Day: May 16, 2025

2025 week #20: SL CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Campsite: venue for CCUG meetings
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting of Thursday, May 15th, 2025. Please note that this is not a full transcript, but a summary of key topics, and timestamps are to the official video, embedded at the end of this report. .
Table of Contents

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 generally held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.

Official Viewer Status and Updates

Viewer Status

2025.04 and Upcoming 2025.25 RC Viewers

[Video: 5:55-7:01]

  • The feature set for the 2024.04 RC viewer remains as per the currently available version:
    • Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers.  This does not support generic mentions such as @everyone or @here.
    • My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
    • Hover height: the minimum/maximum is now +/- 3 meters.
    • UI Quality of life improvements.
    • Use the release notes link, above, for full details.
  • The upcoming 2025.05 RC looks set to include:
    • A “catch-up merge” of fixes and updates from the old Develop / Maintenance C branches.
    • Inventory Favourites (described at the meeting as “a little bit buggy”). As per [Video: 11:41-13:30], this is  a capability originally designed in 2024, and will see the addition of an Inventory tab where selected favourite items can be listed.

 glTF Mesh Uploader

[Video: 3:51-5:54 + as noted below]

  • The decision has been made to move this out of the upcoming 2025.05 RC viewer.
  • This decision also means that the Lab is evaluating what will be required to get PBR material imports working as part of the mesh upload process at the same time (rather than just having only the Base Colour uploaded).
    • Under previous plans, it had been stated that direct import of a full set of glTF materials as a part of a glTF mesh requires an large refactoring of code; so the initial release of the uploader would only support Base Colour, with other maps to be added in the future.
    • It also marks a switching away from discussions at the last CCUG, where creators expressed a preference to upload meshes with all materials and just have blank faces to which they could they apply their materials post upload. This is because the Lab would rather provide a complete drag-and drop solution, if this can be done.
    • The unspoken element of this update suggests that if direct upload of materials with meshes does prove to be complex, providing uploads with blank faces will likely be the fallback approach.
    • Either way, the ability for people to apply their own materials to objects that are Modify will remain unchanged.
  • [Video: 7:02-8:31] As to when an in which viewer the mesh uploader will surface is TBA, and subject to further internal discussions at the Lab.
    • There is currently a issue in getting rigged meshes (full avatars, as provided for testing by content creators, rather than individual items) to upload correctly.
    • LL is not opposed to shipping the uploader as a Project viewer once suitable for testing. This is liable to occur “sooner rather than later”, subject to the above mentioned issue.
  • [Video: 8:55-9:55] Will the glTF uploader support large meshes / those with more than 8 faces, rather than breaking them up?
    • The 8-face constraint a current system constraint and requires potentially significant simulator codes changes. As such, it is liable to remain “for now”
  • Implementation of a glTF mesh uploader will not mean the end of COLLADA (.DAE) upload support for SL – this will remain available. However, as modelling tools, etc., are deprecating COLLADA support, there is a recommendation that if creators wish to continue supporting their old mesh content, then they convert it to glTF .

In Brief

  • [Video: 13:32-15:00] Feature Request Add Custom Tags to Inventory Items – was raised at the end of 2024, and is currently marked as Tracked.  It was raised again at this meeting. Kyle Linden confirmed that a design for such tagging in on the viewer roadmap.
  • Terrain:
    • [Video: 15:15-16:12] Potential for better terraforming tools: Described as something LL would like to get to, including higher resolution texture support; the (currently on-hold) Terrain Painting work, etc. However, nothing is currently being worked on, and suggestions for terrain improvements request through the Feedback Portal.
    • [18:04-20:26] New terrain textures for Mainland: seen as a “nice to have”. However, given issues around enabling HDR skies to make PBR look good on Mainland (and the resultant “dim/dark” look to the skies) + the number of people still not using PBR-capable viewers (although this number is falling), LL is cautious about making widespread changes to Mainland. Nevertheless, updating terrain textures is something (per the above) LL “would like to do” in time.
    • [Video 44:41-46:26] WRT terrain and texturing a question was asked on whether it would be possible to have a “grass” functionality at so point, allowing land holder spawn grass on their land, rather than just having a texture. This does (to a point) exist in the viewer through the Build floater → plant rez option, although this is admittedly old and can be LI intensive, so likely needs revisiting in the future to update. Canny requests on what people would like to see with this were requested.
  • [Video: 17:10-17:45] It was asked if there was any further news on feature request: Make Appearances Height = Prim Height, noted at the last meeting as “something that could be looked at”.
    • Short answer: no.
    • The discrepancies in height are something LL would like to address, but involves where they are and what needs to be done (even different viewers can report different heights for the same avatar). But is it not something currently in progress.
  • [Video: 20:33-24:39] A discussion on being able to “share” attachments (e.g. one person being able to have a pizza box attached to them, and others being able to “take” a slice of pizza from the box a) without any complex means of taking an attachment to inventory and adding it (or similar) and b) having the corresponding slice of the pizza “vanish” from the box.
    • Rider Linden confirmed two approaches (to meet different use-cases) are “on the drawing board” to address this. One involves the use of Experience capabilities; the other enabling attachments to be made directly from an object’s inventory. However, neither option is currently being worked on.
  • [Video: 24:51-29:21] A request was made for further attachment points.
    • Providing additional attachment points is seen as sub-optimal, simply because of the additional rendering load / script processing requirements doing so will bring.
    • Rather, and while not currently on the roadmap, LL might look towards allowing customs skeletons (when supported) to have their own attachment structures, with a proxy system to offer back compatibility with the existing attachment point system.
    • This discussion touched on the Permissions system (e.g. allowing no modify items to be linked to others), which is really a no-no among many (although subject to debate within and without LL), as so unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, if at all.
  • [Video: 29:50-31:20] The above flowed into a discussion on the proposed permissions “bypass” that had been put forward by Geenz Linden for resolving issues of alpha/gamma issues causing some hairstyles to look “wrong” under PBR lighting.
    • This would have enabled uses to make a change through the viewer to enable “legacy” blending on the hair, even if it was No Modify. However, this was not seen as an optimal route to take by some at LL.
    • As such, the fix remains on hold until either those at LL can be persuaded that allowing such a bypass of permissions is not so bad, or an alternative solution can be determined, which could be used to detect all instances where legacy alpha blending is required.
  • [Video 33:22-34:55] Imposters and mesh proxies:
    • It is acknowledged that the current avatar imposter system is looking increasingly outdated.
    • The idea of providing some form of proxies (e.g. “visible triangle only” when seen from a distance) has been discussed internally at LL, however, this is not something being actively worked upon, nor is it part of any scheduled future work.
  • There were also general discussions around Gacha (more policy than content creation) and this Canny report; new user on-boarding; content being ripped from SL (or other platforms) and (re)uploaded to SL for sale (file a DMCA Take-Down request); LL addressing quality of life issues (usability) – being addressed, file Cannys!; items awaiting better prioritisation (e.g. dynamic Landmarks). Please refer to the last 20 minutes of the video for more on these.

Next Meeting