Day: January 18, 2025

Lab announces improvements to the financial and billing systems used by Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

On Friday January 17th, 2025, Linden Lab announced improvements to the financial and billing systems used by Second Life as provided by Tilia, the Lab’s trusted billing partner.

The full details of the changes being made can be found in the official blog post Enhancing the Financial Experience in Second Life.

In the interests of clarity and first-hand reading, I’m not going to list everything in here; better than people read the Lab’s own post. However, the following points are worth highlighting:

  • The changes and updates are being deployed over the rest of January 2025, and on a rolling basis. Therefore, users will see them come into effect as they are applied.
  • The will result in a series of updates in how information is displayed within various web properties (e.g. the Cashier page, the Add Payment Method page, etc.).
  • There will be no changes to fees for existing services. However, new pay-out types and speeds that will be coming soon may have different fees based on the underlying costs involved with those pay-out methods.
  • From January 30th, 2025, Skrill will no longer be available to add as a new payment or pay-out method.
    • Those already using Skrill as a payment or pay-out method, you may continue to do so as long as it remains active in your account.
    • However, if anyone using Skrill removes it as as their payment / pay-out methods after January 30th, 2025, they will not be able to re-add it.
  • Once these changes are active, the following countries will no longer be supported with new pay-out connections: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Through our partnership with Tilia, these updates create a more modern and sustainable foundation for managing Second Life’s economy. The system now automatically reconciles transactions nightly, allowing for accurate and efficient handling of payments and balances. Users will continue to have the flexibility to manage their balances and payment methods while benefiting from improved security and reliability.

– From the Lab’s blog post

Again, please refer to the official blog post for full details.

2025 week #3: SL TPVD meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Simurg + Winter Valley, November 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording + the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this summary) of the Third-Party Developer meeting (TPVD) held on Friday, January 17th, 2025. My thanks to Pantera as always for providing it.

Meeting Purpose

  • 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 on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they re conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.

Official Viewers Status

[Video: 1:13-2:17 and [4:07-4:45]

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.11.12363455226, formerly the ExtraFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, aesthetic improvements and UI optimisations), dated December 17, promoted December 20 – No Change.
  • Release Candidate: Forever FPS, version 7.1.12.12793544240, January 17, 2025.
    • Numerous crash and performance fixes.

Upcoming Viewers

  • ForeverFPS surfaced somewhat faster as an RC viewer than had been anticipated at the CCUG meeting.
  • Other plans for viewer updates are under review; there a numerous code commits in the Develop branch awaiting a viewer, but collectively, they are regarded as to many to all go into a single viewer update, so the order of release over several viewer updates needs to be determined.

WebRTC / Updating to Viewers with WebRTC Support / Rendering Holdbacks

[Video: 5:22-24:14]

  • Further re-iteration of the desire to see as many users as possible to move from viewers which lack WebRTC support (e.g. Firestorm 6.6.17) to those (predominantly PBR-based) viewers with the WebRTC support, so that the Vivox service can be turned off across the grid.
  • A further request was made as to why people are resistant.
    • Once again, the response was largely around the quality of the reflections / general look of the Linden Water plane on PBR viewers, lack of exclusion volumes for water; darker ambient tones to natural lighting.
    • Ambient issues, particularly with legacy EEP skies should have been largely corrected in ExtraFPS.
    • It was also pointed out that there are cohorts of users who are happy with what works for them, even if half their in-world view seems to be “broken” in some manner, and simply will not update as long as the viewer they use can still access SL.
  • A particular issue here with regards to WebRTC, is that while a high percentage of users are not updating to viewers with PBR + WebRTC support, it is not clear how many would be adversely affected by the loss of Vivox voice, given that many in SL rarely, if ever use Voice.  If the number is small, turning off Vivox might not be an issue; if the number is large, it could cause people to abandon SL.
  • It was also suggested that wider communications from LL (and TPVs) on the nature of upcoming changes like WebRTC might help to make users more aware of what is going on.
  • In response to exclusion volumes and water quality  / reflections, Geenz Linden noted:
    • There might be a way to provide exclusion volumes for water (e.g. to prevent water rendering inside boat hulls, etc.), but the issue is complicated.
    •  There has been a regression in the way water appears and generates reflections; part of this was the result of the “pre-PBR” means of rendering water required multiple passes, which became a performance issue. However, improving water is on his list of things to do, and he hopes that some of the ideas he has will also help improve screen space reflections (SSR) .
    • However, he also indicated that bring back “full real-time reflections” on water  is a not insignificant ask, and will likely only be possible after the moiré system has been further optimised, as  reflection generation will likely piggyback off of that. As such, the work to recover water reflections will take time and will be iterative in nature, and there may be impacts on the general appearance of water.
  • Commenting on SSR, Geenz also noted that while improvements can be made, it will be “really hard” to return SSR quality to pre-PBR – but then, pre-PBR SSR had its own performance issues. As such, work in this area requires careful consideration on how to make improvements without impacting performance.

