Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, June 8th, 2025
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.
Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.
Second Life Project glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – NEW.
This is an early Alpha release with some of the rough edges and already resolved many bugs and crashes, although more are to be found, together with general feedback from the community. Please read the release notes if you intend to test this viewer.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 – No Change.
Kokua: 7.1.14.57095 (no RLV) and 7.1.14.60779 (RLV variants) (2025.03), June 7 – release notes.
V1-style
No updates.
Mobile / Other Clients
SL Mobile (Beta) version 2025.5.550 (A) – June 4 / 0.1.548 (iOS) – June 5 (Further avatar rendering improvements; improvements to the v-stick controller – size, position and visibility; new water shader + a new setting “Use New Water”; setting to enable/disable automatic log-in; iOS: fix for an intermittent crash when opening Second Life Maps links).
The Hakuto-R lander Resilience with micro-rover TENACIOUS visible, undergoing final preparations at a JAXA facility in Tsukuba, Japan prior to being shipped to Kennedy Space Centre. Credit: ispace/JAXA
Japan’s ispace Inc., made its second attempt to place an automated lander on the surface of the Moon in the early hours (UTC) of June 6th, but unfortunately, things did not go well.
The Hakuto-R Mission 2, for which the lander was given the name Resilience, was a follow-up to the company’s first attempt to become the first Japanese private company to place a lander on the Moon in April 2023. That mission came to an abrupt end when the on-board flight computer disagreed with the vehicle’s radar altimeter and kept the vehicle in a hover some 5 km above the lunar surface until propellants were exhausted, and the vehicle made a final uncontrolled descent and impact.
Working with US partners, ipsace has been developing the Hakuto-R programme as a payload delivery service for customers involved in the lunar exploration industry, and also NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) designed to allow commercial organisations engage with the US space agency primarily in support of Project Artemis. In this respect, both the Mission-1 vehicle lost in 2023 together with this latest lander, were regarded as technology demonstrators, although both carried meaningful payloads.
Resilience was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 15th, 2025, and followed a similar low-energy 5-month passage to the Moon as it forbear, gradually increasing its orbit around Earth before translating over to a lunar trajectory and entering orbit around the Moon on May 6th. On May 28th, the lander performed a final orbital control manoeuvre to enter a 100 km circular orbit above the Moon, targeting its intended landing site in the middle of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold), in the far north of the Moon, selected as it provides direct line-of-sight communications with Earth.
The aim of the mission was to successfully land and carry out several studies, including an in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) demonstration. It was also hoped the lander would deploy TENACIOUS, a European-built, small-scale rover weighing just 5 kg onto the surface of the Moon, which in turn carried a tiny model of a “Moonhouse”, a piece of art by Swedish artist Mikeal Genberg, as the culmination of a 25-year inspirational art project.
Mikael Genberg’s Moonhouse mounted on the front of the micro-rover Tenacious. Credit: ispace / JAXA
The initial descent of the 2.3m by 2.3m lander from lunar orbit appeared to go well. However, telemetry from the lander stopped one minute and 45 seconds before the scheduled touchdown, apparently due to an equipment malfunction.
A preliminary review of the flight data received on Earth suggests that the lander’s laser rangefinder experienced delays IN measuring the probe’s distance to the lunar surface. As a result, the lander’s descent motor failed to operate in sufficient time to decelerate to the required velocity for a safe landing, and the craft impacted the lunar surface in what ipsace refers to as a “hard landing”, meaning it is unlikely to have survived the event in any condition to proceed with its planned mission.
A simulation of ispace’s Resilience lander during its lunar landing attempt on June 5, 2025. Credit: ispace
The loss of the vehicle is a double disappointment for ispace. Not only is it their second failure to land on the Moon, Resilience shared its launch ride with US-based Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1. That craft took a similar but faster route to the Moon, allowing it to make a successful landing on March 2nd, 2025, becoming the first commercial lunar lander to do so and commence operations (see: Space Sunday: A landing, a topple, a return and another failure).
ispace are scheduled to deliver a much larger lander vehicle to the Moon in 2027, the APEX 1.0 lander, massing some 2 tonnes. This, with a follow-on mission the same year, is intended to establish ispace’s ability lander as a cost-effective, high lunch frequency craft capable of delivering multiple payloads to the Moon.
Blue Origin Reveals More on Lunar Landers and Transporter
In late May, Blue Origin provided an update on its hardware plans for supporting a human presence on the Moon, going into more detail about its Mark 1 and Mark 2 landers, and its all-important Transporter.
