also means that users can now set their cache to a ramdisk if they really want and it won’t (normally) overflow.

Library Updates

  • FMOD Studio updated to version 2.02.15.
  • Havok TPV library updated to version 1.0.577418, in line with LL.

Linux Updates

  • Improvement: Firestorm now uses system-wide fontconfig and freetype directly from the user’s system, rather than using 3p libraries packaged with the viewer.
  • Fixes:
    • A fix for the “alpha triangles bug”(see FIRE-23370).
    • WIP to get Linux crash reporting working with Bugsplat.
    • The ability to toggle between internal/external browsers in preferences on Linux (Preferences → Network & Files → Connection → Web Browser).
  • Updates:
    • Apr suite updated to version 1.4.5.230351228.
    • OpenJpeg Library updated to version 2.5.0.
    • CEF updated to version 1.12.2.202210012157_92.0.27.
    • Colladadom updated to version 2.3.230940029.
    • Libxml2 updated to version 2-2.10.3.230940019.
    • Xmlrpc updated to version 0.54.2.230940042

OpenSim Updates

  • Opensim VarRregions with non-power of 2 sizes no longer flood logs.
  • Avatar Profile fixes including: correct loading; UDP profiles restored; profile picks + notes should load, 1st Life notes should save back to the server.
  • Additional fixes per the release notes.

Links

Of art and a Caged Bird in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Red Dot Gallery

In July of 2023, I has the distinct pleasure of visiting  Auguries of Innocence, a thoroughly engaging exhibition of art by Janus Falls structured around William Blake’s poem of the same name. Within it, Janus echoed and extended ideas found within Blake’s work, uniquely re-interpreting theme through colour and image. As one can tell from my review of that exhibit, I was deeply captivated by the expressiveness found within it, and so – although admittedly somewhat belatedly – I made a point of visiting another collection of images inspired by a poem Janus is currently exhibiting.

Hosted within her own gallery space – Red Dot Gallery – I know Why the Caged Bird Sings presents a series of 14 avatar studies inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem Caged Bird (also referred to as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which is also the title of the first volume of Angelou’s autobiography, itself referenced by the poem). First published in her fourth collection of poetry entitled Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? (1983), the poem is focused on the themes of freedom, racial oppression using the metaphors of the free and the caged bird.

Red Dot Gallery: Janus Falls – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Through its structure use of mixed meter and irregular rhyme, Caged Bird is again a powerful statement oppression and hope for a brighter future. It’s a message that, in a world where basic human caring, acceptance and social concern are increasing seen as something to be reviled and differences in outlook, gender, sexuality and – yes, race – are reasons to ostracize and condemn, the poem stands not only as a reminder of the past, but also a very real underscoring of the fact that the oppression not only continues, but is spreading insidiously; that all of us who have an ounce of human dignity and compassion need to be firmly raising our voices against it, such that those who might otherwise find themselves caged by the ignorance of others might again have their voices – their rights and freedoms – accepted and restored.

In this, the art of I know Why the Caged Bird Sings presents a visual essay, one running sequentially through the gallery’s space from entrance (where Caged Bird can be read), and around the lower floor back to the upper and thence around the images there, which carries us from images of captivity to freedom and from sorrow to happiness (again reflecting the poem’s (admittedly more layered) mixing of joy and sadness).

Red Dot Gallery: Janus Falls – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Within these images, Janus again shows a consummate skill in using visual contrasts  – light and dark, tone and shading, depth of field and focal point – to draw us into her art and the story it has to tell – as deftly as Angelou uses anapest and iambic meter and stressed and unstressed pairings of ideas   to draw us into the meaning of her poem.

In exploring these pieces, it is also hard not to escape the feeling there is a further message here; one directly connected to our digital world. Second Life is a place that, for many of us, is liberating; through it we can give wing to our innermost truths, wants and desires through the expressiveness of our avatars ad / or our creativity. It presents us with a place where the bars of life in whatever form they take – physical, mental, social, familial, etc., can be escaped (if only, admittedly for a time) and we can find comfort, joy, happiness – even acceptance. Given we have been so fortunate to be able to experience this richness and freedom of expression, do we not owe it to ourselves and those around us to ensure that no matter who and where we are, such freedom is to be as open, as cherished as available to all who seek it within the physical world?

Red Dot Gallery: Janus Falls – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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