Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, May 4th, 2025
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.
Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.
Official LL Viewers
Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th.
New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
Use Preferences → Graphics → Advanced Settings → Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers.
My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
Key updates:
Build Floater improvements: increase to scale boundaries; Physics Material Type now updates when selecting linked objects; Repeats per Meter value no longer incorrect for non-uniform sized objects
Hover height: the minimum/maximum is now +/- 3 meters.
Snapshot floater: L$ balances can be hidden independently of the rest of the UI.
Preference Search bar: general usability and readability improvements.
Refer to the release notes for full updates and fixes.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd.
Bryn Oh’s Imogen and the Pigeons first appeared in Second Life over a decade ago. Like all of Bryn’s art, it was deeply immersive, experimental, and offered a depth of narrative that might be seen as both challenging to navigate with its layered themes, and visually engaging. Also, as with most of Bryn’s work, it sat within her broader narrative universe, started with her Rabbicorn story, with its most direct link to that universe being via The Singularity of Kumiko, which was both a physical prequel to Imogen and the Pigeons and as sequel – so to speak – to Imogen’s life, focusing as it did on the story of Imogen’s daughter.
However, whilst I have attempted to follow all of Bryn’s creativity within these pages, Imogen and the Pigeons is a work that escaped my attention back in 2013, so I was pleased to be able to pay a visit to it following its extensive update and return to Second Life, where it re-opened on April 25th, 2025.
Bryn Oh: Imogen and the Pigeons, May 2025
As noted, this is a story sitting within Bryn’s broader narrative universe. But this does not mean you necessarily need to have specific knowledge of that universe; the central themes of Imogen are accessible to anyone visiting, and the layering of ideas and themes allows the visitor the opportunity to peel them open howsoever they wish and however deeply they wish, be in during a single visit or over multiple visits or as a result of witnessing and allowing what they’ve encountered to whisper quietly to them during and after a visit.
That said, there are core themes throughout Bryn’s work, and these are very present within Imogen, as Bryn explains:
My artistic focus is in the way modern society is affected by technology, ranging between human/machine and machine/machine relationships. Often we consider technology to open channels for people to interact and engage socially, however, the opposite can occur where people become isolated within their own personal bubble, separate and witnessing the world from a distance almost as a product with brittle popularity. My work expresses a yearning for meaningful connections within the new technological realm that often contains human remoteness. I build virtual reality environments that convey the juxtapositions between human emotion and machine sentience. I combine poetry with a melancholy narrative that explores the themes of connection and belonging.
– Bryn Oh
Bryn Oh: Imogen and the Pigeons, May 2025
In terms of presentation, Imogen is richly immersive and takes advantage of some of SL’s most recent updates, such as the use of reflection probes and dynamic mirrors. Core to the installation is Bryn’s own Second Life Experience, which should be accepted on arrival if not a part of your active Experiences. Given all of this, the installation should really be viewed using an up-to-date viewers with, if your system can manage it, at least mirrors being enabled, together with Use Shared Environment set and have local sounds enabled.
It’s also particularly pertinent to remember that Imogen is designed to be both immersive and interactive – a lot of the initial parts of the installation rely on you finding your way forward, and some of the time this may not seem obvious. As such, do be sure to mouse-over things you may find – particularly things which look like they may be buttons or switches. In this latter regard, I’m not just talking about the in-world “audio” buttons you can press to hear recitals of the poems that form the written narrative for the story; there are also those that will open doors and portals.
Bryn Oh: Imogen and the Pigeons, May 2025
Be prepared to put some effort into getting around – routes are not direct (although some are volume-triggered teleports, making transitions between chapters in the story fairly straightforward). When you initially find your way outside, for example, the journey does not end at the water’s edge, but you’ll have to have to exercise care and have a keen eye in order to make your way upwards. However, like Bryn, I’m not going to point you towards where you should go or what you should do.
I have said in the past that I think of my artwork here in virtual worlds almost as paintings you can enter and explore. The beauty of a painting, the immersion of cinema and then meshed in with a new type of open ended freedom of movement combined with interaction. There are many new and interesting techniques to experiment with inside the virtual art form. The one which I brought up at the beginning, that ties into my new build Imogen and the pigeons, is creating immersion within the artistic environment by creating scenarios which challenge the viewer. I generally don’t put out text or arrows to tell the viewer where to go or what to do. I feel this can break the immersion so I let the viewer discover on their own.
