Day: April 19, 2024

2024 week #16: SL CCUG summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold? 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,  April 18th, 2024.

Meeting Purpose

  • 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 related viewer development work. This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
  • 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 content creation.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.

Official Viewers Status

  • On Friday, April 19th, the Maintenance YZ RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history updated to version 7.1.6.8745209917.
  • On Wednesday, April 17th, Maintenance X RC viewer (usability improvements) updated to version 7.1.6.8709279750.

The rest of the official viewers remain as:

  • 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:
  • Project viewers:

It is possible the glTF Maintenance-2 RC viewer might be promoted to de facto release status early in week ’13 (commencing Monday, March 25th, 2024).

Graphics / glTF

  • Work continues on the GLTF Featurettes viewer + support.
    • The viewer is in RC with on-going bug fixes.
    • The simulator support is now on a Preflight channel on Agni (the Main grid), which includes the regions Rumpus Room 2048; Rumpus Room 2049; Rumpus Room 2050 and Rumpus Room 2051.
  • 2K Textures:
    • Are not currently supported for upload onto the Main grid.
    • The fees for 2K textures have been set as follows:
      • Basic / Plus account: L$50 per texture.
      • Premium account: L$40 per texture.
      • Premium Plus: L$10 per texture.
    • 2K textures for Bakes on Mesh requires a substantial update to the Bake service (as is frequently mentioned at CCUG meetings), and currently this does not appear to be in the works.
  • Mirrors:
    • Now leverage the Dynamic flag. When set, this tells the mirror to reflect everything in the rendering pipeline including avatars and particles). if the flag is not set, avatars are particles are not rendered, just the environment (e.g. for a reflective floor which reflects the room, but rendering the avatars would cause a massive performance hit).
    • Mirror probes can now be set using LSL.
    • The updated UX for Mirrors is still not done, and it is acknowledged that setting up a mirror is far from intuitive. A good 10+ minutes of the meeting was devoted to “how to make a mirror” – rather proving the point!
  • Work has started on prototyping glTF scene handling (as part of the overall glTF scene import work). Initial work is to enable the showing of a scene locally within the viewer using a debug setting. More on this as the option becomes available in a viewer. But in short:
    • Once imported, glTF scenes will be an inventory asset type.
    • Each scene with by associated with an in-world object (e.g. a prim), which becomes its “handle”.

In Brief

  • Custom skeletons: this is an ongoing debate within LL. glTF allows for custom skeletons and animations. Second Life has a defined avatar skeleton and recognised animation formats for use against it.
    • As such, there is a disparity between SL and glTF, as in theory, adherence to the glTF specification means recognising the use of custom skeletons with their own animations – which would then be incompatible with the existing SL format(s), and lead to potential confusion  / clashes between established avatar types using the SL skeleton and custom skeletons.
    • Thus, some navigation is required to determine if / how custom skeletons might be handled without confusing the existing consumer market in SL in terms of what accessories work with which type of avatar.
  • Emissive strength is seen as “feeble” by some, so a request was made for a numeric box in which a desired emissive strength might be entered. As the glTF specification allows for this, it is something that could be added to a future viewer iteration (but not necessarily would be – Feature Request?).
  • Much of the meeting was about what extensions LL might consider, how things like emissive maps and lighting might be handled in the future, IOR, transmission and the potential to add iridescence – some of which are being worked on (IOR and transmission) and will be reported on in summaries as they come along, others are seen as possibly / maybe.

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.

Lab Gab April 2024 Update: Mobile, Mirrors, Policies – summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

On Friday, April 19th, Linden Lab issued a pre-recorded segment of Lab Gab, intended to provide updates on various technical projects currently in progress – notably the SL Mobile app – and to provide a modest degree of update on policy matters in the wake of allegations levelled publicly and pseudonymously against the company and some of its employees and contractors, during the month of February 2024.

The video itself – which is embedded at the end of this article – is extensively indexed within its You Tube page. The following is a brief summary of the major (in my eyes) points raised in the segment, and offered as a quick reference summary for those interested.

SL Mobile – Status

[Video: 1:20-12:00]

  • Currently remains in Premium Plus closed alpha testing (Premium Plus members can sign-up for access to this alpha testing phase).
  • Work is in progress to expand access to Premium subscribers. However, this requires moving the app from the iOS (Test Flight) and Google Android testing infrastructure (where users have to be manually added to the test environments) to an environment where granting access can be handled on a more automated / streamlined basis, and this will take time to complete.
  • An update highlighting some of the more recent Mobile app features was issued on April 5th, 2024, and the week commence April 15th, 2024, saw an updated version of the app made available to those in the alpha test programme, which includes further bug fixes and updates – including the addition of deformer support, so quadruped / non-biped avatars render correctly in the app.

How Development of the Mobile App is Approached

[Video: 4:06-6:45]

  • SL Mobile development is being looked at in terms of what residents may want to do and the features required to achieve that.
  • Currently the focus is on users staying connected through notifications, being able to converse, etc., and the receipt (and response to) off-line IMs (which is said to have implications for Second Life in general, not just with regards to Mobile, with future updates on what is being done being promised.
  • Related to this is work on actually being able to do things – visit places, change outfits / looks / accessories, etc., and interact with objects.
  • In addition to providing features and capabilities for active users, Mobile is being thought of in terms of how to get “lapsed” users to re-engage with the platform. This work particularly requires the building-out of a set of capabilities to help such users re-engage with the platform and friends as smoothly as possible.

