Category: Second Life

Second Life: parent/child script communication issues

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Friday, October 4th, 2019 Linden Lab blogged about the recent script related issues that caused widespread disruption (notably with rezzing systems) across Second Life following the SLS (Main) channel deployment made on Tuesday, September 24th, 2019, and which ultimately resulted in a complete rollback from the grid on the 27th/28th September.

As noted in my Simulator User Group Updates, the release that caused the problems  – simulator release 2019-09-06T22:03:53.530715, included a number of updates intended to improve overall script performance, including how scripts are scheduled and events are delivered. However, these changes resulted in an unintended impact which, due to the region sampling, was not revealed by the update initially being deployed to a release candidate (RC) channel on Wednesday, September 11th.

The October 4th blog post from Linden Lab indicates that improvements have been made to the code, and once deployed, these should help prevent a recurrence of the problem. As an aside, it has been hoped that these updates might have been deployed to an RC channel on Wednesday, October 2nd, but a last minute bug prevented this (see: Deploy Plan for the week of 2019-09-30), so the updates will likely be deployed during week #41 (commencing Monday, October 7th).

However, even with the fixes, there blog post goes on to note there are come best practices when using parent / child script communications between a parent object and a child it rezzes:

One common cause of problems is communication between objects immediately after one creates the other. When an object rezzes another object in-world using llRezObject or llRezAtRoot, the two objects frequently want to communicate, such as through calls to llRegionSayTo or llGiveInventory. The parent object receives an object_rez() event when the new object has been created, but it is never safe to assume that scripts in the new object have had a chance to run when the object_rez event is delivered. This means that the new object may not have initialised its listen() event or called llAllowInventoryDrop, so any attempt to send it messages or inventory could fail. The parent object should not begin sending messages or giving inventory from the object_rez() event, or even rely on waiting some time after that event. Instead, the parent(rezzer) and the child(rezzee) should perform a handshake to confirm that both sides are ready for any transfer. 

The blog post goes on to define the sequence of events between a parent and rezzed child object as they should occur, and provides sample code for such parent / child operations.

An important point to note with this is that when the fix from the Lab is re-deployed, any scripts that still exhibit these kinds of communication issues will likely need to be altered by their creator to match the recommendations provided by the blog post.

Those wishing to know more are invited to read the original blog post in full, and address and questions and / or feedback through the associated forum thread.

Get more from the space you have via Mangrovejane’s video tutorial

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Mangrovejane

Blogger and vlogger Mangrovejane (Groves to her friends) has produced a nifty little video tutorial on using Second Life scene rezzers to help give a feeling of greater space in Second Life by allowing you to quickly and easily change the layout of one or more rooms (or even an entire house) without having to manually swap everything from inventory.

Scene rezzers are not new to SL – they’re pretty much as old as the hills (and again, just for clarity, I’m not referring to temp rezzers here – they are a nasty no-no); however, it is surprising how many people haven’t actually come across them – so Infinite Space: Making Your Second Life Land Work for You is liable to be a welcome eye-opener for many. At 17.25 minutes, it is informative and provides all the essential information on what’s required as well as clear and concise instructions on using the rezzer systems she opted to use (the RF Scene Rezzer and the Optimus Multi Rezzer).

I’ve long been an advocate of using rezzing systems (I save every design of out island home to one, allowing use to easily swap between houses / landscapes if we wish), and have blogged on the subject a couple of times in these pages:

In her video, Groves also discusses the use of the Curio Obscura Anywhere Door by Pandora Wrigglesworth, something I’ve used to create doorways in pre-built structures where doors don’t exist, rather than a TP system as we usually look upon them (see Still messing about in (house)boats in Second Life for example), and can again recommend.

Groves is planning a follow-up article to the video on her on her blog in due course, but in the meantime, I’m embedding her video below for those who haven’t seen and who don’t feel like reading my articles on the subject 🙂 . You can also check out more of her videos via her YouTube channel.

 

Calls for 2019 Creepy Crawl venues & Halloween treats

Posted on by Inara Pey

Pendle Hill; Inara Pey, October 2018, on FlickrPendle Hill, October 2018 – blog post

Halloween is approaching once again, and so too is the annual Second Life Creepy Crawl, a time when those from the Lab, together with residents, go hopping around the grid in an avatar answer to trick-or-treating.

