Category: News-Opinion

Firestorm is (SL) Go – and across multiple grids!

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL go logoImportant note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.

On Tuesday, December 16th, 2014, OnLive, the providers of the Second Life streaming service, SL Go, announced a new addition to the SL Go service: The Firestorm Viewer.

The announcement follows several months of collaboration between the Firestorm Team, lead by Jessica Lyon, and the folk at OnLive, lead by Dennis Harper, the results of which now mean that with immediate effect, SL Go now provides a choice of TWO viewers to subscribers and users:

  • The existing SL viewer – which OnLive are referring to as “SLV” – can be used from any Mac computer, PC, and from Android devices and iPads to access Second Life
  • AND The Firestorm viewer, initially available for Mac computers and PCs, which can be used to access Second Life and OpenSim grids.

SL Go’s pricing options remain the same whichever viewer you opt to use, and you can swap between them at any time you like, should you wish. Simply make your choice from the SL Go selection screen.

SL Go users access the service via PC or Mac now have a choice of viewer: the SL Viewer (SLV, as OnLive refer to it) or Firestorm
SL Go users accessing the service via PC or Mac now have a choice of viewer: the SL Viewer (SLV, as OnLive refer to it) or Firestorm (image via OnLive)

Since its launch in March 2014, which I covered in-depth at the time, the SL Go service has proven to be very popular with people who are using low-end systems which traditionally have problems when trying to run the viewer locally. Because the viewer is streamed from OnLive’s dedicated servers,  it’s the servers that do all the heavy processing, delivering a fast, smooth service to users, thus helping to give a new lease of life to older hardware.

Of course, because SL Go is streamed, it means that – like the SL viewer offered by OnLive – certain functionality within the Firestorm offering has either been removed for security reasons (such as the Develop menu, and no access to debug settings and content cannot be uploaded), or has been disabled (such as the option to save snapshots to a hard drive – as that would effectively mean saving them to the OnLive server).

Firestorm viewer on SL Go from OnLive - click for full-size
Firestorm viewer on SL Go from OnLive (click for full-size)

The big benefit in using Firestorm through SL Go is that – with the noted exceptions due to security issues, etc., – it brings the richness of Second Life’s most popular third-party viewer to those on older systems who have perhaps felt themselves to be increasingly edged out of Second Life, something Firestorm Project Manager Jessica Lyon commented on when discussing the release with me.

“I’m really happy about this,” Jessica said. “For years folk on lower-end systems have seen significant improvements to Second Life, particularly with how the world looks, pass them by because their systems are unable to run them. We’ve even heard from many that they simply cannot use Firestorm or any other viewer and as being pushed out of SL completely.

“This release of Firestorm through OnLive, together with the existing SL viewer, hopefully gives those people a new way to enjoy Second Life. I really hope this works for them!”

I can personally attest to that. In 2010, I purchased an Asus PC EEE 1201N notebook, which has found running a viewer like Firestorm increasingly heavy going. With Firestorm through SL, with all the bells and whistles turned-up, I’m averaging around 60 fps!

Firestorm on SL Go from OnLive: almost 60 fps on a Asus PC EEE 1201N notebook with all the bells and whistles active! (this image replaces an earlier version, after I realised I'd uploaded the wrong screen cap - one with shadows disabled)
Firestorm on SL Go from OnLive: almost 60 fps on a Asus PC EEE 1201N notebook with all the bells and whistles active! (this image replaces an earlier version, after I realised I’d uploaded the wrong screen cap – one with shadows disabled)

That SL Go does bring a new lease of life to older hardware can be seen in the fact that since the launch of the service in March, 2014, the largest take-up among users has been by those using the service through the OnLive PC and Mac clients. But those who want Firestorm on their mobile devices need not fear – it will be coming in 2015.  This is something Jessica is also looking forward to.

“A could of years ago we fooled a great many people with our April Fool’s joke of a Firestorm Mobile client,” Jessica said. “The excitement over the announcement, and the outcry when it turned out to be just and April Fool’s joke, was overwhelming. The great news is – and no joke this time! – that OnLive will be making this capability real very soon!”

