The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for 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.
- Meetings 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
- On Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were updated to release 2024-11-25.12013542687.
- On Wednesday, December 4th:
- The BlueSteel RC is due to be restarted with no deployment.
- The remaining RC channels will see a “small” update to the Barbeque (BBQ) updates, presumably bringing them to parity with the version of BBQ currently on BlueSteel.
Upcoming Simulator Releases
Apple Cobbler currently remains in testing on Aditi (regions of Mauve and Jigglypuff for those wishing to test), but is now due to start an initial deployment to the BlueSteel RC in week #50 (commencing Monday, December 9thm, 2024). Apple Cobbler includes:
- llTransferOwnership which enables a prim give itself to a new user (subject to owner permissions already set). The version on Aditi has been updated. To quote Rider Linden:
The prototype for llTransferOwnership has changed slightly. There is a new list parameter tacked to end. It does nothing at the moment, but I’ve got plans to add a few things there early in the New Year. The wiki has been updates with the new data. You will need to recompile any test scripts you might have had. [Also] For llTransferOwnership, I’d like to add an exclusion list (transfer the item and all its contents EXCEPT for these items).
- An extended llGiveInventory to allow for a destination folder (system folders + RLV/a) to be specified as well (+ the use of a parameter list, so further options can be added in the future).
- llMapBeacon – like llMapDestination, but a) does not necessarily open the map window; b) can optionally open the map, with or without focus. This will also require a viewer update.
- A new function for detecting attachments. If it is running with an experience it will be able to detect HUDs that also have scripts with the same experience (e.g. to ensure the correct HUDs are being used – this will not allow anyone to script to find out all the HUDs someone is using).
Following Apple Cobbler, the next simulator update is code-named Banana Bread, but its contents have yet to be defined. However Rider Linden conducted a quick poll on what those at the meeting might like to see included. – please refer to the video (29:48-35:32).
SL Viewer Updates
No updates to start the week with the current official viewers:
- Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
- Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.12041172537, November 27.
- Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain; additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
- Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
- UI Optimisations.
2K Bakes On Mesh (BOM)
Pepper Linden provided this update:
We were hoping to get 2K BOM out by the end of November [as] its been stuck in QA a while now. Unfortunately, an issue came up recently where the viewer wasn’t properly showing the lower resolutions for avatars that weren’t close up (e.g. far away). So a fix had to be made on the viewer for that (we were seeing VRMA use double for highly complex avatars with dozens upon dozens of wearables).
There’s a few other minor things that came up, but they should all be addressed very soon [but] unfortunately I have no idea when 2K BOM will make its way here at this time, though as soon as I know, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.
In Brief
Please refer to the video below for the following:
- Leviathan Linden implemented a fix to llModPow(), noting the older implementation was inefficient and that with the update, it should now run faster under the hood.
- It was noted the one second sleep requirement made the function fairly unusable, and Leviathan noted it could now be relaxed, and will aim to do that as a part of the Banana Bread simulator update.
- Further discussion on llTransferOwnership().
- A general discussion on Combat 2.0 updates.
- A note that Monty Linden has been put on to poking at why avatars take time to load / de-cloud.
- A discussion on media support and Media on a Prim (MOAP) / CEF.
† 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.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 