This year the event will take place on Thursday, October 31st, starting at 10:00 SLT. As with previous years, it will feature locations suitably Halloweeny in décor suggested by Second Life users, as the community blog post on the event explains:

Some may argue that the winter holidays are the most wonderful time of the year, but in Second Life, we know how to celebrate year-round. Halloween is easily among the most popular holidays amongst the SL community, and we are so ready to have some screaming good times as the Creepy Crawl is back in all its creepiest and crawliest glory. We are looking for venues to host us as we hop from spooky spot to spooky spot for some conversation, dancing, and fun. 

If you’d like to host a stop along the Creepy Crawl, own a spot that will be decked out for the holiday, and don’t mind if a parade of Residents and Lindens come through, then you might be just what the witch doctor ordered. We’re looking for spots that have entertainment (we like to dance around in our costumes!), are appropriate for general and moderate audiences, and can handle a crowd.

If the event is run along the same lines as previous years, selected venues will likely be visited for around 30 minutes at a time (although this is subject to confirmation), and people will be welcome to join the entire Creepy Crawl, or drop in and out of it as they wish.

Here’s how to submit your venue for consideration:

The Haunted Halloween Tour is back, see below

In addition, the Lab recently blogged about a month of events and activities running up to Halloween, highlights of which include:

  • The Halloween Swaginator Hunt: four exclusive Halloween decorations have been scattered across the Bellisseria continent – can you find them all? To get started, look for the special haunted edition of the Swaginator gift-giving station to grab your free HUD.
  • The Halloween Haunted Tour: has once again opened. Hop in a coffin and take a ride through the halls and rooms – and tunnels beneath – a haunted house. This year sees a number of Glytches have invaded the house as well, so if you are a Glytch hunter (see Of Glytches and gems: the Lab’s grid-wide Second Life game), make sure your Glytch capturing equipment tools are at the ready as you take the tour. The Haunted Tour can be reached via Portal Park 1 or Portal Park 2.
  • For Premium members who enjoy them, a Premium gift of Halloween decorations, available via the Premium Gift Collection kiosks.

So, get ready for Halloween.

October 2019 Web User Group: Name Changes and new Premium option

Posted on by Inara Pey
© and ™ Linden Lab

The following notes are taken from my recording of the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019. These meetings are held monthly. Dates and details of the meetings can be obtained through the Web User Group wiki page.

When reading these notes, please keep in mind:

  • The topics below are ordered in their likely interest to users / depth of discussion at the meeting, with some comments drawn together from different points in the meeting. This is not intended as a chronological set of meeting notes.
  • Audio extracts are taken from my recording of the meeting, but have again been grouped by topic. In addition, the audio relating to Premium and “Elite” subscriptions may sound fractured tin tone, as it is a grouping of verbal replies to questions asked in local chat at the meeting.

Summary

The TL;DR summary (items expanded upon in the sections below):

  • On Monday, September 30th, the Lab issued a blog post update on the web team’s work, and this was referenced during the meeting (see also my coverage of the blog post – Lab blogs on the SL Web Team’s work, including “last names”). Similar blog posts will likely be released ahead of each monthly WUG meeting, to both remind users of the meeting and to act as an informal agenda.
  • Web services have been a major focus of transitioning Second Life services to the cloud.
  • Name Changes: are getting closer to release but are not imminent. The feature will be Premium only, fees have not been finalised.
  • Premium options: work is progressing with the new “super Premium” option, but this will not be ready until after Name Changes have been deployed. The new level is – at present – likely to be called “Elite”. It will cost more than the current Premium subscriptions.
  • Search is being worked on across all of the SL web properties, including the Marketplace – but no time frames as to when improvements might be deployed.

Cloud Transition

  • As noted in the Monday Sept. 30th blog post, many of the Lab’s web services have been transitioned to running on Amazon AWS cloud services.
  • Other services previously operated on a third-party basis have (and are) being moved in-house or decoupled to standalone status, in readiness to be transitioned to the cloud where possible.
  • All of this work has been achieved without any significant disruption to services or – more particularly – without users actually being aware the services had been moved.
  • Specific benefits of the moves made to date are:
    • Future changes, updates and responses to issues can be handled a lot faster.
    • Due to the nature of AWS services, LL have been able to achieve almost 100% up time in running those services that have been transitioned.

