Category: SL Tech

2021 TPV Developer meeting summary, week #49

Posted on by Inara Pey
DARYA, October 2021 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, December 10th, 2021.

These meetings are generally held every other week.  They are recorded by Pantera Północy, and her video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report – my thanks to her for allowing me to do so – and it is used with the chat log from the meeting and my own audio recording to produce this summary, which focuses on the core topics discussed.

SL Viewer

  • The combined Simplified Cache and 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.5.1.566335, issued on December 7th.
  • The Jenever Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.1.566306, dated November 30th, and the Koaliang Maintenance 2 RC viewer, version 6.5.1.565905, also dated November 30th, both issued on December 6th.
  • The Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.5.1.566443 on December 8th.

The remaining official viewer flavours remain as:

  • Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • The Tracy Integration RC viewer, version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.5.1.566443, dated December 8.
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • The combined Simplified Cache and 360 Snapshot project viewer is likely to be the next viewer to be promoted to de facto release status. Depending on how many use the RC cohort, this could be promoted before the code freeze period comes into effect. If not, it will be the first viewer promotion in 2022.
  • The Performance Improvements viewer has been updated, but remains at project status, but will hopefully be promoted to RC status in the New Year. With regards to this viewer:
    • It has been noted that it is still subject to some brief frame stalls “from unusual places”, which are still being investigated. There is also a report of some media-related frame stalls.
    • It has also been noted that due to the changes made, some the stats reported by the viewer (e.g. Ktris per frame / per second, some of the memory usage stats) are no longer accurate / are zeroed out because the counts associated with these stats were impacting performance, and it was deemed more preferable to have them logged by external tools from which the data could be extracted, rather than having every viewer performing its own profiling cycles.

Code Freeze

Subject to final confirmation, the end-of-year code freeze period is likely to come into effect on Monday, December 20th, and will run through Monday, January 3rd, 2022. During this time, there will be no official viewer updates and no server-side releases or simhost updates.

In Brief

  • Mojo Linden reiterated that the Lab is keen to hear back from users on the Performance Improvements viewer, and in receiving suitable performance improvements code from TPVs, and the emphasis remains on trying to improve overall performance for all users.
  • He also indicated that LL are in discussions about other improvements that can be made to the viewer and again, he is interested in hearing back from TPV developers and users on potential areas in the viewer that could benefit from improvement.
  • The log-in services update that caused issues for scripted agents (bots) at the start of the week and had to be rolled-back (see my week #49 SUG summary) was in part originally been made in order to remove outdated code from the servers. Mojo apologised for the issues it caused on deployment.
  • A request has been made for the new search front-end to return a JSON blob, so that TPVs can parse it and present search results in a manner that is more in keeping with the rest of the viewer UI.
  • Unless there is a strong case for it, the Lab is liable to drop GLOD support for mesh uploaders at some point in the future in favour of the mesh optimiser currently within the Mesh Optimiser project viewer. GLOD may therefore become a matter of legacy support among TPVs.
  • Runitai Linden noted that there is a mis-match between the benchmarks used to determine viewer default settings and the capabilities of systems the viewer is installed on. For example, a laptop running Intel HD Graphics can default to running on Ultra or High graphics due the the current benchmark threshold, whereas it might be better suited to running at Medium. He’s therefore asked TPVs for input on which viewer defaults might need adjusting going forward (And update to the maximum VRAM usage for the official viewer is apparently already in the works).
  • The last 20 minutes of the meeting is devoted to a technical discussion on what might be done to improve the appearance of SL in ways that might help lift retention by encouraging people to keep exploring (and hopefully meeting up with like minds and so generating the social links that will further encourage their continued engagement).
    • This discussion included the potential for using back-end baking for lighting, etc., to relieve the viewer load, and how it might work within a dynamic build environment like Second Life, together with updated ambient occlusion capabilities, etc.
    • The discussion also covered LODs on mesh, and the problems the current system has pushed onto performance (due to encouraging over-use of low LODs & creators then insisting users should over-tax their systems through high LOD render settings, etc.).
    • Please refer to the video for details on this discussion for the full context, including the fact that the discussion was only around ideas, and not projects LL is about to start working on.

December 2021 Web User Group summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, December 8th, 2021.

These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.

