Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, January 21st, 2024
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8th, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – NEW.
Timeless Seasons, January 2024 – click any image for full size
Occupying a Full private region leveraging the available Land Capacity bonus, Timeless Seasons is a location designed by videographer Suzie Anderton as a place where visitors can – to quote the Destination Guide entry:
Experience the magic … and revel in wonders as you descend its hills. Gather loved ones for a journey through this kingdom uncovering cuddle spots, event venues, portals to the unknown, and a cavern system. Welcome to a realm where seasons unfold timeless experiences for you and your family.
All of which is a heady promise to fulfil, but the region does so quite admirably.
Timeless Seasons, January 2024
Presenting something of a south-to-north orientation, the region features tall uplands to the former which both step and flow down to northern lowlands, where a channel of water almost cuts the landscape in two, coming close to leaving an oval lake sitting within an island of its own.
This is a place which, whilst there are signs of human habitation, appears to be largely given over to the unspoiled beauty of nature. However, this is perhaps a little deceptive; the zip lines descending across the landscape from the highlands and the kayaks and boats down on the waters of the channel and lake reveal opportunities for fun and laughter which might break into the sense of serenity as they offer the more active visitor the chance for a little good-natured excitement.
Timeless Seasons, January 2024
Exploring the setting can be done either on foot or on horseback – there are several places throughout where a horse can be obtained, whilst those with their own wearable horses can always use those, if so minded. Those who really fancy a challenge can also grab a bicycle and use their pedal extremities as motive power – but to be honest, riding down the slopes from the north side of the island is not something I’d relish – and least, not without a parachute just in case!
The landing point is set mid-way down the southern highlands. Here, on a broad outthrust of rock extending away from the southern cliffs prior to itself falling away to the lands below, sits an impressive lodge. It presents itself as a place into which people can retreat for a game, time in a hot tub, an romantic meal or simply to rest in the bar lounge. Before it, and short walks from the landing point are the first of the bicycle and horse rezzers, whilst one of the region’s zip lines awaits the daring, as it drops away from a deck extending out over the sheer rock face fronting the lodge.
Timeless Seasons, January 2024
However, before being too quick to depart the lodge and start exploring, a wander around to the gardens behind the lodge is recommended, as it is within them that one of the setting’s little secrets is tucked away; a gated grotto with a mix of the magical and the romantic within, over which can also be found an outdoor space for entertainment and dancing.
Exactly how the latter is reached (save by teleporting) is a little unclear; there is a grassy path extending east which rolls upwards just beyond the wooden gazebo. However, it does not seem to connect with the dance area directly, but instead provides access to two further routes of exploration, both pointing westwards.
Timeless Seasons, January 2024
The first forms a rocky step directly behind and above the lodge’s garden, its southern side formed by vertical cliff walls from which water drops into a pool (and a subterranean channel, given the pool doesn’t overflow?) towards their western end, where the path become a broad grass slope tumbling gently down to the northern lowlands to offer a path along the banks of the water channel which cuts into the region.
The second path runs almost the entire width of the setting, sitting atop the high cliffs as it passes a further point where horses or bicycles might be obtained, before also turning north to follow a rocky / hilly shoulder of land as it descends down towards the lowlands to reach the little silver of land connecting the southern aspect of the region the ring of land surrounding the lake.
Timeless Seasons, January 2024
The land around the lake offers its own treats and places to explore, from the aforementioned boats and kayaks to little hideaways, a cosy beach, the opportunity to try one’s hand at slip boarding – and even conversing with the local centaurs! Places to sit and explore abound throughout, and those who wander the banks of the channel bordering the lake might spot another of the region’s secrets: the dark maw of a cavern mouth awaiting the adventurous (or curious!), one with perhaps a little touch of Smaug lying within.
Caught in an eternal spring afternoon, Timeless Seasons makes for a rewarding – and obviously photogenic – visit. With hewn rock signposts to help guide folk around it, lots of choice of both exploration and means of exploration or for just chilling and / or cuddling, the region is deserving of the time spent within it, and finished in a subtle soundscape.
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creators User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, January 18th, 2024, and the chat log transcript and video of the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, January 19th, 2024. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording the TPVD meeting and providing the video, which is embedded at the end of this article.
The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with viewer development work.
This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development.
