Category: Second Life

2019 SL User Groups 37/2: Content Creation summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Athenaeum, July 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, September 12th 2019 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Animesh Follow-On – Project Muscadine

Project Summary

Currently: offer the means to change an Animesh size parameters via LSL.

Current Status

  • The viewer updated to version 6.4.0.530473 on Wednesday, September 11th – however, this is to parity with the EEP RC viewer, rather than any new features being added.
  • Viewer work is currently on the back-burner for now, while Vir is working on ARCTan. As such, it’s likely that the project will proceed with small updates  – such as those in the current project viewer – rather than gathering together a larger number of updates and releasing them together.
  • A potential update still under consideration is to revise the current throttle (limiting Animesh character to updating twice every 10 seconds). This was put in place to prevent people using the system as an alternative means of animation (and potentially thrashing performance)s.
    • Some have done informal testing with up to 20 Animesh characters changing shape under scripted control as fast as the current throttle allows and using 115 parameters, apparently with little performance impact.
  • Animesh objects currently count towards the overall avatar imposter limit – although it is possible these might be split.
    • The “pro” side of this is that Animesh objects have a fairly fixed rendering complexity.
    • The “con” side is how things might change if Animesh characters start having attachments.
    • It would also mean further complexity with graphics settings in the viewer.

Environment Enhancement Project

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements (e.g. the sky, sun, moon, clouds, and water settings) to be set region or parcel level, with support for up to 7 days per cycle and sky environments set by altitude. It uses a new set of inventory assets (Sky, Water, Day), and includes the ability to use custom Sun, Moon and cloud textures. The assets can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others, and can additionally be used in experiences.

Due to performance issues, the initial implementation of EEP will now likely not include certain atmospherics such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”).

Resources

Current Status

  • Work continues on rendering bug fixes.
  • There is still no indication as to when this might be promoted to release status.
  • A lot of EEP documentation is currently in the forum threads. There has been a request to move this to the wiki – or at least is the Knowledge Base, which is current a focus for documentation from the Lab.

ARCTan

Project Summary

An attempt to re-evaluate object and avatar rendering costs to make them more reflective of the actual impact of rendering both. The overall aim is to try to correct some inherent negative incentives for creating optimised content (e.g. with regards to generating LOD models with mesh), and to update the calculations to reflect current resource constraints, rather than basing them on outdated constraints (e.g. graphics systems, network capabilities, etc).

Current Status

  • Progress has now resumed, with Vir working on hooking new data gathering code into the viewer code base to allow more widespread data gathering.
  • The code currently isn’t available in a public viewer repository (in part because it is not ready).
  • It has been suggested that allowing Firestorm to use the code would potentially allow for a broader cross-section of representative data to be gathered. However, the core data gathering code is baked into viewer, and making that alone available for FS to adopt at this point in time could be difficult.
  • There are concerns that major changes in the costs of in-world objects could see an increase in Land Impact values that could in turn see large amounts of content returned.
    • This is something the Lab is concerned about as well, and it has previously been indicated that if this proves to be a significant risk, then steps will be taken to mitigate this – see Project ARCTan in 2018 SL UG updates #7/3: TPV and Web Meetings.
    • It’s been suggested that ARCTan could offer a new “invisible” mesh asset type: anything that is created uploaded after ARCTan is (eventually) deployed must conform to ARCTan; mesh in-world prior to ARCTan is not governed by ARCTan – as was done with Materials. Vir indicated this might be one option, at least during the initial roll-out of ARCTan.
  • There is a lot of chatter / speculation in the forums about what ARCTan “might” or “will” be; Vir’s response to this is again that no decisions have thus far been made by the Lab as the project is still in its early stages. Therefore, people should not put too much stock in forum thread unless it is posted by the Lab.
  • It’s important to note that beyond data gathering, LL haven’t even decided how ambitious the project will be overall.

Bakes on Mesh

Project Summary

Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos and clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies and heads.

