Day: April 13, 2024

2024 week #15: SL TPVD summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Morrigan’s Roadhouse, April 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, April 12th, 2024. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording the TPVD meeting and providing the video, which is embedded at the end of this article.

  • 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. This meeting is held once a month  the third or fourth Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • In regards to meetings:
    • Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.
    • Commence at 13:00 SLT on their respective dates.
    • Are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
    • Are open to all with an interest in either content creation or viewer development.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of either meeting.

Official Viewers Status

[Video: 00:29-1:19]

  • Release viewer: version7.1.5.8443591509, formerly the Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version and issued March 29th, promoted April 9th.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance YZ RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history, version 7.1.6.8632452945, April 12.
    • Materials Featurettes RC viewer, version 7.1.5.8472515256, April 3.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.5.8443777128, April 2.
  • Project viewers:

General Viewer Notes

  • Maintenance X looks to be the next viewer in line for promotion.
  • The Graphics Featurettes viewer (PBR terrain and mirrors) is expected “soon”.
  • LUAU integration (client-side scripting API): still in the early stages, and not a lot available for testing via a test viewer or similar.

Graphics Update

[Video: 4:25-6:17]

  • A new glTF mesh importer has been made available via the content Creation Discord channel (which LL have requested I do not link to here – contact Vir Linden if you have a need to be on that channel) purely for the purposes of testing by content creators.
    • This allows for the importing and viewing of static glTF-compliant mesh models and seeing how the look in Second Life.
    • This is the first element within the “glTF Phase II” project.
  • Cosmic Linden is working on bug fixes for the PBR terrain support, and Geenz Linden is putting the finishing touches to mirrors, both in the expectation of a public-facing viewer being made available.
  • 2K textures is still subject to discussions on pricing, and may or may not surface in the Featurettes viewer’s initial release.
  • Simulator support for the upcoming Graphics featurettes is due to go the the Preflight channel in week #16. This will include 2K texture support, which will most likely be disabled pending a final decision on pricing, etc.

WebRTC Voice Update

[Video: 29:17-33:19]

  • See here for background.
  • A Project viewer is being put together, and this should be available viewer soon, and the code should be fairly stable.
  • Some testing has been carried out with WebRTC on Linux with good results.
  • Feature requests for WebRTC made via the WebRTC board on the SL Feedback Portal are being evaluated and some are being actioned, together with issues being investigated.
  • The test region webRTC1 (Aditi) now has an echo capability for testing WebRTC once the Project viewer is available (or for those on a test viewer).
  • There may well be a pile-on test at the WebRTC test regions as things progress to test the new voice capability – although this might be better suited to having a test region available on Agni.

In Brief

  • There have been requests to have meeting times across several of the User Group meetings altered to be more accessible to Europeans or for those elsewhere in the US, etc. These requests are under consideration within the various user groups where they have been raised.
    • It was also noted that it would be useful if the Agenda sections of the wiki pages for User Groups were actually maintained, so that people can at least see what is up for discussion from LL’s side ahead of meetings, to help in making informed opinions on whether or not to attend.
  • [Video: 18:48-23:22] Featurettes flags:
    • It was noted that the plan for viewer projects going forward is to utilise the idea of featurette flags (as with the Graphics Featurette viewer) and have capabilities / functions new to the viewer placed behind flags (debug settings) managed via the simulator.
    • This is a reversal of the “old” mechanism for viewer features, which was led by the view making specific UDP message requests to the simulator for specific feature capabilities / function, and the simulator then respond on a request-by-request basis.
    • The advantage of this is that it potentially allows for faster viewer development iteration: features can be added to project / RC viewers and placed behind flags potentially allowing for testing on Aditi, rather than having to wait for months (/years) for a project-related viewer to surface with everything in pace and then only get actual user testing.
    • The disadvantage is communicating what in the viewer code might be tested and what is awaiting the setting of a flag from the simulator.
    • As such, LL are aware of the need for clear communications with TPVs on projects, code, and flags.
  • A general discussion on UDP message formats.

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.

Do You Like Gold? in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

It has been a couple of years since I had the opportunity to visit and write about an installation by Gem Preiz in Second Life – the last time being in 2022, when I reviewed Exoplanet: One Step Further. So it was with a degree of expectation that I dropped into Selen’s Gallery to visit Gem’s Do You Like Gold?, an exhibition of work that is part museum, part retrospective, part homage to the humble prim and a delight for those who enjoy miniatures and Gem’s work.

I’ve followed Gem’s work for a fair number of years now, having first written about Cathedral Dreamer all the way back in 2014. Whilst primarily focused on 2D work in those earlier days, Gem also worked with 3D elements, his exhibitions frequently staged within 3D environments he specifically built for them, and included 3D components to help enhance the stories he folded into many of his installations – narrative also being an important part of his work (just consider Heritage: Vestiges and Heritage: Wrecks as examples of this narrative aspect).

Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

In more rent years, Gem’s work has shifted to bring his love of architecture to the fore in 3D installations of the most marvellous kind, with his fractal works often taking on more of the supporting role – or in some cases, tucked away as easter eggs awaiting discovery. 2020’s Arcadia is a good example of this, together with the impressive Skyscrapers of the same year.

Within Do you Like Gold? Gem takes us on something of a retrospective of a number of his more 3D-centric installations – notably Demiurge, Skyscrapers and Arcadia – in the form of reproductions of some of the structures used in those installations, which here have been given a gold leaf effect finish. Each structure is presented on its own plinth, together with notes on both its inspiration from the physical world and details on the installation(s) in which it appeared.

Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

Offered at scals of 1/40th, 1/25 and 1/10th, some with the flying vehicles Gem provided within them to help give a sense of scale, the models sit as graceful reminders that, in an age of mesh there is still much to be said for the beauty which can be achieved via the humble prim and prim linkset.

What I particularly like about this installation is the manner in which the individual structures displayed within it allow us to fully appreciate how Gem has taken his love of architectural masterpieces in the physical world – those both built and imagined and freely interpreted them within his various installations. It may not have been obvious, for example, that both 2018’s Demiurge and 2020’s skyscrapers incorporated the proposed Bride Tower (Basra, Iraq), or the likes of the Hotel de la Marine (Paris) or the US Capitol Building in Washington D.C. lay tucked away within Arcadia.

Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

Hence why Do You Like Gold is so multi-faceted as an installation – and worth taking the time to visit. And should you do so, be sure to give it a decent amount of time; not all of the miniatures within it are as static as they might appear to be; courtesy of a rezzing system they will change.

SLurl Details