Category: SL Tech

2020 SL project updates week #12: TPVD summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Florence at Low Tide, February 2020 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on March 20th, 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.

SL Viewer News

[0:07-4:35]

  • The Premium RC viewer,version 6.3.8.538264 dated March 12th, updated to de facto release status on Wednesday, March 18th.
  • The Zirbenz Maintence RC viewer, version 6.3.9.538719, was issued on Thursday, March 19th.
  • The EEP RC viewer updated to version 6.4.0.538823 on Friday, March 20th.

The rest of the upcoming official viewer remain unchanged as:

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.3.7.536179, February 10.
    • Camera Presets RC viewer, version 6.3.6.535138, January 24.
  • Project viewers:
    • 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

Premium Viewer and Future Viewer Blocking
  • The Premium RC viewer contains new code to specifically handle benefits information related to benefits / limits applied to accounts based on subscription level (Basic, Premium or the upcoming Premium Plus).
  • Previously, this information can from a variety of sources, with some also hard-coded into the viewer, which made management of benefit changes etc., difficult.
  • With the future launch of Premium Plus and multiple benefits / limitations and associated values across multiple SL account types, all of this information will be provided directly by the server to the viewer at log-in, to make the on-going maintenance of such benefits and values (including the addition of new benefits / values) as used by the viewer easier to implement and manage.
  • Until Premium Plus goes live (there is no date at present for when this will happen, other than after Name Changes has been deployed), the changes in this viewer should not impact users. However, TPVs are being asked to adopt the code as soon as they can.
  • [0:39-0:54] At some point after Premium Plus has been implemented, Linden Lab will be blocking older viewers that do not have this code update, in order to encourage users to switch to viewer that utilise the code.
    • This step is being taken to ensure the viewer presents accurate information to users about their benefits / fees  / limitations, rather than being provided with out-of-date information that is hard-coded into their viewer.
  • [18:42-20:10] Benefits Service log-in failure messages: some people may have encountered an intermittent log-in failure messages similar to the one shown below over the past couple of weeks (I first encountered the problem on March 7th, 2020, others have been encountering it as recently as March 19th).
Benefits Service log-in failure, March 7th, 2020
    • The problems have apparently been due to “super brief” outages (and automatic recoveries) with the benefits service, which the Lab is still investigating for a root cause.
    • This is the type of message people will eventually see when trying to log-in to SL on viewers that do not have the code currently in the Premium RC viewer, once the Premium Plus service is live, and the switch to using the new benefits information service has been made.
EEP RC Viewer and Promotion

[1:03-1:50]

  • Depending on its time in an RC cohort and the nature of any issues found, EEP version 6.3.8.538264 could be the final version of this viewer, and destined for promotion to release status in the next few weeks.
  • It is unlikely any promotion will occur during week #13 (commencing Monday, March 23rd), because a) the viewer requires time in its cohort to check for issues / crash rates, etc.; and b) the week #12 promotion of the Premium RC viewer.
  • If the viewer performs well, and no significant issues are found with it or with EEP in general, it would seem likely the view will be promoted some time in the two weeks after week #13.
  • However, if problems remain with EEP, it is possible the tools update viewer (see below), when available, might be fast-tracked for promotion ahead of EEP.
  • The previous iteration of the EEP viewer reportedly had one of the lowest crash rates for any LL viewer.
Remaining RC and Project Viewers

[1:52-4:35; 7:05-7:31 and as timestamped below]

  • The love Me Render RC viewer is unlikely to be promoted until some time after EEP has reached de facto release status, so as not to have two blocks of rendering changes released one atop the other.
  • The Camera Presets RC viewer has an update, and should be appearing shortly, once merged with the new release viewer code. This will also not be promoted prior to EEP.
  • The first public viewer using the updated viewer build tools (VS 2017 and a recent version of Xcode for Mac and which uses the new Github repositories) is going through its “last massive rebuild”, and an RC version is expected to be made available in week #13.
    • This viewer will be functionality identical to the release viewer; there are no UI or other changes to it, other than bug fixes required by the move to the newer build tools.
    • This build has yet to address the notarising MAC application issue that results in warnings being issued by OS X “Catalina”. However, LL recognise this issue needs to be addressed , and will be doing so.
    • Depending on how this viewer fairs in RC compared to the EEP viewer, it might be fast-tracked for promotion to de facto release ahead of EEP.
  • [10:23-11:04] The Legacy Profiles RC viewer has a bug where under some circumstances it will display the profile web feed information in error, which needs to be addressed before the viewer progresses further (the web feed to the viewer will be turned off from the back-end once the Legacy Profiles viewer is promoted to release status).