– Bryn Oh
Bryn Oh: Imogen and the Pigeons, May 2025
So, what is the story behind Imogen and the Pigeons? As Bryn notes above, it is very much about our relationship with technology. Set in an age where an individual’s memories can be recorded, and then potentially edited, spliced, etc., it explores questions of existence, the human condition, the juxtaposition of connection with others and isolation from them as so often exists when it comes to our increasing reliance on technology for our interactions. Also within it we might find questions concerning our own identity and how we project ourselves in the eyes of others – how willing are we to amend our own histories, intentionally alter our memories and actions when verbalising them, in order to appear more acceptable, more desirable, in their eyes?
Within this, there are many subtexts and other avenues of question those exploring Imogen might find or be prompted to explore. In this I would urge you to observe everything you see at least twice; from the titles of books waiting to be found to drawings on walls to those scattered across a floor in as if torn from a sketchbook and thrown into the air, pretty much everything you encounter within the chapters and scenes, rooms and spaces, throughout Imogen will have something to say.
Bryn Oh: Imogen and the Pigeons, May 2025
Even were the route straight-forward, this layering of ideas and subtext is such that Imogen and the Pigeons is not the easiest or nor the most direct narrative to comprehend as one moves through it. Patience and an open, inquisitive mind are essential to both finding your way through the many scenes and rooms and in coming to an understanding as to what might be being whispered to you by your subconscious, as you find your way from the opening scene and back to it.
And if all this sound cryptic, it is only because I do not want to spoil things for you or for Bryn. There is a depth and richness to Imogen that perhaps reaches beyond the likes of Hand and other environments Bryn has created; an almost perfect balance of narrative, adventure, questioning, reflection, warning and mystery (I’m still boggling about the poem of the writer, and whether her name and her appearance are an intentional reference to a producer of immersive adventures with SL, and if so, what it might potentially mean). Thus, this is an installation which really should be experienced and cogitated upon directly and not offered through a watery translation as I might otherwise give.
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting of Thursday, May 1st, 2025. Please note that this is not a full transcript, but a summary of key topics, and timestamps are to the official video, embedded at the end of this report. .
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 related viewer development work.
This meeting is generally held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
Official Viewer Status and Updates
Viewer Status
Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th.
New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
Use Preferences → Graphics → Advanced Settings → Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers.
My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
Key updates:
Build Floater improvements: increase to scale boundaries; Physics Material Type now updates when selecting linked objects; Repeats per Meter value no longer incorrect for non-uniform sized objects.
Hover height: the minimum/maximum is now +/- 3 meters – requires a simulator-side update, currently in the process of being deployed.
Snapshot floater: L$ balances can be hidden independently of the rest of the UI.
Preference Search bar: general usability and readability improvements.
Refer to the release notes for full updates and fixes.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd.
Internal discussions on what form this should take remain in progress.
As a result of delays with 2025.03 and 2025.04, coupled with a need to consider how to better offer viewers with features / capabilities user will find valuable, rather than simply lobbing buckets of changes and updates into each release, the viewer team is backing off of the idea of a monthly release cadence for the immediate future.
Overall, the focus remains on getting the flow of model uploads working smoothly and in providing the same capabilities when uploading glTF models as is currently the case for COLLADA models.
However, there will be some constraints on capabilities:
Higher vertex limits on uploads will not be supported for glTF, as it is described as requiring a “whole mesh format upgrade”, which requires further thought before moving in that direction. As such the current 65K vertices per face limit will apply to glTF model uploads.
Due to the complexity, and until things can be re-thought, glTF materials cannot be imported as a part of a glTF mesh (outside of the Base Colour map); they must be imported separately and then applied. Direct import of glTF materials as a part of a glTF mesh requires an large refactoring of code which is not possible in the immediate future.
The above point prompted the question from Geenz on whether people would prefer the Base Colour to be uploaded, or simply just have a blank face provided until such time as full glTF materials can be imported with the mesh. Opinion at the meeting leaned towards the blank surface.
[Video: 15:25-20:21] Are there plans to support Unreal Engine? – No, and defined as “probably never happening”.
This led to a question about supporting Unreal Engine plug-ins and perhaps getting plug-in support for Marvelous Designer, often used as an adjunct to making and rigging SL clothing (in fact, Linden Lab struck a deal with MD so a plug-in could be provided for the Sansar platform and its avatars).
While not averse to the idea of plug-in support, it was noted that in respect of rigging to the avatar skeleton, the latter would need additional work to make it offerable to third-parties to support.
