Category: News-Opinion

Lab updates on viewer changes and CDN

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeThe Lab has issued a blog post outlining some of the current improvements being made to Second Life.

Regular readers of my weekly SL project updates will already be familiar with the work referenced in the blog post, which focus on the changes being made to the viewer’s log-in screen, the removal of the viewer’s reliance on the GPU table when initially setting graphics preferences, the ongoing deployment of support for using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for texture and mesh fetching, and an announcement of the upcoming HTTP pipelining viewer, which should offer some significant improvements in people’s SL experience, as well as including further adjustments to leverage the CDN.

Commenting on the new benchmark viewer, which will eliminate the need for the GPU table, the Lab’s blog post states:

This is a new way of figuring out the best default graphics settings. Maybe this has happened to you: you got an awesome new graphics card, fired up SL… only to discover your graphics settings are set to Low, and can’t be changed? No more! This Viewer does away with the old GPU table and instead uses a quick benchmark measurement to detect your GPU to assign appropriate default graphics settings on startup. The settings on shiny powerful hardware should really let that hardware shine. Get a Project Benchmark Viewer today and help us gather metrics!  Please file bugs in JIRA if you find them.

The new log-in viewer is currently the only release candidate viewer sitting in the viewer release channel. As such, it is liable to be promoted to the de facto release viewer in the near future – probably in week 41 (week commencing Monday October 6th), assuming the statistics for it haven’t shown up any issues.

As the Lab’s blog-post indicates, this viewer is being introduced as a result of several months of A/B testing with the current viewer log-in screen. This testing appears to show that new user retention is some 3-5% better when incoming users are presented with the updated viewer’s log-in / splash screens than when compared with those for the current version.

For those interested in finding out how the new viewer differs from the current version, I have an overview of the new version already posted.

The log-in / splash screen in the login RC viewer seen by users who have previously logged-in to SL
The log-in / splash screen in the login RC viewer seen by users who have previously logged-in to SL

A point to note with the log-in screen changes is that they do not impact the widgets, etc., used by TPVs. Therefore, these changes shouldn’t force those TPVs using their own log-in splash screens to replace them with the Lab’s updates.

The final two aspects of the Lab’s blog post are the deployment of the CDN, which is currently for texture and mesh fetching, and which I’ve also extensively documented through my week SL project updates. At the time of writing, the CDN is available in ten regions across the main grid: Denby, Hippo Hollow, Hippotropolis, Testsylvania, Brasil Rio, Brocade, Fluffy, Freedom City, Rocket City or Whippersnapper. However, more regions will be added as time goes on.

There is no requirement for any special viewer in order to get an idea of the faster downloading of textures and meshes users should witness on entering any of these regions (there may be some rare instances where things are a little slower if you happen to reside closer to one of the Lab’s data centres than to your local CDN node, but these instances are likely to be very rare). However, once the CDN service is available across the grid, it may see a final viewer-side update as a part of final fine-tuning, and well as potentially being extended to include the delivery of other viewer-consumable assets.

The HTTP work, which has been ongoing for the last couple of years and very much a focus of Monty Linden’s work, is something I’ve also reported upon through my weekly SL project updates. This should have some general improvements on performance, both with texture and mesh downloads through the CDN, and with other HTTP-specific SL services. This viewer code is allegedly so fast, the Lab refer to it internally as the “weaponized viewer”.

The benefit of the CDN and the HTTP viewer code – which TPVs are being encouraged to adopt as quickly as their merge / test / release cycles allow – is summed-up in the closing comments on the Lab’s post:

Separately, each of these will improve texture and mesh loading performance, but put together, you should really see some exciting improvements in how long it takes to load new areas and objects – making touring the many fabulous places in Second Life you have not yet visited even better!

Those who have been independently testing both the CDN and the pipelining viewer (in a pre-project viewer release state) have been reporting that results with either / both are impressive. Check Shug Maitland’s comment on this blog, for example, after she tried the CDN regions with a current viewer.

Lab issues Skill Gaming Policy enforcement notice

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeMonday September 1st saw the Skill Gaming policy come into effect. However, as the application process has apparently been slow-going, those who had submitted an application to become Operators and / or Creators of Skill Games were permitted to continue to operate as such, even if they had not received formal approval on their application from the Lab.

However, on Monday September 29th, the Lab issued a further updated on Skill Gaming, stating that as from Saturday November 1st, enforcement of the updated Skill Gaming Policy will come into effect – and will include anyone with an application currently pending with the Lab.

