Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, October 20th, 2024
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC, dated September 11, promoted September 17 – NO CHANGE.
Burrow Coffee Co,, October 2024 – click any image for full size
Ever had a thorough conviction that you’ve done something, only to find out when you check that you have – you find you haven’t? Welcome to my world. Admittedly, I bounce around SL a lot, and occasionally I arrive somewhere and think, “Oh, this would be nice to write about!” – only to discover I already have, and what’s more, it is still as it appeared when I originally wrote about it – making a re-blog a bit moot.
However, in the case of the Burrow Coffee Co, I’d convinced myself that I’d written about it. And so dropped in a couple of times before it dawned on my that actually I hadn’t in fact written about it, at all. So it’s only fair I put things to rights now and – well, write about it!
Burrow Coffee Co,, October 2024
Sitting within a Full private region leveraging the Land Capacity bonus, this is a setting offering a mix of venues for events, places to hang-out with friends or enjoy a retreat with someone close, and places to explore, all beautifully put together by Aria Christen with the support of other members of the Burrow Coffee Co management team. In turns of land coverage, the setting occupies around one-third of the total region area, the rest being given over to open waters to the south and east. These waters actually mark three other parcels in the region, at least two of which appear to have locations in the air (one being a private residence, and other the home of the Spruce brand by Spruce Evergreen), and so play no further role in this article.
The Landing Point sits on a C-shaped dock and the western end of the island. As well as playing host to several moored boats, this also has a series of noticeboards for such things as contacting staff, learning about the setting’s sponsors and obtaining information on the local events – including being able to open the setting’s event calendar. A path sets off inland from between two of these noticeboards, complete with a sign offering an assurance that you’re not lost – you’re simply here; which when you think about it, is generally the best place to be.
Burrow Coffee Co,, October 2024
Not far beyond this, the path divides, one arm continuing in a northerly direction as it passes under a rocky arch, the other turning eastwards. Take the former, and you’ll pass by way of a little camp site amidst the trees and offering one of the many hang-out spots mentioned above as being throughout the setting. Beyond this the path drops down the the north coast of the island and a deck built out over the shingles of the shoreline. Here, quiet times can be hand on rocking chairs whilst watched from the waters by one of the stars of 1975’s Jaws 😀 .
Eastwards, the trail hugs the feet of squat cliffs, slowly rising against them via short sequences of steps and rises in the land until it reaches a broad plateau on which the coffee house has been built, sharing the space with outdoor terraces and an adjoining pub space, which also serves as one of the venues for music within the buildings.
Burrow Coffee Co,, October 2024
The coffee house and pub are an expansive, well-designed space, the mix of interior and exterior areas blending perfectly together to present a sense of space without feeling in any way sprawling; of privacy for hanging out with friends without any sense of being isolated or cut off from the rest of the activity within the grounds or the coffee house or pub. To put is simply: this is genuinely a place to be enjoyed, where relaxation and casual conversations should mix easy with humour, light-hearted fun and music.
Cushioned by trees on all sides, the Barrow Coffee house and pub also have a uniquely warm and intimate feel to them, despite their collective size. Those seeking further intimacy of company and / or nature, need only follow the path on the west side of the gravelled seating area forming the front aspect of the coffee house. Quickly using the trees as a curtain between itself and the buildings and this providing the sense of easy intimacy with nature, the path turns north as a rugged little trail, stopping briefly at a wrought iron gate. Beyond this sits a delightful garden offering a mix of eastern and western influences, prior to a gravel path making its way down steps on the garden’s north side and thence back eastwards.
Burrow Coffee Co,, October 2024
Following the northern cliffs of the island and a short distance back from their edge, the path crosses a wooden bridge hinting that once there might have been waters flowing out from under the rocks on which the coffee house stands, and which flowed under the bridge to then hurl itself over their edge to the sea below. On the far side of the bridge, the path flows around a fountain where time might be spent sitting at a table and passing the time, before hurrying on towards a pergola-topped deck built out over the rocks where a part of the cliffs appears to have collapsed. Nor is this the end of meanderings, for the path continues on to drop those who tread its route gently onto the sands of a ribbon of beach along the island’s east side.