Web Properties – Past Month

  • Search: most of November was focus on the Search facelift that launched on November 22nd – those interested can see my own thoughts here.
    • LL are aware of criticism the new look has received, both performance-wise and in the design. The latter drew the comment, “we like it, so we’re keeping it.”
    • Again, as a reminder, this was a cosmetic update, the underpinning Search engine was not touched or altered as a part of the work – see below for notes on functional updates.
  • E-mail preferences changes: part of November was spent preparing for splitting the receipt of Group notices away from general IM receipt via e-mail when off-line. See the official blog post here, and my own notes.
    •  This change comes into effect from Wednesday December 15th.
    • There was a bug within the Change Email Settings page whereby re-enabling the receipt of Group notices would disable the receipt on IMs via e-mail. This is said to now be fixed.

2022 “Roadmap”

Whilst not a roadmap in the strictest sense (as no specific order was assigned to them), the Web team was looking to implement (or start) the following projects in 2022:

  • Search: an attempt to overhaul and refine the way the current web search engine works.
    • The two watch-words for this project are to make Search more useful and to return more relevant results.
    • This work is to be undertaken with a 3rd party SEO specialist company, rather than being handled by LL themselves.
  • Web Properties facelift: a facelift of all of the Lab’s public/user-facing web properties.
    • The two watch-world for this are to make all web properties more user-friendly and mobile friendly for tablets and smartphones.
    • This is seen as a major project to run through 2022.
    • This work will include the Marketplace, which is going to see “a lot of changes”.
    • Presumably  – and this is purely my personal take on this – the facelift work will see more utilisation of the Flat Design approach seen with the Search front-end and in things like the Second Life landing pages.
  • Infrastructure updates: 2022 will include various infrastructure projects aimed at better leveraging the tools and capabilities that are now available to LL via Amazon.
  • Premium Plus: the hope is that Premium Plus will be revisited and launched in 2022. Any questions on what it might look like, fees, etc., will not be answerable until the option is available for deployment.
  • Other projects: there is the potential for other work to be carried out in 2022, some of which may not be user-visible, but the details on other work for 2022 are still in a state of flux, and updates will likely be given at WUG meetings through the year.

Place Pages

Reed Linden asked the question on what would people like to see Place Pages actually do, and what would they like to get out of them.

Second Life Place Pages
  • It has been accepted by the Lab that as they stand, Place Pages are under-utilised and with a genuine raison d’etre for their existence, having been left hanging since their introduction in 2017.
  • There is functionality within Place Pages that might be better leveraged to help people find out more about specific locations within Second Life, but it is acknowledged the capability requires tuning and a more clearly defined purpose.
  • Some of the suggestions that were put forward included:
    • Allowing more than the current 3 screenshots + hero image.
    • Better integration between Place Pages and web Search.
    • Allowing Place Pages to be filtered by Maturity Rating and also selected options such as “private island”, “mainland”, etc.
    • Better promotion, so that people actually understand Place Pages exist and can be used as a promotional / informational tool about locations in Second Life independently of Search.
    • Offering the ability to provide information on events / activities, etc., allowing Place Pages to become more of a general web presence for locations in-world (which was actually part of the original promotion for Place Pages when they first launched).
      • This might be seen as something between a simple listing of events and a blotter-like feed of information and updates, possibly with ability to have it displayed as media in-world, removing some of the the need for script-intensive event boards.
    • Displaying historical  / predictive information on a location – e.g. how many have visited in the past week / month / how many are present at the moment, when the best times are to visit and find people there, etc.
    • Providing the means to include links to other social media / platforms utilised by a venue / business (e.g. Twitter, Discord, etc.).
    • Possibly de-coupling Place Pages from public search – useful for private groups who wish to have a central place for information that can be used purely by Group members, without it necessarily being surfaced through Search, etc.
  • It should be noted that currently, updating Place Pages is not a planned project from the Lab – Reed is simply seeking feedback on directions the capability might be taken should it become a focus for overhaul / update.

In Brief

  • Marketplace Q&A “forum”: Reed is still mulling the idea of where and how to place a means for the Web team to take and address Marketplace-specific questions / feedback.
  • Multi-factor Authentication: the work is focused on rolling the current capability across key web properties – including the Marketplace – and getting it into the viewer. This work will be in advance of any work to allow authentication using verified e-mails, etc.
  • Dashboard Communications option: the suggestion was made that, in addition to the planned mobile app, LL should consider adding a capability to the secondlife.com dashboard that would allow users to communicate with Friends who are currently in-world.
    • This is something LL are apparently in the process of discussing, together with providing the means for users to access things like Group functionality  / options via the web. And even – maybe – providing some level of inventory interaction via the web.

