Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, December 2023: Bamboo Barnes – Broken Chair
My idea of art is not the refraction of light, but the expression of what lies behind it. I want to create something that is inside a person, something that has a fragrance like fermented love. Therefore you rarely find anything cheerful or uplifting in most of my work, nor do I want to express such things.
Thus states Bamboo Barnes in discussing her latest exhibition – and her third at Dido Haas’ Nitroglobus Roof Gallery over the years – which opens on December 11th, 2023.
As I’ve frequently noted in these pages, Bamboo is one of the most vibrant, evocative, provocative, and emotive artists in Second Life. Her work is far removed from that of other artists who mix digital techniques with images from the physical world and those from SL, in that it it is both introspective and yet often – through the use of colour and tone – strongly assertive such that individual pieces can both reflect her inner thoughts, personal perceptions and feelings whilst at the same time speaking directly to the person viewing them in an equally personal and also entirely unique way.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, December 2023: Bamboo Barnes – Broken Chair
Such is the case with Broken Chair, an exhibition of 19 studies by Bamboo, supported by a series of 3D elements by the artist, some of which reflect the title of the exhibition, others of which might appear more abstract at first glance.
The images are predominantly monochrome in nature, colours – outside of red – sparingly used. Each offers its subject in Bamboo’s trademark style: a face, sometime in full, sometimes in profile, often in sharp focus, just as often not; each one looking outwards at or beyond the observer, expression and pose – even when the eyes are unseen – giving voice to the tumult of thought and feelings tumbling through the mind within the head. What these thoughts and feeling might be is up to observers to interpret for themselves, but there is more than enough within each one to resonate with each of us, and cause a sense of understanding and familiarity.
Where colour is used, it is done so in emphasis of a mood, emotion or feeling, whilst the title of the exhibition speaks to what so often lies within us all: the introspections that are so personal we cannot give voice to them; thoughts that can – whatever their origin or cause – leave us spiralling in silence, trapped without ourselves – but which also demand expression, be it through physical or mental reflection. These are thoughts which can leave us feeling less-than-whole – or broken, if you will. Yet even whilst bringing forth this sense of brokenness, such thoughts and feelings can so often also impart an inner strength or drive to overcome, to mend; a determination to learn, to overcome, to become more whole and move forward in life.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, December 2023: Bamboo Barnes – Broken Chair
So yes, we might so often feel broken inside, but as with a broken chair, we have the ability within ourselves to mend and heal. Perhaps not fully – even a repaired chair can so signs of the work applied to make it so – but enough to carry us forward in life. And within Broken Chair, Bamboo perhaps reminds us of that such feelings – and the drive they encourage – are both common to us all.
The Middle of Nowhere, November 2023 – blog post †
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creators User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, December 7th, 2023.
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.
As a rule, these meetings are:
Held in-world and chaired by Vir Linden, in accordance with the dates and times given in the the SL Public Calendar, which also includes the location for the meetings.
Conducted in a mix of voice and text.
Open to all with an interest in content creation.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript.
Official Viewers Status
The Maintenance X RC viewer (usability improvements) updated to version 7.1.1.7088410646, on December 7.The rest of the official viewer stand as:
Release viewer: version 7.0.1.6894459864, the glTF / PBR Materials viewer, issued November 17, promoted November 28.
Release channel cohorts:
Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 7.1.1.7088402585, December 5 – bug and crash fixes.
Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 7.1.1.7039128750, December 1 – displaying user-customized keybindings in chat.
Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
General Notes
It is unclear which viewer is liable to be promoted (if any) to end-of-year de facto release status. Currently both the Maintenance V RC and the Emoji viewer are seen as possible candidates – although the latter has yet to be updated to Github Actions / merged with the PBR release viewer code base.
PBR Materials
Maintenance work on the initial release is well in progress.
This work includes updates to environmental haze, per my previous CCUG summary (e.g. making local lights and glow be subject to haze / fog such that those further away appear dimmer / are blotted by the haze / fog, rather than poking through it; fixing BUG-234235 “[PBR] alpha blend on water is acting a bit like invisiprim” + correcting the fact that Linden Water is currently drawn twice in a rendered scene, when visible).