Contracted to develop and supply a crew-capable lunar lander as a part of NASA’s Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) contract within Project Artemis, Blue Origin is already well advanced with that vehicle (when compare to that of the SpaceX Starship-derived lander vehicle, which is supposed to be ready to fly next year), which is due to be used in the Artemis 5 mission, currently slated for 2030. Standing 16.3 metres tall and with a diameter of 3.8 metres with the ability to support up to 4 astronauts on the Moon for up to 30 days, that vehicle is called Blue Moon Mk 2, and much of its nature is already a matter of public record.
The Blue Moon Mk 2 crewed lander. Credit: Blue Moon
What is new to the mix, as revealed by John Couluris, Senior VP of Lunar Permanence at Blue Origin, speaking at a lunar symposium, is the confirmation that the company is going ahead with a cargo version of the Mk 2 lander.
This vehicle, which will replace the crew habitat facilities with payload space, is to have the ability to deliver up to 22 tonnes to the lunar surface if reused, or 30 tonnes if flown one-way – enough to deliver habitat modules to the Moon. It will join the company’s Blue Moon Mk 1 cargo vehicle to offer a flexible approach to delivering payloads to the Moon, the 8 metre tall Mk 1 having a payload capability of 3 tonnes.
The Mk 1 lander has also been in development for some time, and the first vehicle is currently due to fly to the Moon before the end of 2025. If successful, it will become the largest vehicle to land on the Moon to date with a mass of 21 tonnes, and the first lander to do so using cryogenic propulsion. A second Mk 1 lander is also under construction.
Blue Origin’s lunar lander family — the Mark 1 and Mark 2 vehicles. Credit: Blue Origin
Transporter is now the name formally given to the Cislunar Transporter Blue Origin originally indicated they would be developing with Lockheed Martin. This would have been a two-stage vehicle, comprising a propulsion unit and a cryogenic fuel storage tank, each launched separately into low-Earth orbit (LEO) by Blue Origin’s New Glenn launcher, prior to them mating and the tank being filled with cryogenics delivered by further New Glenn Launches. The propulsion unit would then deliver the tank to cislunar space, allowing it to refuel landers operating between there and the lunar surface.
Under the new design, Blue Origin will be progressing Transporter on their own, and the vehicle will now be a combined propulsion unit and cryogenic propellant store capable of being launched atop a single New Glenn rocket. Once in orbit, the tanks would again be filled by propellants delivered by the upper stages of other New Glenn rockets. Just how many additional launches to do this will be required has not been made clear, but the intent is to have Transporter capable of delivering 100 tonnes of cryogenic propellants to cislunar space – and 30 tonnes to Mars.
A rendering of Blue Origin’s Transporter in low-Earth orbit. Credit: Blue Origin
However, one of the complications in using cryogenic propellants in lunar (and Mars) missions is that that of boil-off. Propellants like liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and liquid methane need to be kept extremely cold to avoid them turning to gas, thus increasing their volume and necessitating them being vented to avoid over-pressurising their containers. This is bad enough on Earth where the ambient temperatures aren’t that high; in space and direct sunlight, the problem is dramatically multiplied. One way of slowing the process is to slowly rotate the vehicle so that the same side is not always towards the Sun – a so-called barbeque roll – but it is limited in effect. Another is to add masses of insulation, but at the cost of payload capabilities.
Blue Origin is attempting to solve the issue by working with NASA to develop “zero-boiloff” technology capable of keeping both liquid hydrogen and liquid hydrogen – their preferred propellants – below their boiling points (−250.2 °C and −183 °C respectively). The company is currently testing this hardware within a thermal vacuum chamber, and Couluris indicated the company plan to start flight-testing the capability towards the end of 2025. If it works, and can maintain the required temperatures within large volumes of cryogenic propellants, it could be a major step in lunar operations.
Cruz to the Rescue?
On Friday, June 5th, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, on Friday (June 5) unveiled the Committee’s legislative directives for Senate Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill, with the aim of bolstering NASA’s budget in the face of massive cuts by the White House.
Well, at least the human spaceflight programme. The science programme gets barely a nod.
Geared as “beating China to the Moon and Mars” and ensuring “America dominates space”, the Committee calls for almost US $10 billion in supplemental funding for NASA, which would target:
Continued funding of the Space Launch System (SLS) through to Artemis 5, without impacting the “on-ramping” of commercial crew launch alternatives (US $4.1 billion).
Continued support for the development of Moon-orbiting Gateway station (US $2.6 billion).