This led to a general acknowledgement and discussion on the need for better pipelining to support popular tools, what those tools might in fact be, beyond Blender, how widespread is their use, availability of SDKs, convergence in trends (e.g. towards OpenUSD) – although how this might all be achieved is a head-scratcher.
Overall, such work is seen as “worth discussing” but well beyond the current roadmap.
[Video: 20:24-25:52] In terms of the SL skeleton, it was stated that “everyone” uses Avastar – including the Lab -(although the MayaStar plugin by Cathy Foil also gets good usage), due to the SL skeleton having issues.
Geenz suggested the way to offer easier compatibility between the SL skeleton and commercial tools like MD would be to get the skeleton files updated and offer them as glTF and / or OpenUSD downloads.
This grew into a general discussion on the skeleton, its complexity compared to other games / platforms, etc.
[Video: 25:52-33:30] A general discussion on the Avatar Welcome Pack, specifically some of the shortfalls in how it has been put together.
Some of the issues are known, and have been raised by the creators who provided the content for LL to bring together, others may not have been identified.
The request is for any issues identified by experienced users opting to try / test the avatar, etc., to be filed as a bug report.
It was also noted that clearer instructions were not provided with the Avatar Welcome Pack – such as *copying* a body folder / outfit from the Library to Inventory, rather than adding / wearing an avatar or outfit directly from the Library (and thus spawning multiple copies in Inventory.
In relation to the above, Kyle Linden suggested the Lab offer the pack’s contents on a Lab-driven Marketplace store to help with discoverability, and this was positively received.
[Video: 33:35-38:24] A discussion on lighting – “block” (aka volume) lighting, improving the flexibility of lighting in SL, implementing physically based lighting capabilities, etc.
[Video: 41:20-46:29] A discussion on filling the “voids” between continents and regions with water / air open space to allow free passage to boats and aircraft, and why this currently in not feasible on technical or financial grounds.
The system complexity of doing is so enormous … to do that, we’d have to either run a single server in each one of the void spaces, which would obviously put us out of business overnight [fees to Amazon] or… to build mega regions. But the trick to those mega regions need to sit on top of existing regions, or something. Because otherwise, you have the protocol for cross-region communications at the boundaries, and you no longer have cardinal boundaries. Every programmer here can imagine the horror of going from having one neighbour to your left to having between 1 and 600 neighbours to your left, or something. We just didn’t code Second Life that way, so that we could have regions of different size adjacent to each other. I don’t know how to solve that … I don’t have an easy answer off the top of my head.
Philip Rosedale
[Video 48:13-54:30] General comments on providing VR support – options, issues, technical hurdles.
A selection of the old-style Meadowbrook homes, soon to depart the gird, and one of their local community points, a swimming pool
As I’ve recently noted in writing about the release of the Aspen Linden Homes and new house styles for the Log Home theme (both themes being available to Premium and Premium Plus subscribers – read here and here for more), Linden Lab has started making renewed noises about retiring the “older” generation of Linden Homes, first introduced in 2010.
On Friday, May 2nd, 2025, the Lab further confirmed the upcoming closure of the older style of Linden Homes (all of which stand on 512 sq m parcels within their own theme mini-continent scattered across the grid), with a post entitled Honouring the Past, Embracing the Future: Your New Linden Home Awaits.
Clearly aimed at users who have not as yet made the move from these older themes and styles of home to the “modern” Homes on Bellisseria, the post reads in part:
As we continue evolving and improving the Linden Home experience, we want to ensure that our residents have access to the best and most modern living spaces available. A couple of years ago, during SLB, we announced our long-term plan to phase out all legacy Linden Homes. The time has come to make that transition, and while saying farewell to your current home may feel bittersweet, we are confident that the next chapter will bring even more possibilities, personalization, and comfort.
We also recognize the lasting impact these homes have had, and we are planning a special tribute to honour the legacy Linden Homes and the memories they have held. We will share more details soon.
Whilst no deadline is given in terms of how much longer the older Homes will remain on the grid, the post does tend to make it clear their days are now definitely numbered. I honestly have no idea as to how active people are / were when in terms of living-in and utilising these older Linden Homes, or exactly how much “community” they fostered. However, they do represent a point in time in SL’s history that is worth remembering in some way; many of us actually appreciated having them – as limited as they are by today’s standards!