The blog post reads in full:

On September 1, 2014, the updated Skill Gaming Policy for Second Life went into effect. As a reminder, this policy allows for skill gaming activity in Second Life, but establishes that only approved Creators may make skill games with L$ payouts, only approved Operators may run them, and they may only be run on designated Skill Gaming Regions, where access is restricted to those who meet certain qualifications.

As our FAQs explained, applicants to the program who submitted their applications prior to the September 1 deadline have been permitted to continue their skill gaming activity while their applications are reviewed.

Beginning November 1, 2014, the enforcement of our Policy will apply to all Residents, including those with pending Skill Gaming applications that await Linden Lab review and approval. As of that date, any objects or regions found in violation of our Policy will be taken down. We strongly encourage all applicants to submit any outstanding materials for our review as soon as possible so that their applications may be processed before the deadline.

From the start, we’ve seen strong interest from Residents seeking to become approved skill gaming Creators and Operators. You can find the current list of approved participants here, and we’ll continue to review applications as quickly as possible to expand that list. If you would like to apply to become an approved skill gaming Creator or Operator, you can do so here.

The third paragraph is key to this announcement, as it suggests that the delay in processing applications may be as much down to a failure to supply required information to the Lab as with any internal delays in processing applications on the Lab’s part.

Therefore, if you have submitted a request to the Lab and have not received approval, now might be a good time to check to see whether you have missed any requests from the Lab to supply additional or missing information, or to touch base with them to ascertain the current status of your application.

In the unlikely case that anyone has been attempting to continue to operate or create games of skill without having made a suitable application, or who has been delaying submitting an application,  now might also be the time to do so. Please refer to the EchoSign application form.

A small aside in to this is that while the Lab indicates “strong interest” from people wishing to become approved Creators and / or Operators, there have been no updates to the list of Skill Gaming Approved Participants, which is linked-to in the Lab’s blog post, the only operators and games having been listed on August 21st. It will be interesting to see if this announcement yields further additions to the list.

In the meantime, you can keep abreast of the Skill Gaming Policy changes through the links below.

Related Links

USMP’s Introduction to Second Life 2nd Edition

Posted on by Inara Pey

In April, I followed the Lab’s lead in reporting on a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) designed to help Spanish-speaking educators in the use of Second Life as a starting point in their interaction with emerging and innovative environments that can be used for education.

Professor Max Ugaz, UMSP
Professor Max Ugaz, UMSP

Since that time, and as the Lab again reports, the course has been improved and updated, and a new session is set to start on Monday September 29th. The course has been developed by the Universidad de San Martín de Porres (USMP), located in Santa Anita, Lima, Perú, under by the university’s Project Director of Virtual Worlds, Professor Max Ugaz. The course will comprise three week-long modules with a total of 17 lessons and an average workload of around 5 or 6 hours per week.Details on the course, together with a registration form for interested parties, are available the university’s website, which includes an introductory video for the course (in Spanish). The course will take place at one of the USMP’s teaching areas in Second Life, commencing on Monday September 29th, as noted. As my own Spanish is poor to non-existent, I’ve taken the liberty or reproducing the Spanish portion of the Lab’s blog post below:

l Proyecto en Mundos Virtuales de la Universidad de San Martín de Porres de Perú, inicia este 29 de setiembre la segunda edición del curso en la modalidad MOOC (Curso Masivo Abierto En línea) titulado “Introducción a Second Life para Educadores 2da. Ed.”. El curso es gratuito y está diseñado para capacitar a educadores y público en general de habla hispana en el uso del mundo virtual Second Life, a fin de ofrecer conocimiento que permita desempeñarse en este entorno y aprovechar su potencial, especialmente en el ámbito educativo.

 Si tú o alguien que tú conoces pueden beneficiarse de un curso como éste, pueden acceder al vídeo de introducción y registrarse en la página web. Inicio: 29 de Set.

Además se puede visitar la sede del curso dentro del mundo virtual desde nuestra Guía de Destinos.

Related Links

A new shadow looms over Innsmouth

Posted on by Inara Pey
Innsmouth
Innsmouth

There has always been a shadow hanging over H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. That much has been known since the town first appeared in Lovecraft’s writing, when it made its début in the 1936 novel The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It is a place with a long and mysterious history, involving shipbuilding dating back to the mid-1600s, the rise of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, intrigue, strange  happenings and more.

Innsmouth is also a town which has been lovingly recreated in Second Life, forming a centre of role-play, an homage to Lovecraft’s writings and very much a famous and significant landmark. Dark and atmospheric, it captures the spirit of the deserted Innsmouth and its air of mystery and menace quite perfectly.