This meeting is held once a month the third or fourth Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
Are open to all with an interest in either content creation or viewer development.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of either meeting.
Please note: my audio recording of the CCUG suffered a glitch in writing to disk. Whilst over an hour of audio was apparently recorded according to Audacity, only 22 minutes was actually saved to disk. As the meeting utilised voice, the loss of around half the audio means that response to questions and generally commentary from the Lab was lost. Therefore, these notes only reflect the section of the meeting which did save for playback.
Official Viewers Status
No updates through the week, leaving the current crop of official viewers as:
Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – NEW.
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
General Viewer Notes
The glTF Maintenance 2 viewer includes, among other things, less blue tint to improve the general environment appearance.
The Emojis viewer is finally on the path towards an RC update, and it is hoped that this will be the finally update for the viewer before it gets promoted to de facto release status.
There is concern that the viewer crash rate has been higher than usual over the last several releases, so it appears viewer-side engineering effort is to be put towards determining underlying causes and rectifying them in order to bring the rate back down.
Longer-term there will be further Inventory work, with additional flags being added to the viewer which will enable future additional Inventory-related functionality – but it is too early in the process to go into specifics.
Mac OS Requirements
The Mac OS requirements for the viewer are changing as a result of Apple ending security updates for OSX 11 and earlier.
Whilst Mac OS 11 will now be the minimum requirement (up from 10.3), the recommendation to Mac users running Mac OS 11 or earlier is to “explore macOS upgrade options as soon as possible” due to the resultant security concerns (via Soft Linden).
Graphics / glTF and Future Viewer Development Overall
Following the glTF Maintenance 2 RC, it is likely there will be a further graphics RC viewer which will combine:
Geenz Linden’s work on Hero reflection probes and reflections / mirrors.
Cosmic Linden’s work on applying glTF materials to terrain.
Updates which will allow the glTF / PBR swatch boxes in the Build / Edit floater display previews of the materials being selected, rather than grey boxes.
Possibly, the first series of additional glTF extensions – Index of Refraction, and also potentially testing support for 2K textures.
The idea is to try to move development within the viewer away from huge projects (like PBR Materials), which tend to take a lot of time to develop (1 to 2 years) and suffer a lot of visible feature creep. Instead, the idea is to tackle smaller components and build them out within successive RCs which come together to enable the kind of functionality sought be large scale projects.
It is hoped that by focusing on “featurettes”, smaller tranches of work can be more easily validated, that workflow with development and bug fixing can become a lot more linear, and individual elements of the work can be enabled as they are ready, or hidden behind debug flags until such time as functionality they are dependent upon is also ready.
Should this approach work with the next iteration of glTF capabilities as listed above, the approach will likely be applied to other viewer projects.
BUG-234728 “[PBR] Masked alpha gradient textures change with viewing angle” has been accepted as a known PBR issue, but there is no time frame on a potential fix.
Per a previous TPVD meeting summary, LL is interested in the potential to adopt RLV/a functionality into the official viewer.
Adoption has been a popular request from many users, as RLV is seen to have a lot of beneficial uses well beyond its original scope (as is the case the RLV-driven “Wardrobe” systems which allow outfits to be visually previewed and worn in just a couple of clicks), many of which either cannot be easily achieved in viewers without RLV support, or would require Experience-based scripting, which is not seen as ideal.
One problem is that RLV/RLVa is for many scripters, an “all or nothing” API, as it can touch on so many areas of the viewer, so that to be of value, the entire protocol would need to be implemented – which would be a major overhaul of the viewer.
As such, it was noted that RLV/RLVa implementation within the official viewer could be an ideal candidate for the “featurette” approach to viewer development noted above: discrete elements of the code implemented to a point where they can be validated, but placed behind flags so that they are disabled until such time as the overall implementation has reached a point where they can be jointly enabled.
The option to turn it off completely – as is currently the case in the majority of viewers running the RLV/a protocol – would be retained for those not wishing to use it.
It was noted that most PBR-related Bakes on Mesh requests have been to allow the Bake Service to composite multiple PBR materials applied to different layers (e.g. being able to apply one materials set to skin, another to (say) shirt layer and another to (say) pants layer).
This is something LL would like to tackle, but it is seen as a significant overhaul of the Bake Service, and so is not currently on the roadmap for implementation.