Mobile Q&A

[Video: 10:14-12:00]

(taken from questions submitted in advance, following the announcement of a Mobile update segment of Lab Gab originally scheduled for March 2024, but subsequently postponed.)

  • Will SL Mobile support HUDS – yes.
  • Create and build on Mobile? – longer-term it might be possible to provide a feature that allows some form of content creation on Mobile, but it will be limited. For “serious” content creation capabilities, the desktop viewer will still be required.
  • Voice support on Mobile – yes
  • Estate Management – maybe.
  • Mobile-specific capabilities (webcam, GPS, etc) – maybe.
  • Keyboard & mouse support – definite maybe.
  • Will Mobile be free or pay-to-access  – currently, there are no plans to charge for Mobile use, but ideas for making current subscription plans ore meaningful for those only accessing SL via the app are being considered.

glTF / PBR

[Video: 12:53-20:05]

Mirrors

  • A glTF “featurette” capability, providing real-time mirrors in Second Life (including avatar reflections).
  • Currently available for testing on Aditi (the Beta grid), but simulator support due to start limited deployment on Agni (the Main grid) during week#17 (commencing Monday, April 22nd), with viewer support (at the time of writing) available via the glTF Featurettes RC viewer.
  • In keeping with the new glTF features, leverage both reflection probes and the upcoming 2K texture support.
Signal Linden demonstrates the glTF mirror capability, which is about to become fully available in Second Life

2K Textures – including Fees

  • Full support for 2048×2048 textures.
  • To ensure there is no undue impact on performance given 2K textures have 4 time the area of current 1K textures, work has been put into streaming optimisation to ensure only the require MIP map is used with a textures (e.g. if the texture is 2K, but the surface it is being displayed on only requires 512K – then the 512K MIP map will be used, NOT the 2K MIP.
  • Fees for 2K texture uploads:
    • Basic / Plus account: L$50 per texture.
    • Premium account: L$40 per texture.
    • Premium Plus: L$10 per texture.
  • Viewer support will be provided separately to the Mirrors / PBR Terrain work, “soon”.

PBR Terrain

  • Provides support for PBR materials on SL terrain (including specular and normal map support).
  • Includes the use of 2K textures.
Materials applied to Second Life terrains. Credit: Linden Lab
  • Not only improves the texel density (resolution) for terrain, but also provides better blending between textures as terrain elevation changes.

General

  • Those wishing to see glTF mirrors and terrain support can do so by requesting access to Aditi (the beta grid) and visiting one of the following regions: Rumpus Room 2048; Rumpus Room 2049; Rumpus Room 2050 and Rumpus Room 2051.
  • However, (initially limited) deployment of back-end support for Mirrors and PBR Terrain on Agni (the Main grid) commenced on Wednesday, April 17th, using the Featurettes RC viewer available via the Alternate Viewers page. The supported regions have the same Rumpus Room names as given above, and I will be updating on this as a part of my SUG meeting summaries.
  • All of the glTF work is discussed at the Content Creation User Group – see the SL Public Calendar for the meeting dates – and I summarise meetings here.

Policy Updates with Keira Linden

[Video: 21:14-24:12]

Note: this section is in keeping with the statement by Linden Lab owner and Executive Chair, Brad Oberwager in light of allegations made with a pseudonymous article which appeared on a social journalise website in February 2024 (further commentary on this can be found here).

  • A reminder of the age requirements for Second Life:
    • Second Life is generally for adults (18 years or older).
    • 16-17 years are allowed, but only within General rated regions.
    • Second Life is not intended for anyone under the age of 16, except for students in the 13-15 year age range, who are restricted to regions operated by recognised / sponsoring educational organisations, and provided with access through a special registration process.
  • LL is keenly aware of the need not to expose minors to inappropriate content. As such, the age verification process for users entering second Life is to be strengthened, and further details on this will be made available soon.
  • Use of child avatars:
    • Linden Lab recognises that adults do role-play and present as child avatars in ways that are entirely without any form of sexualisation or in any way ageplay related, and the company has no intention to limit or prevent this kind of engagement.
    • However:
      • Child avatars should not be used to access or be near regions which have (or also have) adult-rated content / activities.
      • Consenting adults engaging in adult-oriented role-play with / using avatars presenting as children (aka “ageplay”) is not allowed – and will never be allowed – in Second Life, and the policy on this is strictly enforced.
    • In light of the recent allegations, the Lab is in the process of strengthening the child avatar policy, and the updated version will be rolled out soon. The intent of these changes is to ensure an even greater separation between the use of child avatars and adult-rated content in Second Life.
  • As well as the above, LL is looking to improve policies relating to conduct both within the broader Second Life community of users and within the company as well (e.g. how staff interact with the wider community, and policies relating to potential conflicts of interest / the perception of favouritism,  in the case of the latter).
  • A cross-department project is also underway to help with content moderation, both in-world and on the Marketplace.

Community Round Table

[Video: 24:14-25:17]

  • A new channel of communication to launch in May 2024.
  • Being seen as a more “general purpose” user group meeting type of forum where users can put forward their ideas on how to improve Second Life to executive members of Linden Lab’s leadership.
  • Details to be forthcoming soon.