And it doesn’t end there. One capability that Firestorm brings to OnLive and SL Go  users is the ability to log into other grids as well as Second Life. The version of the viewer supplied to OnLive is the OpenSim version, which means it is complete with the grid manager and start-up grid selection drop-down, allowing you to log into all your favourite grids – as I did, logging-in to Kitely and Fallingwater at the Seanchai Library.

Use Firestorm on SL Go and any PC / Mac / laptop to access your favourite OpenSim grids (click to enlarge)
Use Firestorm on SL Go and any PC / Mac / laptop to access your favourite OpenSim grids (click to enlarge)

Thus, with a single subscription to OnLive, you gain access to the entire metaverse from any low-end PC or Mac in your home.

“We’re happy to be able to empower SL Go users with more choice. They’ve told us they want a choice of viewers, so offering the popular Firestorm viewer was a natural next step.” said Rick Sanchez, VP of Product and Marketing at OnLive, at the launch of the new offering.

I’ll have a more in-depth look at Firestorm on SL Go available shortly.

Viewer-managed Marketplace feedback meeting: video, audio and Q&A transcript

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Friday, December 12th, Brooke Linden chaired a meeting on the Aditi grid to discuss the upcoming Viewer-managed Marketplace (VMM) changes, which are currently undergoing beta testing on that grid. With her were core members of the Viewer-managed Marketplace development team, comprising:

  • Baker Linden has been working on the back-end of the web service for the project
  • Merov has been working on the viewer updates
  • Sklar Linden has been working on the updates to the SL marketplace itself
  • Steeltoe linden is one of the Lab’s user experience designers

Also in attendance from the Lab were Xiola Linden, lead community manager, Jeremy Linden, who is responsible for the VMM Knowledge Base documentation, and Kurt Linden from the Lab’s QA team.

The meeting was intended to gather feedback from TPV developers and merchants on the existing status of the VMM changes, as they are presented on Aditi and through the VMM project viewer. However, and for whatever reasons, attendance was somewhat low (and I plead guilty to this myself, being unable to attend), with the majority of non-Lab people attending being from TPV and viewer code development and support.

The meeting was recorded by Chakat Northspring, while Baker Linden produced an audio recording of the meeting as well.

I have embedded the video below for reference  – my thanks as always to North for providing it. It is followed by a summary of the core areas of discussion as shown in the recording, with particular emphasis on the Q&A session. Time stamps are provided so that comments can be heard in full for those preferring to read rather than listen, but do keep in mind the first part of this article is a summary, not a transcript.

Also, please note that there was a region disconnect issue at around the 32:40 mark which lasted a number of minutes. during that time the video (and voice) kept running until people re-logged, after which there was a very brief discussion. As the meeting disbanded shortly after the required relog from the disconnect, with the exception of a brief note on accessing the Aditi test regions, coverage of the meeting in this article ends at the time the disconnect occurred.

VMM Overview

The first half of the meeting [04:57 onwards] deals with how VMM will function from the user’s perspective. Most of what is discussed is covered in my overview of the VMM beta and the VMM project viewer. as well s the Lab’s VMM Knowledge Base article. However, as a very brief summary of key points:

The Marketplace listing panel is the viewer-side hub of the new VMM functionality
The Marketplace listing panel is the viewer-side hub of the new VMM functionality
  • VMM doesn’t replace the marketplace, but improves aspects of managing inventory and Marketplace listings
  • With it, items can be delivered to customers directly from a merchant’s inventory (including items which are No Copy to the merchant), eliminating the need to upload items to the Marketplace servers or use Magic Boxes in-world
  • VMM allows basic listing operations to be performed from within the viewer: creating a listing, assigning a new or updated item to a listing, amend listings, remove items from a listing, and unlist goods entirely
  • VMM does this by replacing the Merchant Outbox with a new panel, the Marketplace Listing Panel (a hidden system folder within inventory)
  • Merchants can easily “migrate” existing Marketplace listings with items to be delivered by VMM in a simple 3-step process.

Continue reading “Viewer-managed Marketplace feedback meeting: video, audio and Q&A transcript” →

AMD Catalyst™ drivers: additional Windows workaround

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update, March 21st: AMD have release a new set of Catalyst™ drivers, version 15.3 beta, which include a potential fix for the rigged mesh issues, negating the need for this workaround – see my notes here.