There is a known issue with screen space reflections (SSR) on Linden Water which can make the latter appear to “glitch”. Brad Linden is still investigating this, but the solution might be tweaking to / replacement of the SSR algorithm so it “plays nicely” with Linden Water.
Object unpacking: a discussion on the potential to be able to unpack the contents of objects directly from Inventory, rather than having to rez them in-world first or for creators to supply them in a scripted HUD for unpacking.
A feature request for the reverse – Right-Click to Box In Inventory – has been accepted (which does not indicate it will be implemented in the immediate future).
In terms of unpacking / previewing contents of on item directly from Inventory, this is seen as a harder issue as once items are contained within another, they are effectively in the “inventory” of the containing item, rather than the account inventory, and the container’s inventory is only loaded by the simulator when it (or a copy thereof) is rezzed (or attached as a HUD) in-world.
Given the above, a new Inventory behaviour would be required which would simulate the object being rezzed in-world / attached as a HUD in order to trigger the simulator to load its contents. This was noted as something worth consideration even if only as a mental exercise at the moment, in order to determine how it might be handled.
This is the point at which my audio recording of the meeting truncated during saving, and so ends the summary notes for the CCUG meeting.
TPVD Meeting
[Video: 16:02-17:40] Avatar de-clouding: There have been multiple anecdotal reports of avatars taking longer to de-cloud when logging-in. The anecdotal responses at the meeting varied between no real difference and comments that AWS may have had issues over the holiday period resulting in packet loss (and thus longer load times), but this appears to have since been resolved.
[Video 19:20-25:09] a discussion on TPV development, licensing, open-sourcing code, what is and is not permissible, new viewers, etc. Please refer to the video for more.
General notes:
Planar alignment being broken in the Build / Edit floater is a known issue and due to be addressed.
There are no plans for LL to offer various “fallbacks” for PBR to “classic” (Blinn-Phong) materials to account for users currently not running PBR enabled versions of viewers, as PBR will be a part of all viewers as they update and move forward.
There are no plans to make SL available through platforms such as Steam (as once was the case), due to issues around content restrictions, monetisation methods, etc.
A discussion on Twitch not allowing SL streaming and whether LL should try to engage with them to support it. Given that there are other avenues for streaming, and Twitch is free to stand whatever barrier to use of its platform it likes, this would seem unlikely.
† 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.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, January 2024: Morlita Quan – Cats and Dogs
It’s been over a decade since I first encountered Morlita Quan’s art in Second Life. At the time, she was one of the recipients in the Linden Endowment for the Arts 4th round of land grants to artists, and I was immediately struck by her work. Over the course of the next few years I encountered her art over and again at various festivals and collaborative art events, but it was not until 2016 that I was able to blog about it as a solo exhibition, when I visited Organic Geometry, presented at the Art Gallery the Eye under her physical world artistic name, MorlitaM. Since then, I’ve always been attracted to her exhibitions whenever presented, finding myself deeply attracted to her work, which often blends the use of geometric and organic forms in unique and captivating abstracted ways.
However, her latest exhibition – currently being hosted by Dido Haas at her Nitroglobus Roof Gallery – offers a glimpse of another side of Morlita’s life in addition to that of an artist and musician. Cats and Dogs is something of a challenge set by Dido – a long time friend of Morlita’s – to produce a themed exhibition. Dido tends to present these to folk every so often, and they are often particularly hard to fulfil, as Dido has a knack for both shining a light on a side of someone’s SL or physical life (or both) which is seldom seen, and easing them out of their established comfort zone (and I speak here from knowledge – Dido hand me such a challenge well over a year ago, and I still have yet to try and rise to it to a point where I have confidence in the results!).
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, January 2024: Morlita Quan – Cats and Dogs
For Morlita, the challenge came in the form putting together an exhibition focused on her work in taking in and caring for abandoned and mistreated animals, notably dogs.
While this might sound easy, it’s not necessarily so. For a start, should the images be of animals taken in Morlita’s physical world life, and if so, how should they be shot? What needs to be done to eliminate too much personal information from accidentally slipping into an image? Which animals should be featured? Should these be individual or group shots? And if not images of actual animals she is caring for, that what should be offered? shots of random animals, perhaps caught on the street? or should the images be drawn from digital sources – SL and elsewhere? And so on. When you add the fact that Morlita works in the realms of the conceptual and abstract, the melding of ideas and thoughts, both in her art and in her music, then the task becomes even more of a challenge – how do such approaches mix with the practicalities of animal welfare and care?