Resources

Current Status

  • There has been extensive discussion on Bakes on Mesh in the forums, including ideas on future extensions, some of which are being pulled in by the Lab for additional consideration (which is not to say they will happen).
  • There is an unofficial list for BoM support (last updated at the end of August) which may help those interested.
  • Cathy Foil has been investigating the local edit issue she reported at the last meeting (see:) wherein odd results when using the appearance editor that correct themselves on exiting the appearance editor and when baked via the Baking Service. In her case, it appears the problem was due to a slip-up at her end of things involving a mesh with different UVs, although a Jira has been filed on a related issue.
  • There is a report that eye textures applied via BoM appear darker than if applied directly to the mesh. A Bug report is to be raised on this.

Art vignettes at Solo Arte in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Solo Arte, September 2019

Currently open at Solo Arte is an art garden created by Terrygold and MelaniaBis that features the work of invited artists displayed in a series of pods. At the time of my visit, the garden featured the work of CioTToLiNa Xue, Dekka Raymaker, Annalisa Muliaina, and Terrygold, together and an exhibition of art by Magda Schmidtzau. These are individual exhibits, rather than a combined installation – Magda’s art being the most recent addition. As noted, Each artist has their work displayed in an individual pod, with the the pods either placed on, or close to, the garden’s lawn.

In this, the setting has something of a feel of the Explore and Enjoy exhibition from 2018, also designed and curated by Terrygold and MelaniaBis (see:  Solo Arte: “explore and enjoy” in Second Life), albeit on a more modest scale. I have no idea if further pods will be added given the available space, although there appears to be room for more, if required. As it is, the four available at the time of my visit made for a contrasting group of 2D and 3D displays.

Solo Arte – Magda Schmidtzau (l) and CioTToLiNa Xue (r) – September 2019

Truth be told, I don’t have too much to say about the individual exhibits, as they all tned to speak for themselves. CioTToLiNa offers New Trips, which carries something of an echo of her piece from Explore and Enjoy, while Terrygold presents  a piece from her 2018 installation, Rusted Farm (see: A Rusted Farm in Second Life), while Magda’s 2D art is, as always, captivating in it richness of avatar studies.

However, the reality is these are art vignettes that should be seen for themselves – and in the case of Dekka’s, tried, as it is interactive – so I’ll leave you yo pay them a visit.

Solo Arte, Dekka Raymaker – September 2019

SLurl Details

 

Second Life mobile apps: a (belated) update

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos © and ™ Linden Lab and Apple Inc

As I’ve previously noted, Linden Lab is working on an iOS client for Second Life, the first phase of which will be focused primarily on chat.

Keira Linden, who is now a Product Manager at the Lab, is heading up the project, and at a recent open-source developer meeting (held every Wednesday, but at a time I can rarely make), she offered some feedback on the upcoming app, with Oz Linden, the Technical Director for Second Life providing some additional comments on the Lab’s approach to mobile.

You can read an excerpt of the meeting’s transcript that encompasses the discussion in the forums – with thanks to Arielle Popstar for posting it – and the following is a summary of the comments made, grouped by topic.

Summary of iOS Specific Comments

  • The iOS app is to be deployed in stages, starting with – as previously noted – the chat capabilities. This will support IM and group conversations, and will likely include the capability to search for friends and non-friends alike.
  • It appears This initial release of the app will not support local chat, with Oz Linden noting:
Unlike other current apps, the plan is that your avatar will be in a separate space inaccessible to others, so it won’t just be standing somewhere not moving, so you won’t have a regular ‘location’ at all to chat in.

– Oz Linden, Open Source Dev meeting, August 14th

Presumably, this will change in later releases.

  • Further capabilities for the app are being discussed internally at the Lab, and these discussions include prioritising capabilities for release as the app is enhanced.
    • At some point in the development cycle, Keira will be reaching out to users to gain feedback on what are considered to be the important capabilities / options, in order to help the Lab prioritise future enhancement of the app.
    • Overall, the plan is to add as much functionality as possible as the app continues to be developed beyond the initial release.
  • There are no dates for when the app might be made available for testing – but the development work is considered a “high priority” by Keira and within the Product Team.
  • The precise framework for testing hasn’t been finalised, but will be announced via the forums when decided upon.
    • Side note: it had been previously indicated that when the app is made available for testing it will be through Apple’s beta testing environment for apps, and users wishing to test the app will need to have TestFlight installed on their iPhone (or iPad). It’s not clear if this is still the case – but given Apple’s requirements, I would assume so.
  • Currently, the Lab isn’t focusing on providing any graphics support (a-la the 3D world view in Lumiya), with Keira commenting:
We haven’t focused too much on the graphics side, as we’ve been working on chat and security, but I’ll be sure to include that consideration when we get there.