There have been some reported permissions issues with PBR / glTF, and these are being worked on.
A fix (courtesy of Ansariel Hiller) for BUG-234706 “[GLTF] [PBR] Performance unstable / massive performance loss compared to default release” has also been pulled into the maintenance update.
BUG-234728 “[PBR] Masked alpha gradient textures change with viewing angle” has been accepted by the Lab, but is proving difficult to consistently reproduce, slowing the investigation.
PBR Terrain Work
Materials applied to Second Life terrains. Credit: Linden Lab
Per past meeting notes, Cosmic Linden is prototyping the application of PBR materials on terrain (see this blog post for more).
Important notes with this work:
It is not terrain painting. It is the application of PBR materials – terrain painting is described as “something that’s on the radar” at LL.
The work does not include support for displacement maps.
The work is currently only viewer-side, with no corresponding server-side support, the idea here being to prototype what might be achieved and testing approaches / results.
Current Status
With PBR Materials now having shipped, cosmic Linden is turning her attention back to this work.
The first order of business she sees is to get a project viewer supporting PBR terrain made available for users to try.
Cosmic is also working on refining the PBR swatch / picker in the viewer’s UI.
There is an issue with how PBR normal appear when used within terrain which needed to be corrected.
Game Controller Support
Project Summary
The work is being led by Leviathan Linden, to provide game controller support at the scripting level (e.g. for handling things like vehicle movement, scripted objects etc.).
It is not currently related to matters of avatar locomotion / camera movement, which is covered by the Preferences → Move and View → Other Devices (/Joystick) options, and considered out-of-scope for the work at present.
Official documentation on the server-side support can be found on the Game Control page of the SL Wiki. Note this is based on the Simple Direct Media Layer (SDL) library for the button naming conventions, with some additional buttons added by the Lab to provide support for up to 32 buttons, rather than the 21 offered by SDL.
At the time of writing, the Gingerbread maintenance branch with the prototype Game_Control feature is available on Aditi (the Beta grid) on the following regions: Aegis Island, Blake Sea – Turnbuckle, Cloud Sandbox 1, Cloud Sandbox 2, Firestorm Aerodrome, Gothlauth, Hona Lee Puff, Jigglypuff, Laefeon, LR151, LR 152, Mauve, Moonberry, Morris, SG2, and Smithereens.
The current methodology for the Game_Control event is for whatever button is pressed on a games controller, an overall state is sent to the viewer, comprising:
The number of buttons available, presented in bitmask form to any controlling script.
A range of six axes in the range -1 to 1, given as floats), which the event then presents to an LSL script, which can then parse them.
The Game_Event function then passes this information to a controlling LSL script for parsing.
Notes:
The above points should not be considered tablets-of-stone, Leviathan is open to taking feedback from vehicle builders, etc., – such as including things like mouse input within the axes data.
Event_Control does not include a means for handling force feedback in its current form, but something like this might be added in a future iteration.
Note that discussions on the project are also held within the Simulator User Group meetings (summaries here).
Current Status
Consideration is being given to the fact that when the data on a games controller is sent to a script, it will have to be sent in sequence – so does this mean the inputs received by the Game_Control event should be given more meaningful names prior to being parsed by an LSL script?
Also, what does the LSL script need to know? Is it what button is being pressed or what action is being performed? Three lines of thought emerged in discussions:
One for keeping button options as “standardised” as possible, rather than allowing actions to be arbitrarily mapping to buttons (with the result that every creator using the capability will do so differently), possibly backed-up with a “best practices guide”. A concern with this approach was that it would require a degree of proscription (“button x can do this, this or this” – which do you require?”), which might not meet all use-cases.
Allowing for a more arbitrary button / action assignment, sending the button names as bindable options to the viewer, and providing users with a UI element (accessed via an on-screen button) so they can freely map buttons to vehicle / object actions based on personal preference.