However, what piqued my interest was the idea of “honouring” these older homes – and very much hope that whatever is planned goes beyond just the houses themselves. While I’ve no idea how popular the approach was, at least one of the little continents presenting these older Linden Homes carried with it something of a little “backstory” to Second Life; one likely utterly obscure in this day and age, but one my mind immediately sprang to on reading the Lab’s post.
Cape Ekim, May 2025
It’s called Cape Ekim, and the legend wrapped around it involves another mythical Linden explorer in the form of Professor Linden (totally overshadowed by the feats and ego of Magellan Linden – possibly because the Professor never survived long enough to be embodied in some manner!), and his hunt for a great and benevolent dragon said to have once roamed the grid.
It’s a fun little mystery (if one a little long in the tooth and genteel / pedestrian in this age of scripted Experiences, mesh, Animesh, and all the rest we can use in SL to create adventures and games), and one I wrote about more than a decade ago.
It may not tax the grey matter too much, but it does features riddles, books, secret passageways, and a cipher to solve to unlock a door (no pesky double-click TPing!), and is of an age and style that allow it to stand as a glimpse of SL’s past as much as the houses close to where it sits. As such, I really hope LL will give thought to the idea – and to any other similar spots which may exist within the old Linden Homes continents.
Cape Ekim, May 2025
Certainly, if the history of SL and nostalgia are your thing – and just in case it will soon vanish – why not try exploring / revisiting Cape Ekim for yourself?
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from my chat log of the meeting.
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.
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.
Simulator Deployments
On Tuesday, April 29th, the Main SLS channel was restarted without any update
On Wednesday, April 30th:
BlueSteel and a snack channel should be updated with the Elderberry simulator update (see below).
All remaining RC channels should be restarted without any change.
Upcoming Deployment – Elderberry
A new option to llDerezObject – DEREZ_TO_INVENTORY, which returns the targeted object to inventory and saves its current state (e.g. has the same behaviour as Build → Object → Save Back to Object Contents.
llIsLinkGLTFMaterial – which can can determine if a face on a linked prim is PBR.
REZFLAG_DIE_ON_NO_REZZER – which will cause a rezzed prim to die if its rezzer is no longer present in the region.
llSetGLTFOverrides, rather than changes to llSetColor and llSetAlpha to work with PBR, as changing the latter was “starting to lead down some very scary paths WRT ‘What is the right thing to do'”.
Possibly a fix for llSetGroundTexture, which currently has the NE & SW values swapped. The question was asked in this was in the release, but the question wasn’t fully answered.
SL Viewer Updates
Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th – No Change.
New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
Use Preferences → Graphics → Advanced Settings → Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd.
A (reasonable) request was made to have simulator release names (“Elderberry”, “Puff Pastry” or whatever) actually reflected on the release notes rather than referencing them solely by release number.
Is the clean-up procedures after de-rezzing any different to other objects? Should not be, the; the object is killed from in-world on receipt of the derez command, then a new asset is generated to replace the deleted one in the rezzing object’s inventory.
Is DEREZ_TO_INVENTORY to to any capability? No. The code was originally set up to respond to a message from the viewer and so would report messages back that way; however it is being updated to be smarter than that to avoid missed messages, etc.
A feature request to allow attachment rezzing directly from another object’s inventory has been received (e.g. to assist with changing outfits). It is regarded as a large project and, if accepted, has yet to be added to the development roadmap.
A feature request to Add function to get a list of objects in the region (somewhat similar to the Area Search in some TPVs) has been submitted and is currently being tracked. Upvote if you’d like to see it get onto the roadmap for implementation.
A discussion on prim manipulation and LSL and differences between viewer-side and simulator-side disconnects (e.g. LSL cant set sphere taper, and viewer can’t set floating text or particle). This drifted into discussion of prim / linkset ordering and an actual node hierarchy for the same that is known to the viewer, together with a means to set the linkset number for a given object in the linkset / “click and assign” root prim for a linkset.
Leviathan Linden offered some feedback to those testing the SLua regions on Aditi:
One thing I was working on a week or two ago but currently on hold: people on the Lua servers were using the faster scripts to thrash a log of prim properties, which would generate a storm of Full Updates. Someone noticed some hot spots in the generation/sending of those updates, slowing things down making the problem look like Lua’s fault. So, I was working on a speed-up there. Wasn’t done, got side-tracked. Will get back to it.
† 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, April 27th, 2025
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.
Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.
Official LL Viewers
Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th – No Change.
New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
Use Preferences → Graphics → Advanced Settings → Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd – No Change.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 