Day: May 12, 2026

2026 week #20: SUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Planet M – Tula, March 2026 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 12th, 2026 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. They were taken from the video recording by Pantera, embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks to Pantera 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 is held every other Tuesday at 12:00 noon, SLT (holidays, etc., allowing), per the Second Life Public Calendar.
  • The “SUG Leviathan Hour” meetings are held on the Tuesdays which do not have a formal SUG meeting, and are chaired by Leviathan Linden. They are more brainstorming / general discussion sessions.
  • Meetings are held in text in-world, at this location.

Simulator Deployments

  • Wednesday, 13th May should see the deployment of the Kumquat simulator update.
    • This contains some further back-end WebRTC fixes and other internal work. E-mail is also being updated, notably off-line IM forwarding and object llEmail()-type activity.
    • This update is being deployed ahead of the originally planned Loganberry update.
  • Loganberry is moving forward, and is currently being reviewed by the Lab’s QA team. This should have:
    • The updates to deal with missing attachments on avatars.
    • Harold Linden’s serialisation fixes to ease some region cross issues.
    • llListen triggering multiple times.
    • A fix for script parcel permissions being calculated incorrectly and an old issue about rezzing on meshes.

WebRTC Update

  • The May 5th grid-wide deployment of WebRTC went ahead as planned, so Vivox is no longer the Voice service across SL; WebRTC is.
  • The deployment apparently went well and there have been few reports of issues.
  • Wednesday, May 13th should see a WebRTC update, which will hopefully see the return of Voice Echo Canyon in-world.
  • WebRTC deployments are now run separately to simulator deployments rather than a part of them. Viewers running the latest client-end of WebRTC should not be affected by this, as they they will disconnect from one voice server in the cluster ahead of it going down for update, and automatically reconnect to an operating server in the cluster.
  • Moving forward, the focus will now be on fixes and updates (e.g. open chat voice attenuation) and general clean-up and the removal of unwanted code.
    • Once this work has been completed, attention will be turned more towards adding new features the WebRTC, including voice-to-text transcription (and has been experimented with inside the Lab, including with multiple languages). However, no decision has yet been made as to WebRTC new features or their scheduling.
  • Concerns over privacy with transcription were raised, and Roxie Linden noted privacy is being looked at, together with security, together with the ability for users to turn off transcription. This sparked a conversation on chat encryption, as per the video.

In Brief

  • Rider Linden has been on-call this week, and so has fixed some issues in the server build system on the server. He is also plans to look at an issue around failed notifications for large groups.
  • Leviathan Linden attempted to provide a game_control update (v 0.7.2), unfortunately, one of the bug fixes within it turned out to be buggy.
  • Harold Linden (Lua):
    • Has the The llprim.ParamsSetter interface merged with the viewer code.
    • Has also been working on the bundler implementation so that `require()` can work correctly in the viewer. However, this might not go out until after the Lua viewer is officially released, so he can focus on “more release-pertinent issues” such as performance and garbage collection.
    • He is going to be working on these latter improvements alongside of making the Lua implementation more memory-efficient in practice: “Lots of non-user-facing things that are important if we want to be in a world where thousands and thousands of Lua scripts don’t make a region fall over”.

General Discussion

Please refer to the video below for  more on the following.

  • SL Combat 2.0 is set so bullets / projectiles are  automatically set to DIE_ON_COLLIDE when they are rezzed, which is a different behaviour to the older SL Combat System and has been found to cause some problems. Rider linden asked if changing Combat 2.0 so projectiles do not die on collide automatically would ab issue.
    • The general (but small) consensus at the meeting was that it should not be an issue; creators can always update their products, if required
    • The question sparked a discussion on Combat running through the mid-point of the meeting.
  • The “soft disconnect” (being unable to physical move from or TP out of a region after being in it for a period of time) issue was raised, with some reporting the issue appears least frequent in the Flat UI RC viewer. No feedback from LL on this
  • There was a discussion on Second Life performance, simulator / viewer / simulator communications latency impacting avatar updates, KFM animations, etc. This ran through most of the second half of the meeting.
  • The above was mixed with a debate over Linux (and its upcoming return to viewer land with the Lua viewer), distros, wishes, etc.

