2023 SL SUG meetings week #49 summary

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 5th 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 meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing 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):
  • Every Tuesday at 12:00 noon SLT.
  • In text (no Voice)
  • At this location.
• 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.

Simulator Deployments

• Tuesday, December 5th: the SLS Main channel was re-started without any simulator updates being deployed.
• Wednesday, December 6th: the “Fall Colours” maintenance update may be expanded across all RC channels from BlueSteel / Preflight. This update includes llRezObjectWithParams, llIsFriend, but will not include the game controller updates.
  • However, following its initial deployment in Week 48, “Fall Colours” was found to have bugs with collision sounds (e.g. transferring them across region boundaries and with being able to silence them), with the result that the sounds can be repeated multiple times (see: BUG-234757 “Repetitive Collision Sound?” and this forum thread). As a result, at the time of the meeting, LL were still discussing whether or not to consider these issues as “blockers” against the release being more widely deployed.
  • If the deployment to all RCs goes ahead in the next week or two, it will represent the last server deployment for 2023.

No Change Window

• The end-of-year No change window for simulator and official viewer releases will come into effect on the week commencing Monday, December 18th, 2023 and will remain in place until Tuesday, December 2nd, 2024.
• Linden Lab offices will be closed for all but emergency support from close of business Friday, December 22nd, 2023, and will re-open on January 2nd, 2024.

Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, December 5th, the Maintenance-W RC viewer updated to version 7.1.1.7088402585.

Other viewers in the pipe remain as:

• Release viewer: version 7.0.1.6894459864, the glTF / PBR Materials viewer, issued November 17, promoted November 28.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 7.1.1.7039128750, December 1.
  • Maintenance X RC, version 6.6.17.6935636398, issued November 21 – usability improvements.
  • Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
  • Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
• Project viewers:
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.

Game Controllers

• Leviathan Linden has previously considered the idea of changing the signature of the LSL event to provide per-channel info (input, value) rather than all of the controller state (buttons masks + all axes). However, he has discovered that such an event system would make it difficult to handle multi-modal input: e.g. some_button + axis_state.
• This is because the state of each input would arrive in different events, and the order or arrival would matter, with Leviathan noting what he already has in place would likely win out in the end, negating any changes.
• Currently, he is trying to make it possible to supply game_control input with keyboard input, but without having to completely rewrite the keyboard mapping and other related UI.
• The Gingerbread maintenance branch with the prototype game_control feature has been redeployed to the Beta grid, and can be found on the following Aditi regions: Aegis Island, Blake Sea – Turnbuckle, Cloud Sandbox 1, Cloud Sandbox 2, Firestorm Aerodrome, Gothlauth, Hona Lee Puff, Jigglypuff, Laefeon, LR151, LR 152, Mauve, Moonberry, Morris, SG2, and Smithereens.
• A point to note here is that the game controller work does not currently support 3dConnexion SpaceNavigator Mouse many of us use for things like flycamming, photography, filming, etc., but he is promised not to break support for the SpaceNav functionality.

In Brief

• Combat Updates:
  • Rider Linden has published his outline document on improving SL’s combat capabilities, which can be found within the combat systems discussion thread on the forums. Feedback is requested from users engaging in combat games in SL.
  • This lead to a discussion on combat capabilities and needs throughout the rest of the meeting – please refer to the video below.
• A question was asked on fog and distance hazing, this is something the graphics team hope to implement within the on-going glTF project – see: 2023 week #46: SL CCUG meeting summary: PBR status & current release plan.
• BUG-234598 “Avatar hit box rotating bug” has been accepted by LL, but is proving difficult to reproduce.

† 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.