Author: Inara Pey

Eclectic virtual world blogger with a focus on Second Life, VR, virtual environments and technology.

Lab Gab April 2024 Update: Mobile, Mirrors, Policies – summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

On Friday, April 19th, Linden Lab issued a pre-recorded segment of Lab Gab, intended to provide updates on various technical projects currently in progress – notably the SL Mobile app – and to provide a modest degree of update on policy matters in the wake of allegations levelled publicly and pseudonymously against the company and some of its employees and contractors, during the month of February 2024.

The video itself – which is embedded at the end of this article – is extensively indexed within its You Tube page. The following is a brief summary of the major (in my eyes) points raised in the segment, and offered as a quick reference summary for those interested.

SL Mobile – Status

[Video: 1:20-12:00]

  • Currently remains in Premium Plus closed alpha testing (Premium Plus members can sign-up for access to this alpha testing phase).
  • Work is in progress to expand access to Premium subscribers. However, this requires moving the app from the iOS (Test Flight) and Google Android testing infrastructure (where users have to be manually added to the test environments) to an environment where granting access can be handled on a more automated / streamlined basis, and this will take time to complete.
  • An update highlighting some of the more recent Mobile app features was issued on April 5th, 2024, and the week commence April 15th, 2024, saw an updated version of the app made available to those in the alpha test programme, which includes further bug fixes and updates – including the addition of deformer support, so quadruped / non-biped avatars render correctly in the app.

How Development of the Mobile App is Approached

[Video: 4:06-6:45]

  • SL Mobile development is being looked at in terms of what residents may want to do and the features required to achieve that.
  • Currently the focus is on users staying connected through notifications, being able to converse, etc., and the receipt (and response to) off-line IMs (which is said to have implications for Second Life in general, not just with regards to Mobile, with future updates on what is being done being promised.
  • Related to this is work on actually being able to do things – visit places, change outfits / looks / accessories, etc., and interact with objects.
  • In addition to providing features and capabilities for active users, Mobile is being thought of in terms of how to get “lapsed” users to re-engage with the platform. This work particularly requires the building-out of a set of capabilities to help such users re-engage with the platform and friends as smoothly as possible.

Mobile Q&A

[Video: 10:14-12:00]

(taken from questions submitted in advance, following the announcement of a Mobile update segment of Lab Gab originally scheduled for March 2024, but subsequently postponed.)

  • Will SL Mobile support HUDS – yes.
  • Create and build on Mobile? – longer-term it might be possible to provide a feature that allows some form of content creation on Mobile, but it will be limited. For “serious” content creation capabilities, the desktop viewer will still be required.
  • Voice support on Mobile – yes
  • Estate Management – maybe.
  • Mobile-specific capabilities (webcam, GPS, etc) – maybe.
  • Keyboard & mouse support – definite maybe.
  • Will Mobile be free or pay-to-access  – currently, there are no plans to charge for Mobile use, but ideas for making current subscription plans ore meaningful for those only accessing SL via the app are being considered.

glTF / PBR

[Video: 12:53-20:05]

Mirrors

  • A glTF “featurette” capability, providing real-time mirrors in Second Life (including avatar reflections).
  • Currently available for testing on Aditi (the Beta grid), but simulator support due to start limited deployment on Agni (the Main grid) during week#17 (commencing Monday, April 22nd), with viewer support (at the time of writing) available via the glTF Featurettes RC viewer.
  • In keeping with the new glTF features, leverage both reflection probes and the upcoming 2K texture support.
Signal Linden demonstrates the glTF mirror capability, which is about to become fully available in Second Life

2K Textures – including Fees

  • Full support for 2048×2048 textures.
  • To ensure there is no undue impact on performance given 2K textures have 4 time the area of current 1K textures, work has been put into streaming optimisation to ensure only the require MIP map is used with a textures (e.g. if the texture is 2K, but the surface it is being displayed on only requires 512K – then the 512K MIP map will be used, NOT the 2K MIP.
  • Fees for 2K texture uploads:
    • Basic / Plus account: L$50 per texture.
    • Premium account: L$40 per texture.
    • Premium Plus: L$10 per texture.
  • Viewer support will be provided separately to the Mirrors / PBR Terrain work, “soon”.

