Category: News-Opinion

Avatar Complexity and Graphics Presets in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Avatar Complexity provides users with the adbility to
Avatar Complexity is a means to help people who may suffer from performance issues in crowd areas

On Wednesday, May 18th, Linden Lab promoted the long-awaited Quick Graphics viewer to de facto release status. This viewer includes two important new features:

  • The updated Avatar Complexity settings
  • The ability to create, save and load different groups of graphics settings quickly and easily.

Avatar Complexity

As avatars can often be the single biggest impact on the viewer in terms of rendering, particularly in crowded places, so  Avatar Complexity adds a new slider to the viewer which can be used to set a level above which avatars requiring a lot of processing will appear as a solid colour – the casual term to refer to them being “Jelly Dolls” – greatly reducing the load placed on a system compared to having to render them in detail, so improving performance.

The idea is that you can adjust the setting according to circumstance, so that when in a crowded area with lots of avatars, you can dial down the Avatar Complexity setting, found in Preferences > Graphics (and in the Advanced Settings floater), with the result that more of the avatars around you are rendered as solid colours, reducing the load on your graphics card and system, thus improving performance. Then, in quieter areas, the setting can be dialled back up, allowing more avatars to fully render in your view.

Note: this only applies to other avatars in your world view: your own avatar will always fully render in your view.

The Avatar Maximum Complexity slider sets a threshold on avatar rendering by your viewer. Any avatars in your view exceeding this value will be rendered as a
The Avatar Maximum Complexity slider sets a threshold on avatar rendering by your viewer. Any avatars in your view exceeding this value will be rendered as a “Jelly Doll”, sans attachments

If you have a good system with a high-end graphics car, you can set the value on the slider quite high and thus ensure all avatars render fully for you wherever you are.

Note: You can sett the Avatar Maximum Complexity to “No Limit”. However, this is not entirely recommended. some irritants in Second Life still use worn graphics crashers to overload GPUs and crash the viewer. If you set Avatar Maximum complexity to “No Limit”, then such tools, should you ever encounter an irritant using one, will still be effective; so it’s better to set a reasonable high value, leaving your viewer with a cut-off point which should defeat their efforts in crashing you.

There are a few other points to note with Avatar Complexity:

  • You can opt to always render or to not render avatars around you, regardless of your Avatar Maximum Complexity setting by right-clicking on them and selecting your desired action from the context menu
    You can opt to always render or to not render avatars around you, regardless of your Avatar Maximum Complexity setting by right-clicking on them and selecting your desired action from the context menu

    To help you understand how complex you own avatar is, every time you change your appearance, each time you change the appearance of your avatar, a small notice with your new complexity value will appear in the upper right of your display for a few seconds

  • The complexity value of your avatar is transmitted to each simulator as you travel around Second Life. In return, you’ll get a brief notice in the upper right of your screen telling you approximately how many of those around you are (or are not) rendering you because of your complexity
  • If you have a friend or friend you wish to see fully rendered no matter how low you dial Avatar Maximum Complexity (while out at a club, for example, where it may be beneficial to set a lower complexity threshold), you can right-click on those individuals and select “Render Fully” from the context menu
  • Similarly, and if you prefer, you can selectivity render avatars in your view as grey imposters, by right-clicking on them and selecting “Do Not Render” from the context menu.

Note: Both “Render Fully” and “Do Not Render” will only apply during your current log-in session; the options are not persistent between re-logs.

To help people understand Avatar Complexity, the Lab has produced the following:

  • A blog post to accompany the promotion of the Quick Graphics viewer to release status
  • An Avatar Complexity Knowledge Base article
  • A video tuTORial, which I’ve embedded below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxWrqd0o3dc

Continue reading “Avatar Complexity and Graphics Presets in Second Life” →

Of outages and feedback

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeI normally keep a close eye on outgoing communications from the Lab, but this week I’ve had other things distracting me, and so haven’t been keeping an eye on the official blog for posts and updates. My thanks therefore to reader BazdeSantis for pointing me to April Linden’s Tools and Technology update, The Story Behind Last Week’s Unexpected Downtime.

April has very much become the voice of the Lab’s Operations team, and has provided us with some excellent insights to Why Things Sometimes Went Wrong – a valuable exercise as it increases both our understanding of the complexities inherent in Second Life, and also what is likely to be going on behind the scenes when things do go drastically sideways.

April’s post refers to the issues experienced on Friday May 6th, when a primary node of a central database failed, with April noting:

The database node that crashed holds some of the most core data to Second Life, and a whole lot of things stop working when it’s inaccessible, as a lot of Residents saw.

When the primary node in this database is off-line we turn off a bunch of services, so that we can bring the grid back up in a controlled manner by turning them back on one at a time.