– Keira Linden, Open Source Dev meeting, August 14th

Summary of Overall Approach to Mobile

  • When starting the project, consideration was given to developing mobile apps in a multi-platform framework, but the decision was made to develop natively for different platforms was the better way to go.
  • The decision to go for iOS over Android for the first app was largely made on the basis that Android was better supported at the time (late 2018) by 3rd party apps (including Lumiya).
  • The Lab believe that by focusing on one platform at a time will, ultimately allow them to roll out individual apps and enhancements to those apps faster.
  • Once the Lab is happy with the status of the first app, they will consider porting it to “other platforms”.
  • Concerns have been raised over the potential of a mobile app to increase ad-hoc group chat griefing. Both Oz and Keira indicated there are various server-side means of cutting back on such griefing under consideration as a part of a broader project that’s not directly linked to mobile app development.
  • A browser-based streaming solution is currently excluded from consideration, purely on the basis of cost-effectiveness to users (e.g. considering the pricing model for Bright Canopy), with Oz Linden commenting:

We’ve done several experiments with streamed viewers, and are watching the evolution of the required server side costs and capabilities. So far, we don’t think there’s a viable business model (that is, we’d have to charge too much), but we expect competition and technology to eventually change that.

– Oz Linden, Open Source Dev meeting, August 14th

In addition to the above, and more recently – during the second segment of Lab Gab – Reed Linden indicated that the Lab has a number of initiatives related to mobile support, including optimising the SL Marketplace for use on mobile devices. Please refer to my summary (with video) of that session.

Related Links

Again, thanks to Arielle Popstar for posting the  transcript excerpt.

Lab Gab episode 2 with Reed Linden – a summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Image courtesy of Linden Lab

The Second episode of Lab Gab streamed on Wednesday, September 11th, hosted by Xiola and Strawberry Linden, and featuring special guest Reed Linden.

Running to just under 44 minutes, this was an informative segment, although there were a number of questions asked that where outside of Reed’s specific remit and which he was only able to answer in general terms (Land, Linden Homes, pricing, etc.). Most of these are not summarised below, and I refer people to the embedded video for comments.

About Reed Linden

Reed Linden, aka (at present) Penguin Fabuloso, has been with the Lab for just over eight years, having joined in August 2011. He started in the support team, serving there for three years, then moving to the Engineering team for a time. While there, Grumpity Linden, Director of Product for Second Life, selected him to join the Product team.

As a Product Manager, Reed has particular responsibility for the Lab’s Second Life web infrastructure –  the Marketplace, Profiles, main domains like secondlife.com, and so on). He’s also been involved with Bakes on Mesh, and has knowledge of account management (including Premium), billing,  and – given his time there – support.

Reed Linden (c), flanked by Xiola (l) and Strawberry (r)

He views his progress through the Lab as uniquely reflective of the manner in which knowledge of the platform is distributed: those who potentially know the most about SL are the users who put it to work every day, coding, building, uploading, texturing, creating, and so on. The next level of knowledge below that is the support teams who handle hundreds of user requests on a daily basis, and get to use the broad spread of the platform’s tools and capabilities. Then, after support come the engineering and product teams, who have sharply defined focuses on Second Life.

From this is should come as no surprise that he sees the community as his favourite aspect of the platform, together with the manner in which it can bring people together from around the world, and help them find a voice or outlets or connections – and even to find love. In this latter regard, he reveals that not only have SL residents built their physical world relationships out of a Second Life meeting (a-la the Love Made in SL series), but also that some LL staff have met their physical world partners through SL!

Web Properties – Project and Updates

  • As a part of his web infrastructure responsibilities, he has been running the work to bring Profiles back into the viewer. This involves two key elements:
    • Moving user profiles back to their own floater in the viewer, rather than pulling in the web profile. This element of the work is currently available for testing in the Legacy Profiles Project Viewer, which can be found on the Alternate Viewer Page.
    • A further aspect of the work is to move Profile Feeds into a dedicated tab within the Profile floater.
Left: SL Profiles will be returning to a dedicated floater (rather than using a panel to display the web-base user profile). In the future, Profile feeds will also become a part of this floater with their own tab. Right: recently delivered to the Marketplace (among other updates) is the ability to list all the gifts you have received (MP → Account Name → My Account Page → Received Gifts)
  • Reed also highlighted three recent updates to the Marketplace:
    • Notification of purchase – when you visit a Marketplace listing for an item you have previously purchased with the account you are using, the date purchased is displayed at the top of the listing.
    • The gifts received listing (see above).
    • The ability for store owners to nominate store managers.
  • Some of the upcoming Marketplace features touched upon include:
    • Optimising the Marketplace for mobile use.
    • Purchase notifications: store owners will receive a viewer notification of purchases made through their Marketplace stores. This will be an opt-in capability, so as to avoid those with popular brands from being constantly spammed with purchase messages.
    • Refunds: the ability for Merchants to offer refunds through the MP is being looked at.
    • Continuing work on quality-of-life capabilities within the MP, together with bug fixes.
  • Search is being strengthened right across all of the Lab’s web properties.
    • For the Marketplace, this will include listing top-selling products first within search results
    • Better granularity on searches will potentially be supported, together with better filtering
  • There are also projects in progress or on the horizon related to improving the Destination Guide and for Events (this has been mentioned in one or two technical user group meetings, but again without specifics being given).

Bakes on Mesh

  • As a Product Manager, he is very pleased with the take-up of Bakes on Mesh (BoM) – as is the Lab.
  • LL have been tracking take-up among mesh head / body makers, etc., and the gradual adoption of the BoM viewer code by TPVs.
    • There is an unofficial list for BoM support (last updated at the end of August) which may help those interested.
  • The hope remains that BoM will encourage more lightweight content in terms of graphics resources (e.g. less complex Mesh heads and bodies, plus the ability to bake down multiple textures into a single composite).

General Q&A

  • As a hobby, Reed enjoys painting model miniatures (D&D being specifically mentioned) and building dioramas.
  • Work on an iOS client was re-iterated. No new updates, as this is not one of Reed’s areas of work, so those interested can refer to a summary of comments by Kiera and Oz Linden on the work (including a link to a transcript of the comments), and my July mini-update on this project.
  • Last Names: yes, still being worked on, but a complex project. Again, see my June update, which includes the most relevant comments from LL.

Feedback

An informative segment, with Reed providing a lot of hints  – he touched very loosely on possible new Premium account options, for example – as well as outright information for those who do not attend the various in-world user group meetings or follow summaries of said meetings as provided on this blog and others of a similar nature.

Some of the questions did hit on the issue of keeping people aware of a specific guest’s area of expertise; even when warned Reed is not directly involved in viewer development, land management, etc., a number of questions on those subjects came up (and were dutifully asked). However, these fortunately did not interrupt the overall flow of the session to a great degree.

Voice quality continues to be an issue; I assume the participants are using the SL voice binary rather than hooking Skype or an alternative service into the mix. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed once the upcoming voice update viewer goes into circulation and Lab staff can use it.

No details on what the next segment will be about – so it’s a case of watch the official blog posts.

Beaming into New Nerva Station in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Space Station New Nerva, September 2019 – click any image for full size

We came across Space Station New Nerva by chance during a comb through  the Destination Guide. Designed and built by Bear Thymus, it sits in orbit over the New London Sandbox, and presents an interesting place to both visit and – potentially – for free-form role-play.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say it is one of the more interesting space station designs I’ve visited of late in Second Life.

The DG description for the station states it presents “homages to all sorts of science fiction fantasy films and television” – for sci-fi buffs, this is certainly true.

Space Station New Nerva, September 2019

Apparently in orbit above a blue world in such a position that the planet’s star seems to be perpetually rising behind it, the station has something of a Star Trek feel to it. The exterior carries an echo of the orbital facilities first seen is Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and then, inverted, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Not that it is in any way a replica of that facility; rather it contains certain similarities: notably the modules clustered around the central core.

The Trek echoes are evident elsewhere as well: the main ring corridor is reminiscent of those aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, although those in the space station are broader and squatter, and marked by windows on one side and potentially hazardous high-energy panels on the other. Then, in the centre of the station and rising through three levels, is a massive power structure pulsating with energy in a manner akin to a warp core.