Those climbing the path from the landing point to the coffee house might also notice that as it reaches the latter, so too does it branch, the little lanterns which have marked the route up the path turning their lines to march back down again. No sooner do they start, than the path further splits, quickly descending to the right to reach an impressive boardwalk-come-breakwater snaking around the coast and providing fine views over the open waters to the surrounding hills, and offering places to sit and opportunities to enjoy refreshments.
Burrow Coffee Co,, October 2024
At its western end, this boardwalk also descends to the beach, where a narrow neck of sand passes between rocks and water to join with the arm of not taken as it completes its journey down to the beach, thus allowing visitors the opportunity to circumnavigate the entire island by following any of the three trails leading to and from the sands.
Throughout all of this is much more to be discovered and seen. Birds ride the thermals as the wind crosses the water and rides up the island’s flanks; cats might be found here and there, silently commanding all they see in that subtle way that cats do; koi swim in rocky ponds; foxes watch passers-by and the colours of autumn bring a richness of warmth in which visitors can wrap themselves. And for those not wishing to walk, there is a network of teleport boards waiting to carry them from point-to-point.
Burrow Coffee Co,, October 2024
Lovingly crafted and brought together, the Burrow Coffee Co., setting is – in a word – superb.
Mad Hatter’s Tea Room, September 2024 – blog post †
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, October 17th, 2024. There was no livestream or video for this meeting
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 held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
Meeting dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they re conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.
Official Viewers Update
Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11th, promoted September 17th.
Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11074622243, September 30.
Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
Near-Term Viewer Release Roadmap
ExtraFPS work remains focused on bug fixes.
The first maintenance RC to follow ExtraFPS will be the Maint B viewer, which will include updates put on hold during the focus on performance issues plus additional updates, some of which may be further “post-PBR” performance / aesthetic improvements.
Maint B, as noted previously in these summaries, will have updates to help with Linux support / builds.
Maintenance C is also being put together, but updates changes have not yet be specified, outside of a desire to keep the changes separate to Maint B in the interests of keeping updates easier to manage.
Avatar LookAt / Eye Tracking in the Viewer
A conversation relating to avatar eye movement / use of Look At cross hairs (& the resultant drama it can cause (“Stop perving me!”), and whether because of the latter, the capability should be removed completely from the viewer.
The core problem is, even though the option for a user to see their own LookAts in the Official viewer is disabled by default, the data (cross hairs and avatar name) is broadcast to surrounding viewers, resulting in unwarranted drama (“Stop perving me!” or “You’re on the wrong viewer!”).
Various viewers handle this situation in different ways; some follow the SL viewer, other’s provide means to see the LookAt crosshairs from others whilst supressing their own LookAt data (e.g. so I can see your LookAt crosshairs (if not supressed), but you cannot see mine – possibly leading to more drama).
Given this, LL sought the best way to reduce the level of upset: remove the LookAt broadcast altogether, or limit it / make it subject to having be physically turned on through a debug. The consensus of replies appeared to be to limit it / disable it behind a setting.
This conversation also crossed-over into avatar head movement tracking the movements of the mouse (e.g. you move the mouse up to the menu bar and your avatars head tracks upwards, then you move to a toolbar to the side or bottom of the window, and your avatar’s head again tracks).
This is perhaps more immersion-breaking that Look Ats (drama on the latter notwithstanding) and as some TPVs allowing such head movement to be disabled, there was a consensus that this should be disabled / removed from the viewer.
Graphics Team Work
PBR Terrain Transforms and PBR Terrain Painting
PBR terrain transforms: As per my week #38 update, PBR terrain Texture transforms for applying scale, offset and rotation to any one of the four PBR terrain materials, have been developed for use in the viewer.
Currently the viewer-side options are setting behind debug flags.
The simulator support for this work is currently targeting the Barbeque simulator update, which is due to start deployment after the WebRTC simulator deployments.