Date of Next Meetings

  • Leviathan Linden: Tuesday, May 19th 2026.
  • Formal SUG meeting: Tuesday, May 26th, 2026.

† 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.

A walk through Loulou Forest in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Loulou Forest, May 2026 – click any image for full size

I was drawn to explore Loulou Forest after coming across it in the Destination Guide as it has been designed and executed by Elyjia Baxton, working in concert with the region holder, 7 (Seven Kaptane). Elyjia – or Ely as she likes to be called – is responsible for some of the most natural landscapes and setting found in Second Life, and I’ve has the pleasure of visiting and blogging about many of them since 2017.

Occupying a Full private region, Loulou Forest is part of a 4-region estate held by 7. Of the remaining three, two – Annabel and Eden Roc – provide rentals homes with decently-sized parcels and a mix of over-the-water and rural settings.

Loulou Forest, May 2026

The remaining region is home to Loulou, a region-sized venue established by 7 in 2025. With indoor and outdoor settings, the club is open on Wednesdays and Fridays through Sundays, all between 12:00 noon and 15:00 SLT, and again between 18:00 and 21:00 SLT.

Sitting on a region called – appropriately – Ely, Loulou Forest makes use of the majority of the region’s landmass, allowing for the off-shire areas around the coasts. The Landing Point sits a short distance from the region boundary linking the forest to the club region to the west, and Directory sign board offer direct teleports to the club, or across to the edge of the Annabel residential region, or the estate’s rental office for those interested in perhaps making either Annabel or Eden Roc their home for a time.

Loulou Forest, May 2026
Loulou Forest is a place where nature invites you to explore. Every corner is designed to offer a moment of calm—a place to recharge and reconnect with what truly matters. A peaceful getaway in the heart of the Loulou universe.

– Loulou Forest About Land description

Dusty tracks provide the primary routes for exploring the forest, winding their way between the trees, passing across bridges, past bodies of water and low waterfalls and to where public buildings await to offer places of rest and refreshment.

Loulou Forest, May 2025

However, it should be pointed out that whilst Annabel and Eden Roc are the primary rental regions in this estate, there are a number of private residences located along the southern, eastern and northern extents of the forest – so do take care to avoid trespassing into someone’s privacy.

The tracks are wide enough for vehicles, and indeed a couple are to be found on the verges. However, I would suggest a better source of transport – if you have one available – is a wearable horse (or a rezzable one, if you join the local group and obtain rezzing rights). The trails are ideal for riding, and while I did look around for local horse rezzers, I didn’t notice any.

Loulou Forest, May 2026

Given this is a design from Ely, the region is packed with natural detail. Birds reel overhead, geese swim on the inlands waters; there are places to sit and pass the time, be they under the shade of a gazebo or sitting at the roadside or take the form of boats on the waters.

Elsewhere, Bees buzz, horses frolic, young foxes scamper and local cats put their paws of ownership on all they survey (naturally) – including the one hoping to put its paws on a bird, despite the latter’s attitude suggesting it is aware of the plan and will take flight before the cat can do it any harm.

Loulou Forest, May 2026

This is a place where exploring can be as quick or as gently as you like, and where opportunities to take photographs and / or pose for selfies abound. The natural beauty of the setting encourages gentle exploration and invites visitors to sit and pass the time here; something also encouraged by the fact that the private residences are spread such that they don’t lead to a feeling one is about to trespass at every turn.

Travel far enough in your explorations, and you will likely encounter the boundary with Annabel. Like the boundary with Loulou, this is clearly denoted if you are following the main tracks around the forest. Casual visits to Annabel are not discouraged – but (again) do keep in mind it is primarily a rental / residential setting, and so opportunities for exploration are limited more to the unpaved roadways as they run through the region to provide access to the private homes.

Loulou Forest, May 2026

Rounded-out by a subtle soundscape and richly picturesque, Loulou Forest makes for a rewarding visit for the Second Life explorer / photographer, and sits as a further tour de force of Ely’s ability to design and build spaces in SL which have a natural sense of presence to them.

Loulou Forest, May 2026

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