Next Meeting

  • Check the SL public calendar.
  • The core topic will likely be on the use of sub-brands within Marketplace stores vs using alt accounts to manage multiple brands / stores. That is the pros and cons, how it might work, what people expect of it, etc.

2021 SUG meeting week #49 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Paradiso, October 2021 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary. Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for further updates.

  • On Tuesday, December 7th, all simulators on the SLS Main channel were restarted to refresh them – no actual deployment was made.
  • On Wednesday, December 7th, two of the RC channels will receive a simulator update to allow for the upcoming change to off-line Group Notice receipt via e-mail. See: Lab announces change to e-mail preferences for Group notices for more).

Available Viewers

This list reflects those viewers available via Linden Lab.

  • Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
    • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
    • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565672 (dated November 17) November 22.
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

Log-in Issues

As a result of a recent log-in server update, people experienced issues with scripted agent (bot) log-ins (see BUG-231530). and those with a double space in their user name. This updates should now have been rolled back, hopefully resolving the issues. Commenting on the situation, Mazidox Linden noted:

We’re updating the login hosts. We regularly deploy updates to most of Second Life’s service hosts. This one had some issues we weren’t able to find on Aditi [when testing the simulator code].

In addressing why the issue was allowed to “roll” for 24 hours, he added:

We needed the data that was being generated from the new login hosts.

libopenmetaverse Support Deprecation

Simon Linden had two items of news for those using libopenmetaverse for scripted agent operations:

  • Going forward, libopenmetaverse is no longer going to be supported, and will be replaced by libremetaverse.
  • Those using scripted agents should therefore switch to libremetaverse why building Python-driven bots.

LSL: llList2ListStrided

Whilst engaged in some LSL scripting work, Rider Linden encountered something which he is trying to determine how best to address:

I’ve been making heavy use of llList2ListStrided and I’ve noticed that in order to get something other than the first element in each stride you need to delete everything before the item you want. This leads to lots of calls that look like this:
llList2ListStrided(llDeleteSubList(src, 0, 0), 0, -1, 3)
Which is downright ugly. The question is would correcting the start parameter be the way to go or a new function (and perhaps throwing in a sort that lets you pick which column in the span to sort on).

Out of concern for content breakage with with way the function is currently used, the favour shown by those at the meeting was to have a new function that could be used going forward.

2021 viewer release summaries week #48

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week ending Sunday, December 5th

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 version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    •  No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565672 (dated November 17) November 22.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • Kokua: 6.5.0.48132 (no RLV) 6.5.0.51382 (RLV variants) August 14 – release notes.

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2021 CCUG meeting week #48 summary: Graphics work

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nelipot, September 2021 – blog post

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, December 2nd 2021 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Unfortunately, my audio recording turned into so much noise around half-way through the meeting, so what follows is a truncated set of notes based purely on text.

Available Viewers

This list reflects those viewers available via Linden Lab.

  • Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
    • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
    • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565672 (dated November 17) November 22.
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • The aim is still to combine the 360 Snapshot RC viewer and the Simplified Cache RC viewers into a single RC in preparation for promotion.

Graphics Work

  • This work has comprised a number of elements, both in moving processes that should logically have their own threads, and in moving processing that can cause the main thread to stall while it is handling them (e.g. processes that talk to the graphics API, the texture upload to OpenGL, etc.) to other background threads, together with overhaul avatar rendering.
  • The main focus of work is now bug fixing, with the hope to get an RC viewer out before the holiday period.

Blend Shapes

Over time, LL has received multiple requests for blend shape / morph target / shape key support to be added to the avatar system  (see BUG-22993 as an example). Were such a capability be added, it will require a new asset type associated with the avatar or a part of the original mesh definition.