PBR Terrain

  • Provides support for PBR materials on SL terrain (including specular and normal map support).
  • Includes the use of 2K textures.
Materials applied to Second Life terrains. Credit: Linden Lab
  • Not only improves the texel density (resolution) for terrain, but also provides better blending between textures as terrain elevation changes.

General

  • Those wishing to see glTF mirrors and terrain support can do so by requesting access to Aditi (the beta grid) and visiting one of the following regions: Rumpus Room 2048; Rumpus Room 2049; Rumpus Room 2050 and Rumpus Room 2051.
  • However, (initially limited) deployment of back-end support for Mirrors and PBR Terrain on Agni (the Main grid) commenced on Wednesday, April 17th, using the Featurettes RC viewer available via the Alternate Viewers page. The supported regions have the same Rumpus Room names as given above, and I will be updating on this as a part of my SUG meeting summaries.
  • All of the glTF work is discussed at the Content Creation User Group – see the SL Public Calendar for the meeting dates – and I summarise meetings here.

Policy Updates with Keira Linden

[Video: 21:14-24:12]

Note: this section is in keeping with the statement by Linden Lab owner and Executive Chair, Brad Oberwager in light of allegations made with a pseudonymous article which appeared on a social journalise website in February 2024 (further commentary on this can be found here).

  • A reminder of the age requirements for Second Life:
    • Second Life is generally for adults (18 years or older).
    • 16-17 years are allowed, but only within General rated regions.
    • Second Life is not intended for anyone under the age of 16, except for students in the 13-15 year age range, who are restricted to regions operated by recognised / sponsoring educational organisations, and provided with access through a special registration process.
  • LL is keenly aware of the need not to expose minors to inappropriate content. As such, the age verification process for users entering second Life is to be strengthened, and further details on this will be made available soon.
  • Use of child avatars:
    • Linden Lab recognises that adults do role-play and present as child avatars in ways that are entirely without any form of sexualisation or in any way ageplay related, and the company has no intention to limit or prevent this kind of engagement.
    • However:
      • Child avatars should not be used to access or be near regions which have (or also have) adult-rated content / activities.
      • Consenting adults engaging in adult-oriented role-play with / using avatars presenting as children (aka “ageplay”) is not allowed – and will never be allowed – in Second Life, and the policy on this is strictly enforced.
    • In light of the recent allegations, the Lab is in the process of strengthening the child avatar policy, and the updated version will be rolled out soon. The intent of these changes is to ensure an even greater separation between the use of child avatars and adult-rated content in Second Life.
  • As well as the above, LL is looking to improve policies relating to conduct both within the broader Second Life community of users and within the company as well (e.g. how staff interact with the wider community, and policies relating to potential conflicts of interest / the perception of favouritism,  in the case of the latter).
  • A cross-department project is also underway to help with content moderation, both in-world and on the Marketplace.

Community Round Table

[Video: 24:14-25:17]

  • A new channel of communication to launch in May 2024.
  • Being seen as a more “general purpose” user group meeting type of forum where users can put forward their ideas on how to improve Second Life to executive members of Linden Lab’s leadership.
  • Details to be forthcoming soon.

 

2024 SL SUG meetings week #16 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grauland – Last Trees, April 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 16th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from my chat log and the video by Pantera – my thanks to her as always 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.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • They 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

  • The Main and the majority of RC channels will all be restarted this week (Tuesday / Wednesday) with no updates deployed.
  • The exception to this is the Preflight RC channel which will be updated on Wednesday, April 17th, with the back-end support for the the glTF updates available in the Graphics Featurettes viewer (e.g. PBR terrain textures and mirrors.
    • Note that this deployment is for testing only.
    • Support for 2K texture will not be enabled simulator-side as a part of the initial deployment, as these are awaiting a couple of fixes to clear QA. Ergo, support for 2K textures within the preflight channel will be enabled later.

Upcoming Deployments

  • Back-end support for WebRTC Voice will be next to be deployed, and this will likely go to a Snack RC channel.  See my Week #12 summary for an outline of WebRTC voice.
  • The upcoming Spring Break RC release (yet to go to RC) will have a fix for the hovering-at-login issue.