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, January 2024: Morlita Quan – Cats and Dogs
With Cats and Dogs the answer to that last question would appear to be quite eloquently. Cats and Dogs is at once both a collection of conceptual pieces, oft with abstractions of meaning, and of portraits and studies of cats and dogs which can be taken purely on that level, depending upon your outlook mood.
Some of the themes woven into the images will at once appear obvious to anyone what has owned a cat or a dog (perhaps most recognisably in Ego, while in others the layering of ideas might be more nuanced (as in the highlighting of the eyes in a on some, capturing the notions of intelligence and understanding within our furred friends). In others still, the potential for meaning / interpretation is even more nuanced, if one so wishes to make it so – such as GP_MorlitaM (9) – or can simply be seen as an image of an animal enjoying life (and splashing through water). These are pieces which also blend Morlita’s love of the animals with her love of geometry and organic forms, each piece bringing all of these aspects together in a unique expression of love and understanding.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, January 2024: Morlita Quan – Cats and Dogs
Supported by 3D elements by Adwehe, Cats and Dogs is something of a very different exhibition for Nitroglobus; one that is obviously very personal to the artist – but also one fully in keeping with Dido’s tenet of encouraging her artists to present something which engages the eye and the mind. My apologies to her and Morlita to getting to this blog post a little later than is normally the case with exhibitions at Nitroglobus – and also to Dido for the fact that I still haven’t met the challenge passed to me back in late 2022!
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.
Meeting Overview
The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Simulator Deployments
No SLS Main channel deployment on Tuesday, January 16th, 2024; the simhosts were all just restarted.
Wednesday, January 17th should see the Falls Colours simulator update once more deployed to all of the RC channels. This includes:
If all goes well, week #4 should see Fall Colours deployed to the SLS Main channel and the Gingerbread simulator update deployed to at least some of the RC channels.
Viewer Updates
No changes at the start of the week, leaving the list of official viewers as:
Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements.
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
Jira End-of-Road – Reminder
Linden Lab is ending its use of Atlassian Jira for the filing of bug reports and feature request, and is instead moving to Github / Canny. For specifics, please refer to the following:
Note that this is a work-in-progress (so things like additional ticket categories are being introduced, such as the recent Server Bug category), and both the new system and Jira remain open at this time (although the latter will shutdown in February 2024).
Game Control Update
The game_control event for using game controllers has been removed from the Gingerbread maintenance RC to become its own branch / channel (currently on Aditi (the Beta grid), where it can be found on the regions LeviathanLove and LeviathanLost.
As per the previous SUG meeting summary, the game_control event signature has changed in that the button_edges parameter is no longer provided to the event and must be computed by the scripter if still needed.
In Brief
Further discissions on Leviathan Linden’s LSL updates for camera control, due to be deployed in the Gingerbread update (see my previous SUG summary for details)
A general discussion on attachment points – such as reserving some for specific uses, or providing a separate pool of attachment points for HUDs / on-screen attachments (so that they are counted separately, rather than being part of the total limit of 38 attachments).
Concerns were raised over the fact the PBR now makes it harder to show / hide prims/object faces (e.g. alpha cuts in mesh bodies) using LSL to set the alpha visibility, with loops now being required to achieve what could previously be done via a single function call.
The problem is seen as exacerbated by the fact there appears to be no way for a script to determine if PBR materials is applied, making it necessary for creators to add to their script overheads.
It had been thought that a bug report had been raised on this issue, as it has been discussed at the Lab and is seen as a issue which needs to be fixed – although it might not be possible to change the semantics of the current Blinn-Phong alpha setters in LSL without breaking content.
llSetAlpha was not expanded to handle this out of concern over mixing semantics of setting legacy and PBR alpha values correctly.
This led to a general discussion on possible options to manage this issue, which continued through most of the rest of the meeting.
Please refer to the video for these items. and on TTAORAIMWEATCP (the throwing about of random acronyms in meetings without explanation and thus confusing people).
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, January 14th, 2024
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8th, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – NEW.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld