Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 28th
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
Current release viewer: Project Jelly viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.13.555567 and dated February 5th, 2021, promoted February 17th – NEW.
Release channel cohorts:
Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556118 on February 23rd.
Simple Cache project viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556088 on February 22nd (dated February 19th).
I hadn’t actually realised until this past weekend, but I’ve let my coverage of the Kokua slip by a fair few releases – my apologies to Chorazin and the Kokua team for allowing this to happen.
However, given this is the case, and given Kokua 6.4.13 has recently been released, I thought I’d run through a quick round-up of the changes since 6.4.2 and 6.4.14, with a focus on the most recent release.
Menus
Since Kokua 6.4.9, any clean install of Kokua will result in the viewer displaying an updated menu structure that comes closer in layout to the official viewer. It see the removal of the Edit and View menus. This sees the more popular options from these menus moved to the Me and Command menus.
The old (top) and new (bottom) Kokua menus. Note the new menu will be used following a clean install of Kokua.
Note that the menu can be reverted via the last option on the Advanced menu – a restart will be required, however for the change to take effect.
Rapid Update Round-Up
6.4.4:
New licensing of KDU for better rendering and LL Havok third party extensions.
Implemented the Firestorm feature show the parcel boundary highlighting up to 4,000m (Build floater → Advanced Build Options → check Show parcel Selection Outlines and “…up to maximum build height”.
Enabling parcel boundary highlights to maximum build altitude
6.4.6:moves the viewer build to using Visual Studio 2017 (Windows) and a more recent version of XCode (Mac).
6.4.10: parity with the official viewer 6.4.10 (Mesh Uploader), incorporating the Firestorm contributions to improve information supplied by the mesh uploader and additional improvements from the Lab.
In addition, these updates incorporated all RLV updates from release 2.9.28.1 to 2.9.20.0, together with multiple improvements from the Kokua team for RLV functionality, and also assorted general bug fixes and improvements.
Kokua 6.4.13
Jelly Doll Improvements
Jelly Dolls old (l) and new (r). Note the colour and rendering of attachments on the left – the latter of which adds to the cost of rendering the Jelly Doll. This is no longer the case with the new Jelly Dolls
The 6.4.13 brings Kokua to parity with the official 6.4.13 Jelly Dolls viewer, revising how “Jelly Dolled” avatars are rendered.
Originally introduced in 2015 (and with various updates since) Jelly Dolls is a means for users to reduce the avatar rendering load on their systems, by having any avatars around them that exceed a certain complexity value (set via a slider) render as a solid colour and minimal detail.
There have always been a number of visual and technical issues with the manner in which these avatars have been rendered.
The new Jelly Doll updates now included in this release of Kokua improves how avatars are “jelly dolled”, by a) rendering them as a simple grey shape (rather than a solid colour) and avoids attempting to render attachments.
In addition it also improves to how avatar imposters are rendered and updated.
These changes should result in demonstrable improvements in view performance in environments where there are a large number of avatars, and the capability is sensibly used.
Group Updates
Kokua 6.4.13 adopts Kitty Barnett’s (Catznip) improves to accessing / display Group related information.
Previously Group information was presented as one tab within the People floater. Accessing any elements of Group information – such as notices – was presented in the same floater. This meant information on only one Group could be opened at a time,and made actions such as viewing or creating a group notice somewhat complex.
With these changes, Kokua now:
Presents the Profile of a selected Group in a separate panel – this allowing multiple Groups to be viewed.
Similarly breaks out the Group notices creation option as a separate panel – which can also be accessed from the Conversations floater.
The new break-out Group floater and options available in the People floater (and via the Conversation floater) for creating / viewing Group notices (which may be subject to permissions)
The new behaviour is enabled by default but can be switched back to the former behaviour by unchecking Preferences → Kokua → General → Group settings open in a new floater rather than within the People floater.
Block List, Object Derendering and Avatar Rendering Exceptions
Also ported from Catznip is a new floater that combines Block / Mute operations and Derender / Avatar Rendering options into a single place, allowing them to be viewed / reviewed / unblocked. The floater include options to add avatars / objects to the block list and also unblock avatars / items on the list.
Note that:
When a derendered object is removed from the list, it may not immediately be re-drawn, but may require a TP away / back or a re-log to make it visible in your view.
A facility to block/mute objects has been added to Sound Explorer however there are some caveats to be aware of due to differences between sound and object handling:
Blocking/muting will generally not work if an object is in a different region or is beyond draw distance.
A sound may continue to play even after blocking/muting the object responsible. This typically happens when several objects are all playing the same sound – each object playing the sound must be blocked/muted before the sound will stop. The Sound Explorer has a facility to pause the listing which can be handy when trying to select several items.
Additional Updates
Two further ports from Firestorm;
Configuration options for chat message toasts: a new options panel has been added in Kokua / Preferences / Chat to allow many parameters relating to chat toasts to be tweaked, including their width.
Active Gestures: a new option on the Gestures floater to only show those currently active, originally.
The release also includes a number of fixes from the Kokua team – please refer to the release notes.
Feedback
There are three third-party viewers I’ve tended to use in Second Life: Firestorm, Catznip and Kokua. All three offer a different emphasis for users,and Firestorm has tended to be my first choice.
However, both Catznip and Kokua have their own attractions, and with the recent progress with Kokua in particular, coupled with its higher cadence of updates, it is fast becoming a viable alternative to Firestorm, particularly as tends to offer a slightly higher frame rate. Certainly, for those who are looking for an alternative that offers a similar menu layout and largely comparable capabilities in terms of commonly-used options, Kokua is very much the viewer to consider.
Beneath a sky created by Whirly Fizzle, people gather to say farewell to Oz Linden ahead of his retirement (see below)
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 16th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.
Server Deployments
please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.
Tuesday, February 23rd: no deployment to the SLS Main channel.
Wednesday, February 24th: all RC channels should receive server release 556138 (or a variant thereof). This release was originally deployed to the Apples test RC channel, and contains performance optimisations and internal fixes.
An Omnibus of Oz’s: to mark Oz Linden’s coming departure, several people – including Whirly Fizzle (l) and Alexa Linden (r) and Kyle Linden (pictured) – attended his farewell party as lookalikes. That’s the real Oz in the middle, seated on the Iron Throne.
SL Viewer
On Monday, February 22nd, the Simple Cache viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556088 (dated February 19th).
On Tuesday, February 23rd, the Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556118, February.
The rest of the current pipelines remain as:
Current release viewer: Project Jelly viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.13.555567 and dated February 5th, 2021, promoted February 17th.
Release channel cohorts:
Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.553437, January 7th.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26th.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9th, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22nd, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th, 2019.
At its peak, the farewell party for Oz Linden saw around 60 people in attendance.
In Brief
There wasn’t really a meeting, and for a special reason: as he announced earlier in February, Oz Linden, the Lab’s Vice President of Engineering, is retiring at the end of the month with Friday, February 26th marking his last day with Linden Lab.
As such, the meeting was given over to a farewell party, with around 60 people in attendance. I managed to get a few shots of the event, as shown here. For those interested, I wrote something of a look back at Oz’s time at the Lab in Oz Linden announces his forthcoming departure from Linden Lab.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 21st
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
Current release viewer: Project Jelly viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.13.555567 and dated February 5th, 2021, promoted February 17th – NEW.
Release channel cohorts:
Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer updated to version 6.4.13.555871 on February, 18th.
Simple Cache project viewer updated to version 6.4.13.555641 on February 16th.
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, February 19th, 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 a transcript of the chat log from the meeting and my own audio recording to produce these notes.
The latter two-thirds of the meeting included a large amount of local text chat related to VRAM and texture handling. Please refer to the video for details.
As I recently blogged, Oz Linden, who initiated the TPVD meetings and who has, with the exception of when he’s been on vacation, chaired them is departing the Lab for retirement on Friday, February 26th (see: Oz Linden announces his forthcoming departure from Linden Lab). As such, this marked the last TPVD meeting he would attend, with – I believe – Vir Linden now set to carry them forward.
Given this, Oz had a few words to say to the TPV community at the start of the meeting:
I want to say that working with the third party viewer community has been – I mean this is how it started for me, and it has been a theme throughout, and it has been a very great pleasure working with all of you. It’s really been terrific, and thank you. Thank you for making me look good, and thank you for all you contribute to this really impactful and fun product.
Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.13.555871, February, 18, 2021.
Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.13.555641, February 16, 2021.
Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.553437, January 7, 2021.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.
Project Jelly Viewer
This viewer essentially improves the rendering of Jelly Doll avatars.
Originally introduced in 2015 (and with various improvements since) as a means to allows users reduce the avatar rendering load on their systems by having any avatars around them that exceed a certain complexity value (set via a slider) render as a solid colour and minimal detail.
There have always been a number of issues with the manner in which these avatars are rendered. For example: the colours used have been seen as intrusive so users often avoid the capability, while there have also been technical flaws such as the original code. attempting to render all of a Jelly Doll avatar’s attachments, defeating the intent of the code.
As a result, the Project Jelly viewer improves things by both rendering avatars as simplified grey humanoid shapes, and by not making any attempt to render attachments.
In addition it also improves to how avatar imposters are rendered and updated.
These improvements should result in demonstrable improvements in view performance in environments where there are a large number of avatars and the capability is sensibly used.
General Viewer Notes
Of the RC viewers, all three appear to be in good shape for promotion as the next de facto release viewer, although no decision has been taken on which will be promoted next.
At the CCUG meeting, some users expressed a preference to see the Love Me Render 5 viewer promoted next, but there is no commitment to this being the case, as promotions are governed by stability / crash rates.
A new Maintenance RC view is anticipated as appearing soon.
There are still no firm decisions as to how the viewer rendering API will be handled in the move away from OpenGL. for the most recent information I have on this, please see my February 5th CCUG meeting notes.
As per my February 18th CCUG meeting summary, the current focus is on bug fixes and UI performance improvements.
Other proposed UI work is related to the new user experience and making the viewer easier for new users to get to grips with the viewer.
[15:20-18:00] Chrome Embedded Framework (the media handler used by the viewer) will cease supporting Windows hardware that is pre SSE3 (2004). It is believed that few (if any) Sl users are running systems old enough to be affected by this – and if they are, they are liable to have more issues than simply losing their media playback capabilities.
Firestorm has entered a QA cycle in preparation for what will be something of a maintenance release with a focus on closing the gap between it and the more recent Lab viewer code releases. It is hoped this will be the first in a more regular cycle of 3-monthly releases.
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, February 18th 2021 at 13:00 SLT.
Project Jelly viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.13.555567 and dated February 5th, 2021, was promoted to de facto release status on Wednesday, February 17th.
The Love Me Render 5 (LMR 5) viewer was promoted to Release Candidate status on Thursday, February, 18th, 2021 with the issuing of version 6.4.13.555871.
The rest of the current pipelines remain as:
Release channel cohorts:
Simplified Cache viewer, version 6.4.13.555641, February 16, 2021.
Custom Key Mappings viewer, version 6.4.12.553437, January 7, 2021.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26, 2020.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.
Jelly Doll Viewer
This viewer essentially improves the rendering of Jelly Doll avatars.
Originally introduced in 2015 (and with various improvements since) as a means to allows users reduce the avatar rendering load on their systems by having any avatars around them that exceed a certain complexity value (set via a slider) render as a solid colour and minimal detail.
There have always been a number of issues with the manner in which these avatars are rendered. For example: the colours used have been seen as intrusive so users often avoid the capability, while there have also been technical flaws such as the original code. attempting to render all of a Jelly Doll avatar’s attachments, defeating the intent of the code.
As a result, the Project Jelly viewer improves things by both rendering avatars as simplified grey humanoid shapes, and by not making any attempt to render attachments.
In addition it also:
Improves to how avatar imposters are rendered and updated.
Ensures avatars and any Animesh attachment(s) they may have are updated in the same frame.
These improvements should result in demonstrable improvements in view performance in environments where there are a large number of avatars and the capability is sensibly used.
Project Muscadine (Animesh Follow-On)
Project Summary
Currently: offering the means to change an Animesh size parameters via LSL.
Current Status
Still officially on hold.
Unlikely to be resumed in the near-term as it requires simulator-side work and the engineering team is currently engaged in post-Uplift work.
Viewer Rendering
With LMR 5 at RC status, the focus has moved more to performance related work.
One element of this is Euclid Linden’s work to break out UI rendering from general scene rendering and reduce the amount of time rendering the former, as it updates a lot least frequently than the rest of the scene. This should help improve general viewer performance.
Ptolemy Linden is similarly engaged in rendering performance improvements and is also working on bug fixes, some of which are likely to to be included in the next LMR viewer update.
In Brief
Animesh LI Cost
There is still concern that the basic LI “cost” for Animesh is still too high, coupled with the view that there is not any sufficiently clear explanation of how impact costs are arrived at.
Vir acknowledged more could be done to make information more available – it currently requires digging into the object information floaters, something users may not always be aware of.
It was also indicated that until sculpties receive an LI impact reflective of their rendering complexity, there will remain a preference among some creators to continue to use them and alpha flipping (which can be performance intensive).
General
The Lab has an internal proposal for updating terrain textures, but it has yet to be formally adopted.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 