Update, Sunday, December 14th: user DMC Jurassic reports that the process outlined below can also be used with the OpenGL .DLL files from the AMD Catalyst 14.4 drivers. However, no ZIP file of the extracted DLLs are currently available, so Yoho’s notes at the end of the article will need to be followed to obtain them.

Also note that Singularity have issued a supplemental update to address mesh rendering issues.

On Tuesday, December 9th, I blogged about the continuing issues impacting  those with AMD GPUs using the latest Catalyst and Omega drivers.

Yoho Waco offers an AMD Catalyst driver workaround for Windows users
Yoho Waco offers an AMD Catalyst driver workaround for Windows users

Second Life resident, and contributor to this blog, Yoho Waco offered a workaround to the problem for Windows users who would prefer to use the latest Catalyst drivers, rather than rolling back to an earlier version.

The workaround should fix the mesh rendering issue, and while Yoho uses Windows 7 64-bit, the basic approach should work with all flavours of support windows, 64-bit and 32-bit.

I can’t actually test it myself, as I use Nvidia, but feedback indicates it works well, and so with Yoho’s permission, I’m reprinting his instructions here so that it might get broader visibility.

As many have pointed out, the issue lies in the fact that the more recent Catalyst drivers use a late version of OpenGL that is supported by SL. This being the case, Yoho provides instruction on using an earlier version of OpenGL with the more recent drivers:

It seems that the problem is in the OpenGL version has the new driver 14.12.

AMD- Catalyst-1

I tried a small solution is to take the DLL’s from version 14.9 and place them inside the folder .\SecondLifeViewer

Above left: the .DLL files from Yoho's dropbox copied into the SL viewer's installation folder; and above right, how they are reported by the viewer
Above left: the .DLL files from Yoho’s dropbox copied into the SL viewer’s installation folder; and above right, how they are reported by the viewer

It works perfectly, no problems or fall FPS.

Yoho provides the required files in a  ZIP file users can download – just copy them to your viewer’s installation folder, as he notes above.

Note that if you’re using a viewer other than the official SL viewer, you’ll need to drop the files into the relevant installation folder, rather than .\SecondLifeViewer (e.g. in the case of Windows 64-bit, instead of dropping the files into C:\Program Files\SecondLifeViewer, you would  place them in C:\Program Files\[name of your viewer]).

Commenting to me about the fix, Yoho said:

I had to install version 14.9 on my computer and search for the files inside C:\Windows\System & C:\Windows\System32. Once copied, I completely uninstalled the version of the Catalyst 14.9 drivers and reinstalled the new version 14.12 Omega drivers. I used and application called DDU, as  it is best to fully uninstall a driver to avoid conflicts. However, this is all very complicated, so I published my DLLs [in the dropbox link above] so users can access them and copy them to their viewer.

Do note that this workaround won’t solve the shadows issues which occur with the Catalyst 14.9.x drivers (see BUG-7947 and BUG-7627), however, Yoho informs me that when he has the time, he may try to see if he can use the OpenGL DLLs from the 14.4 drivers to see if they can be used in this approach to resolve issues, both with mesh rendering and with shadows.

In the meantime, those who would prefer to use the latest drivers and have tried this approach state it works, but as always, your mileage may vary, and the workaround is offered without liability or responsibility on either Yoho’s or my part.

My thanks to Yoho for his work in this and notifying me.

The Great Gatsby: virtually redefining educational outreach

Posted on by Inara Pey

Explore TGGThose of us involved with and immersed in virtual worlds are very familiar with the power and opportunities they offer for educational purposes.

In January and February 2015, this will again be demonstrated in a unique way as literature, live theatre and a virtual world combine to present theatre goers and school children with the opportunity to not only witness the unfolding of one of the great stories from American literature – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby – but to actually immerse themselves in the story itself due to a new an unique collaborative partnership between the Tacoma Little Theatre (TLT), in Tacoma, Washington state, and the folk at Seanchai Library.

From on January 23rd, 2015 through until  February 8th, TLT will be presenting Simon Levy’s stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby, directed by Dale Westgaard, to adult audiences and daytime audiences from local schools.