Something of a half-way house: providing a “standard” set of buttons that can be used by a controller, then providing a scripted means / UI option to map vehicle / object actions to that set of buttons.
A further suggestion was made to have a core “glossary” of typical game controller inputs / actions (e.g. up, down, strafe left, strafe right, etc), but have the ability for script to identify the actions they require in controlling a vehicle / object, and allow the creator (/user, if a UI options for re-binding is provided), to map additional options to buttons /re-map preferences.
Discussions around these ideas set to continue.
In Brief
Not purely Content Creation related, but a Jira (BUG-234653 – “Feature Request: Invisible / Utility Login”) has been submitted requesting the ability for users to be able to completely hide their on-line status prior to logging-in. This is being considered for implementation.
The question of the status of the Puppetry Project was again raised. In short:
The overall project remains on “hold” for a variety of reasons (including both complexities and also limitations within SL which require separate addressing).
Some of the work originally sitting within the Puppetry banner – such as animation import – is either being considered as a separate project, or being folded into other work – such as glTF scene import (which encompasses items such a node hierarchies which are required for IK systems etc.).
This lead to a broader discussion of the potential with glTF (perhaps best left until the project relating to scene import becomes more public) and a history of the Puppetry Project, mush of which is summarised in my Puppetry Project meeting summaries).
Next Meeting
13:00 SLT, Thursday, December 21st, 2023, at the Hippotropolis Campsite (but check the public calendar).
† 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.
TheDickens Project, a seasonal celebration of the life, times and work of Charles Dickens with a focus on what is perhaps his most famous story, A Christmas Carol, officially opens to the public on Thursday, December 7th 2023.
Now a tradition within Second Life – the first edition of the event was held in 2012 (and which itself grew out of a special presentation originally made in 2008), the Dickens Project offers a mix of reading, storytelling, music, events and activities. It is organised and presented by Seanchai Library and offers visitors an immersive environment across two regions evocative of Victorian England in Dickens’ time. This two-region environment serves as both home to settings from A Christmas Carol and the stage upon which the Project’s multiple events and activities take place throughout it run, which concludes in early January 2024. However, this year’s event brings with it some changes.
“This project has a lot of history and long time fans have a lot of ownership over elements that are favourites … We try to balance retaining things that are familiar with exploring new ideas and new ways to improve the experience for our guests
– Caledonia Skytower, Seanchai Library
For 2023, and following the success of Where’s Mr. Lurky?, a search-and-count style hunt during Seanchai Library’s 2023 Bradbury Project (read more here), the 2023 Edition of The Dickens Project will see visitors invited to Help Tiny Tim! who has left his crutch somewhere, everywhere across the two Dickens regions and which visitors are invited to find in all of its various hiding places. Information on the hunt can be found at the event’s Welcome Area.
Another new feature this year is a celebration of the myth of mermaids. Depicted in many ways throughout history, from lithe beautiful maidens to grotesque fish hybrids, mermaids were also a source of fascination in the Victorian era. For 2023, the Dickens Project offers a fascinating display of some of the art and stories surrounding these mythical creatures. Curated by Dagmar Kohime, the display can be found at the lighthouse within Dickens Harbour.
The Dickens Project 2023 Edition
As with the 2022 Edition, The Dickens Project is this year assisted by a local SL Experiences to help with navigation and general enjoyment. All three are explained at the Project’s Welcome Area. They will be triggered automatically for anyone visiting the Project for the very first time, when approaching one of the teleport portals around the walls of the Welcome Area – so if you are new the the Project, expect the pop-up invite to join the Experiences and accept it when it appears. To also assist visitors with the layout of the regions, the floor of the Welcome Area also includes a map of both regions which highlight locations of interest.
Throughout its history, The Dickens Project has promoted communities through events and activities held throughout its annual run, and 2023 is no exception. Participating this year are: Virtual Community Radio, Innsmouth in SL, Evolution Dance, Idle Rogue Productions, Misfit Dance and Performance Art SL, and Virtuoso Dance, eClipse Club & Resort, and the SL Hawks Aerobatic Team. Some of these communities have dedicated spaces within the Project’s regions which can be reached via the teleport portals at the Welcome Areas, others- such as the Hawks Aerobatic Team. will be visiting to provide special shows.
The Dickens Project 2023 Edition
Also returning for 2023 is the Community Virtual Library, once again providing research and information on Victorian life in the time of Dickens’ works, whilst making a first and special appearance of December 30th is the Angelicus Boy Choir. Finally, the Project will see a broad range of entertainment and parties featuring DJs and live musicians from across Second Life.
Readings
Of course, no edition of the Project would be complete without the readings from Dickens’ a Christmas Carol.
The first such reading for 2023 will take place at 17:00 SLT on Thursday, December 7th, when the Community Virtual Library will host the Virtual Pioneers reading A Christmas Carol: Christmas Present. Then at noon SLT on Sunday, December 17th, 2023, there will be The Big Read, a relay-style reading of A Christmas Carol in its entirety.
The latter will mark the start of Carol Week, with daily readings for parts of the novella throughout the week of December 18th through 21st, each reading taking place at a location within the Project inspired by the story. In addition, a listening room is available 24/7 where guests can listen to different recordings of A Christmas Carol on the media stream, and a HUD can be obtained by visitors who would like to explore listening to the story stream, rather than the music stream.
The full calendar of events for the Project is provided below – note all times are SLT.
To keep up-to-date on daily events and updates, be sure to keep an eye on the Seanchai Library website.
Dickens Project Art Show
Returning for 2023 is the Dickens Project Art Show, which is currently open (until December 17th, 2023) to submissions from artists.
This is a non-juried show which will formally open on December 23rd, 2023 with a special opening party at 15:30 SLT on that day. Artists are invited to submit 2D art (some 3D art can be accommodated by arrangement), with the organisers given priority to art with the following themes:
Elements of The Dickens Project.
Victorian Christmas.
Winter beauty.
Multiple submissions are allowed, but the number of works shown per artist may be limited in order to allow as many artists to be represented as possible.
Submissions should be made via notecard to Stevie Basevi. These notecards should include: the artist’s full SL Name (that is, Display Name and account name); the artist’s physical world time zone or best SL times when they can be contacted; a brief description of the piece + an artist biography; a *preview* image of the art to be submitted (i.e. a lower-resolution, thumbnail copy in order to provide the organisers with an idea of the work – not the art itself); and optional links to a related website, Flickr page, etc., for the artist.
General enquiries – including those concerning 3D art submissions – should also be forwarded to Stevie Basevi.
The Dickens Project 2023 Edition
About Seanchai Library
Seanchai Library (pronounced Shawn-a-kee, which means “Storyteller” in Irish Gaelic.) was founded in March of 2008 in Second Life. The program remains dedicated to promoting the power of stories to transform and inspire through live voice presentations: “We bring stories of all kinds to life, in Second Life and other virtual worlds.”
The Dickens Project was created for Seanchai Library by Da5id Abbot, Dagmar Kohime, Gloriana Maertens, Stevie Basevi-Morane, Iniry Vaher, and Caledonia Skytower, in presenting it, Seanchai Library acknowledges the support and sponsorship of Linden Lab.
The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday December 6th, 2023. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.
Meeting Overview
The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), the forums.
As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Marketplace
Supporting PBR Creations
Sntax Linden opened the meeting to idea as to how LL can support makers of PBR content via the Marketplace. Key feedback included:
At least a clear category distinction for PBR-enabled items.
More preferably the ability for creator to indicate whether their product is “classic Materials” (or some such – the technical term is “Blinn-Phong”, which is likely a confusing mouthful for most users) or “PBR-enabled”, in the same manner as they can note a product as “100% Mesh” or “Partial Mesh”.
Some form of iconography on listing pages to indicate content (e.g. whether it is mesh (or partial mesh) and / or PBR enabled and / or rigged for wearing primary and secondary types; or whether it is “classic Materials (or some such), with/without baked lighting, etc.).
The problem here is that if the icons become too granular, they risk becoming confusing / off-putting when seen in listings and / or the simply confuse users unfamiliar with the MP, unless some form of cheat sheet / icon key is provided on every listing.
The above might be mitigated against if the icons are set with tooltip, so that when moused-over, the tip displays a brief description of the icon’s meaning.
If icons were to be used, have them act as filters to help narrow / manage searches.
Addition of specific search filter such as mesh+rigged+baked and lighting+PBR.
Further filters in the left-side filter list to distinguish PBR components / kits (e.g. Building and Object components → PBR Materials).
This broadened into a more general discussion on a greater use of distinguishing icons (with tooltips) within listings Marketplace in general.
Senra and Mesh Bodies
The above also focused on the Senra avatars, and the need to distinguish creations for these so that new users using the Senra avatars can more easily find clothing and accessories to fit them.
The above seems particularly pertinent given the “official 1.0” release of Senra made on Wednesday, December 6th, 2023 (the August release of the avatar now being referred to as a “beta” release), so there is potentially going to be an uptick in creator-provided content for Senra.
This raised the question of a generic category and filters for mesh body types for easier product location (e.g. Human, Animals, Monsters, Fantasy, etc.) – although this could be subject to confusion when listing / trying to find things like anthropomorphic mesh characters.
Garfield Linden suggested an open-ended tagging system for mesh body support: creators could freely input the supported mesh body as a tag, selecting from a drop-down that shows how many other products currently have each tag applied, with the ability to arbitrarily add new tags to the system. These same tags could then be used by residents to filter their search results.
Potential problems here are with scalability / accuracy: how many creators will select tags as opposed to just typing in their own? How unwieldy would this eventually make the drop-down list? How will the tag list be managed to prevent cluttering with typos (e.g. “nial” for “nail”, etc.) & the consequent accidental use of mistyped tags?
A suggested solution for the above is to have the field used by creators to add tag names actually display the total number of times an entered tag has been used (so a typo will hopefully show 0). This could also provide an easier means for creators to select existing tags without having to necessarily use a full drop-down list for tags.
In Brief
The Linden Homes store (see: Looking at the New Linden Homes Store) is to gain search filters for finding themes easier, and also notifications. These should be deployed before year-end.
There is a known issue with Marketplace fuzzy search such that partial names may not produce anticipated results.
There was a general discussion on keyword abuse – including some stores using what might be regarded as keywords in product titles (e.g. the use of “bed” in the name of tattoos), which can skew search results (although may not always be intentional).
There was a repeated request to prevent Marketplace stores using stars in their names, enabling them to show up in searches using the star rating system. This is something the Lab is looking at.
The end of the meeting includes a general discussion on possible improvements in Marketplace gifting (e.g. allowing direct gifting, without having the items go to the user’s main shopping basket). This was coupled with requests with a more flexible shopping basket system (e.g. having the ability to use a basket to store items for later purchase, whilst also being able to purchase a selection of options within it when going to the check-out).
LL is still mulling how to best integrate CasperVend with the Marketplace.
My SL island home, as rendered on the PBR Materials viewer
So it’s another year and another pair of birthdays, physical and virtual – although I admit as the time passes, I get more and more envious of my avatar’s youth; she remains eternally young, trim and fit. Me? While I admit to still being vain enough to work out and maintain something of a trim figure (home rowing machines and exercise mats are both a godsend and a means of home torture), I have to admit that each year I find the back complaining a little more, the feet and knees getting more resentful when I go for walks or spend 20 minutes on the rowing machine…
However, be that as it may, December 5th saw my avatar reach 17 years of age. I actually had to be reminded of this by Johann Neddings (who always sends rezday greetings, bless him!), as I’d totally missed the fact for myself. I guess that as with the physical world, the older you get the harder it is to mark the passing birthdays with any enthusiasm!
