Category: Second Life

2022 SUG meetings week #28 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Wylde, May 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 12th, 2022 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 entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

For the latest updates and news, please refer to the simulator release thread in the forums.

  • There was no deployment for the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, July 12th, leaving all servers assigned to the channel on the crash fix deployment of Friday, July 8th (version 573149).
  • On Wednesday, July 13th, the Ferrari RC will be upgraded to simulator version 573176 (joining BlueSteel), intended to help future deploys work better. Simhosts on the remaining RC channels will be restarted without any deployment.

Available Official Viewers

  • The Nomayo Maintenance RC (Maintenance N) viewer updated to version 6.6.2.573023, on July 11th.

The rest of the current crop of official viewers remains as follows:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.

In Brief

  • The PNG-instead-of-jpg200 images issue and the “fallback” use of UDP messaging via the simulator for texture data fetching was covered in brief – both are outlined in more detail in my TPVD week #27 meeting summary.
  • The question was asked whether – should the need arise for an automated return of items within a region / parcel due to overflow – there is an implied hierarchy in which items are returned (e.g. are “unlocked” items returned before “locked”?
    • LL does not believe there is any differentiation between unlocked or locked objects when it comes to an automated return, but this will be confirmed at the next SUG meeting.
    • There are other potential factors involved in the selection of items to be returned in these circumstances which may come into play that could complicate which items are returned.
    • The purpose of the question was to ascertain a way of minimising damage in a region where a griefer manages to trigger the return of objects.
    • The question sparked a broader conversation on returned objects (particularly as coalesced packages) across much of the rest of the meeting – please refer to the video.
  • BUG-231802 “Prevent vehicles from entering parcels their riders cannot access”, together with providing a means for a viewer to request all active ban lines within a region, is said to be “queued” for work to commence on them – although no coding has started as yet.
  • BUG-232324 “Add STATUS_DIE_AT_NO_ENTRY Object Status” is described as being in the next maintenance simulator update.
  • There is a discussion on map tile texture UUIDs and surfacing them so that tools similar to those used by the (3rd party) Grid Survey tools could make use of them.

Summer at Missing Melody in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Missing Melody, July 2022 – click any image for full size

Bambi (NorahBrent) has been busy with her region designs, with both Longing Melody and Soft Melody gaining a lot of attention – including in this blog – since the start of the year (see: Visiting Longing Melody in Second Life and A Soft Melody in Second Life). Given this, a return to her Missing Melody was on my game card for 2022, but a poke from Shawn Shakespeare encouraged me to make a summer visit to this always-engaging homestead region.

What is a Missing Melody? It’s that song in your head that you can’t get out but not sure how it really goes. It’s that temptation you want to have in your life so you can fight to resist. It’s that place in your heart that is always waiting to be filled.

– Bambi (NorahBrent)

Missing Melody, July 2022

For this iteration, Bambi offers a region setting that is beautiful in its simplicity: a pair of small islands separated by a deceptively deep channel spanned by a long boardwalk floating serenely above the waters.  Both islands occupy the northern half of the region, sitting under a bright summer sky (I recommend using the region’s shared environment settings).

To the north-east, the small island rises a rich green hump of land, its slopes carpeted by flowering wild grass, and its crowned by green trees and a copse of lavender wisteria.

The latter form a canopy over the landing point, sitting as it does at the end of a fence-bordered track that points the way westwards before dropping down the gentlest of the island’s slopes, and along which an unexpected family is taking a constitutional walk.

Across the channel, the larger of the two islands holds multiple attractions awaiting discovery. These include the winding climb of steps which lead up to where a caravan and cabin lie on a tree-shaded shoulder of the island’s hills, through a second set of steps that descend to the island’s arc of beach to the north-west, through to the rocky path the climbs up the west side of the island, connecting the beach with a high promontory where a lighthouse watches over the southern waters.

Missing Melody, July 2022

The beach offers the most tropical feel to the setting – and the most places for visitors to relax and spend time, both on the sand and over the water. However, both the cabin and the caravan up on the hill top are furnished as well, making for quiet retreats, whilst between them there sits a little stage and outdoor seating for impromptu musical jams.

Picturesque, (obviously) photogenic, and finished with a gentle soundscape, Missing Melody really doesn’t require a lot of exposition on my part; it genuinely speaks for itself, as I hope the images here show. So why not pay a visit yourself?

Missing Melody, July 2022

 

Missing Melody, July 2022

SLurl Details

This week with Seanchai Library – July 11th-15th

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home in Nowhereville, unless otherwise indicated. Note that the schedule below may be subject to change during the week, please refer to the Seanchai Library website for the latest information through the week.

