Category: Second Life

2024 SL SUG meetings week #44 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hailey’s Mystical Forest, September 2024 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 29th, 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 the 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.
  • 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

  • No deployments for this week, just rolling restarts across the grid.

Simulator Deployment Plans

  • The next simulator maintenance update will be Barbecue (or BBQ), which is currently awaiting further bug fixing. This should include:
    • Support for “alpha-gamma” which will allow an object owner to adjust some of the PBR alpha values that were impacting legacy things like hair.
    • llSetAgentRot.
    • A new warning on receiving direct IMs from Scripted Agents (“registered” bots): if a Scripted Agent “right clicks” you and sends you a message, it will trigger a warning about sharing personal information with bots within the chat window.
  • Following Barbecue should be Apple Cobbler, which should include:
    • llTransferOwnership which enables a prim give itself to a new user (subject to owner permissions already set).
    • An extended llGiveInventory to allow for a destination folder (system folders + RLV/a) to be specified as well (+ the use of a parameter list, so further options can be added in the future).

SL Viewer Updates

No changes at the start of the week:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11296522354, October 18.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).

Game Control

Leviathan Linden noted the latest news on this work:

GameControl is in develop branch, not sure when it will reach an official release or find its way into TPV. Meanwhile game controller hardware support has been temporarily disabled on Mac (although it didn’t work very well there anyway since most devices are not recognized by the OS) until we sort out some “duplicate keypress” issues.

In Brief

Please refer to the video below for the following:

  • Reports indicate the the most recent simulator deployment appears to have fixed most of the lost / ghosted attachment issues experienced during teleport / physical region crossings.
  • A general discussion on RLV and possible #RLV folder structure, and RLV extensions to folders. For those curious about RLV/a, given RLVa is currently to be incorporated into the official viewer, please refer to (among other sources):
  • Further discussion on llTransferOwnership and llGiveAvatarInventoryList. Part of the latter included the extent to which scripts should be able to use it to create new inventory items (e.g. such as preventing it from using the Current Outfit Folder, whilst removing the burden of everything going to the Inventory root folder.
  • Both the RLV and LSL commands above lead to a wider discussion on inventory, folder structures, how / where items should be placed when received via script, etc.,  filtering inventory, and so on.
  • There is no current work on HTTP/2 for CDN and asset fetching. This is described as something LL want to get to, but keeps getting stalled due to the focus being on other areas of work. Monty Linden also noted a move to HTTP/2 may not yield any significant loading improvement over HTTP/1.
  • A general discussion on feature requests such as object permission information [provided] with llgetobjectdetails; add rezremotescriptaccesspin to llrezobjectwithparams, both of which are currently being TRACKED by LL.

† 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.

Lab announces Philip Rosedale appointed as CTO

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab

The event venue has been given as Linden Estate Services Meeting Area.

On Tuesday, October 29th, 2024, Linden Lab announced that the company’s founder, Philip Rosedale has been appointed to the full-time role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO), in a move that will undoubtedly cause excitement in some quarters.

As well as founding the company, Rosedale served as its CEO through until 2010, when he departed the company to work on various new ventures,  including Coffee and Power and, most notable, the VR-centric virtual world / social spaces company, High Fidelity.

The latter actually became an investor in Linden Lab / Second Life in January 2022 in a deal which included the transfer of some staff from High Fidelity to Linden Lab, together distributed computing patents held by High Fidelity, which has transitioned by that time toy working on solutions focused on spatial audio that would allow people to work collaboratively whilst geographically separate. Also as a part of that deal, Rosedale took up the role as a special advisor to the Second Life management team and the Board at Linden Lab.

In this role he has spent the last 2+ years providing advice and support to the Lab’s Board under Executive Chairman Brad Oberwager and the executive team, and has been visible at a number of Lab-led town hall meetings and similar events as well as participating in various Lab Gab events.

In his new role as CTO, Rosedale “will guide technology and product strategy daily” alongside the executive management team, and he will also resume a seat on the company’s Board.

Over the last four years since the acquisition, Linden Lab has re-focused itself on improving and serving Second Life. We’ve divested ourselves of unnecessary projects, streamlined our operations, increased the quality of customer support, and grown our overall revenues and profitability. We’re now in a unique position to define the future of virtual worlds, and Philip is returning to help myself and the exec team achieve that goal.