  • However, for the meeting, Vir asked creators to assume the option to be available and asked for thoughts on how they would be used, e.g:
    • Should that have name-based parameters with LSL support for accessing them?
    • How else might they be controlled if they did not correspond to existing sliders?
  • The Lab’s thinking is that there are two categories of blend shapes to be considered:
    • Blend shapes that are intended to implement functionality that is equivalent to the built-in slider blends of the system avatar (and so can be integrated into the existing slider number system).
    • Blend Shapes that are intended to be independent of the existing slider system.
  • It was noted that any slider-based system for blend shapes could be limited, as it won’t necessarily work with clothing without an overhaul of the avatar rigging system, as clothing has no inherent understanding of the base body form.
    • While there are potential work-arounds to the above point, they would require adding further levels of technical complexity to SL, which perhaps isn’t the best way to go – and would be a much large project to implement.
  • The assumption is also that blend shapes would have a fixed 0.0 – 1.0 input range, which raised the question of how would it be triggered?
    • Via editing?
    • Using LSL?
    • Referenced in an animation (to allow more dynamic use – such as facial emoting)?
  • (As it was at this point audio went sideways, I believe the general feeling was the all three options for triggering; but without audio to confirm Vir’s feedback, I’m unsure).

In Brief

  • Andrew (Mojo Linden) Kertesz, the Lab’s new Vice President of Engineering, dropped into the meeting, having already become a semi-regular attendee at the Simulator User Group and the TPV Developer meetings.
    • He noted he is hoping to drop in to further meetings, possibly on a monthly basis, and build up a picture as to the hopes / wants / needs of content creators and gather information that can perhaps be folded back into the Lab’s own plans.
    • He also indicated that thoughts at the Lab are now turning towards features, capabilities and experiences and a road map of ideas is being developed; but nothing currently ready for any form of disclosure.
  • In asking those present for feedback on what content creators might like to see, the answers supplied included:
    • An improved / off-the-shelf scripting system.
    • The ability to build UI-based HUDs. This has been a common request, and potential use-case explains were requested during the meeting, to help LL better understand how / where they might be used (e.g. “this is how this HUD + LLSL is being done today – how could/should it be done with language X + widgets”).
  • Requests were again made for LL to devote time to updating documentation, particularly those elements of the wiki that are being kept active  – such as the pages referencing content creation. These are wildly out-of-date / misleading, and frustration was voiced over the fact that Beq Janus of the Firestorm team spent a considerable amount of time annotating issues and providing LL with a list of updates to all content creation documentation, none of which has been actioned.
  • The subject of mesh LODs (and / or lack thereof) and the potential for auto LOD generation (and what to do with existing content where the LODs have been wither played down or are non-existent).
    • While there are possible ways to allow for auto LODding existing content, they may require opting-in by content creators (and some may not be able to do so anyway), or may not not always work; others would require some kind of updating of the back-end mesh asset ID – something that is not current possible.
  • On the positive, the Lab seem open to accepting well-defined / written proposals for potential improvements that can both simplify and / or provide performance improvements with both in-world content and avatars.

Note: there will be one more CCUG meeting for 2021 – Thursday, December 17th.

2021 SUG meeting week #48 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Rock, September 2021 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary.Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for further updates.

  • On Monday, November 29th / Tuesday, November 30th, all simulators on the SLS Main channel were restarted to allow for a hardware upgrade.
  • On Wednesday, December 1st:
    • The Le Tigre RC channel will be updated to the simulator version using the new toolset.
    • Pending a final QA decision, the remain RC channels may also receive a new simulator version.

Simhost Configuration

While the Lab is not prepared – yet – to discuss the simulator host configuration changes that are being made, we have been promised a blog post on the subject in the near future. However, in commenting on the work, Rider Linden stated:

Amazon offers a variety of hardware configurations. We’ve been switching from one that closely mirrored what we had in the colo[cation facilities, the Lab’s former dedicated server facilities] to a new one that fits our usage pattern better.

End-of-Year Deployments

  • There are potentially two more simulator deployment periods left for the year: December 7th / 8th, and potentially the 14th/15th, if anything has to be pushed back – although LL would prefer not to have that happen.
  • There should be restarts on the 21st / 22nd December for the holiday period, but no deployments.
  • The next scheduled restart / deployment period will then come on January 4th / 5th 2021.

Available Viewers

This list reflects those viewers available via Linden Lab.

  • Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
    • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
    • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565672 (dated November 17) November 22.
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

  • As many have noticed, avatar bakes have been taking noticeably longer when logging-in, with some also reporting changes of outfit. This looks to be a systemic issue.
  • Some have been reporting a log-in issue that manifests as a warning that the computer running the viewer may have an incorrectly set clock, exacerbated by the fact the suggested resolutions to the issue do not appear to correct it. However, LL believe the underpinning cause has been identified, and a fix should be deployed “soon”.