SL Viewer Updates

No updates to the official viewers currently in the pipeline, leaving them as:

  • Release viewer: version7.1.5.8443591509, formerly the Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version and issued March 29th, promoted April 9th.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance Y/Z RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history), version 7.1.6.8632452945, April 12.
    • Materials Featurettes RC viewer, version 7.1.5.8472515256, April 3
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.5.8443777128, April 2.
  • Project viewers:

In Brief

  • Teleports / region crossings: the question was asked as to which would have the greater performance impact: a avatar with 10 attachments, each of a single linked part in each, or an avatar with 1 attachments of 10 linked parts.
    • The reply from Monty Linden was that – outside of script considerations – the difference is liable to be negligible (scripts being the major performance hit in terms of region crossings / teleports).
  • A discussion on attachment point in general, including:
    • An increase to the maximum allowed attachments (38), primarily to help deal with issues as specified in this Feature Request, if providing a function as outlined in the Feature Request was not on the cards. However, it was felt by some that attachment counts should not be increased until the maximums for allowed worn prims / scripts are brought down to realistic figures and enforced.
    • A suggestion that a couple of attachment points by reserved specifically for Experiences.
    • A request for updates to the particle system to work with rigged attachments (removing the need unrigged particle prims). However, as the simulator does not track attachment points (which would be required for this to work), it was seen as not doable.
  • A request was made for LL to offer an LSL function so creators could clamp raycasts to the region edge in order to stop the end-points going off-region (/simulator) and causing errors.
    • Whilst seen as doable, it was felt that as raycasting should not have end points beyond a region’s boundaries, a better solution might be to identify and fix the underpinning bug that is allowing it.
    • Fixing the issue might also allow LL to implement the idea outlined in llVisualizeRay – A way to see Raycasts, but using llCastRay rather than adding a new LSL function.
  • Please refer to the video for:
    • A discussion on HTTP request throttling.
    • A discussion om script modules / libraries.
    • General thoughts on region crossings.

† 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.

2024 SL viewer release summaries week #15

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, April 14th, 2024

This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Release viewer: version7.1.5.8443591509, formerly the Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version and issued March 29th, promoted April 9th – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance Y/Z RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history), version 7.1.6.8632452945, April 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • Alchemy updated to version 7.1.4.2442 (Beta PBR build) April 12 – release notes

V1-style

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Grauland’s Last Trees in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grauland – Last Trees, April 2024 – click any image for full size

Jim Garand never fails to intrigue / please with his periodic re-designs of Grauland, his Homestead region. Since 2019 he has consistently offered environments for people to visit which have mixed themes and ideas in multiple ways – landscapes, art, architecture, history, mystery, science fiction, and so on.

As such, it is always a pleasure to drop in and witness what he has most recently created for people to enjoy. And for me, this is particularly true of the April 2024 edition of the region, which he has called Grauland – Last Trees, as it reminds me of one of my favourite – and potentially one of the most underrated classics of of the genre – science-fiction film, Silent Running.

Grauland – Last Trees, April 2024

The region does this in two ways. The first is that – like the film – it appears to offer a commentary on the environment and the damage being done to it by the human species. In this, the setting also perhaps echoes Waterworld, given it appears to be a lone outpost rising from an unending sea; but I’m sticking with Silent Running simply because of the two great biodomes sitting to the north and south of the outpost. If you’re familiar with the film, then it’s hard not to see these two massive geodesic structures of glass and steel and not think of Valley Forge and the precious cargo she and her sister ships carried in the home of one day replanting Earth.

Here, however, the domes do not protect woodlands or the fields of plants and all the insects and smaller animals vital to a healthy biosphere as seen in the film. Instead, each dome is home to a single giant oak rising from a sea of grass and spreading their boughs in defiance of the glowering sky outside of the gentle lights (and warmth, perhaps?) of the domes. But as with Silent Running, it would appear that this outpost, anchored to the bed of the shallow surrounding sea, is dedicated to the preservation of these two great trees and also to the renewal of plant-life to some degree, given the hydroponics farm located in the lower level of one of the great domes.

Grauland – Last Trees, April 2024

Whilst not out in the void of space near Saturn, Grauland’s outpost is crewed by people clearly trying to make the best of things – as were the crew of the Valley Forge. Part of the station is devoted to living quarters offering creature comforts and sitting over floating docks where jet skis and RHIBs are available for recreational enjoyment on the water (and yes, you can ride the jet skis), while lidos and floats bob on the water, suggesting swimming is also to be had. In this, the jet skis – for me – offered a further indirect link to the film, standing-in for the four-wheeled buggies Freeman Lowell and his colleagues used to let off steam as they raced around their cargo ship.