– Brad Oberwager, Linden Lab Executive Chair, via the announcement

Philip Rosedale Round Table Event

The announcement also indicated the Lab will be holding a Community Round Table event on Friday, November 1st, 2024, at 10:00 SLT featuring Philip Rosedale. At the time of writing, the venue for the event was TBA – this post will be updated with details when available. However, questions are being sought from Second Life users, so if you have a question for Philip Rosedale, you can submit it via this form.

Related Links

2024 SL viewer release summaries week #43

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, October 27th, 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.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11296522354, October 18 – NO CHANGE.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V7-style

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable: 1.32.2.20, October 26 – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Ashemi revisited in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ashemi, October 2024 – click any image for full size

Ashemi is a setting which, like the tide, ebbs and flows in and out of Second Life. The work of SL partners Ian Ventori (Jayshamime) and Ime Poplin (Jayshamime), and has been featured in this blog numerous times since 2016.  This is because Jay and Ime (sometimes with help from friends) always put together settings which carry within them certain motifs and themes which can be found in previous designs, allowing each version of Ashemi to stand both in its own right whilst also sharing threads of ideas which flow through all of them like a familiar musical refrain.

The last time I visited an Ashemi build, it took the form of a repurposed oil or natural gas platform sitting out in blue waters somewhere, its derricks and drilling and recovery equipment all gone, replaced by the living spaces and businesses of a tiny community, thus making it an island of life in a broad sea. Something of this theme is continued in the 2024 build, but in a very different manner.

Ashemi, October 2024

The region sits as an island, a semi-industrialised place looking like part of a much larger conurbation, but which seems to have fallen on hard times. A single tall smokestack exhales a white plume into the sky as it surpasses the local buildings in its height as it does so. These other buildings rise as factory blocks, apartment buildings with places of business below, and a single, strange structure rising on four stout legs to become a luxury apartment overlooking its downtrodden neighbours and offering shelter to the autumnal trees growing beneath it.

There is little other greenery to be found within the walls formed by the island’s buildings, save for an attempt by someone to make a garden around their trailer home. Here, grass has been planted together with shrubs and rhubarb is being forced under glass. Whoever lives here values their privacy: the trailer home is surrounded by a tall chain link fence topped by razor wire. Outside of this, lanterns hang prettily, suggesting a welcome might yet be found in the trailer whilst adding their illumination to that of the neon signs and hoardings of the surrounding buildings. However, whom they might attract to their businesses is anyone’s guess; even the local swimming pool is looking a tad sad, whilst a once pristine fairground rides have most certainly aged beyond their prime, leaving only the local café as possibly deserving custom within its well-kept interior.

Ashemi, October 2024

Which is also not to stay nature has entirely given up here; trees grow along the southern shoreline, whilst to the southwest the land opens up into s park-like headland where Sakura blossom and other trees offer shade and places to sit might be found (as they can indeed be found elsewhere in the setting). It is from here that visitors can get a good view of the outlying elements of the setting and add to the mystery of its possible backstory.

Two block-like islands sit just off the region’s boundaries. They carry on them squat apartment blocks hunched over their ground-floor business, the lights within them and on their advertising hoards bright and warm, feed by the overhead powerlines following the grid patterns of streets where vehicles and people might be seen.

Ashemi, October 2024

Given their regular shapes, these islands appear entirely artificial – but were they built over the waters around them, or were they once both part of the same landmass, perhaps even joined to Ashemi’s near-deserted form, only to become regularly-shaped bastions of town life as sea levels rose and cut them asunder from one another, whilst also encroaching on their heartland to form it into the island of Ashemi?

A third blocky island rises from the sea on the other side of Ashemi in relation to its park-like headland. It is crowned by massive structures dwarfing anything else to be found, with huge clusters of cables draped in the deep canyons between them. Industrial-looking, dark and almost foreboding, it stands in stark contrast to anything else to be seen, adding a further twist to any story one might try to conjure for the setting’s history.

Ashemi, October 2024

That this is place potential somewhere in the near-future can perhaps most clearly be seen in the design of that third off-region island. However, another clue can be found in the fact that air cars and moving back and forth in the sky, together with what look like automated cargo carriers. The air cars look to be for travel between the town-like islands and between them and the more futuristic island with its towers and cable and dishes. In this, they almost completely ignore the little island of Ashemi and its various attractions, perhaps living it to be visited only by boat.

Rich in detail and with multiple places to sit, this iteration of Ashemi again offers many opportunities for the imagine to wonder about its origins and for the taking of photographs. My thanks to Jay for the personal invite to pay a visit.

Ashemi, October 2024

SLurl Details

  • Ashemi (Goldenland, rated Moderate)

2024 week #43: SL TPVD meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grauland / Primary Colors, September 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording + the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this summary) of the Third-Party Developer meeting (TPVD) held on Friday, October 25th, 2024. My thanks to Pantera as always for providing it.

Meeting Purpose

  • The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • 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 Status

[Video: 0:00-2:30]

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11296522354, October 18.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain;  additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
    • UI Optimisations: lessening the impact of UI rendering on frame rates / performance (discussed more fully at 16:52-18:04].

Upcoming Viewers

  • ExtraFPS is described as having some “high priority” bug which require fixing before it progresses to release status.
  • The next RC viewer to follow ExtraFPS is likely to be the Maintenance B build, which includes work put on hold while the focus was on PBR and non-PBR related performance fixes.
  • Performance improvement will continue to be part of the on-going work with the viewer, but once ExtraFPS is promoted to release status, it is unlikely that the Lab will produce viewers dedicated only to performance fixed for a while.
  • From the comments made, it appears as if LL are going to try to pull work from what had been the Maintenance C RC viewer (also put on hold whilst the performance work was going on) into the next viewer build as well.
    • It was acknowledged that this approach may need toa delay in getting the updated Maint B viewer out and to release status, but it is hoped that in the long run, it will mean a faster release cycle with the viewer builds which eventually follow behind Maint B.
  • [Video 21:09-22:27] Vir reiterates that as the Maint B(/C) viewer appears, it should mark the return  of Linux to the list of official viewer builds.
    • However, the Linux flavour will be based on code contributions rather than dedicated support from with in the Lab.
    • If things break with it, the Lab will attempt to fix them, but will not hold back viewer releases as a result of Linux-specific breakages / bugs.

WebRTC

[Video 2:31-4:20]

Summary

  • The replacement of the Vivox Voice service and plug-in, with the WebRTC communications protocol (RTC=”real-time communication”). Roxie Linden is leading this work.
  • Key benefits:
    • WebRTC supports a wide range of real-time communications tools in common use (e.g. Google Meet), supporting audio, video and data communications, and is thus something of a “standard” approach.
    • Offers a good range of features: automatic echo cancellation, better noise cancellation and automatic gain control, much improved audio sampling rates for improved audio quality.
    • Opens the door to features and capabilities to voice services which could not be implemented whilst using Vivox.

Status

  • There is now a “pretty significant fraction” of users still using a non-WebRTC capable viewer.
  • LL would like this number to be further reduced before they completely pull the back-end support for Vivox. As such, the exact time frame on when the switch might be thrown is still TBA.
  • [Via chat throughout the 10-25 min point in the meeting, and with some Voice from approx 18 mins] It was noted that Voice roll-off under WebRTC should work the same as for Vivox, BUT the range at which is rolls-off completely is greater (60m).
    • Some have reported that this does not appear to be the case, with roll-off potentially not working at all (also reported at the last TPVD meeting).
    • LL to investigate further.

Graphics Work

[Video: 5:28-end]

