2025 week #24: SL SUG meeting

TheNest: Sunbird Featherwish, April 2025 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. The notes were taken from my chat log of the meeting. No video this week.

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):
  • 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

  • There are no planned deployments to any channels this week, only restarts.
  • The Preflight RC will likely get a WebRTC update in the week; the simulator version won’t change but the service will be different – the release includes a fix for a file descriptor leak that lead to crashes. This does not require any viewer-side updates.

SL Viewer Updates

In Brief

  • Parcel boundaries:
    • a long standing issue is that of people (mostly on Mainland) unexpectedly hitting parcels that are closed to public access (e.g. because the parcel edges onto a public road), and the ensuing confusion of getting bounced / losing the vehicle they are on, etc.
    • Rider Linden is hoping to be able to take another look at this in the near future, in terms of making such events less chaotic.
Just to remind people … the parcel bounce is for vehicles entering a parcel. It would check the permissions of all sitters and deny entry if any one sitter couldn’t enter. Essentially it would “bounce” the whole vehicle.
    • The response from those at the meeting was generally positive to this, in that it would end the situation of avatars being unseated from a vehicle which might still be able to enter / pass through the parcel.
  • SLua event handling proposal is being worked on – but exactly what this means could not be specified at the meeting.
  • A general discussion on mesh, mesh physics, uploads and decomposition, which appeared largely driven by a user seeking clarification, which strayed over into the realm of region crashers.
  • The subject of possibly deprecating pathfinding on the simulator (and potentially removing Havok from the viewer, allowing for an alternation for mesh decomposition came up at the meeting: see the In Brief section of my TPVD Meeting Summary for week #23 2025, for more.
    • In addition, Leviathan Linden indicated that pulling “some” Havok dependencies from the viewer could make it easier for physics engine updates.
    • The led to a lengthy discussion on how pathfinding might be replaced, concerns from those who are using it, with no definitive solutions.

† 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.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise in Second Life

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025 – click any image for full size

Almost two years ago, I was introduced to Viper Heaven and Viper Hell by Cube Republic. The work of Markarius Viper, I found both to be immersive and visually engaging, with Viper Heaven in particular captivating me (see: A Viper Heaven in Second Life).

Well, two years on, and Markarius extended a warm invite for me to visit Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, a huge expansion on the concepts and designs found within Viper Heaven, and quite possibly the most magnificent fantasy-surreal-mysterious-mystical setting within Second Life.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

Covering a Full Region leveraging the available land capacity bonus, the depth and breadth of Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise has to be experienced in order to be properly appreciated. After wandering through it across two days – each visit lasting hours – I am utterly in awe of the creativity displayed within the setting’s myriad locations.

PanEden is the best of both worlds. Pandora and a little Eden; you have to experience it to believe it.

– Markarius Viper

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

Explore it all, you’ll be glad you did.

In fact, “setting” and “locations” are too mild to be applied here; Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise is a bringing together of realms in miniature; vibrant places on the ground, over the ground and under the water. Each exists on its own whilst also joining with its neighbours and a harmonious flow of themes and ideas, elements and environments.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

The Landing Point is perhaps the best place to start your explorations – not that any teleport routing is set; but it is here that you will receive the Viper Isles teleport HUD (you may be asked to accept the local experience on first using it, for seamless teleports).

Opening the HUD immediately shows the extent of the realms on offer: sixteen destinations (Viper Club doesn’t appear to lead anywhere – or didn’t on my visits, but the region is evolving!), with exotic names like Titan’s Waterfall, Celestial Cathedral, Dragon’s Lair, Magical Waters… Also on the HUD, located on the second page, are teleports for Viper Hell and Viper Heaven.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

The HUD offers a direct means of point-to-point transfer between realms (and might be the easiest way of reaching some). However, I strongly recommend you explore on foot – and do be sure of have your viewer set to Used Shared Environment (Menu → World → Environment), as many of the settings within the region have their own EEP settings.

Another reason for exploring on foot is that not only does this bring home the full beauty of the region, it also reveals places to sit, activities to enjoy (descending by rope, riding a zip line, taking a dragon tour, etc.).

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

Travelling on foot also allows you to come across portals to move you from realm-to-realm (acceptance of the local experience on a first use, unless already accepted). Some of these are easy to spot, once encountered; at least one is a little harder to fine and a little more mysterious!

I’m not going to describe all the realms and spaces here; as I said, the entire region should be seen first-hand – although Markarius has also produced a video, which he has allowed me to embed at the end of this article.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

That said, what you will find here are giants holding up a part of the world; exotic flowers; a perfect fusion of Japanese and Indo-Chinese elements; gardens; places of rest; places of reverie; fountains of light; gardens of beauty; Ents; dragons; sea drakes; an underwater kingdom; giant flying Koi – and so much more besides.  Wherever you turn there is something new and enchanting to see.

This, quite genuinely, is an experience is Second Life not to be missed. And when you have seen Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, do not forget to return to visit Viper Heaven and Viper Hell.

Viper Isles – An Elysian Paradise, June 2025

My thanks to Markarius for the invitation, and for taking the time to walk with me during one of my visits.

SLurl Details