Category: SL Tech

2020 Content Creation User Group week #25 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Thermae, May 2020 – 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, June 18th 2020 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.

SL Viewer

  • It had been planned that the next viewer to be promoted to de facto release status would be the Love Me Render (LMR) RC viewer. However:
    • LMR is being held over pending the inclusion of various EEP bug fixes, including a fix for the HUD issues (see BUG-225784) and a fix for the specularity problems (see BUG-228781 and BUG-228581).
    • This means the next viewer that will likely be promoted will be the CEF RC viewer, and this could be promoted in week #26 (commencing Monday, June 22nd).

Viewer Caching

  • Work is continuing to try to improve viewer caching.
  • First outcome of this work is liable to be a viewer that has improved VFS caching (the system used to cache information on in-world objects). This will be a complete replacement of the VFS cache with a new format that retains data better and is more performant.
  • The next element of work after the VFS update is liable to be an overhaul of the viewer’s texture caching.

ARCTan

Project Summary

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models with mesh), and to update the calculations to reflect current resource constraints, rather than basing them on outdated constraints (e.g. graphics systems, network capabilities, etc).

As of January 2020 ARCTan has effectively been split:

  • Viewer-side changes, primarily focused on revising the Avatar Rendering Cost (ARC) calculations and providing additional viewer UI so that people can better visibility and control to seeing complexity.
  • Work on providing in-world object rendering costs (LOD models, etc.) which might affect Land Impact will be handled as a later tranche of project work, after the avatar work.
  • The belief is that “good” avatar ARC values can likely be used as a computational base for these rendering calculations.

Current Status

  • Vir now trying to roll the jelly doll updates into the rendering cost calculations and performance measurements.
  • One thing the core work on ARCTan has been awaiting is a fix to the Bake Service for errors arising when calculating height offsets with complex mesh items, which can result in the avatar bake failing. The fix for this is in place, and the updated Bake Service should be exposed to a simulator RC for testing “fairly soon”. The change itself should have no visible impact other than to correct the rare instances where the issue occurred.

In brief

  • There have been reports of avatar bakes taking longer to complete recently.However, it is not clear if this is an actual issue; LL have not noted any Bake Service processing issues, and also note that users may be noting a perceived “slowing” due to changes made a while ago to try to prevent avatars de-clouding fully nude (e.g. due to latency between the viewer and the CDN, or local caching issues, etc.).
  • In terms of avatar rezzing, there is also work being put into reducing the instances of rigged mesh elements rezzing offset / incorrectly sized related to an avatar (e.g. clothing appearing off to one side and rotated to be on its side; gigantic heads rezzing, etc.).
  • Next meeting: Thursday, July 2nd, 13:00 SLT.

2020 Simulator User Group week #25 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Mediterraneo Coffee and Lounge Bar – May 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, June 16th.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for news and updates:

  • On Tuesday, June 16th, the majority of the grid was updated to server release 543337, comprising simulator-side updates that will eventually allow per-region values for Shout, Say, and Whisper distances.
    • Note: Currently these values are read only, and can be accessed via the Sim Console.
  • On Wednesday, June 17th, the RC channels will be updated to server release 543526, comprising further infrastructure updates to support Group chat improvements / support of the cloud uplift work.

Voice Carry Project – Update and Re-Cap

Voices Carry is the name given to the extended chat range project. Once fully deployed, it will allow region / estate owners / managers to set the open chat range on a region (see BUG-228333).

As of the June 16th simulator update, the current values can be viewed via the Sim Console, as noted above.  the command for doing so are: “get chat_range”, “get whisper_range” and “get shout_range”.

General notes on the capability, once fully deployed:

  • It only applies to local chat channel 0, and so it should not impact scripted objects using other chat channels.
  • The distance set within a region will determine which, if any, of any adjoining regions can her local chat with that region.
    • For example, if you are in a region with chat distance set to 50m and you’re more than 50m from any boundary with an adjoining region, then your chat will not be relayed beyond the region.
  • The distance chat is set to within a region will determine how far any chat from an adjoining region will be relayed within it.
    • For example: if a region has a chat range of 20m, and chat is relayed from a neighbouring region with a range of 100m, that chat will only be relayed 20m within the current region.
  • No matter how great the chat range is set within an region, it will never be relayed further than those immediately adjoining it.
    • For example: if a Mainland region has a chat range set to 1000m, chat from it will only be relayed to the (maximum of) 8 regions adjoining it.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the current viewers as follows:

  • Current Release viewer version 6.4.3.542964, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • CEF RC viewer, version 6.4.3.543157, June 11.
    • Tools Update RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543148, June 5 – this viewer is built using VS 2017 / a recent version of Xcode, and Boost.Fiber. It contains no user-facing changes.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543142, June 3.
  • Project viewers:
    • Mesh uploader project viewer, version 6.4.4.543141, June 11.
    • 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.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

  • Extended update deployment roll-times: region owners have noted that the time taken for deployments to roll across  estates has become extended – some regions taking up to an hour to update and restart. LL believe they know what the issue is, but any fix will not be implemented until after the cloud uplift work has been completed.
  • Cloud uplift: work is progressing well, although LL are not revealing which services have been migrated and which have yet to move.
    • Following completion of the uplift, all SL services will initially be in a single AWS regional zone.
    • However, LL expect to eventually have things more distributed across zones (e.g.allowing some simulators to be located closer to where their core audience is located, where there is a clear geographical distribution of users.

2020 viewer release summaries week #24

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, June 14th

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 version 6.4.3.542964,, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • CEF RC viewer, version updated to version 6.4.3.543157, June 11th.
  • Project viewers:
    • Mesh uploader project viewer updated to version 6.4.4.543141, June 11th.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer stable branch updated to 1.26.24.22 and Experimental branch to 1.27.0.2, both  on June 13th – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2020 SL project updates week #24: TPVD summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lemon Bay, May 2020 – click any image for full size

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, June 12th, 2020. These meetings are generally held every other week, unless otherwise noted in any given summary. The embedded video is provided to Pantera – my thanks to her for recording and providing it. Time stamps are included with the notes will open the video at the point(s) where a specific topic is discussed.

This was another short meeting!

SL Viewer News

[0:10-2:45]

  • The CEF Update RC viewer updated to version 6.4.3.543157 on June 11th.

The remainder of the official views currently in progress are as follows:

  • Current Release viewer version 6.4.3.542964, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Tools Update RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543148, June 5 – this viewer is built using VS 2017 / a recent version of Xcode, and Boost.Fiber. It contains no user-facing changes.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543142, June 3.
  • Project viewers:
    • Mesh uploader project viewer, version 6.4.3.542535, June 3.
    • 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.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • The Love Me Render (LMR) viewer is the next in line to be promoted. This may include a number of high-priority EEP fixes as well, which means the promotion is currently being held until these fixes can be merged into the viewer.
    • These EEP fixes do not appear to include BUG-225784 “[EEP] BUG-225446 regression – HUDs are again affected by environment setting” is also awaiting the Lab.
  • It’s currently not clear what viewer is liable to be promoted after LMR.
  • A further Maintenance RC is in preparation.
  • Both the Mesh uploader and Copy  / Paste project viewers may be in a position to be promoted to RC status in their next updates.
  • The Legacy Profile project viewer still awaits a back-end web change.

In Brief

  • [11:49-20:42], including text chat] A further bug on the EEP list is BUG-226772 “[EEP] Full bright objects are not affected by fog”.
    • This was an issue common to the official viewer pre-EEP although Firestorm had a fix that is regressed by EEP.
    • As an alternative to a rendering fix, a request has been made to implements a viewer-side option to disable full bright should a user encounter the issue.  No statement from LL on implementing this idea  – or not.

2020 Simulator User Group week #24 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hotel Del Salto – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, June 9th.

Simulator Deployments

At the time of writing there were no formal simulator release notes, however:

  • There was no deployment to the main SLS channel on Tuesday, June 9th.
  • On Wednesday, June 10th, the same RC deployment will be rolled to all of the simulator RC channels. This comprises:
    • A minor script constant fix (CLICK_ACTION_ZOOM and CLICK_ACTION_DISABLED were missing).
    • The chat range changes for channel 0.

Voice Carry Project

Voices Carry is the name given to the extended chat range project. Once available, it will allow region / estate owners / managers to set the open chat range on a region (see BUG-228333). When considering it, the following points should be kept in mind:

  • It only applies to local chat channel 0, and so it should not impact scripted objects using other chat channels.
  • The distance set within a region will determine which, if any, of any adjoining regions can her local chat with that region.
    • For example, if you are in a region with chat distance set to 50m and you’re more than 50m from any boundary with an adjoining region, then your chat will not be relayed beyond the region.
  • The distance chat is set to within a region will determine how far any chat from an adjoining region will be relayed within it.
    • For example: if a region has a chat range of 20m, and chat is relayed from a neighbouring region with a range of 100m, that chat will only be relayed 20m within the current region.
  • No matter how great the chat range is set within an region, it will never be relayed further than those immediately adjoining it.
    • For example: if a Mainland region has a chat range set to 1000m, chat from it will only be relayed to the (maximum of) 8 regions adjoining it.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the current viewers as follows:

  • Current Release viewer version 6.4.3.542964,, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Tools Update RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543148, June 5 – this viewer is built using VS 2017 / a recent version of Xcode, and Boost.Fiber. It contains no user-facing changes.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543142, June 3.
    • CEF RC viewer, version 6.4.3.542757, issued May 27.
  • Project viewers:
    • Mesh uploader project viewer, version 6.4.3.542535, June 3.
    • 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.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

 

Speedlight: recent updates and iOS development

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Speedlight

Speedlight, the browser based / Android Second Life client, gained a further series of updates at the end of May and the beginning of June, together with an important announcement about the client’s future direction.

Key within the updates were the following:

  • The Android app now supports sending error feedback to the Speedlight team to help with bug fixing.
  • Web links are now displayed in IMs, local and group chats, together with a warning that following them will take a user away from the Speedlight site.
Links contain in IMs, chat and group chat are now clickable. Those that connect to external web pages will display a warning when clicked.
  • Further performance improvements.
  • Full-function 3D capabilities are now available to basic and well as Gold subscribers. So, Basic account holders can now move their avatar around.

The feedback capability means that the Speedlight developers are currently focused in bug fixing, although the team also note they are working on group management capabilities – viewing groups, sending notices and moderating group chat, and state these capabilities will be release soon™.

iOS Version Coming

While Speedlight is entirely operating system agnostic in its browser version, allowing it to be used on Windows, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS through a suitable browser, the team has already released a dedicated Android version, as I noted in Speedlight: using the Android app, back in February 2020.

On May 27th, 2020, the Speedlight team have started working on a dedicated iOS version of the client as well, with an expectation that it will follow the same development path as the Android app, and – if all goes according to plan – should initially be made available in around 2-3 weeks.

Observations

The two key points of the recent announcements are likely to be the 3D avatar capabilities now being available to all Speedlight users, Basic or Gold, and the iOS app development, and the upcoming iOS app version.

The former could help make Speedlight a more attractive alternative to users who would like a “light” / mobile client (remembering that with Android, the device must be running version 7.0 or higher, whether using the dedicated app or running Speedlight through an Android browser), but who were not keen on paying a fee to be able to do so.

This does, however, also beg the question as to what the Speedlight team plan to do in order to maintain the attraction of Gold subscription. Currently, there is the mass IM capability, but his is liable to have limited appeal for most SL users, some one can only assume other features will be made available on a Gold subscription basis, although obviously, time will tell on this.

Given that Speedlight is already on the road to developing world rendering with interactive capabilities, the news that they are working on an iOS app version of the client may also be welcomed by users, particularly given that many feel such a capability is is “essential” to a mobile client, and Linden Lab has indicated that it will be some time before their in-development iOS / Android client will have such a functionality.

Related Links