Name Changes

  • As previously noted, Name Changes involve users being able to select any first name, and a last name via a list.
  • The capability will be Premium only.
  • Name changes will be subject to fee (still TBA) per change.
    • The fee charged will be less for “Elite” accounts than for Premium (see below for more on “Elite” and Premium).
  • The rough window for deployment is between 1 and 3 months, with a margin of error of around two months.
    • There is still more work to be done on the back-end systems.
    • The actual viewer UI in which name changes are made has yet to be implemented.
  • As an aside (not mentioned in the meeting, but indicated elsewhere): new users signing-up to Second Life will still be given the default name of “Resident” – they will be able to change names should they upgrade to Premium, as with all Basic account users.

New Premium Subscription

  • The idea of having additional levels of Premium subscription was first publicly mentioned in detail in 2018. See:
  • Since that time, it has been decided to just have a single additional Premium level, sitting “above” the current Premium level.
    • However, the new system is being structured such that if there is a need / opportunity for further subscription levels, they can be added in the future.
  • Currently the proposed name for the new subscription level is “Elite” – but this may still change.
    • There will be clear differentiators between Premium and “Elite”, including, as noted above, a lower fee applied to “Elite” users when changing their name.
    • There will be no requirement for merchants to have to upgrade to “Elite”, although some of the benefits of “Elite” might apply to Merchants.
  • Subscription rates:
    • Premium subscription rates will not change.
    • “Elite” upgrades will be offered on a monthly / annual basis.
    • As per my article Lab opts to temporarily continue Quarterly Premium plan for new sign-ups, relating to the Premium subscription fee changes announced earlier in 2019:
      • Quarterly subscriptions will be discontinued for those upgrading to Premium / Elite when the latter is launched.
      • However, quarterly payments will continue to be honoured for users already on the Premium quarterly payment plan.
    • Fees for “Elite” to be revealed when launched, but obviously, they will be higher than the current Premium rates.
    • Premium members upgrading to “Elite” will pay the difference between their current Premium fee and the “Elite” fee to which they decide to upgrade, and there may be a prorate option for qualifying users when upgrading.
  • “Elite” subscriptions will not be ready for introduction until at least a month after the deployment of Name Changes.

Profile Changes

  • The discontinuing of web profiles was first publicly raised in February 2019 (see: 2019 SL User Groups 7/3: TPV Developer Meeting), when it was indicated profile information would be moving back into the viewer.
  • One of the reasons for this change appears to be related to the transitioning services to the cloud as much as with the pain of provisioning the web-based profiles.
  • An initial Legacy Profile project viewer appeared in June (see: SL Legacy Profiles project viewer).
  • The Legacy Profile viewer will be updated over time, with one of the updates to come being a new tab to profile feeds, allowing users to see people’s feed updates through the viewer.
    • TPVs will still be able to use the option to point to profile feeds on the web, if they prefer.
  • It is hoped that the Legacy Profiles viewer will move to release candidate status Soon™ and promoted to release status “really soon after that”.
The new Legacy Profiles Project viewer replaces the current web-based profile panel (left), with an “old-style” profile floater panel (right)

In Brief

Web Services Release Notes

  • The web team is working “really hard” to implement formal release notes for updates to the various SL web services.
  • These will likely be in a similar format to the revamped server and viewer release notes, which can be reached via the recently implemented web-based Release Notes home page.
  • There is currently no date as to when this will be surfaced, but there are “a couple” web engineers working on this (when not working on more user-facing projects).

Marketplace, Search, Events

  • In-world purchase notifications for store owners:
    • As per my article on this, this system will be opt-in, initially on an entire store basis. It might be extended to individual items in the future, if feasible / if there is a demand for this.
    • The notification will provide details on item purchased, amount received and who made the purchase.
When released, the in-world purchase notifications option will appear in a re-named settings page (e-mail notifications)
  • Work is proceeding on Marketplace improvements beyond those mentioned, but LL is not yet in a position to state what the next updates for deployment might be.
  • Search is being worked on right across the SL web properties. This is liable to see improved filtering of searches and (particularly useful for Marketplace searches) the use of exclusions.
  • Work is proceeding with the overhaul of the events system. This comprises short-term updates that are being carried out alongside a much larger, long-term project to completely overhaul the events system.

Related Links

Calypso Applewhyte at Black Label in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Black Label Exhibition Centre: Calypso Applewhyte

Now open at Black Label Exhibition Corner is an exhibition by Calypso Applewhyte entitled Feelings, a selection of her distinctive self-portraits offering a mix of monochrome and colour images.

Self-taught with Photoshop, Calypso entered Second Life in 2010 with – as she describes it herself – “no specific goal”, but while exploring the grid, she found an outlet in Second Life photography. As her interest grew, so did a parallel interest in both her own avatar and the ability to use this virtual domain as a means to explore emotions and feelings.