There’s an interesting point to note here. This is the same – or very similar – issue to that which occurred in January 2016, which again goes to show that given the constant usage it sees, Second Life is a volatile service  – and that the Operations team are capable of turning major issues around in a remarkably short time; around 90 minutes in January, and less than an hour this last time.

Both events were also coupled with unexpected parallel issues as well: in January,  the database issue was followed by issues with one of the Lab’s service providers – which did take a while to sort out. This time it was the Grid Status service. As I’ve recently reported, the Grid Status web pages have recently moved to a new provider. A couple of changes resulting from this have been with the RSS Feed, and integrating the Grid Status reporting pages with the rest of the Lab’s blog / forum Lithium service. However, as April also notes:

It can be really hard to tune a system for something like a status blog, because the traffic will go from its normal amount to many, many times that very suddenly. We see we now have some additional tuning we need to do with the status blog now that it’s in its new home.

She also points out that people with Twitter can also track the situation with Second Life by following the Grid Status Twitter account.

April’s posts are always welcome and well worth reading, and this one is no exception. We obviously don’t like things when the go wrong, but it’s impossible for SL to be all plain sailing. So, as I’ve said before (and above), hearing just what goes on behind the scenes to fix things when the do go wrong helps remind and inform us just how hard the Lab actually doe work to keep the complexities of a 13-year-old platform running for us to enjoy.

 

Lab Chat #3 in 10-ish minutes

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lab Chat #3: Troy, Oz and Ebbe
Lab Chat #3: Troy, Oz and Ebbe

Friday, May 6th saw the third in the Lab Chat series take place in-world, featuring guests Oz Linden, the Director of Second Life Engineering, Troy Linden, a Senior Producer of Second Life and of course, Linden Lab CEO, Ebbe Altberg, in his alter-ego of Ebbe Linden.

You can find the full transcript, with audio extracts, as previously published in these pages by following this link.

However, I’ve been asked by a number of people if I could summarise things, rather than them having to read the entire transcript or just having a list of up–front links. I’ve therefore produced this summary, complete with links to the full answers within the transcript. If this approach proves popular with readers, I’ll adopt it as the lead-in to future transcripts.

Work in progress: Aki Shichiroji demonstrates a wearable wyvern utilising Bento bones for animation.
Work in progress: Aki Shichiroji demonstrates a wearable wyvern utilising Bento bones for animation.

Project Bento

  • How will creators make poses and animations for the new bones (wings, fingers, facial expressions, etc)? Creators will be able to use existing plug-ins (MayaStar, Avastar) to create animation content for Project Bento as is currently the case. Full answer.
  • Will there be any in-world tools for Bento pose and animation creation? At this point, Second Life doesn’t have any in-world animation creation tools, and Bento does not attempt to add them. Instead it leverages existing out-world tools. Full answer.
  • Will Bento have the ability to animate (or pose) separately?  Yes. Second life does already support isolating animations to certain parts, and Bento is no different.  Full answer.
  • Will any of the work on the Bento facial bones be incorporated into the default/system avatar for expressions, etc? The default system avatar has not at this point been re-rigged to use the new Bento bones. However, custom mesh heads, when rigged to the bones, will be able to make use of them. Full answer.
  • Will there be, or are there any plans to introduce animated mesh into Second Life (e.g. animated pets, etc)? No comment on whether or not animated meshes will be supported in the future. However, Bento bones can be used to provide a level of animation of creatures, objects, attached to an avatar (e.g. bats flying around your head). Full answer.
  • Will any attempts be made to have the new bones be scriptable for the use in user-created animation rigs like Anypose?  There are no plans to add scripting capabilities that are specific to Bento at this time. Full answer.
  • Can some Bento UG meetings be held at an “Asia friendly” time? It will be looked into. Full answer.