US $700 million for the procurement of a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter to take over primary Earth-Mars communications.
US $20 million to complete the fourth of the planned Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicles (MPCV)
US $1.25 billion over five years to fully and properly fund International Space Station (ISS) operations through until its decommissioning.
Procurement of an ISS De-orbit Vehicle from SpaceX (US $325 million).
US $1 billion for infrastructure improvements at the following NASA facilities: Johnson Space Centre – $300 million; Kennedy Space Centre – $250 million; Stennis Space Centre – $120 million; Marshall Space Flight Centre – $100 million; Michoud Assembly Facility – $30 million; $100 million for “infrastructure needed to beat China to Mars and the Moon”
The US $1 billion in infrastructure spending is around one-fifth of the estimated cost of clearing the backlog of improvements required at all of NASA’s centres, and (again) completely ignores the Earth and Space Science centres. Further, all of the above would be phased-in over a 3-year period, commencing in 2026 and running through 2029.
EscaPADE Mission Gets Launch Opportunity
NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission, a pair of smallsats destined for Mars should have been launched in October 2024 as part of the payload for the maiden flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn booster. However, NASA opted to remove the mission from that launch in September 2024, when it became apparent the New Glenn wouldn’t be ready to launch within the window required for the mission to reach Mars.
Since then, the mission has been awaiting a launch opportunity, with NASA looking at options for in 2025 and 2026 using complex trajectories that would enable the smallsats to reach Mars in 2027. One such potential launch opportunity is summer 2025, the period Blue Origin are looking towards for the next New Glenn launch.
The twin EscaPADE spacecraft in a clean room at Rocket Lab, the company responsible for building them on behalf of NASA, prior to being shipped to Kennedy Space Centre. Credit: Rocket Lab
These plans were stated as being aspirational at the start of May 2025, but a line NASA fiscal Year 2026 budget released by the White House on May 30th, provided the first confirmation that NASA is very much looking at an opportunity to launch this year.
Due to delays in the development schedule of the Blue Origin New Glenn launch vehicle, NASA is in the process of establishing an updated schedule and cost profile to enable this mission to ride on the second launch of New Glenn. The ESCAPADE launch readiness date is expected in Q4 FY 2025
– NASA Budget document, May 30th, 2025
Thus far, beyond saying it is hope to make the second flight with New Glenn in summer and are open to payload options (or flying a payload simulator), Blue Origin has said nothing about the overall status for the vehicle to be used in the flight. However, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission requesting the use of certain ground frequencies from July 1st, indicate that the company intend to commence ground testing of the booster that month.
Blériot Plage, June 2025 – click on any image for full size
In 1909, on a broad stretch of sand just outside of Calais, a new-fangled flying machine took to the air shortly after sunrise on July 25th. Heading out over the English Channel, it followed the French naval vessel Escopette as it steamed towards the English coast. Aboard the vessel was Alice Blériot. Flying the aeroplane – one of his own designs – was her husband, Louis Blériot, on his way to becoming the first man to fly across the English Channel in an aeroplane.
Flying at 76 metres above the water and without a compass, Blériot quickly passed his naval “escort”, reaching the English coast after a little over 30 minutes. The weather and wind hadn’t been entirely helpful and he reached the coast somewhat further east of where he intended, forcing him the follow the Dover cliffs to find his landing zone.
Blériot Plage, June 2025
Fortunately, his colleague, Charles Fontaine, had travelled to England in advance to locate a suitable place for the aeroplane to land. He’d carried with him a large French Tricolour, which he waved as a signal as Blériot approached, allowing the pioneer to make a successful – if heavy – landing not far from Dover Castle after a total flight time of 36.5 minutes. Thus, Blériot became the first man to make a powered flight across the Channel, claiming a £1000 prize (over £130,000 today) in the process.
However, it might have been otherwise. Six day before Blériot, his fellow Frenchman, Hubert Latham set out from Cap Blanc-Nez not far from the sands of Sangatte. Unfortunately, just 13 km after taking off, Latham’s aeroplane suffered an engine failure, and he instead became celebrated as the first person to land an aeroplane on the sea.
Blériot Plage, June 2025
So it is that today the sands from which Blériot took-off are called Blériot Plage (Blériot Beach). They also serve as the inspiration for another superb region setting by Jade Koltai. I’ve admired Jade’s work for years, covering many of her region designs in these pages, and her Blériot Plage continues this tradition.
A part of a chain of beaches running west from Calais, the modern Blériot Plage is backed by the town’s suburbs, and presents a popular destination for holiday makers. Little chalets line the beach in almost neat rows set back from the high tide mark. Grassy dunes separate the beach from the nearby houses and roads, but there is no mistaking the beach is not far from civilisation.
Blériot Plage, June 2025
Jade’s Blériot Plage, takes the familiar elements of its namesake – notably the rows of chalets and wide sands – but presents them with a marvellous sense of the remote, a place of beauty clearly popular to those who know it, but isolated enough to feel far from anywhere – and all the more romantic for it. Neatly merging with the sandy dunes of a region surround on three sides, the north side of the region is open to the sea, the sands wide and soft, the Sun low on the horizon.
The Landing Point sits as a car park close to the mouth of a tunnel, giving the impression of having just arrived after a road trip. A short path through the nearest dunes leads to the beach proper with its rows of white-painted chalets remarkably similar to those found on the actual beach.
Blériot Plage, June 2025
Signs warn about feeding the seagulls and cleaning up behind your dog while the self-same seagulls turn overhead or stand on vantage points looking for the opportunity to swoop and grab an easy snack. Across the sands are places to sit – deck chairs, ordinary chairs, blankets, family play areas – whilst off to one side the bulk of a much darker time in the history of France – of Europe as a whole – raises itself from behind the dunes and broods silently. As one stares out towards the lowering Sun, a coaster from some nearby port chugs it way past the beach, belching smoke but otherwise leaving the scene undisturbed.
In all, another outstanding setting from Jade, not to be missed.
The following notes were taken from my chat transcript + the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this summary) of the Third-Party Developer meeting (TPVD) held on Friday, June 6th, 2025. My thanks to Pantera as always for providing it.
Meeting Purpose
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 on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are generally conducted in text chat.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.
Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers. This does not support generic mentions such as @everyone or @here.
My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
Build Floater improvements: increase to scale boundaries; Physics Material Type now updates when selecting linked objects; Repeats per Meter value no longer incorrect for non-uniform sized objects.
Hover height: the minimum/maximum is now +/- 3 meters.
Snapshot floater: L$ balances can be hidden independently of the rest of the UI.
Preference Search bar: general usability and readability improvements.
Refer to the release notes for full updates and fixes.
Second Life Project glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – NEW.
This is an early Alpha release with some of the rough edges and already resolved many bugs and crashes, although more are to be found, together with general feedback from the community. Please read the release notes if you intend to test this viewer.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 – No Change.
glTF Mesh Uploader
The GLTF Mesh Uploader will be the next viewer release, although it doesn’t as yet have a new-format version number.
It is now available on the Alternate Viewers Page (and the version current at the time of writing is linked-to above).
The initial release is regarded as a “pretty rough cut”, with fixes already streaming into the code branch such that there is likely to be an update within the week.
Those trying the initial release should be aware that rigged mesh import in particular is in an “iffy state” for some of the more complex avatars.
As the next planned release, it will be merged-up to the Develop branch shortly – so if anyone would like to get some PRs in now would be a really good time to do that.
Test Items
Linden Lab is seeking content content creators who would be willing to contribute items for testing. Specifically, the Lab is seeking:
Rigged meshes only – unrigged content is not required at this time.
Everything from the most basic avatar mesh to complex bento, fitted, etc. meshes, clothing and Animesh is welcome.
However, avatars with onion layers should not be submitted. If possible, merge such avatars into a singular mesh with rigging in order to help simplify the Lab’s debugging work.
Content should be supplied in both glTF and COLLADA.DAE formats, to allow for A/B testing.
Content files should be sent to gltf@lindenlab.com.
glTF Uploader “Phase 2”
A “reunification” of the various asset import flows, focused on under-the-hood work with the import pipeline.
It used to be that assets like sounds, animations, images, etc., were uploaded through a single API when uploaded, but since the arrival of mesh, new asset upload types have diverged from the “common” flow to use their own.
The idea now is to provide a single API to get things from a creator’s computer and in-world to simplify the upload process.
According the CCUG meeting, this work will include an improved preview capability, providing more representative of what creators can expect to see under a set of EEP parameters, etc.
The ability to preview items in-world on Agni (the main grid) prior to upload will not be provided. However, there is still Aditi (the beta grid) for this.
It is also hoped that the import flow can be made easier to understand for existing and new content creators (e.g. providing a better preview; having things laid out in a way that makes potential problems more obvious, etc.).