But now a new shadow is, as SLexplorer and Ciaran Laval indicate, falling over the SL Innsmouth and threatening its future.

Innsmouth
Innsmouth

The news of the threat first broke via a post on the H.P. Lovecraft Festival website, and which reads in part:

On September 15th, Darmin Darkes, the owner of the Innsmouth-themed Sim announced the following: “Innsmouth sim is for sale. I’m giving first dibs to you folks in the hopes that someone will want to keep some of the build. Worst case is having to flatten it and sell it. I just can’t afford it any longer. I’m not leaving SL, but I have to cut back my sims. Thank you for your years of support and friendship and the passion you’ve given to Innsmouth. It’s only pixels and I’m sure there are better versions waiting to be built.” — Darmin Darkes

Innsmouth in Second Life has enjoyed passionate and loyal support, and the news has led to a group being formed, The Innsmouth Preservation Society, which has Darmin Darkes’ blessing and is working on ways to secure a continued future for Innsmouth.

The group, led by Arik Metzger, who is the Coordinator of the HP Lovecraft Festival in SL, and Founder/Producer of the HPL-RPG  (HP Lovecraft Roleplay and More Group), has already set out initial plans to try to save the region.

“The first goal is to raise enough funds to purchase the sim and cover one month of rent,” he informed me when I hopped over to Innsmouth to speak with him. “Beyond that, there are ideas and plans for returning regular events and activities to Innsmouth, replacing older-style builds with more prim-efficient reproductions of the current structures, free up prims and increase potential for residential and commercial tenant options.”

Inssmouth
Innsmouth

The group has already held an initial meeting to discuss these plans and more, and a second meeting is scheduled for 19:30 SLT on Thursday, September 18th,  at the Innsmouth Opera House. All those wishing to support the preservation of Innsmouth are invited to attend, listen and get involved.

“We boosted the Innsmouth Preservation Society group to 33 members. A number of people expressed concerns and interests, and ideas were shared along with an overview of the immediate goals involved in saving the sim and revitalizing it for all,” Arik informed me in discussing the initial meeting. He’s been spending a fair amount of time spreading the word since the news broke, and visitors at the region will likely find him walking the streets of Innsmouth, imparting news on the group’s work, handing out meeting flyers and more.

Further details on the group’s plans, and information on how to get involved in donating towards keeping Innsmouth alive in Second Life will be given at the upcoming meeting. In addition, updates and other information relating to preserving the region will be posted on the HPL-RPG website.

Related Links

UKanDo 3.7.15

Posted on by Inara Pey

logoOn Thursday September 18th, the windows version of the UKanDo viewer released version 3.7.15.28043 (at the time of writing, the Linux version is to follow), the first update to the viewer since April 2014.

Given the passage of time since the last release, this new version brings with it both a significant jump in version number and a lot of merges with the Lab’s official code. As well as these, the viewer also has a number of tweaks, fixes, additions and removals, which come from both the UKanDo team and other sources.

The following is a quick overview of some of the significant changes to the viewer; as always, please refer to the release notes for the full list of changes and updates.

Lab Code Updates

UKanDo 3.7.15 comprises merges with the following LL code releases:

  • Release 3.7.7 – viewer-side Project Interesting improvements to how the viewer and server work together to know what scene objects to draw, and how the viewer utilises the information it has cached
  • Release 3.7.8 – Maintenance release with crash fixes and performance improvements
  • Release 3.7.9 – the “Memshine” release, incorporating the Sunshine / AIS v3 updates and a variety of fixes to address memory leaks in the viewer and improve crash rate
  • Release 3.7.10 – the SLShare two release, with uploads to Twitter and Flickr and updated upload to Facebook (to incorporate the filter support also included in the Twitter / Flickr image uploads)
  • Release 3.7.11 – Snowstorm contributions release which includes the requirements that Windows XP users have Service Pack 3 (Win XP 32-bit) or SP 2 (Win XP 64-bit) in order for this (and future viewer releases) to install
  • Release 3.7.12 – Maintenance release
  • Release 3.7.13 – Group ban functionality release
  • Release 3.7.14 – viewer build libraries update, providing security, stability and consistency improvements to this and future viewers
  • Release 3.7.15 – Snowstorm contributions viewer, including the unified snapshot floater, and support for ‘older than’ when inventory filtering.
UKanDo includes a large number of Lab-driven updates, right up to the more recent (at the time of writing) 3.7.15 release with the unified snapshot floater
UKanDo includes a large number of Lab-driven updates, right up to the more recent (at the time of writing) 3.7.15 release with the unified snapshot floater

In addition to the above, the viewer is also brought up-to-date with Marine Kelley’s latest updates to RLV.