Sadly, Huey, Dewey and Louie are absent from Jim’s design – probably because the similarity to Silent Running is entirely of my own making -, but there are three android-like heads and upper bodies awaiting discovery instead. Quite what their purpose might be is for anyone visiting to guess. Perhaps, within their I, Robot-ish looks, they are the brains monitoring the station. You decide.

Grauland – Last Trees, April 2024

A series of landing pads, four of them occupied by hopper shuttles, suggest that flight is required to get to the station from elsewhere (wherever that might be), with two of the craft apparently for rescue / evacuation use. However, given a wheeled amphibious truck is hauling itself out of the water onto an elevator platform, there is also the suggestion that land of some kind might not actually be too far away.

If land is relatively close by, then the question must be asked what has happened to require a station such as this, dedicated as it seems to be, to the preservation of the two great oak trees and the growing of new plants (or trees)? Indeed, is this base actually on Earth at all – or are we perhaps somewhere else in the cosmos, a place sufficiently like Earth so as to support Earth-based animal (i.e. human) and plant life? In all of this Jim offers no clues, instead leaving the door of the imagination wide open to allow us to formulate our own ideas and stories about this place.

Grauland – Last Trees, April 2024

What is clear is that while the waters here might be shallow, they would appear to be wracked at times by storms of a sufficient enough violence to warrant sitting the majority of the base atop massive girder-like legs, presumably to lift the buildings, landing pads and so out wall out of the reach of ravaging waves and spray. It’s also clear that there is much to explore here as well – stairwells climb between levels, catwalks, ramps and gantries connect different areas, elevators offer ease of access to the water up to higher sections of the outpost for those who don’t fancy counting steps, and the crew quarters offer their own curiosities.

All told, another expressive and imaginative build by Jim, and one well worth visiting and exploring.

Grauland – Last Trees, April 2024

SLurl Details

 

 

 

2024 week #15: SL TPVD summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Morrigan’s Roadhouse, April 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, April 12th, 2024. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording the TPVD meeting and providing the video, which is embedded at the end of this article.

  • The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month  the third or fourth Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • In regards to meetings:
    • Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.
    • Commence at 13:00 SLT on their respective dates.
    • Are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
    • Are open to all with an interest in either content creation or viewer development.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of either meeting.

Official Viewers Status

[Video: 00:29-1:19]

  • Release viewer: version7.1.5.8443591509, formerly the Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version and issued March 29th, promoted April 9th.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance YZ RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history, version 7.1.6.8632452945, April 12.
    • Materials Featurettes RC viewer, version 7.1.5.8472515256, April 3.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.5.8443777128, April 2.
  • Project viewers:

General Viewer Notes

  • Maintenance X looks to be the next viewer in line for promotion.
  • The Graphics Featurettes viewer (PBR terrain and mirrors) is expected “soon”.
  • LUAU integration (client-side scripting API): still in the early stages, and not a lot available for testing via a test viewer or similar.

Graphics Update

[Video: 4:25-6:17]

  • A new glTF mesh importer has been made available via the content Creation Discord channel (which LL have requested I do not link to here – contact Vir Linden if you have a need to be on that channel) purely for the purposes of testing by content creators.
    • This allows for the importing and viewing of static glTF-compliant mesh models and seeing how the look in Second Life.
    • This is the first element within the “glTF Phase II” project.
  • Cosmic Linden is working on bug fixes for the PBR terrain support, and Geenz Linden is putting the finishing touches to mirrors, both in the expectation of a public-facing viewer being made available.
  • 2K textures is still subject to discussions on pricing, and may or may not surface in the Featurettes viewer’s initial release.
  • Simulator support for the upcoming Graphics featurettes is due to go the the Preflight channel in week #16. This will include 2K texture support, which will most likely be disabled pending a final decision on pricing, etc.

WebRTC Voice Update

[Video: 29:17-33:19]

  • See here for background.
  • A Project viewer is being put together, and this should be available viewer soon, and the code should be fairly stable.
  • Some testing has been carried out with WebRTC on Linux with good results.
  • Feature requests for WebRTC made via the WebRTC board on the SL Feedback Portal are being evaluated and some are being actioned, together with issues being investigated.
  • The test region webRTC1 (Aditi) now has an echo capability for testing WebRTC once the Project viewer is available (or for those on a test viewer).
  • There may well be a pile-on test at the WebRTC test regions as things progress to test the new voice capability – although this might be better suited to having a test region available on Agni.