In Brief
Switching away from OpenGL: this has not been mentioned for a while, and currently, it looks like LL is going to use an existing API abstraction, so as to allow Apple Metal to be targeted as well. The API mentioned was “something based off of NVIDIA’s Slang API” – with a note that hopes of getting “something potato friendly” is low.
However, there has been no firm decision, and alternatives were suggested in the meeting, so things are still up in the air.
Signal Linden requested feedback on the idea of deprecating and removing Navmesh characters / llCreateCharacter (i.e. Pathfinding).
I don’t state the idea lightly, and I understand its low adoption is partially due to a complex and buggy implementation. However, I pulled some data and it appears we have 1,900 navmesh characters across the entire grid. Half of those are ours (Think LL experiences.) There are 6 user-owned regions with more than 10 characters… This is very low usage. I haven’t seen any major merchants release notable content with the system due to its unreliability: but please correct me if I’m wrong.
– Signal Linden
Those at the meeting didn’t object to the idea.
An alternate approach (“more nuanced” as Signal Linden referred to it, once raised) suggested was to leave server-side the functionality in place and just drop the viewer side, until such time as new ways to handle Pathfinding could be developed.
Signal repeated that there are benefits (Pathfinding accounts for a lot of simulator-side code), but that not decision has been made as yet, he is seeking feedback.
The subject of Havok in the viewer was raised (used for both Pathfinding and mesh decomposition), with suggestions to replace Havok with the open source HACD library or VHACD (or similar newer implementation), were this to be done.
A suggestion was made for TPV developers to bring a HACD / VHACD to the viewer as a code contribution.
The above lead to a wider discussion on textures (slightly sidetracked by a complaint over the cost of 2K texture uploads for non-Premium + members), and related issues of texture loads on GPUs with limited VRAM, texture crushing, etc., which continued through the latter part of the 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.
IMAGOLand Galleries, June 2025: Ciambi Bluebird – Bluebird Blues
I’ll be honest, I’d been totally unaware of the photographic art of Ciambi Bluebird, so I was highly appreciative of Mareea Farrasco’s invitation to view his exhibition at her IMAGOLand galleries, which opened at the end of May 2025.
Bluebird Blues is an engaging collection of 24 large-format pieces displayed within a gallery space utilising PBR (the art can still be appreciated if you are not running a PBR viewer), which are totally captivating in in their depth and realism. The majority are landscape pieces taken from around Second Life, with four more avatar-centric pieces, and one abstract geometry.
IMAGOLand Galleries, June 2025: Ciambi Bluebird – Bluebird Blues
The latter are all contemplative pieces: the lone figure standing or seated, not looking at the camera, but staring into the distance or with their back to the lens. They are presented with names designed to provoke, in the most natural and subtle ways, an emotional reaction in the part of the observer. All four engage, but I did find myself drawn to You Are What You Is for its sheer brilliance of setting, framing, and pose. It is stunningly beautiful and richly emotive.
The artistry evidence in the landscape pieces is equally as striking. Ciambi’s use of focus, depth of field, angle, EEP selection and post-processing is all simply attention-grabbing, resulting on pictures of incredible beauty and sense of vitality. Each has its own story to tell, given in part by its title, but far more by the manner in which its composition draws the eye in to it, again sometimes in quite a subtle manner – as with Fly, where the subject of the piece might be so easily missed on a first glance but once seen, causes the pictures beauty to literally explode.
IMAGOLand Galleries, June 2025: Ciambi Bluebird – Bluebird Blues
Offered for sale and with Modify permissions for resizing, these are pieces capable of gracing anyone’s SL home. An exhibition not to be missed.
Campwich Forest grounds: location for the Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG)
The following notes were taken from the Thursday, June 5th 2025 Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG) meeting. These notes should not be taken as a full transcript of the meeting, which was largely held in Voice, but rather a summary of the key topics discussed. The meeting was recorded by Pantera, and her video is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks, as always to her in providing it.
The Mobile User Group provides a platform to share insights on recent mobile updates and upcoming features, and to receive feedback directly from users.
These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
The last Thursday of every month at 12:00 noon SLT.
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.
Version: 2025.5.550 (Android) – June 4; 0.1.548 (iOS) – June 5, 2025.
Avatar rendering:
A further fix to rotational movement on attachment bones. This will fix some avatars and attachments on avatars.
“Pivot” offsets as well as “pos” offsets are now handled when considering when to ignore a deformer. This should fix a few more cases of avatars rendering incorrectly.
Improvements to the v-stick controller – size, position and visibility.
Addition of a new water shader along with a new setting “Use New Water” that defaults to enabled.
