Category: Second Life

2025 week #19: SL SUG meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Buddha Garden, February 2025 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 6th, 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. Pantera also recorded the meeting, and that recording is embedded at the end of this piece – my thanks to Pantera, as always, for 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.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • 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, May 6th, the Main SLS channel was restarted without any update.
  • On Wednesday, May 7th:
    • BlueSteel and the snack channel running the Elderberry simulator update (see below) should be restarted.
    •  All remaining RC channels should be updated with Elderberry.

Elderberry Update (2025.05)

  • 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.

Upcoming Deployment – Fig Pudding (2025.06)

  • This is still being put together.
  • The update is unlikely to surface before June, as the simulator team has been focusing on some necessary internal work (e.g. ensuring various repositories build and deploy via Github actions correctly; updating where docker images are stored) which has drawn attention away from feature work on the simulators.

SL Viewer Updates

  •  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.
  • Release Candidate: 2025.04 – 7.1.14.14742193597, May 2nd 2025 – NEW.
    • Includes the following new features:
      • 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.

In Brief

  • A request for SLua events to be updated along the lines suggested in this canny request. Rider Linden indicated that a update will be made prior to SLua moving to wider beta testing, and will likely It will likely end up looking similar to the Canny proposal. However, there is no current time frame as to when the update will be made.
  • A Canny request was filed in January for a llGetRegionWorldMapTile feature. This was reportedly now sitting in the backlog of requests and work the server team are hoping to work through in time.
    • This saw a follow-up request at the meeting to be able to zoom down to the level of centring a parcel on the map. Rider indicated that it should be possible to give the full region map as a as a texture ID, allowing scripts to adjust the offset and scale of the texture to achieve desired results.
  • A discussion on regions idling (at 1 FPS(?)) when not in use (e.g. when there are no avatars in the region, no child agents registered with in and no HTTP IN/OUT functions running); the ability for llGetEnv to obtain a region’s status.
    • Regions are not completely shut-down when “empty”. as most require scripts to keep running.
    • This broadened into a discussion on how low a region takes to start-up. The most accurate might be “no long in the scheme of things, but variable”.
  • In response to a question on progress with combat 2.1 features, Rider stated:
Combat 2.1 is pushed back. I’ve got no eta when that will come back up. I’d like to get it moving, I think it introduces some important additions that have impacts outside of just Combat, but there are lots of things that need doing and I can only type so fast.
  • The latter half of the meeting was taken up with discussions of texture loading, the impact of alpha layering, non-optimised contents and similar, the majority of which was more viewer-centric. They arose from a complaint that Fantasy Faire is overloaded with “4K textures” (which aren’t actually a thing in SL) causing viewer performance issues.

 

† 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.

Ythari – The echo of silent stars in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025 – click any image for full size
For May – the start of which has become somewhat indelibly linked with science fiction over the last several decades – Saskia Rieko and Konrad (kaiju.kohime) bring us their own epic sci-fi tale; one with its roots in a galaxy-spanning civilisation called the Ythari.

Born long before most others, the Ythari were driven by their insatiable intellects, boundless ambition and an overbearing pride and arrogance which perhaps led to their downfall.

The Ythari once ruled over a vast and enigmatic galaxy known as Veilspire — a name derived from its most haunting feature: a towering, luminous rift that cuts across its heart, like a tear in the fabric of space-time. This anomaly called the Axiom Rift, existing in the very centre of the galaxy, is believed to be the result of their final and most ambitious experiment — perhaps even the very thing that led to their disappearance.

– from the records of Dr. Khiraan Valis

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025

Konrad and Saskia have always produced richly engaging settings within Second Life, often drawing on inspiration from locations and event on or from our physical world. Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, however is utterly different in theme and tone – although its depth easily equals that of any of the previous designs the couple have presented. Whilst it might not draw from events and locations we might all directly research, instead being born entirely of the imagination, it nevertheless comes with a rich back-story; one capable of forming the basis of a novel from the likes or Asimov, Heinlein or James S. A. Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) for an entire novel.

Mixing a thirst for knowledge and a hunger for understanding with towering abilities and intelligence, the story of the Ythari is one of a galaxy-spanning empire built not on war or dominion, but on the foundations of science, intellect, and an ability to conceive everything within their galaxy from the quantum level to the macro, without any apparent discontinuities of scale.

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025
Veilspire was no ordinary galaxy. Unlike the spiral and elliptical galaxies known to modern astronomers, its structure bore evidence of deliberate engineering. Star systems arranged in mathematically perfect formations, gravity-defying megastructures orbiting black holes with impossible stability, and entire regions where time seemed to flow at inconsistent rates, with the centre of the creation, The Axiom Rift — all hints that the Ythari did not merely live in their galaxy, they designed it with the development of The Equation of Being.