Monday, July 11th, 19:00 Dandelion Wine

The inventor who almost took the pleasure out of life by building a Happiness Machine; the young reporter who fell in love with an alluring lady of ninety; the old gentleman whose last act was listening to the clang of a green trolley car going round a corner, two thousand miles away.

These are just a few of strange and vivid people who entered the secret world of a twelve-year-old boy during one enchanted summer when he discovered the fact that he really was alive…

“The summer of ’28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma’s belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury.”

With Ktadhn Vesuvino.

Tuesday, July 12th

12:00 Noon: Russell Eponym

With music, and poetry in Ceiluradh Glen.

19:00: The One and Only Bob

Intrepid canine Bob sets out on a dangerous journey in search of his long-lost sister with the help of his two best friends, Ivan and Ruby. As a hurricane approaches and time is running out, Bob finds courage he never knew he had and learns the true meaning of friendship and family.

In the tradition of timeless stories like Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, Katherine Applegate blends humour and poignancy to create an unforgettable story of friendship, family, and hope in this sequel to her 2013 Newbery Medal winner  The One and Only Ivan.

Read by Caledonia Skytower.

Wednesday, July 13th, 19:00: Seanchai Flicks

A special for Star Wars month as the Seanchai cinema space plays host to videos and throw popcorn around!

Thursday, July 14th, 19:00: The Mandalorian

Shandon Loring reads the novelisation of the popular Disney+ original series.

2022 viewer release summaries week #27

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week ending Sunday, July 10th, 2022

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 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts::
    • Maintenance Optimisations RC version 6.6.2.573065 issued on Thursday, July 7th.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

America the Crumbling: a statement in art in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kondor Arts Centre; Chuck Clip – America The Crumbling

Art is a powerful tool, offering as it dos the ability for many things from extraordinary creativity, self-expression through to hard-hitting social and political commentary. In this latter regard, art has the ability to prick our conscience and force us, often quite unexpectedly, to confront thoughts and reactions we might otherwise want to try to avoid -and it can also of a means to express pent-up feelings and work through concern and fears. It can thus be both challenging for the audience  and cathartic for the artist.

Such is the case with America The Crumbling, an exhibition of visually stunning and socially expressive paintings by Chuck Clip, which opened on July 7th, 2022 at the Kondor Arts Centre, operated and curated by Hermes Kondor. Chuck has, in recent years, perhaps been best known for hosting and promoting art in Second Life through his Sinful Retreat regions or for providing music and entertainment as DJ Matrix. However, he is also a 2D and 3D artist, and with America The Crumbling he returns to theme exhibitions of his own work in-world for the first time in eight years.

Kondor Arts Centre; Chuck Clip – America The Crumbling

Described as being intended to “shine a light on society in America” that is “colourful, disturbing, maybe even offensive”, America The Crumbling tackles head-on the rising threats to democracy and personal freedoms that are being witnessed both in America and around the world, in paintings that are intensely evocative and a veritable tour de force of an artist’s ability to convey thoughts and feelings through the curation of a specific approach to his paintings and the use of a thematic palette (notably the use of red, white and blue both as colours and tones) to convey his sentiments.

From the militarization of the police (which is actually the root concern of the Defund the Police movement, rather than an outright attempt to strip police forces of their abilities to perform their core functions, as some pundits would like people to believe), through the wholesale assault on democracy (most visibly the attempted January 6th, 2020, insurrection in the United States and also the war in the Ukraine), to the more “subtle” attacks on rights and freedoms such as the persistent assault on social care in the US and the erosion of the traditional barrier between church and state that has allowed a radical religious right to embark on what could well become a wholesale assault on the individual rights of those they deem as undeserving of such rights.

Kondor Arts Centre; Chuck Clip – America The Crumbling

As the introductory notes point out, some of these paintings could well outrage some – but I would suspect those who do react so might not full appreciate the existential tripartite threat the American Experiment currently faces politically, religiously and even through its own judicial system.

For my part, I can only admire Chuck’s ability to challenge and evoke through images that are first and foremost expressions of art, and which do not, for the most part, belabour their point, but work far more subtly: Liberty on her sick bed; the splash of yellow in an otherwise monochrome piece that points to the source of the referenced “Evil”, and so on. Which is not to say Chuck has tried to wrap his comments in a “softness” of presentation: his pieces on the state of US policing pull no punches, whilst And the Magats’ Red Glare… carries an emotional power that can result in the sting of tears being felt behind the eyes.

Kondor Arts Centre; Chuck Clip – America The Crumbling

Richly presented and layered, America The Crumbling is a genuinely startling and evocative presentation and not one to be missed.