In Brief

  • [Video: 2:17-4:07] A further announcement on the departure of Runitai Linden (see: Runitai Linden departs LL for public service).
  • [Video: 24:14-29:30] General discussion / opinions on how and where to present assorted graphical settings and options within the Preferences / debugs, and how users understand / learn about the viewer’s internals.
  • [Video 30:16-32:25] Discussion on graphics and lighting – improving HDRi rendering, ambient like, introducing punctual lighting, using physical units for lighting.
  • [Video: 37:14-43:40] EventQueueGet is a simulator Capability that delivers messages from a simulator to viewers over HTTP using a long-poll scheme. It is core functionality without which viewer/simulator coordination is impossible. However, a number of defects in the design and maintenance of this capability have been found (see here for both defects and proposals to resolve).
    • Monty Linden  has implemented a “phase 1” project to address some of these issues, and has set-up a channel of several regions on Aditi (the Beta grid) for public testing of the changes to validate that they do not in fact break anything. He has also published information on how users can help with the test and what is involved in the “phase 1” work.
    • During the meeting, he requested that people take the time to visit the test regions, carry out TPs and physical crossing between regions, leaving suitably scripted objects running on the regions, etc., per the testing information forum topic and report back via the topic or via the Feedback Portal.
    • This work may become part of the Banana Bread simulator release (still in the process of being defined), and further references to the work will most likely be via the Simulator User Group meetings.
  • User groups for discussing Project Zero / SL Mobile:
    • The Project Zero viewer-in-a-browser project is open for discussion at the Web User Group (as Sntax Linden leads both the WUG group and Project Zero); and it has been indicated it might spin-up its own user group in time.
    • There are internal discussions going on in the Lab about starting a SL Mobile User Group. More to follow on this.

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.

Borkum’s return to Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Borkum, January 2025 – click any image for full size

I was surprised to see that it’s been over a year since I last visited Yoyo Collas’ Homestead region of Borkum (see: Borkum’s Winter in Second Life); so long, in fact that I gather the region may have vanished for a time from the grid. However, it is now back within a new location, and I’ve been keen to make a revisit.

As I noted back in November 2023:

Drawing its name from the Lower Saxony island which forms the largest and westernmost of the East Frisian Islands as it sits alongside the border with the Netherlands, and caught between the North Sea and the Wadden Sea, Yoyo’s Borkum has always been a place that is both photogenic and a reminder of how good it is to spend time away from the bustle of life and simply be.
Borkum, January 2025

This remains the case now as much as it did then; the major difference being that with this iteration of Borkum, spring has once again returned, allowing it to offer a welcome promise of what is to come for those of us in the northern hemisphere as winter moves increasingly behind us and spring draws ever closer.

One of the delights of Borkum is that whilst the island many change in its overall look and feel with each iteration, it retains many elements from past designs – such ats the Apple Fall Old Manufactory -, so as to always hold the feeling that one is returning to  familiar and comfortable place.

Borkum, January 2025

With its central upland grasslands and surrounding beaches, this iteration of Borkum is very much a haven for both wildfowl and domesticate animals – horses, sheep, cattle, chickens. The latter are all clearly ruled over by the island’s felines (just as cats hold sway over our physical lives, whatever we might think; as the saying goes – dogs have owners, cats have staff!).

The wildfowl and birds range from geese through seagulls, cormorants, egrets, cranes and even swans. Together with the animal life they offer many opportunities for photography; but so to does the natural beauty of the region. The grasslands of the hills are awash with colour thanks to the meadow flowers, poppies and other blooms which almost completely hide the grass, whilst the scrub trees, buildings and other structures all add to the picturesque nature of the setting.

Borkum, January 2025

I’m not going to describe how to explore the island – it is easy enough to work out for yourself; the paths offer hints, pointing places of interest, but really, Borkum is a place to simply wander and to sit and allow the time to pass, either on your own or in company. For those so minded, there is a sailing boat slowly circling the island visitors can sit upon, but there are more than enough places on land for people to enjoy if the boat is already occupied when you visit.

The sense of solitude present on the island is enhanced somewhat by the hints that it might be the retreat for an artist, and which also happens to offer opportunities for visits dropping by, thanks to the beaches and the little café.

Borkum, January 2025

Rather than say anything else, I’ll close with the words Yoyo has written for the region, as they are the most fitting:

Far out in the endless northern dance,
where waves weave patterns in a timeless trance, lies an island, where winds still play,
Borkum, a gem in the ocean’s sway.
The gulls sing clear, a hymn to the skies,
of horizons that promise where the future lies. The briny air speaks bold and free,
of ventures shaped by the restless sea.

Borkum, January 2025

Upon the shore where stories remain,
where amber gleams in a golden chain,
an eternal symphony calling us all.
When the night lays out its starry veil,
and the breeze unfolds its ocean tale,
you’ll dream of Borkum, the boundless strand, the island of wonder, the promised land.

So, go visit and enjoy.

Borkum, January 2025

SLurl Details

  • Borkum (Poetry, rated Moderate)