Space Station New Nerva, September 2019

The landing point is located in the primary docking port section of the station. This offers further hints of assorted sci-fi franchises: a TARDIS offers a link with the ground level (and elsewhere), in the corridor outside is a communications / information tower which although circular, nevertheless offers a reminder of the units located throughout Space 1999’s Moonbase Alpha. Also in the corridor outside the arrival area is a module containing a transporter system to off-region destinations (none of which we tried). Plus, for those who cam out, docked at the airlock is a massive space vehicle that in looks and styling, might have arrived from Babylon 5 (it’s interior is also accessible via the connecting airlock).

Beyond this, exploration is split between two primary levels. the upper provides access to the essentials of the station: the medical centre, the Mission Control centre (which, I admit, I was hoping to see labelled “Main Mission”!), hydroponics, a social area and – of course – the detention centre. Each of these facilities is offered within a single module affixed to the station’s main ring, or a trio of modules linked to the ring via a central corridor. The level of the station is completed by a series of inward-pointing corridors that cross-connect the ring, passing around the central power core in the process.

Space Station New Nerva, September 2019

Below this primary ring, and reached by a series of turbo-elevators, is a central lounge area that connects with crew accommodation spaces. These are compact – just a single room encapsulating working, sleeping and hygiene space and a single couch for seating; not a lot of comfort for a hard working crew. However, it is likely the hardest working among the crew don’t really need much in the way of personal space or amenities, as they are anthropomorphic driods that might have stepped out of the pages of a Star Wars novel.

Quite what role-play might be undertaken here is entirely open – there are all the common sci-fi hints (including the body in a Star Trek: The Next Generation uniform, who brings a twist to the hoary old joke about red shirts, and a figure in Imperial robes), but really, it is down to those who opt to use the station to determine the style of play that occurs, and whether it might b based on a popular sci-fi franchise.

Space Station New Nerva, September 2019

Nicely conceived and put together, Space Station New Nerva might not be “two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night”, nor is it “a place of commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens”. However, it does provide space enough for adventure and intrigue amongst a small group of like-minded friends. Or, for those wishing to visit and photograph a place that is a little more out-of-this-world as a destination – and the opportunity to hop to other locations for exploration, including the console room of a TARDIS, complete with Cloister Bell chiming ominously, it could be worth a shuttle-ride!

SLurl and Links

2019 SL User Groups week #37/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey
Natural Falls, July 2019 – blog post

Updated with the full details of the Magnum and LeTigre RC deployments

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for updates.

  • On Tuesday, September 10th, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server release 2019-08-29T20:20:39.530516 – comprising “simulator component of deploy tooling and process improvements”, and previously deployed to the main RC channels in week #36.
    • This is the update that doesn’t report channel names to the viewer, so Help > About will always report the channel to be “Second Life Server” (SLS) regardless of the channel the region you are on is assigned to.
    • There is a race condition that can cause double rolls of a deployment some 2 or so hours apart. The Lab is aware of the issue and investigating the cause.
  • One Wednesday, September 11th, the main RC channels will be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel was updated with server release 2019-09-06T18:49:52.530700, containing the simulator-side script usage improvements.
    • Magnum and LeTigre were updated with server release 2019-09-06T22:03:53.530715, containing the fix  to address most cases of experience-enabled scripts losing association with their experience.

SL Viewer

The Umeshu Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.3.1.530559 and dated September 5th, has been promoted to de facto release status. At the time of writing, the rest of the current official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530100, August 19.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

In Brief

  • Group Chat: there are some reports that group chat has been improved over the last couple of weeks with less drop-outs and issues, although conversations arrived with the original post missing still appears to be an issue.
    • Oz Linden acknowledged the Lab is still tweaking on things to try and brig about improvements.
    • Simon Linden indicated that it is one of those problems where running the service on more capable hardware doesn’t always improve things – as the Lab found out in tests earlier in the year.
  • Sound file duration: a good while ago, the viewer had a change to allow 30-second sound files. However, it has been awaiting a server-side update to support it. When asked about the status of the update, Oz Linden replied:

Can’t predict now when the 30 second sound limit will happen, but it’s part of a high priority bundle of stuff, so Pretty Soon™