Day: February 13, 2024

2024 SL SUG meetings week #7 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Elvion, January 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are 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):
  • 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

Upcoming Simulator Release

The simulator update that will be following Gingerbread will be Hearts & Flowers (probably named for the time of year!). This mostly comprises internal (non-user visible) updates, together with two notably user-visible additions:

  • llSetLinkSitFlags/llGetLinkSitFlags – allow you to adjust the sit flags for a prim. It supports the existing two SIT_FLAG_ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPT_ONLY.
    • At some future point, SIT_FLAG_HIDE_AVATAR should also be added, so you don’t need to play an animation that squishes the avatar so they aren’t visible in something like a very small vehicle.
  • A feature for estate managers that will allow them to schedule automatic region restarts.
  • A new constant in llSPP PRIM_SIT_FLAGS it will contain all the sit flag information, (including ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPTED_ONLY (the two older constants will still be available).

Viewer Updates

The Maintenance Y RC viewer (My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history) updated to version 6.6.17.6935642049 on February 9th.

The rest of the official viewers in the pipeline remain as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7701974306, January 31, 2024 – bug and crash fixes.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7453691714, January 22, 2024.
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7467259489, issued January 12, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC, version 7.1.1.7088410646, December 7 – usability improvements.
  • Project viewers:

Reminders

Jira End-of-Road

LUA Viewer-Side Scripting

  • On Friday, February 9th, Linden Lab announced an upcoming capability: viewer-side scripting using the Lua scripting language – see Coming soon: client-side scripting with Lua!. Possible areas of use for this capability are test automation, mods/plugins, and potentially supporting things like HUDs.
  • There is a pre-release viewer with the Lua support available on github, but there is little more that the team responsible for Lua is willing to say for the present.

Game Controller Update

  • Leviathan Linden has tweaked the game_control capability so that negated the forward/back directions of the stick axes to align more correctly with local-frame coordinates in SL. Pushing forward is now positive rather than negative.
  • He has also disabled game controller support through the old system (Me Menu –> Preferences Option –> Move & View tab –> Other Devices Button –>) – however, this does not impact 3D SpaceNavigator devices.
  • An updated version of the viewer with the game controller capabilities is now available on Github.

In Brief

  • The meeting quickly turned in part to a further discussion on combat, some of which has already been covered in my summary of the first Combat (Committee) User Group in relation to damage, plus a discussion on cheating using offset, etc. – see that summary for the former and the video below for the latter.
  • The above morphed into a general discussion on making water in SL (Linden and user-defined) as “properly” swimmable (e.g. with natural floating / not zooming into the sky and flying when reaching the water / air boundary, etc.) without the need for scripting  / HUDs, etc.
  • A discussion about raycast results, and making it possible for them to get the texture cords for the area where the ray hit the surface of a face, with the result given in a similar manner to detectedtouchST. A canny feature request was asked for, so that LL can look at the idea.
  • There are reports from some of an uptick in HTTP 499 errors with in-world services communication with external services. Those with specific details of these errors are asked to contact Monty Linden.

† 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.

A belated appreciation of Soulstone’s winter beauty in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Soulstone, February 2024 – click any image for full size

I’m going to start by saying that by the time some read this, Soulstone will have taken on a new guise compared to what is seen here. The fault for this is mine entirely; this Full private region – held and designed by Valayra Asher (Valayra) – has been in its winter guise for some time, but things being what they are with life in general at the moment, it has taken me a while to get from taking photos and jotting down notes to actually getting something half-way decent written up.

So, my apologies for that!

Soulstone, February 2024

In its winter cloak, the region has presented an engaging mix of art, fantasy and a soupçon of science fiction. The landscape is split in two, thanks to a dogleg channel running through it, the sides of which suggest it may be artificial in nature, the walls formed by parallel lines of great basalt columns, one arm of which marches resolutely out to sea, leaving the land behind, to form a kind of breakwater.

Both of the islands are flat-topped, their remaining sides forms by natural rocky cliffs and slopes falling to the sea, with water flowing outwards from fissures here and there to cascade of the rocks below. Each island is home to a number of structures, but be aware that the small island with its well-appointed house and older lighthouse, appears to be a private residence, so please restrict explorations to the larger, L-shaped landscape.

Soulstone, February 2024

The landing point is located in a gazebo of cathedral-like proportions; and like a cathedral, it sits head and shoulders above the rest of the landscape thanks to the shoulder of rock on which it has been built. Within it might be found a cosy hideaway and a series of teleport boards which can carry visitors to the major points of interest around the island. However, I’d recommend to those who read this article and make it to Soulstone before it temporarily closes on February 15th for redressing in readiness for spring, that initial explorations are carried out on foot.

The landing point shares the island with a warehouse-like building either still under construction or lacking in repair (you decide!) and a number of other structures which should pique curiosity. The incomplete warehouse helps to set the artistic elements to be found within the setting, being home to sculptures by Bryn Oh and Rogue Falconer, with further statues outside by DRD with other by Mistero Hifeng awaiting discovery.

Soulstone, February 2024

The twists of sci-fi are humorously offered – H.R. Giger alien is collecting its order of cookies and hot chocolate from the café, pot-bellied “greys” have turned their flying saucer into a DJ hangout or are heading the local (and novel) swimming pool for a dip. There’s also a slight Orwellian slant in places as well, thanks to piles of television screens here and there keeping what seems to be a Big Brotherish watch on things.

There are several waterfront locations to be discovered as well. Some might require exclusive use of the teleport boards to reach, whilst others might be reached by stairways or paths hewn or worn into the rocky outer flanks of the island. One of the former passes through a most unique gorge: natural rock cliffs rising above the flat top of the island, the inner walls of side either bearing the façades of buildings as they escort the path down to the beach

Soulstone, February 2024

Throughout all of this are multiple places to sit – and also the remaining locations to be discovered by the teleport boards (which you should return to and try after an initial exploration of the large island, in order to ensure you get to see everything). There are also numerous little touches of detail scattered throughout, some quite unexpected – such as the owls or the bicycles neatly parked in their rack; others add to the mysterious air of the setting – but I’ll leave you to hope across and find them for yourselves.

Quietly unique and eminently artistic and photogenic, this iteration of Soulstone will be vanishing from Second Life come February 15th, as noted – so do please again accept my apologies for the lateness of this article and, of you are a keen SL explorer and have not see it already, be sure to make the most of the remaining 36-ish house before Valayra and her partner close it for the aforementioned redressing.

Soulstone, February 2024

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