2023 has been an interesting year; events in the physical world have – and continue – to mean that my ability to spend time in-world has become choppy. This is somewhat reflected in the number and frequency of posts appearing in this blog decreasing through the year as I’m just not had time to even begin to keep on top of things in Second Life. Sadly, this is likely to continue through the first part of 2024, largely as a result of one set of contractors messing a project up so badly, another project had to be postponed and cannot now commence until the end of January / start of February 2024. However, on the positive side, the project to switch to solar for the bulk of the house’s electricity requirements did go ahead without fuss or bother (although very nearly derailed by the aforementioned mess-up), and in the last 2 months alone has seen a reliance on the national grid for electricity drop by some 40%.
Anyway, what time I have had in-world has largely been devoted to various personal projects and following the ongoing updates to the platform – particularly that of PBR Materials and the Lab’s work to adopt the Khronos glTF 2.0 specification. With the first phase of the PBR Materials work now live across the grid (see: A simple introduction to PBR materials, reflection probes & glTF in Second Life), I’m looking forward to getting the home island updated with reflection probes. I’m also eagerly awaiting the availability of the PBR Materials terrain work Cosmic Linden is working on, to see what that allows.
Another view of the island home, with two copies of the No Cottage Bazar used to form the “pool house” (lower left) ad “main house” (behind it, upper left) overlooking the old “castle courtyard”, the two linked via a small walled inner courtyard and be dint of swapping out windows on the upper level of the “pool house” for a door
In terms of the home island, Second Norway remains my “home” estate, but time being what it has been, I’ve not had the ability to fiddle-fart around with trying out new island designs and kitbashing houses as frequently as I’ve been known to do in the past. There are certainly a lot of house designs I’ve encountered whilst wandering SL and reporting on public regions, but even if I’d had the time to start playing with ideas, I’m not sure I would; a good deal of available effort this year has been in putting together a home design based on what remains one of my favourite models to be offered with Second Life: Marcthur Goosson’s NO Cottage Bizar, which I first obtained in January and initially kitbashed into – of all things – a home swimming pool and lounge area (see The NO Cottage Bizar in Second Life).
Since then, that build has gone through a couple of iterations, but remains very much in use, becoming the nucleus for a scratch-build home design using renovated ruins as a theme before I finally opted to simply bring two copies of the model together to form a single extended home. Although me being me does mean the layout has had a couple of updates since I originally blogged about it (notably swapping the positions of the “house” and the “swimming pool” with one another).
Under full sail
Due to the lack of time, sailing & boating – a particular pastime I enjoy in SL – has also taken a back seat in 2023, whilst flying has been almost totally absent my SL. However, I would like to again thank Spartaco Zemenis and Analyse Dean for their individual generosity in supplying me with versions of the ’86 Domino cruiser and Skûtsje Barge respectively. I’ve enjoyed taken both out on the water (even if the ’86 Domino is by far the largest vessel I’ve operated in SL!) and equally enjoyed modding them to suit my needs.
The other thing I’ve continued to enjoy / appreciate is Second Life is the art exhibitions and installations I’ve been privileged to be invited to view. I haven’t always been able to make every invite – and certainly not every exhibit or installation; but the fact that my opinion is actively sought and artists and gallery owners take the time to write to me either via the blog comments or directly after I have written a review, is both greatly appreciated and genuinely humbling. Thank you to all of you for this – it genuinely keeps me engaged in SL and wanting to see (and often learn about) more art and expressionism in SL.
And, of course, there are all the marvellous public builds across the grid I’ve been invited to visit. Again, apologies to those who have sent an invite I’ve been unable to follow-up on for one reason or another; as noted already, time has often and quite genuinely often been against me. However, the fact that folk do take the time to offer a personal invitation is deeply appreciated, and I do try to respond whenever I can by paying a visit, even if time later conspires to prevent me from offering a writing-up.