Coinciding with the play, through their extensive facilities on Kitely, the Seanchai Library will be offering audiences and schools attending performances with the opportunity to explore the world presented by the novel from the comfort of their own home or from within the classroom.

Explore Gatsby will run alongside TLT's production of 's stage adaptation of the novel, giving patrons the opportunity to explore F. Scott Fitzgerald's world in greater detail
Explore Gatsby will run alongside TLT’s production of Simon Levy’s stage adaptation of the novel, giving TLT patrons and schools  with the opportunity to explore F. Scott Fitzgerald’s world in greater detail

Explore the Great Gatsby Online, the début production in Seanchai Library’s EXPLORE the Stories Behind the Art series, will open its doors on January 14th, 2015. It will offer visitors the opportunity to visit key locations from the novel and play, and in doing so learn more about the era in which the story is set, explore Fitzgerald’s life and writings and discover more about the theatre in which the play is being performed.

On offer within Seanchai Library’s virtual environments will be a reproduction of the fictional West Egg, where the story’s narrator, Nick Carraway rents a small holiday guest house, only to find himself living next door to the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, giver of lavish summer parties. Both Carraway’s little holiday house and Gatsby’s mansion will be open to explore.

Also presented with the Explore Gatsby facilities will be a portion of East Egg, where Daisy Buschanan, the subject of Gatsby’s desires, lives in opulence with her husband Tom. Here, behind the Buchanan mansion’s façade, will reside a reproduction of the Tacoma Little Theatre itself, offering the opportunity for people to discover more about the theatre itself, which is among the oldest community theatres in the United States, and the oldest on the U.S. west coast, with a rich heritage going back to 1918.

And, of course, there will be the opportunity to visit the so-called “Valley of Ashes”, the industrial dumping ground so pivotal to the unfolding story, which lies between the fictional East and West Egg and the beating heart of New York City.

These various locations will serve as venues for a range of live events which both support TLT’s  production of The Great Gatsby and which also encourage visitors to further immerse themselves in literature, the stage and more; there will be readings and performances from the novel, interactive elements, within the various settings will provide information on a broad range of subjects, including information on the 1920s and the social issues people living then faced, the characters from the novel, etc.

Explore Gatsby will essentially be an educational study guide brought to three dimensional life. Through a special portal currently being developed by Seanchai Library, visitors will be able to learn how to download and use a viewer and operate an avatar, and then connect to Explore Gatsby in Kitely.

Tacoma Little Theatre will feature in Explore Gatsby, allowing people to discovery more about this historic community theatre
Tacoma Little Theatre will feature in Explore Gatsby, allowing people to discover more about this historic community theatre

Of special note with the project is the fact TLT present daytime performances of the plays they stage for local schools to attend. Thus, through their Explore Gatsby partnership with Seanchai Library TLT is presented with a dramatic – no pun intended – new way to engage with teachers, educators and school children in an immersive manner which links the performance of the play directly with classroom learning opportunities. The same also goes for TLT’s patrons, who can take a performance of The Great Gatsby home with them and them delve into Gatsby’s world through the Seanchai Library’s virtual recreations and events.

As noted above, Explore Gatsby will be opening its doors on Wednesday, January 14th, 2015, with in-world events and activities commencing on Friday, January 16th. Everyone involved in virtual worlds is extended a warm invitation to pop along and join in with planned activities as they take place – a programme calendar will be available nearer the time, and I’ll also be presenting it through these pages.

I’ve been privileged to be associated with Seanchai Library for a while now, and as a part of this association, I will be covering Explore Gatsby and the EXPLORE the Stories Behind the Art series as it develops. I’ll be kicking-off things in due course with a behind-the-scenes look at preparations for the début production.

Related Links

SL Project news week 50/2: viewer updates, no change window, misc news

Posted on by Inara Pey

Let it snow! Isles of Lyonesse; Inara Pey, December 2014, on FlickrLet it Snow! Isles of Lyonesse (Flickr) – blog post

Server Deployments – Week 50 Recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the most recent news and updates.

On Tuesday, December 9th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the server maintenance package deployed to the three RC channels in week #49.