Preferences Updates

Version 3.7.15 of UKanDo includes the following Preferences updates:

  • A button to clear inventory cache has been added to Preferences > General > Miscellaneous
  • Option added to toggle between web or legacy profile floaters added to Preferences > General > Miscellaneous panel, with web profiles the default
  • Preferences > General > Basics tab has been cleaned-up
  • An option to display your avatar’s name in the viewer’s title bar has been added to Preferences > General > Miscellaneous (via Kokua (?))
  • An option to set teleport action when clicking on the Mini-map has been added to Preferences > Move & View
New option to select teleport action when clicking on the Mini-map
New option to select teleport action when clicking on the Mini-map

Other Updates and Changes

This release of UKanDo also features the following updates and changes from various sources and the UKanDo team:

  • The viewer now uses the Catznip multi-user log-in in drop-down code
  • Options for raising Abuse Reports have been added to the various chat context menus
  • The text entry widget’s background colour will change according to chat type (via Kokua (?))
  • The Avatar height offset slider (from the Restrained Love Viewer) has been removed, together with all associated code
  • The viewer logo and version number has been added to progress screens (e.g. teleport progress)
  • The region restart countdown displays in minutes and seconds rather than just seconds
  • Inventory folder icons have been updated
  • Various tweaks to buttons  / icons on the Nostalgia skin.

 Summary

A comprehensive set of code merges from the Lab’s repositories brings UKanDo back up to parity with the SL viewer, while the nips and tucks offered by the development team and from other TPV sources serve to further enhance the viewer.

Related Links

 

Joe Miller

Posted on by Inara Pey

The news of Joe Miller’s passing has been circulating through the SL community for the last 24 hours, and has included a short tribute to his time with Linden Lab published on the Lab’s blog.

Mr. Miller served as the Lab’s Vice President of Platform and Technology Development from May 2006 through until December 2010, and as such, oversaw many of the key technical developments within Second Life.

Joe Miller's alter-ego at the Lab: Joe Linden, as seen on his Twitter page
Joe Miller’s alter-ego at the Lab: Joe Linden, as seen on his Twitter page

These included such activities as moving the grid away from the traditional “black Wednesday” downtimes while things were being banged upon for around eight hours, and users were faced with having to find something else to do with their online time; overseeing the arrival of voice in Second Life; improving the look of SL with the introduction of Windlight; and improving the overall stability of the viewer.

Throughout all of this, Mr. Miller, through his robotic alter-ego, Joe Linden, was popular among SL users, and not averse to meeting residents and participating in meetings. Via the Lab’s own podcast series, Inside the Lab, he discussed many of the challenges involved in running a service such as Second Life which, as Ciaran Laval (who has my thanks for providing the link) pointed out, can be as pertinent today as they were six years ago.

I didn’t actually get to meet by Joe Miller in-world while he worked at the Lab, but we did seem to share something of a passion for space exploration and astronomy. On Twitter and elsewhere, he would point to stunning astronomy and space images; one in particular that springs to mind is also a favourite of mine – a shot of the Earth and the Moon sitting against a backdrop of stars as captured in 2010 by NASA’s Messenger space vehicle when it was 183 million kilometres away, en route to a rendezvous with Mercury.

Joe Miller (Joe Linden) remembered in the show (Image: Sportvision.com)
Joe Miller, a keen sports fan, joined Sportvision as VP, Engineering after leaving Linden Lab in 2010 (image courtesy of Sportvision.com)

Outside of his tenure at Linden Lab, joe Miller had a wide-range career in technology spanning some 30 years, and included time at Atari, Convergent Inc., Sega America and SegaSoft Inc. At the latter two, he respectively served as Senior Vice President, Product Development; and Executive Vice President, CTO, and board member.

Alongside of this, he also founded a number of companies and organisations during his career, including the Perilux Group, a product design company, which was engaged to develop several award-winning products now offered by LeapFrog (he is credited as one of the co-inventors of the original Leapster hand-held educational gaming console for young children), Bright Things, Apple, and Fitniks. He also founded the Knowledge Universe Interactive Studio, where he served as both President and CEO as well as serving on the board of directors.

Following his departure from the Lab, he went on to work at Sportvision Inc, as Vice President, Engineering,

Mr. Miller passed away peacefully on July 27th, 2014, with his family at his side. A memorial page has been established by his family where those who know him can remember him and perhaps leave a few words.