Day: September 29, 2026

2026 week #40: SUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Simulator User Group meeting place at Longfellow

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, September 29, 2026 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting by Pantera is embedded at the end of this summary – 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 is held every other Tuesday at 12:00 noon, SLT (holidays, etc., allowing), per the Second Life Public Calendar.
  • The “Leviathan Office 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

  • The Nectarine update has a “pretty persnickety issue” at the network layer.
  • This is the ObjectUpdate UDP messages issue record in my previous leviathan Hour summary. Overall, there has been some problems with reliability reproducing the problem. given this, at the time of the making, a decision had yet to be made on the best route for a fix.
    • As noted in the Leviathan OH meeting, this issue can affect the 26.4 viewer, and a fix for that is also to be worked on.
  • It’s likely that any fix will go to the RCs, on September 30.

General Updates

Also refer to the video

  • Rider Linden is back on-call and investigating a couple of simulator crashers.
  • Leviathan Linden indicated that approval has been given for game_control to be included in the 26.5 viewer (set to be the last viewer release of 2026, once it surfaces).
    • At the time of the meeting, the game_control code still had to be merged into the 26.5 branch.
    • It has been suggested that the mouse cursor is hidden and hovertips are disabled when flycam is being used with a controller, and this is on Leviathan’s list of work to be done. He is also considering a sub-tab for future game_control options / toggles.
    • This led to another discussion on what game_control does (in short: allow game controller to be used with Second Life, including for moving vehicles, the avatar and camera and other typical game controller capabilities, etc.; however this does not support more advanced options such as virtual keyboards + provide some LSL support).
  • Harold Linden (Lua) continues to work on backwards compatibility with script serialisation which will hopefully be the end of any “breaking rolls” when deploying future Lua updates.
  • The engineering team is still trying to get a selection of regions put together specifically for region crossing testing.
    • When sorted, this will likely be available through a Snack RC channel, (that is, a mini-channel of regions intended for specific testing).
    • This work has been delayed by the focus on the ObjectUpdate UDP messages issue on Nectarine.
    • Leviathan Linden further noted that Pepper Linden has a proposal for patching their region crossing work to avoid the worry of any performance exploit at the server for misbehaving clients, as noted (again) in the previous Leviathan Office hours summary, linked-to above.
    • This led to the inevitable discussion on region crossing improvements & their availability.

General Discussion

Please refer to the video for details on the following:

  • A general discussion on avatars being able to pick-up object / grab object in-world (a goal the long-suspended Puppetry Project had hoped to achieve). The ran through the middle third of the meeting.

Date of Next Meetings

  • Leviathan Linden: Tuesday, October 6, 2026.
  • Formal SUG meeting: Tuesday, October 13, 2026.

Sheldon’s Visual Poetry in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sheldon Bergman: Daffodils, September 2026, SLEA2
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Many of us will probably recognise these words as the opening lines of William Wordsworth’s Daffodils, written in 1804 and first published in 1807. Now the poem is brought to life by Second Life’s master of visual poetry, Sheldon Bergman (SheldonBR) within his SLEA2 installation Visual Poetry.

I’ve covered Sheldon’s work in these pages, both in its own right and via his collaboration with Angelika Corrall as artists at and curators of the former DaphneArts Gallery in Second Life. I’ve always found Sheldon’s work to be visually and aurally engaging, rich in context and narrative, and so was only to happy to pop along to Visual Poetry ahead of the installation’s soft opening and at his invitation.

Sheldon Bergman: Daffodils, September 2026, SLEA2

Wordsworth’s poem forms the focal point of Visual Poetry, presenting visitors with the opportunity to both partake of a walk similar in nature to that which inspired Wordsworth to pen his poem and at the same time become immersed in the poem imagery, aided by the selected music (played via local sounds rather than via the audio stream).

The poem, often referred to by its opening line, came about as a result a walk taken by Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, around Glencoyne Bay in England’s Lake District in April 1802. Whilst walking, they came across s field of daffodils dancing and waving in the breeze, easily rivalling the flick and flow of ripples and wave on the waters of the Bay; their yellow twinkling across the green of the shoreline offering a sight as beautiful and captivating as the stars in the night’s sky.

It was a sight which became so fixed in the poet’s imagination that it would continue to lift his mood and chase away what otherwise might have been afternoons or evening of dark reflection set in solitude; instead lifting his spirit and allowing his thoughts to dance once more with the daffodil’s sway and turn his solitude into thoughts of joy.

Sheldon Bergman: Daffodils, September 2026, SLEA2

All of this is presented through Sheldon’s gently immersive installation. Experience-driven, visitors should, on arriving, touch the sign on the Landing Point wall and follow the instructions as presented for viewer settings and also accepting the Experience. The latter will then trigger the addition of the installation HUD and teleport visitors to the installation proper.

The main installation forms a landscape intended to evoke the rolling beauty of Glencoyne Bay and its shoreline. Theo building occupy the shore – the near being a small stone cabin, and the more distant a country chapel. Arrival will trigger the installation’s introduction on the HUD, followed by the music playback

The entire setting perfectly matches the poem’s intent, offering a scene of natural beauty in which daffodils are scattered across the green, rolling landscape, bring the opening lines of the poem to life. More than just a part of the setting as it sits amidst the daffodils and with sheep grazing in their field on the hill, the chapel is a reflection of Wordsworth’s own religious outlook, which grew from a conventional Anglican outlook common to his times to a more personal, nature-centric faith. The environment settings, meanwhile offer a touch of the vacant or pensive mood Wordsworth notes recollections of the daffodils helps him to escape.

Sheldon Bergman: Daffodils, September 2026, SLEA2
Where you go after hearing the poem matters not; this is very much an installation for wandering and quiet reflection and contemplation; for taking heart and joy in the beauty of nature as presented by the setting. The music selection is simply perfect, starting with Satie’s quite beautiful Gymnopédie No 1 (a personal favourite I enjoy playing myself), then continuing with Chopin and Mozart before finishing with Beethoven’s Für Elise (another personal favourite I enjoy playing).

It would be nice if the music continued or at least looped through the selected tracks rather than the single play-through,  and for the setting to perhaps offer one or two places to sit outside and allow the mind to flutter and dance in the breeze or enjoy the jocund company of a companion. But even without these, Daffodils is an engaging installation, fully reflective of Wordsworth’s poem and his Romanticism.

I don’t know if this will be the only poem presented within Visual Poetry or the start of a series. I would hope for the latter, as I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed Sheldon’s work – but I’m only too aware of the work involved in putting out an installation like this. In the meantime, Daffodils will have a soft opening at 14:00 SLT, Tuesday, September 29, 2026.

Sheldon Bergman: Daffodils, September 2026, SLEA2

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