  • The first part of this update referenced rigged attachment texture streaming as noted in the ExtraFPS summary, above.
  • Also as noted above, the work on improving performance has reached a point of diminishing returns for dedicated viewer updates, so future performance improvements will be folded in ither other viewer updates making it to the Develop branch.
  • The above noted, LL is still digging into specific hardware types where the viewer does not perform well (e.g. some AMD graphics chips) in order to determine what might be done to improve things.
    • If people running a viewer with the DeltaFPS code included are still fining they have very poor performance (e.g. single-digit FPS; an already low FPS cut in half, etc.), they are asked to file a Canny report and included information on their hardware (e.g. copy-paste their hardware information as displayed in Help → About, in the viewer).
  • [Video: 7:57-9:07] A change was introduced with the Delta FPS code such that if the viewer is running in the background on a system for more than 10 seconds, it will down-rez textures to prevent over-use of VRAM when it is not the application in focus.
    • This has received completely mixed feedback: some feel 10 seconds is too long a period to wait; others feel it is too short; those running multi-screen systems with SL on one monitor dislike the fact that when they focus away from SL to work on their other screen, SL “goes blurry”, etc.
    • As a result, LL is considering making this a switchable option, so users can decide whether they want to utilise it or not.
  • [Video 9:20-11:13] A discussion on using Vsync in the viewer vs. limiting frame rates (e.g. through the viewer or via something like the Nvidia control panel).
  • [Video 27:29-33:33] A discussion on brightness and  gamma / PBR vs non-PBR / use of HDR rendering + tone mapping.
    • In terms of tone mapping, the decision is to move back o ACES as the default in light of feedback, but people will remain able to select Khronos Neutral or ACES through Preferences.
    • The long-term plan is to have tone mapping and colour correction per sky setting, allowing region holders / designs to choose which ones they want.
    • As such, content creators are reminded no to bake tone mapping in their base colour / diffuse map but let the viewer’s post-processing handle the tone mapping.
  • [Video: 33:25-38:33] Alpha / gamma work:
    • As per previous meetings: in order for PBR lighting to render anywhere close to correctly, alpha blending had to be switched from SRGB to linear colour space. This can cause some older content using Blinn-Phong, to look either more opaque or more transparent than in did pre-PBR.
    • The fix for this giving people the ability to adjust the alpha/gamma on per texture entry for the object (including no mod items)
    • A link was provided to an installer for a viewer with the code at the meeting, but this later generated a 404 error.

In Brief

  • The latter part of the meeting included a discussion on documentation + communication (e.g. communicating more fully the reasoning behind PBR – the move towards better and more consistent content using glTF).

Next Meeting

† 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.

Six for a third at the Kondor Art Museum in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Kondor Art Museum, October 2024: Thus Yootz

The third exhibition at the Kondor Art Museum, a part of Hermes Kondor’s Kondor Art Centre, features a total of six artists exhibiting theough the gallery’s halls. They comprise: Mareea Farrasco, Sina Souza, Ilyra Chardin, Zia Branner and Thus Yootz, with Hermes himself rounding out the six. Some of these artists art among my personal favourites for their depth of expression and presentation, so this has been an exhibition I’ve been wanting to drop into since it opened on October 17th, 2024.

As with the first exhibition at the the Museum in April 2024, Ilyra Chandin’s 3D pieces occupying the foyer of the gallery building, as well as at the entrance and on the roof.

Kondor Art Museum, October 2024: Zia Branner

To the left of the entrance, the first hall in the museum houses a selection of pieces by Thus Yootz, someone who is, in my opinion, one of the most expressive and at times artistically experimental artists in Second Life. Here she presents 10 pieces that very much demonstrate these facts, with landscape pieces in monochrome and colour mixing with gorgeous and expressive line and wireframe styles.

Following Thus, and occupying the rear hall of the museum’s lower level, together with the hall to which it leads, is a two-stage exhibition by Sina Souza, another highly expressive artist I admire. The first part of this selection is a series focused on the colour red, some of which carry something of a social commentary. Beyond this is the right-side hall, containing seven colour / monochrome pieces, all equally evocative.

Kondor Art Museum, October 2024: Mareea Farrasco

Upstairs, the two halls feature a selection of Mareea Farrasco’s always-engaging Second Life landscapes and avatar studies, and across the landing, Zia Branner’s abstract paintings. Again, both of these artists have a unique approach to their work, and I never fail to be drawn into their images and art.

Rounding-out the exhibition, again in the front hall to the right of the entrance, is more of Hermes’ own quite superb photography from the physically world as he takes us on a further visit to Lisbon’s Reservatorio da Patriarcal, also known as the Water Museum. Captured in a black and white, these are quite studding photos in terms of their focus, angle and contrasts of shadow and light which bring the walls and walkways of the museum to life in an almost tactile way; one can literally sense the smooth hardness of the metal railings and steps and the soft roughness of the stone.

Kondor Art Museum, October 2024: Sina Souza

In all, an engaging series of art displays from six equally engaging artists

SLurl Details