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, in a mix of Voice and text chat.
- Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.
Official Viewer Status
- Default viewer 26.4.0.37384746592, October 13.
- Lua scripting support (on regions with Lua scripting enabled).
- Improved communication between the Viewer and the newly published Second Life VS Code extension.
- Offers an experimental Linux viewer build.
- Includes the latest WebRTC Voice and viewer-maintenance updates.
- Second Life Chat Modernisation viewer 26.5.0.40714792196, October 29.
General Viewer Notes
- There are further fixes inbound for the 26.5 Chat Modernisation viewer, so a updating should be surfacing in the next week, with the focus remaining on getting this promoted up to release status ASAP.
- Gneez indicated LL might try to get a Maintenance viewer out before the end of 2026.
- Graphics Care Package (GCP) viewer: discussions continue on where in the queue this sits, but still looks to be no earlier than 2027 Quarter 1 (January-March time).
- Specular maps are in with GCP, as is IoR; however, Geenz is still working on glTF transmission.
- Geenz also indicated that in the wake of the rising number on vibe-coded / AI-assisted viewers, the Lab is reviewing its third-party viewer policy. more information on this might be available at the next Open Source User Group meeting on Friday, November 13 at 13:00 SLT.
SL Wiki News
- The SL Wiki update has completed. This brings a new default theme, more moderation tools and brings it one stop closer to re-opening contributor access to all registered SL accounts.
- Those who have already volunteered to help moderate please keep an eye out for further communications about helping.
- While not the main reason for the update the wiki now supports SVG as well.
General Discussions
- There was an aggressive exchange on the use of LLMs, vibe / Claude coding, etc., within both client-side viewer and on the back-end.
- Geenz has put together the LSL definitions for scripts on the new EEP parameters. These are undergoing internal testing, and he hopes that when ready, he’ll be able to establish a test region on Aditi (the Beta grid) for broader testing.
- A general to-and-fro on custom rigs (for the future) blend shapes (ideas for this, but nothing ready for showing) – all of a similar nature to discussions in past CCUG meetings. On this, Geenz noted:
We still need to figure out what needs doing on the server – of course we’d like to have blendshape parameters scriptable and such. And then there’d be mapping to the system blendshapes. So there’s a bit of a list of things we’re eyeing up.
- The above drifted into recollections of the now dormant / deceased Puppetry Project and what it did / did not have – with a note from Geenz that insofar as IK (Inverse Kinematics) are concerned – these will be required for LL to get animation retargeting working with custom skeletons.
- It was asked if there would ever be support for support additional/custom material shaders such as pearlescent and clearcoat. Geenz sees this being possible through the GCP viewer, through specular maps and IOR.
- The above sparkled a discussion of other possible additions to PBR – or at least, “nice to haves”, e.g. iridescence and displacement maps; Geenz noted that whilst some are under consideration, every new addition adds time to the Vulkan port.
- Geenz has been working “on the side” on some automatic LOD experiments for mesh uploads. He is ruminating on getting this work wired up into the mesh importer sometime in the coming releases to allow for testing.
- This work has notably involved poking at existing and fit-for-purpose LOD generators in games supporting user-generated content (UGC).
- The aim is to allow people to provide their own LODs if they wish, whilst also having the means to generate meaning LODs automatically more easily without having to use LL’s current “hopelessly terrible LOD generator”.
- This new approach will initially be at upload, with Geenz noting,/a>:
I do want to eventually have all objects be subject to auto LOD past a certain point, but that’d need to be after we ship mesh modernization or potentially with it.
Next Meeting
- 13:00 SLT, Thursday, November 19, 2026, at the Hippotropolis Campsite.