Black Label Exhibition Centre: Calypso Applewhyte

This is powerfully reflected the selection of pictures displayed within this exhibition, as indicated by the title. Reached via teleport from the Black Label Exhibition Corner (please read the notes there about viewer settings), Feelings presents Twenty-one images by Caly (some of which are intentionally duplicated to offer a different means of presentation). Some of the pictures have appeared in selections of Caly’s work seen in other exhibitions, but which in their inclusion here certainly fit the theme.

Each piece captures Caly’s avatar in a variety of looks and poses, some with a science fiction edge to them, others leaning towards steampunk or fantasy and others more classical in nature. All of them are drawn together by the depth of emotion each conveys. In this, we often use the phrase “the eyes are the windows of the soul”, but Caly proves feelings and emotions can be conveyed through pose and / or look even when the eyes themselves are unseen: just take Romeo and Juliet, CA-418 and CA-395 as examples of this.

Black Label Exhibition Centre: Calypso Applewhyte

Although that said, there is no denying  those images that do show Caly’s eyes have a particular emotional attraction, as shown with the likes of Green Girl and a piece I’ve seen previously seen exhibited and have admired: La Tristesse.

When visiting – and as per the instructions at the landing point – it is essential you have Advanced Light Model active in your viewer (Preferences → Graphics), or what I’ll refer to as “The Mirror” mini-collection of four projected images within the main exhibition will not be visible.

Black Label Exhibition Centre: Calypso Applewhyte

Another engaging exhibition by Calypso, perfectly presented by the Black Label Exhibition Corner, managed by AnnaFrancesca Kira.

SLurl Details

2019 Simulator User Group week #40: Sept. 27th/28th rollback

Posted on by Inara Pey
Highland Hills, August 2019 – blog post

Simulator Version Rollback September 27th / 28th

A rollback was performed across the grid on September 27th/28th, which apparently moved all regions  back to server release 2019-09-06T22:03:53.530715, first deployed to an RC channel on September 10th. This was due to widespread issues being reported across the grid in relation to the script timing / performance fixes that were deployed – and which revealed a further underpinning issue. See the conversation in this forum thread and this status update for more.

Commenting on the situation, Simon Linden stated:

We had some chaos last week after our main channel roll exposed some “interesting” issues with the server update. That was all reverted early Saturday morning. We’re on track to have another update tomorrow morning [Wednesday, Oct 2nd] which should bring back the script performance work as well as fixing the issues we discovered.

[The Issue] was an ugly timing issue involving rezzing and starting up scripts … and unfortunately would work in some circumstances, not in others, or fail once and then work fine the next time you tried it. So it was tough to catch as well as sort out.

Mazidox Linden added thanks from LL to all those hitting script-related issues who took time to dig into matters, try to identify causes and raise bug reports, allowing the Lab to get a fix in the works.

While the offending code had only been deployed to the SLS (Main) channel on Tuesday, September 24th, it had already seen the light of day on an RC channel in previous weeks (server deployment 2019-09-13T19%3A08%3A35.530941, September 11th); so in order to completely remove it from the grid, a full rollback was performed and place the grid on the same simulator version.

It had been hoped that the fix mentioned above would be ready for an RC deployment on Wednesday, October 3rd. However, a late-breaking issue with the fix meant that the deployment of the update had to be cancelled,

This topic – including what might be done to avoid it in future, what was and wasn’t affected, what might or might not have been contributing factors – e.g. heavy region loads (pointed to as a possibly contributing reason), etc.

SL Viewer

A new RC version of the Love Me Render viewer was released on Monday, September 30th, version 6.3.2.531296, containing a handful of reported fixes:

  • SL-12025 (non-public) – “Animated mesh objects are disappeared when avatar rendering parameter is off”.
  • SL-11656 (non-public) – “Alpha textures with Alpha mask cut-off of 255 look glitchy while ALM is off”.
  • SL-11614 (non-public) – “Rotating objects flicker if Render type Avatar is disabled”.
  • BUG-2635 Objects rotating with llTargetOmega now “vibrate” on spin axis when the camera is focused on them.
  • BUG-225300 Disabling avatar rendering removes static objects.

The remainder of the official viewer pipelines remain unchanged, as follows

  • Current Release version 6.3.1.530559, formerly the Umeshu Maintenance RC viewer, dated, September 5th – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530473, September 11th.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29th November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.