SLurl Details

2022 TPVD meetings week #27

Posted on by Inara Pey
Village of Ahiru, April 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this piece, my thanks to her as always for recording the meetings) of the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting on Friday, July 8th, 2022 at 13:00  SLT.

Please note that this is a summary of the key topics discussed during the meeting and is not intended to be a full transcript of either. However, the video does provide a complete recording of the TPVD meeting, and timestamps to the relevant points within it are included in the notes below.

Available Viewers

[Video: 0:08-2:30]

  • Maintenance Optimisations RC version 6.6.2.573065 issued on Thursday, July 7th, This viewer:
    • Incorporates the Build Copy / Paste capability (also found in the Copy / Paste Project viewer).
    • Assorted UI improvements / clean-up (e.g. such as with the Build Edit folder).
    • Apparently includes the ability to hide the World Map Legend
    • Is likely to be fast-tracked to release status “in the next couple of weeks”.

The rest of the current crop of official viewers remains as follows:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29th.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Nomayo Maintenance RC (Maintenance N) viewer, version 6.6.1.572179, June 1.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.

General Viewer Notes

  • Following the promotion of the Maintenance Optimisation RC viewer, the focus will be on the Legacy Profile viewer to get that to RC status.
  • There are some crash-on-exit issues with the official viewer the Lab is attempting to fix.

RequestImage UDP Message

[Video: 2:50-4:44]

  • Since 2015, assets have been delivered to the viewer via HTTP using CDN capabilities.
  • However, the RequestImage UDP messaging capability for delivering textures has remained in place on the simulator, and it has been noted that some viewers continue to use it directly or as a fallback, requiring the simulator to carry out checks with the CDN service when textures cannot be found.
  • LL would like to completely remove all reliance on the simulator for texture fetching / checking, and have everything via HTTP and the viewer / asset system / CDN.
  • To this end the RequestImage message will be deprecated and removed “very soon”.
  • Viewer that us (or actually rely on) it are therefore asked to ensure they only use the HTTP route.
  • [Video: 6:55-7:24] Going forward, the simulator code will track deprecated messaging that TPVs may or may not be using, allowing LL to them TPV where such message paths are still being used and which have been earmarked for removal from the simulator.

In Brief

  • [Video 5:42-6:25] A bug introduced into one of the upload paths this week resulted in the CDN service delivering PNG data in place of JPEG2000 (primarily for profile pictures), which resulted in some viewers experiencing clogging of their texture processing pipes. This issue has now been fixed.
  • As a part of general discussions, Alexa Linden indicated she’d like to start reducing the time it takes for code contributions from TPVs and third-party developers to be integrated into the core SL viewer code. This includes receiving reminders about old code contributions that may have fallen by the wayside.

Mojo’s Wishlist Ideas

[Video: 8:21-pretty much to the end]

There are not currently project, by Mojo Linden continues to seek feedback on them.

  • He reiterated the idea mentioned at the week #27 CCUG meeting of using low-poly bakes to help “increase” visibility across Mainland regions to try an instil a greater sense of scale of the continents.
    • Mojo noted this could perhaps leverage the Map service in some manner (a problem being that the Map service currently doesn’t know about mesh geometry).
    • In raising the Map service, he also noted LL is also aware of the issues within that service that need to be addressed, and that this is really down to determining the optimum time to doe so, rather than having technical reasons why it cannot be improved.
  • He floated the idea of introducing some means of hidden surface removal, particularly for avatars to remove the need for alpha layers, etc., to hide body parts, the idea being to reduce the complexity of avatar rendering.
    • There are edge cases with this – such as an item of clothing with both an “outside” and “inside” texture (such as a lining on a jacket) – what happens to the “inside” texture, does it get culled?
  • He also floated the idea of fully baking the avatar’s appearance such that avatar and clothing are baked as one as a final step of changing appearance, reducing the overall render cost and complexity.
    • It is not clear if this would allow avatar appearance to be changed in “real time” or not (e.g. Sansar bakes avatars, but does so using a separate environment in which to modify an avatar’s appearance).
    • The fact that rigging can be variable between clothing and bodies, etc., might also need to be worked around, as baking would likely require committing to a single set of weights.
  • It is possible the use of baked avatars would allow for an alternative form of avatar impostor for use within large events with a lot of avatars in a single space, the bakes – whilst lower poly than would be the case in less-crowded environments – offering a better visual result than the current impostor system.
  • A lot of technical questions were through out by those at the meeting as to how LL see baked avatars, etc., “working”. However, as Mojo notes, he’s putting ideas forward to see if there is interest in pursuing them rather than presenting any actual projects; as such answers would be sought collaboratively if it were deemed something that should be looked at more formally / in-depth.

Date of Next Meeting

Friday, August 5th, 2022.