PBR Terrain Painting: the work on PBR terrain painting (see my week #31 update for a summary and previous status) has been “shelved” for the foreseeable future.
While no specific reason for this was given at the meeting, it seemed implied that this work has been superseded by the need to focus on other work for the time being.
General glTF / Graphics Comments
In response to a question about additional glTF work, Runitai Linden confirmed that user-made shaders will not be supported, but blend shapes and (possibly) animation of texture coordinate transforms from Blender.
Displacement maps won’t be supported for the time being as their is no available glTF specification for them.
Given the percentage of people not using PBR enabled viewers, LL is considering adding a simulator-side update that can detect a non-PBR viewer, and then take the base colour and Normal layer from the PBR material and move them to the Blinn-Phong parameter, so users on those viewers will at least see some surface detail on PBR objects rather than only seeing then a flat grey surfaces or untextured prims.
In Brief
A fair portion of the meeting was taken up with issues pertaining to the New User Experience / Marketplace issues – both of which those Lindens (Engineers) at the meeting were unable to directly address as these areas are outside of their remit.
† 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 gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
DREAMS, October 2024 – click any image for full size
Following the recommendation of Carelyna, I hopped over to the Portal Area within the Full region of Color Alchemist, and the home of the brand of the same name operated by Delain Canucci, and the portal area provides access to her store, to Inspire Space park (where Delain is also one of the creators) and to a quite fabulous ground level build. Entitled DREAMS, it stands as a reflection of Delain’s love of creativity, fantasy and art – and it is a fabulous environment, rich in detail, with echoes of various fantasy classics together with a little humour to help things along.
This years journey through the enchanted Elven land of Dreams, venturing deeper into a mysterious region—a realm of ancient Magic Gardens, where vibrant, glowing nature pulses with the power of mages.
– DREAMS About Land description
DREAMS, October 2024
To visit DREAMS from the portal area, click on the portal itself and accept the local Experience, and you’ll be teleported down to the starting point for explorations. To experience the setting at its best, you will require either a PBR enabled viewer or, if using a pre-PBR version of a viewer, have Advanced Lighting Model (ALM – Preferences → Graphics) enabled. Draw distance should be set reasonably high (notes displayed at the setting recommend 205 metres, but given the general layout, this is not 100% required; it can still be enjoyed at 128m Draw Distance, for example).
Shadows are also recommended if your viewer can handle them; but again, this should not be a showstopper if your viewer is not shadows-friendly. Do, however, enable local sounds and, if you fancy a musical accompaniment to your explorations, then the audio stream can be turned on as well to provide music from Cinemix.
DREAMS, October 2024
A single path winds outward from the arrival point and the portal, presenting a single way forward. However, it quickly branches to offer multiple options for exploration, and which you take is entirely up to you. The most colourful runs through the centre of the setting, a garden of gorgeous and exotic blooms large and small; a place where giant butterflies spread their wings, fae folk flitter and sit and rabbits hop. But there are also ways rising bey slope and steps, branching and dipping into tunnels or slipping past the maws of great caverns.
Within the latter might be found creatures more fey than fair; giant spiders, strange monsters, grinning imps and more. Passage through a tunnel will once again bring you to a colourful garden, but not before passing an rocky chamber hiding its own secret. Pass another way from the arrival point, and the way will become darker and more twisted, the air heavy as if one had stepped into Mirkwood. Here spiders might also be found, but so might one come across deer and standing stones and a path to a high alter of sorts on which a glowing figures stand upon magical symbols.
DREAMS, October 2024
Elsewhere, giant carved figures guard a garden within the gardens, a place mindful of Elven folk and where water plays. A short distance away an baker’s cottage sits on a nub of rock, its thatched roof aglow inviting visitors to cross the bridges leading to it and perhaps attempt to step inside – or at least rest on the rocking chairs on the cottage porch. It is one of the bridges lined to the bakery that will carry you to (or bring you from) the dark woodland realm, passing by way of Cerberus.
This Mirkwood-like realm is not only a place of spiders, hooded figures and signs of strange magic, it is also where strange forest creature roam, tall as Ents yet not Ents, eyes and hearts glowing. However, it you do want to see an Ent, then find your way to a cliffside path and you will fall under the gaze of one as it looms above the path as the latter will take you back towards the yellow-roofed baker’s cottage.
DREAMS, October 2024
Find your way to the cemetery, and you will also likely find the way to the floating castle and the treasure awaiting within. But be careful – as the path might also lead your to the sea monsters lurking within the green mist at the edge of the land.
I didn’t spot too many places to sit within the setting; however, the point here perhaps is not to sit and watch, but to explore and find; as such the lack of such spots didn’t bother me. In fact, I found the setting so enchanting, I decided to put together a short video – hope you like it and the selected piece of music I’m used for it.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 15th, 2024 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 and Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her 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.
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
Quoting Rider Linden:
Two weeks ago we had a bit of a rough roll, so some of the main grid was left on Summer Fun. Last week the entire engineering team was at an offsite and we decided it was probably not a good idea to do anything while we were all distracted. We believe that we have a fix for the issue and are going to be making a final decision later today about doing an off schedule roll on the SLS regions that are still causing problems. Once we have that out of the way we’ll be able to get back to the regular schedule. I believe that that the next in line is WebRTC, but we need to make sure that enough people have upgraded to an RTC capable client.
SL Viewer Updates
No changes at the start of the week:
Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, (formerly the DeltaFPS RC), dated September 11th, was promoted to de facto release status on September 19th. This includes:
Performance boosts. Memory management has been optimized and users will experience a higher FPS across various systems. A comprehensive range of bug fixes are also provided. This includes better PBR material handling and resolving frequent crashes. See the release notes for more.
UI for scheduling region restarts now available via a new button located in the Region/Estate floater. (Note: there is currently an issue with scheduled region restarts working correctly and a fix is due to come in the next server release).
Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11074622243, issued September 30th.
Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
In Brief
Please refer to the video below for the following:
Leviathan Linden requested a “top five” (or so) features / options people would like to see added to the official viewer. Responses at the meeting included:
RLV – currently, RLV/a code is being submitted to LL by its author, Kitty Barnett, for inclusion in the Official viewer and (I believe) RLV author Marine Kelley may have also provided information on RLV functionality to LL.
Client- side animation override (AO) capability.
Object derender.
Contact Sets (Firestorm).
Autrespond outside of Do Not Disturb mode.
Automatically rezzing under land Group.
ADD instead of WEAR as the default behaviour for attachments.
Adjustable toolbar button sizes.
Leviathan also dropped the following question into the meeting:
Suppose SL added a VR mode that allowed for seeing SL content in stereo vision a-la VR goggles. NOT the ability to be in the avatar body and move the limbs with trackers but just the ability to view SL content as a fly-cam in VR mode… would that be useful to anyone? Would anyone here use it? What would you use it for?
Responses were broadly positive, if the capability could be tired to the likes of using a vehicle in world.
Concerns were raised over the viewer’s ability to maintain a smooth, high enough frame rate consistently through a VR session.
The above does nor mean LL is about to implement and kind of VR / partial VR element within the viewer; Leviathan made it clear he was just looking at feed back in relation to the general idea of a partial VR experience with SL.
A further discussion on the issue of attachments failing (being dropped / lost / ghosted issues (see: Attachment loss on RC channel 2024-08-29.10619830788) which can be experienced during region crossing (TP or physical) & the fact the LL are working on a fix. is being
A discussion on making Media on Prim (MOAP) safer, and which threaded throughout much of the meeting.
The above drifted into discussions general media handling and also on rendering, colour maps, support for look-up tables for rendering / colour grading in the viewer (e.g. to give post-processed effects).
A further discussion on editing tools, scripting options, etc.
† 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.
Soulstone, October 2024 – click any image for full size
Valayra Asher (Valayra) has once again redressed her Full region of Soulstone, a region I’ve covered a number of times, and I’m always drawn back to it because Valayra tends to offer something very removed from the previous iteration, making any visit a entry into a new world and vision. This iteration is no exception, touching on Halloween to bring a theme of general horror and mystery mixed with a little post-apocalyptic or dystopian and flavoured with a very faint hint of Dark Knight stories.
Before getting into things, I will note that this is a location best viewed using a PBR-capable viewer or, if you’re still on an older viewer, then with Advanced Lighting Model (ALM: Preferences → Graphics) enabled.
Soulstone, October 2024
If your system can handle them, then proceeding with shadows enabled is recommended; if your system cannot handle this whilst exploring the region as a whole, give it a go whilst inside the asylum, where you can also potentially reduce Draw Distance to help lighten the load the viewer is handling. Do also make sure you’re using the Shared Environment and, finally, please note that the south-west quarter of the region appears to be given over to a private residence, and is separated from the rest via a mix of hills and building shells, so avoid trespass there.
Located on the north side of the region, the Landing Point gives the first hint of the post-apocalyptic / dystopian feel to the setting as it lies on a partially destroyed road bridge. It’s not clear what caused the literal downfall of the bridge, but the local flooding to be found suggests it may have been the result of a natural disaster such as an earthquake. At the foot of the bridge the mystery of the setting continues: it appears the road once linked with one running from the east side of the region – but where they presumably once met has been turned into a caged basketball court with the appearance of having been placed there after the roads had been largely destroyed.
Soulstone, October 2024
This basketball court with its razor wire, closed-circuit security cameras and the guard tower sitting next to it all give the setting a penitentiary feel; however, standing above them along the top of an eastern rise in the land is the foreboding bulk of an asylum. For me, it immediately brought to mind thoughts of the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Whether this is intended or not, I’ve no idea, but a hospital for the criminally insane might account for the use of a guard tower, spotlights and the like.
The asylum sits as a the major focal point of the setting. The way to it is along the east-pointing section of road, littered as it is with the well-rusted wrecks of cars as they sit as the detritus of disaster. The asylum itself appears at first glance to be deserted – the main doors are wide open (as are other leading outside) and the windows smashed and broken, with further signs of chaos inside. Exploration here is best done with shadows enabled, so as to fully absorb the environment and the sense of stumbling around in the dark and coming across the unexpected.
Soulstone, October 2024
While it is fair to say the asylum dominates the landscape, its multiple broken eyes staring out over the devastation below the brow on which it sits; it is not alone; others sit on the flat plain it overlooks, some of which, like the asylum, have managed to retain some vestiges of electrical power despite whatever has befallen them.
Broken and empty, a forlorn and empty swimming pool sitting before one block, these high-rises bear silent, shattered witness to whatever anger was unleashed upon this land; not even the glimmering neon of an advertising hoarding can disguise the fact that civilisation here has passed, living behind only animals, birds, and the shuffling shells of those asylum inmates somehow left behind in whatever evacuation may have taken place.
Soulstone, October 2024
Yet amidst the ruin a little tram station sits, ostensibly in one piece, also sheltering under the dormant protection of the guard tower. Where the trams arriving and departing this station might have come from or run to makes no difference now. Indeed, going on the signs hung from the pole of a working streetlight alongside the station, it would appear whoever survived whatever happened recognises this fact, given the destinations the signs list…
And speaking of signs / signage / graffiti, attention should be paid through any explorations, as there is a certain dark humour to be found throughout in the signage and scrawl, posters and adverts. Places to sit can be found scatters around, mostly in makeshift shelters out on the broken roads or alongside the fractured walls of buildings. They offer a chance for those who want to absorb the setting’s ambience and / or allow it to conjure stories of how it has come to be so devastated to do so in a measure of small comfort. Also to be found, large and small, are touches that might bring to mind a particular film about the aftermath of one calamitous event in human history – at least to me -, and others echoing the shuffling threat of horror from assorted films and televisions series (“Braiiins….”).
Soulstone, October 2024 (“You maniacs! You blew it up! Ahh! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!”)
Finished with a soundscape well suited to both its devastation and mystery, this iteration of Soulstone is, as with previous builds, well worth visiting.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 