A final but by no means lesser thank you to everyone who does continue to read this blog, comment on articles and who suggest ideas for articles and / or pass on news and pointers; all of you genuinely make these pages what they are as much as I (only with fewer typos! – I’m still exceedingly lazy in checking my own pieces after a day of checking other people’s written work; my apologies again for that).
Each time my rezday rolls around, I tend to wonder about the portion of my life spent in Second Life, and whether it has been a meaningful, worthwhile effort, and whether or not I should continue to devote time to it. But the flipside to this is just where else is it possible to see such a rich and diverse gathering of creativity, companionship and artistic outreach and expression from the comfort of an armchair and in the company of your own cats (yes, both of mine will actually sit on my lap / on the desk and watch SL on the screen in fascination – and occasionally try to paw something so it will stop moving!)? As long as all of that remains available, it’s kind-of hard to imagine stopping altogether.
Besides, next year my avatar will be old enough to vote! 😀
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 5th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is 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
Tuesday, December 5th: the SLS Main channel was re-started without any simulator updates being deployed.
Wednesday, December 6th: the “Fall Colours” maintenance update may be expanded across all RC channels from BlueSteel / Preflight. This update includes llRezObjectWithParams, llIsFriend, but will not include the game controller updates.
However, following its initial deployment in Week 48, “Fall Colours” was found to have bugs with collision sounds (e.g. transferring them across region boundaries and with being able to silence them), with the result that the sounds can be repeated multiple times (see: BUG-234757 “Repetitive Collision Sound?” and this forum thread). As a result, at the time of the meeting, LL were still discussing whether or not to consider these issues as “blockers” against the release being more widely deployed.
If the deployment to all RCs goes ahead in the next week or two, it will represent the last server deployment for 2023.
No Change Window
The end-of-year No change window for simulator and official viewer releases will come into effect on the week commencing Monday, December 18th, 2023 and will remain in place until Tuesday, December 2nd, 2024.
Linden Lab offices will be closed for all but emergency support from close of business Friday, December 22nd, 2023, and will re-open on January 2nd, 2024.
Viewer Updates
On Tuesday, December 5th, the Maintenance-W RC viewer updated to version 7.1.1.7088402585.
Other viewers in the pipe remain as:
Release viewer: version 7.0.1.6894459864, the glTF / PBR Materials viewer, issued November 17, promoted November 28.
Release channel cohorts:
Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 7.1.1.7039128750, December 1.
Maintenance X RC, version 6.6.17.6935636398, issued November 21 – usability improvements.
Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
Game Controllers
Leviathan Linden has previously considered the idea of changing the signature of the LSL event to provide per-channel info (input, value) rather than all of the controller state (buttons masks + all axes). However, he has discovered that such an event system would make it difficult to handle multi-modal input: e.g. some_button + axis_state.
This is because the state of each input would arrive in different events, and the order or arrival would matter, with Leviathan noting what he already has in place would likely win out in the end, negating any changes.
Currently, he is trying to make it possible to supply game_control input with keyboard input, but without having to completely rewrite the keyboard mapping and other related UI.
The Gingerbread maintenance branch with the prototype game_control feature has been redeployed to the Beta grid, and can be found on the following Aditi regions: Aegis Island, Blake Sea – Turnbuckle, Cloud Sandbox 1, Cloud Sandbox 2, Firestorm Aerodrome, Gothlauth, Hona Lee Puff, Jigglypuff, Laefeon, LR151, LR 152, Mauve, Moonberry, Morris, SG2, and Smithereens.
A point to note here is that the game controller work does not currently support 3dConnexion SpaceNavigator Mouse many of us use for things like flycamming, photography, filming, etc., but he is promised not to break support for the SpaceNav functionality.
In Brief
Combat Updates:
Rider Linden has published his outline document on improving SL’s combat capabilities, which can be found within the combat systems discussion thread on the forums. Feedback is requested from users engaging in combat games in SL.
This lead to a discussion on combat capabilities and needs throughout the rest of the meeting – please refer to the video below.
BUG-234598 “Avatar hit box rotating bug” has been accepted by LL, but is proving difficult to reproduce.
† 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.