Second Life

The new Experience Keys based Social Islands
The new Experience Keys based Social Islands – see below
  • Can we have tools inside inventory to help manage it?  The Lab is focused on improving inventory operation robustness, and will have a new viewer offering this soon. Better inventory management interfaces and tools are a terrific idea, and something TPVs could even contribute. Full answer.
  • Will we see similar edutainment-type experiences as the new social islands, but aimed at more advanced users? Yes, very probably in time. Full answer.
  • Why doesn’t Second Life have gift cards which can be purchased in stores like other games? Probably more interesting to think of ways to sort-of refer a friend, maybe, with an associated gift card to get them into the world. But something to examine. Full answer.
  • Any plans to provide more robust photography tools similar to Firestorm’s Phototools? Will existing tools be updated? Lab prefers not to comment on things until close to release; photography floater updates an excellent opportunity for TPV / open-source contributions. Full answer.
  • Can sound files be increased in length beyond the 10 second limit? Yes, and animation file sizes can be increased. By how much isn’t clear, and the work will be dependent on moving the assets to CDN delivery first. Full answer.
  • Will we be able to texture more than 8 faces when editing mesh in-world?  The change made in Sept 2015 refers to allowing more than 8 textureable faces as a part of the upload process, not to in-world editing. No further changes planned at present. Full answer.
  • Will any similar incentive to the private island buy-down offer be presented to Mainland owners? Not at present. Time is required to analyse the other impact of the buy-down offer and determine its overall benefit (or otherwise). So nothing planned for Mainland at the moment or immediate future. Full answer.
  • Will anything be done to address vehicle region crossing issues, particularly with large vehicles, which have become worse over the past year? Lab not aware of any changes that should have made things worse, but will look into matters. However, large vehicles have always been problematic on region crossings, so no promises. Full answer.
  • Will RLV functionality be added to the official viewer? Longer-term, Lab will add more capabilities to Experience Keys which will be similar to, but not compatible with, RLV. Full answer.
  • Will Experience Keys be opened to Basic members to create Experiences? Experience Keys will remain Premium-only do to potential griefing abuse. Premium helps ensure accountability.  Full answer.
  • Will Experience Search (and other search) be improved? The  current focus is the Marketplace search beta, using Elasticsearch. This will likely become the default MP search engine soon. The Lab may then use Elasticsearch on other search capabilities. Full answer.
  • Will the Marketplace Listing Enhancement issues & JIRAs be addressed? The Lab believes they have a fix for a major cause, which is in the process of being implemented and may clear up most issues. Full answer.
  • Can the number of Estate Managers be increased? Will be looked at. Full answer.
  • What’s the best way to report group spammers? Single or Multiple reports? Via the Abuse Report, Quality of report, not quantity is important. Many reports aren’t actionable as they are incomplete. Full answer.
  • Does LL give employees time to use SL? Yes & all staff are encouraged to spend time in SL when first starting. Oz Linden also looks to recruit from SL users where possible. Full answer.
  • Any thoughts on Vulkan graphics support for SL? For SL, no. Sansar, yes.
  • Can we have an update on Linden Realms and the grid hunt games available through the portal parks? New Linden content is coming, but no details given.

Continue reading “Lab Chat #3 in 10-ish minutes” →

Reminder: Lab Chat #3, May 6th with Ebbe, Oz, Troy and Bento

Posted on by Inara Pey

Lab Chat LogoLab Chat is the name of the public Q&A series aimed at providing Second Life users with the opportunity to have their questions put to Lab management and personnel.

The first two sessions in the series took place in November 2015 and January 2016 respectively, with guest Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab. Each event covered both Second Life and Project Sansar and saw Ebbe respond to questions selected from those put forward to a forum thread ahead of each event.

The third in the series will take place on Friday, May 6th, starting at 10:30 SLT at the Linden Endowment for the Arts Theatre. The guests for this session will be:

Ebbe Linden (Ebbe Altberg, the Lab’s CEO), who requires no introduction here. He’ll obviously be answering any questions on Project Sansar which are raised during the show.

Oz Linden, the Director of Second Life Engineering at Linden Lab, and is perhaps most noted for his involvement with viewer development, including contributions from the open-source community and TPVs. He oversees almost all aspects of the technical development of Second Life, both viewer and server, and works closely with his engineers and developers to ensure Second Life continues to be enhanced.

Troy Linden, a Senior Producer of Second Life at the Lab, and has been involved in bringing numerous high-profile projects within SL to fruition, and is currently engaged in Project Bento, the project to greatly extend the second Life avatar skeleton, which Oz’s team is currently working on together with members of the SL content creation community.

Because both Oz and Troy will be present at the show, the majority of the questions this time around will be focused on Second Life and Project Bento, so this is a great opportunity to find out what is being planned for Second Life, and what Project Bento is all about and what it might mean for you.

Among many other things, Bento offers the potential for animated facial expressions and animated fingers (shown in this video by Abramelin Wolfe) on mesh avatar models

The show will be recorded in audio, which will be made available some time after the show has wrapped. I hope to attend and produce a full transcript, and those wishing to catch-up on the first two Lab Chat sessions through this blog can do so by following the links below:

For those who prefer, videos of the first two sessions can be found on YouTube:

LEA Theatre SLurls

Lab: update your viewer and browser to ensure secure payments

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn Wednesday, May 4th, the Lab issued an important announcement to Second Life users that as from Wednesday June 15th, 2016, anyone wishing to use the Second Life cashier service to send, receive, or exchange L$, must be using either a web browser or version of the viewer which supports TLS 1.2.

This is because, as I’ve reported several times in these pages (see here and here for background notes), the Lab is updating secure access to their cashier functionality to TLS 1.2, to comply with applicable US regulations.

As the official blog post posts out, the latest updates of most modern browsers should be TLS 1.2 complaint, as is the official SL viewer. All actively maintained Full Third-Party Viewers should also be TLS 1.2 complaint. However…

Again, as the official blog post states, the safest way to ensure you are using a compliant browser and viewer is to check for yourself by visiting How’s My SSL? through your web browser and via the internal web browser built-in to the viewer. The Version section in the top left of the web page will indicate whether or not your browser / viewer is using TLS 1.2.

Use How's My SSL? to confirm whether the versions of the web browser and SL viewer you are using are TLS 1.2 compliant.
Use How’s My SSL? to confirm whether the versions of the web browser and SL viewer you are using are TLS 1.2 compliant.

If either your web browser and / or current viewer version is not TLS 1.2, you will not be to send, receive, or exchange L$ after Wednesday, June 15th, 2016.

For further information, please refer to the official Lab blog post.

In the Press: a voyage of discovery in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Second Life has again been getting some fair press coverage, both directly and directly, of late. I’ve already written about the platform either being the focus of, or looked at as part of, two interesting articles published in Motherboard. Also during the week, Second Life was written about on this side of the Atlantic, as first reported by Ciaran Laval.

On April 28th the on-line edition of France’s Le Monde carried an article focused on Second Life, written by  Morgane Tual.  Bearing the delightfully French title Absurde, créatif et débauché : dix ans après, « Second Life » est toujours bien vivant (Absurd, creative and debauched: ten years later, “Second Life” is still alive), it weaves a wonderful introduction to the platform which cannot fail to have those of us immersed in this digital world smiling and / or nodding in agreement.

Morgane Taul: an engaging article on Second Life
Morgane Tual: an engaging article on Second Life

This is very much a hands-on, through-the-eyes look at Second Life, good and bad, written with an unabashed honesty and wonderment. Opening with a description of her initial time in Second Life and a (first?) encounter with another resident, Ms. Tual quickly informs her readers where she is and why she is there – and hints that what she has to say might come as a surprise for who might have heard of the platform at some point:

Like me, some haggard and clumsy beginners landed on this strange beach to discover what remains of this game that occupied the headlines there about ten years. I expected to find, a decade later, a deserted world, ageing technology and a few cobwebs in the corners. It was exactly the opposite.

From this set-up we are lead on what is very much a personal voyage of discovery through Second Life. In it we encounter the realities of the platform – good and bad in equal measure,  each presented to us as they are encountered.

So it is we share in her wonder as she hops from place-to-place; her confusion (and that of others newcomers) in finding herself unceremoniously dumped at an infohub; the embarrassment that can occur simply as a result of clicking the wrong button, or in awkwardly accepting the help of another. We share in her delight in her discoveries of the music scene and in finding a place were she makes a new friend, Patti, a fellow French woman. From here we join her on a whirlwind tour of Second Life which take her to Hogwarts and thence via Star Wars, 221B Baker Street and a nightclub, to the Petit Trianon, Tatiana Dokuchic’s wonderful build in the Duché de Coeur, and a conversation with Tatiana herself.

Petit Trianon by Tatiana Dokuchic, featured in Absurde, créatif et débauché : dix ans après, « Second Life » est toujours bien vivant
Petit Trianon by Tatiana Dokuchic, featured in the Le Monde article by Morgane Tual

Interspersed with this are the assorted facts and figures from the Lab – the 900,000 monthly log-ins, the broad demographic, the economics of the platform, and so on, together with the usual potted history of the platform, all of which paints one of the clearest pictures of Second Life I’ve had the good fortune to read; one with a personal narrative free from the need to fall back on cliché or dogged by mocking observation.

Such is the narrative, we’re drawn directly into Ms. Tual’s experiences, all of which are related without judgement, but often with a real sense of joy and / or wonder. Of course, the sex is also there, but so too is the discovery that contrary to belief, Second life isn’t necessarily “all about the sex”, a point of view Ms. Tual fully embraces.

The breadth of possible engagement in Second Life is touched upon in other ways as well. Through the conversation with Tatiana, readers are introduced to the richness of opportunity for creativity in Second life. Art and entertainment are referred to – the latter supported by the inclusion of some hand-picked videos.

We also witness the tales of others, such as the guy who initially mocked the activities of SL users, regarding them as “losers”, only to himself become engrossed in the platform and all it offers. We are also – movingly – introduced to the way in which Second life bridges the physical / digital divide, very genuinely bringing people together when entire continents might otherwise separate them.

With videos and in-world images, personal tales, a frank narrative, Absurde, créatif et débauché : dix ans après, « Second Life » est toujours bien vivant is one of the most engaging pieces on second Life it has been my pleasure to read. Recommended.