In Brief

  • There have been requests to have meeting times across several of the User Group meetings altered to be more accessible to Europeans or for those elsewhere in the US, etc. These requests are under consideration within the various user groups where they have been raised.
    • It was also noted that it would be useful if the Agenda sections of the wiki pages for User Groups were actually maintained, so that people can at least see what is up for discussion from LL’s side ahead of meetings, to help in making informed opinions on whether or not to attend.
  • [Video: 18:48-23:22] Featurettes flags:
    • It was noted that the plan for viewer projects going forward is to utilise the idea of featurette flags (as with the Graphics Featurette viewer) and have capabilities / functions new to the viewer placed behind flags (debug settings) managed via the simulator.
    • This is a reversal of the “old” mechanism for viewer features, which was led by the view making specific UDP message requests to the simulator for specific feature capabilities / function, and the simulator then respond on a request-by-request basis.
    • The advantage of this is that it potentially allows for faster viewer development iteration: features can be added to project / RC viewers and placed behind flags potentially allowing for testing on Aditi, rather than having to wait for months (/years) for a project-related viewer to surface with everything in pace and then only get actual user testing.
    • The disadvantage is communicating what in the viewer code might be tested and what is awaiting the setting of a flag from the simulator.
    • As such, LL are aware of the need for clear communications with TPVs on projects, code, and flags.
  • A general discussion on UDP message formats.

Next Meeting

† 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 gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

Do You Like Gold? in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

It has been a couple of years since I had the opportunity to visit and write about an installation by Gem Preiz in Second Life – the last time being in 2022, when I reviewed Exoplanet: One Step Further. So it was with a degree of expectation that I dropped into Selen’s Gallery to visit Gem’s Do You Like Gold?, an exhibition of work that is part museum, part retrospective, part homage to the humble prim and a delight for those who enjoy miniatures and Gem’s work.

I’ve followed Gem’s work for a fair number of years now, having first written about Cathedral Dreamer all the way back in 2014. Whilst primarily focused on 2D work in those earlier days, Gem also worked with 3D elements, his exhibitions frequently staged within 3D environments he specifically built for them, and included 3D components to help enhance the stories he folded into many of his installations – narrative also being an important part of his work (just consider Heritage: Vestiges and Heritage: Wrecks as examples of this narrative aspect).

Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

In more rent years, Gem’s work has shifted to bring his love of architecture to the fore in 3D installations of the most marvellous kind, with his fractal works often taking on more of the supporting role – or in some cases, tucked away as easter eggs awaiting discovery. 2020’s Arcadia is a good example of this, together with the impressive Skyscrapers of the same year.

Within Do you Like Gold? Gem takes us on something of a retrospective of a number of his more 3D-centric installations – notably Demiurge, Skyscrapers and Arcadia – in the form of reproductions of some of the structures used in those installations, which here have been given a gold leaf effect finish. Each structure is presented on its own plinth, together with notes on both its inspiration from the physical world and details on the installation(s) in which it appeared.

Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

Offered at scals of 1/40th, 1/25 and 1/10th, some with the flying vehicles Gem provided within them to help give a sense of scale, the models sit as graceful reminders that, in an age of mesh there is still much to be said for the beauty which can be achieved via the humble prim and prim linkset.

What I particularly like about this installation is the manner in which the individual structures displayed within it allow us to fully appreciate how Gem has taken his love of architectural masterpieces in the physical world – those both built and imagined and freely interpreted them within his various installations. It may not have been obvious, for example, that both 2018’s Demiurge and 2020’s skyscrapers incorporated the proposed Bride Tower (Basra, Iraq), or the likes of the Hotel de la Marine (Paris) or the US Capitol Building in Washington D.C. lay tucked away within Arcadia.

Selen’s Gallery, April 2024: Gem Preiz – Do You Like Gold?

Hence why Do You Like Gold is so multi-faceted as an installation – and worth taking the time to visit. And should you do so, be sure to give it a decent amount of time; not all of the miniatures within it are as static as they might appear to be; courtesy of a rezzing system they will change.

SLurl Details