– from the records of Dr. Khiraan Valis

It is also a tale of galactic overreach and a hubris which – perhaps inevitably – could only result in one of two outcomes. Outcomes which themselves might perhaps be indistinguishable from one another, thanks to the passage of aeons and when looked upon through the eyes of a far-future humanoid race stumbling across the crumbling, but still magnificent relics the Ythari left in their wake.

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025
As they neared the completion of their greatest project — an attempt to rewrite the fundamental laws of reality — they miscalculated. Or perhaps they succeeded too well. One by one, their great cities, planets, even the whole solar systems fell silent … The Ythari simply… ceased. Their towering spires, their quantum archives left behind as if abandoned in an instant. No bodies. No signs of struggle. Only silence and the mysterious humming of the abandoned Axiom Rift.

– from the records of Dr. Khiraan Valis

To best appreciate the setting, make sure you have your viewer set the Use Shared Environment, and you have media set to play (at least initially in the case of the latter). The arrival point will provide you with the back-story in the form of a records / log entry by one Dr. Khiraan Valis, an archaeologist dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the Ythari.

The latter is played back over the computer screens and consoles at the landing Point, and really is worth listening to. For those who prefer, the same information can be obtained by clicking the traditional Natthimmel greeting (and setting name) on the ground of the Landing Point, and accepting the offered folder. This contains a notecard with the  information given within the narration. For those who do listen to the audio, I would strongly suggest pausing media playback (click the movie camera icon / button towards the top right corner of the viewer’s window), as the narrative track can otherwise overwhelm the ambient sounds within the setting.

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025

Stormy, eerie and caught under a roiling, almost angry Expanse in which the eye of a galactic core balefully stares from one horizon, this is an environment for which words – genuinely – are not enough. Beyond the consoles and systems at the Landing Point, as left by Dr. Valis and her team, this is an assuredly alien setting. Within it, a water-like sea slips into a low-lying landscape. This initially appears to be dotted with strange tree-like groves. However, closer inspection reveals them to be more rock-like than organic – or perhaps they are the fossilised remains of something; and while there is the odd tree to be found, organics as we might recognise them are few and far between.

Even the paths laid across the water have a geometry about them that feels alien. None lead directly from A to B; instead they seem to be some kind of mathematical expression, as much a part of the gigantic towers and other structures within and floating over these strange lands.

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025

Broken, decaying, and ominous even when countered but the roiling heavens beyond them, these structures are riven by massive discharges of energy, themselves accompanied by rolling booms which fall upon the ears as the funerial beat of drums. Whether these discharges are is being generated by whatever remain powers keep at least some of these artefacts raised in defiance of gravity, or whether the explosions of light and energy are the angry response of the atmosphere to their hulking presence, is yours to determine.

Not all the structures are airborne or massive; floating on the waters are polygonal forms, cables and relays on them looking as if they might have once drawn power from the waters – or discharged it into the waver over which they sit. They sit around the remnants of the great towers as if part of their ancient function. Steps climb the interiors of the towers, while outside of one is an indication that the Ythari might not have vanished completely.

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025

The very few who dare to explore their ruins tell of anomalies time fractures where the past leaks through, machines that seem to remember their creators, and strange, whispering voices that seem to come from nowhere. The Ythari may be gone, but something of them lingers. Watching. Waiting.

Beautiful, visually impressive, rich in narrative and creativity, edged in mystery and a hint of dread, Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars is a magnificent journey of the imagination.

Ythari – Echoes of the Silent Stars, May 2025

SLurl Details

2025 SL viewer release summaries week #18

Posted on by Inara Pey
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.
  • Release Candidate: 2025.04 – 7.1.14.14742193597, May 2nd 2025 – NEW.
    • Includes the following new features:
      • 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.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V7-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable: 1.32.2.46, May 3, 2025 – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Bryn Oh’s Imogen and the Pigeons in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bryn Oh: Imogen and the Pigeons, May 2025

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.

Bryn Oh: Imogen and the Pigeons, May 2025

SLurl Details

2025 week #18: SL CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Campsite: venue for CCUG meetings
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. .
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • 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.
  • Release Candidate: 2025.04 – 7.1.14.14742193597, Issued May 2nd 2025.
    • Includes the following new features:
      • 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.

Upcoming Viewers

[Video: 2:22-5:16]

2025.04
  • See above.
2025.05
  • 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.

More on the glTF Mesh Uploader

[Video: 7:41-12:22]

  • 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.

In Brief

  • [Video: 6:02-7:10] Feature request: Make Appearances Height = Prim Height – responded to as “something that could be looked at”.
  • [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.

Next Meeting

Saying farewell to the original Linden Homes – and a Second Life mystery?

Posted on by Inara Pey
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?

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