A new setting so you can choose to enable or disable automatic log-in.
The new Settings options for automatic log-in (Settings → General) and to use the improved water rendering (Settings → Developer Tools)
iOS Specific:
SL Mobile now requires iOS 13 or newer
A fix for an intermittent crash when opening Second Life Maps links (release 0.1.548).
Comments on the Updates
The avatar appearance fixes were the result of issues around deformers identified too late to make the previous update release. These were related to:
Meshes having embedded deformers which weren’t being handled correctly.
Some of the default deformers which should ignore bone positions being “incorrectly” handled, mainly as a result of “some confusion” within the desktop viewer over which value to read when ignoring deformers, and this had to be replicated in the Mobile app to get it to handle those deformers as expected when compared to the desktop viewer.
With the exception one one possible bug fix, there will now be a pause in avatar fixes and updates while the focus of work switches back towards rendering and merging-in / testing a number of changes and improvements, including how long avatars remain in silhouette (transparent), amount of content displayed, etc.
Water improvements: the water shader has been updated to more closely match the desktop viewer, notably in low-lighting conditions.
A release to iOS in May 2025 added the ability to make Linden Dollar purchases through the App. This includes support for all payment methods supported by Apple.
iOS has received this capability first, as Apple required LL to add it within a certain time frame.
In-app purchases of Linden Dollars is on the roadmap for Android, but LL would rather focus on feature development, particularly given the limited ways in which L$ can be spent through the app at present.
LL acknowledge that in order to be a useful companion app, SL Mobile needs to be able to access all of a user’s conversations (chat), IMs, group messages etc., regardless of receipt when using the app, offline or using the desktop viewer.
As all of the above are currently locally stored by the viewer on the client computer. In order to be available across both desktop and Mobile, some form of cloud storage needs to be considered, which requires he building of an API and the provisioning of security to ensure only the designated user can access their chat and IM logs, etc.
Some cloud storage has been created to handle the same for Mobile, but it is limited.
A further complication is the desire to have users be able to log-in to the Lobby on Mobile without and in-world presence, thus potentially allowing for simultaneous access via the desktop viewer, which would require sharing of chat and histories, etc., between the two in order for them to remain in synch.
As such, the capability is not easy to implement and requires careful consideration, utilising multiple resources at LL (Mobile team, Server team, the teams that own the chat and IM, etc., services). Given this, while it will be coming in the future, there is currently no time-line as to when.
There have been numerous requests for SL Mobile to support maps – both the World map and the Mini-Map.
As both the Mini-Map and the World map serve different functions, both were seen by those at the meeting as being useful to have.
It was also noted that the major reasons given: finding locations and teleporting (World) and seeing who is nearby (Mini), are use cases that do not necessarily require a map in order to be solved, if alternate mechanisms could be provided (e.g. a “nearby people” list).
For provisioning a World map style of solution, one option might be to use the web map system (although, as noted at recent Web User Group meetings, this does need some TLC in its own right), which would avoid the need for in-app map rendering.
Web maps already work with Mobile: use them via the browser on your device and TP links will open in Mobile.
[Video: 21:51-26:25] Continuous log-in – the ability to have a avatar logged-in Mobile all the time, without necessarily appearing as on-line, and able to receive and respond to messages etc.
Seen as positive by those at the meeting, with the caveat that there is the ability to maintain a full chat history, etc., between both Mobile and desktop.
This also included the suggestion of allowing users to save their chat logs, etc., to their own cloud storage and access it from both desktop and Mobile.
[Video: 26:30-28:23] Switching accounts: there have apparently been requests to make switching between accounts on Mobile “easier”.
General consensus was that switching accounts on Mobile is no worse than on the desktop viewer.
A suggestion of having multiple account be able to use Mobile and access the Lobby for messaging purposes would be useful.
[Video: 28:34-29:25] Clarification was given that the Mobile Team are looking at chat/message histories, continuous log-in and switching accounts as a set of deliverables that could be made together in some form, and were looking for indicators that they would be well-received by users.
[Video 33:50-34:55] The Mobile app can (at least for some, myself included) hang when loading the Lobby. The screen will simply freeze for multiple seconds (sometimes into double-digits). There is no clear cause for this, but might be related to network connectivity issues, which are due to be looked at, with those experiencing the problem asked to submit feedback through the app.
[Video: 35:44-37:04] PBR support – this is pending the rendering work, which should help optimise memory use to allow PBR support + one other piece of work. When done should be close to the desktop implementation.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 