On Wednesday, December 10th, all three RC channels received a new server maintenance package primarily comprising fixes for Experience Keys / Tools issues.

Server Deployments and the no Change Window

Week #51 (commencing Monday, December 15th) marks the run-up to the Christmas / New Year holiday break.

While it is still subject to official confirmation, it looks likely that the server maintenance update deployed to the RC channels will be promoted to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, December 16th. However, due to the no change (code freeze) window coming into effect for the holiday period, there is likely to be no updates made to the RC channels until normal operations are resumed in week #2 of January 2015.

SL Viewer

Wednesday, December 10th saw the to remaining release candidate viewers updated to match the most recent release viewer:

  • The Maintenance viewer RC updated to version 3.7.23.297296. This includes a broad range of fixes for for voice, rendering, avatar distortion, inventory, sounds, the viewer UI, and more, plus a series of fixes for avatar attachments
  • The HTTP Pipelining RC viewer updated to version 3.7.23.297272. This reduces pipelined texture and mesh fetching time-outs so that stalled connections fail quickly allowing earlier retry. The time-out value is changed from 150 seconds to 60 seconds.

It is likely that one of these two viewers will be promoted to the de facto release viewer in week #51, prior to the no change window coming into force for the holiday period.

All other official SL viewer versions remain as per my Current Viewer Releases page.

Other News

Map Tile Issues

Some people may have noticed that World Map tiles reverted to some very slow loading behaviour recently (after being shifted to the CDN for a faster delivery of tile textures to the viewer back when use of the CDN was first being rolled-out). The lag in tile rendering should now be fixed.

Group notices from Group “(none)”

There has been an intermittent and recurring problem with group notices being received with a group of “(none)” assigned to them. This has been ongoing for a while, and those affected by it can detect no discernible patten in how it occurs; just that once or twice a week, rather than a notice carrying the group name as a URI, it is received with “(none)” as a clickable (and unresolvable) link. Some reports suggest that people will receive perhaps two or three such notices in a row before they again start receiving notices with the proper group name.

The problem doesn’t appear to be endemic to any specific viewer, and can occur randomly with notices from any group. Due to its intermittent and random behaviour, it is hard to pin down a specific cause  – such as the viewer failing to resolve the associated group name. However, should you encounter the problem, please consider checking your viewer logs for any messages which appear to be associated with the problem, and raising a JIRA on the matter, appending said log entries.

Continue reading “SL Project news week 50/2: viewer updates, no change window, misc news” →

Viewer-managed Marketplace meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeFurther to discussions at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday, December 5th, the Commerce Team have confirmed that there will be an in-world meeting at which the new Viewer-managed Marketplace (VMM) functionality will be discussed, and feedback sought.

The meeting has been scheduled for Friday, December 12, 2014, at 11:00 SLT, and will take place on the VMM test region of ACME F on Aditi. Content creators and merchants who use the SL Marketplace to sell their creations and goods are invited to attend the meeting, although (obviously) familiarity with using the Viewer-managed Marketplace functionality is required.

The meeting announcement reads in full:

Friday, December 12, 2014, at 11am Pacific time, several Lindens will be inworld to get your feedback on the Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM). We’ll be meeting on Aditi in the “ACME F” region (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/ACME%20F/128/128/24).

For those of you not yet familiar with VMM, it allows you to easily manage your inventory on the Second Life Marketplace using the Second Life Viewer. Items no longer need to be loaded into the Merchant Outbox or a Magic Box, and are instead sold directly from your inventory.

If you are interested in attending the session, please try out VMM* and bring your feedback to the meeting. If you are unable to attend, you can submit feedback through JIRA or by commenting on this post.

* If you are prompted in the viewer to sign up for Beta access, you must first log into Marketplace on Aditi and Create a Store before signing up.

Those who have yet to try the VMM functionality, but who would like to attend the meeting, will need to download the VMM project viewer and log into one of the following regions on Aditi: ACME D; ACME E or ACME F, and, as the Commerce Team note, have a store on the Aditi Marketplace. In addition, my overview notes on the beta and the project viewer may be of assistance when trying-out the viewer within the test regions.