In Brief

  • [17:15-17:36] There are some inventory operations (e.g moving a folder, renaming a folder, etc.) that are under UDP. There is a plan to move all such operations to AIS (HTTP), but this work will likely not be tackled until after the work on the cloud uplift has been completed.
  • [17:39-18:18] Because of the uplift work, and outside of major projects such as EEP, Name Changes and Premium Plus, the number of server / back-end changes that the Lab make will be “quite constrained” over the course of the next 12 months or so.
  • [20:15-21:53] The texture caching work in the viewer in on-going, alongside all other viewer-side work, as none of this conflicts with the cloud uplift work.
    • The first step will be to re-implement the VFS in a “simpler, cleaner way”.
    • After this, work will extend into revising the texture cache.
    • Also, “behind” the texture cache work, there is further work on texture fetching via HTTP2.
  • [22:02-26:25 (inlc. text chat)] BUG-227179 “All offline inventory offers from scripted objects are STILL lost” – LL are still “trying to figure out” the cause of this long-term issue. Firestorm reverted the problem, and requests have been made for LL to do the same, but the Lab would rather “fix” the problem – which doesn’t entirely help those who are victim to inventory loss resulting from it.

2020 Simulator User Group week #12 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Enchantment! @ LeLoo’s World, January 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, March 3rd.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the simulator deployment thread for updates.

  • On Tuesday, March 17th, the majority of the grid (the SLS “main” channel) updated to simulator version 538236, containing internal fixes, as previously deployed to a selection of RC servers.
  • An RC deployment is pending for Wednesday, March 18th, but details were TBA at the time of writing this summary. This update will apparently replace versions 538236, and 538222, both previously deployed to RC servers (March 11th).

Continuing Object Rezzing Issues

The object rezzing issues (see: Potential showstopping bug on many mainland regions. Anyone else experienced this?) is becoming more noticeable.Commenting on the situation, Rider Linden believes he may have a is resolution for the issue, stating:

I believe I was able to isolate what was going on with object rez and I think I have a solution for it. It should roll on Magnum.

This deployment should be part of the RC rollouts on Wednesday, March 17th.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates to mark the start of the week to leave the official viewer pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.7.535996, formerly the Yorsh Maintenance RC, dated February 7, promoted February 20th.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Premium RC viewer, version 6.3.8.538264, March 12.
    • EEP RC viewer updated to version 6.4.0.536347, February 11.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.3.7.536179, February 10.
    • Camera Presets RC viewer, version 6.3.6.535138, January 24.
  • Project viewers:
    • 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.

iOS Client

Simulator update 538222 (March 10th) saw the first deployment of code specifically in support of the upcoming iOS client, suggesting that the indicated testing period for the client may be approaching (although there are no details as yet on what form any such testing will take, and  / or if users will be asked to offer feedback).

The last detailed summary I have for the client can bee found in Second Life iOS companion app – mini update, and a key bullet point summary for the initial release could be said to be:

  • The app should initially be regarded as more of a communicator / companion app than a fully-rounded client:
  • It will provide a log-in option, and chat options (e.g. IM, group chat). Local chat will not initially be supported.
  • It will not present you with an in-world location, nor will your avatar rez in-world.
  • Seen as being useful for merchants / business owners to maintain contact with customers when away from their viewer.
  • In theory, the app should work with both iPhones and iPads, although there may be some configuration differences.

Over time it will be enhanced – but additional capabilities are still TBD.

Speedlight client: recent updates and 3D world view

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Speedlight

The Speedlight client for web browsers and Android, continues to be developed apace, with a number of recent updates delivering further functionality, including:

  • The ability to teleport, including via landmarks.
  • The ability to buy and / or sell land.
  • The initial 3D world rendering capability (currently only available to Gold subscribers).

Teleporting

Speedlight now offers two means of teleporting around SL:

  • Via the summary screen.
  • Using inventory landmarks.

Via the Summary Tab

If you know the name of the location to which you wish to teleport, you can do so directly from the Summary tab when logging-in to Sppedlight and Second Life (see Speedlight: access SL via a browser (incl. mobile devices for details on creating Speedlight accounts and linking them to your Second Life account(s) if required).

  • When you are logged in to Second Life with Speedlight, click on your avatar’s name on the left-side menu to display the Summary tab (if it is not already displayed).
  • Click the Teleport To… option under the name of your current location. The location display changes to a field where you can enter a SLurl Or Region Name.
    • As you start to type-in a SLurl / name, the field will further change to display spaces for (optionally) entering the X, Y, Z coordinates for the location.
  • Click the Teleport button.
  • The location map should update to show you have moved to the desired location.
Teleport via the Summary tab: 1. Click the Teleport To… option; 2. The Enter SLurl or Region Name input field is displayed. 3. Start entering a SLurl or region name and the input field will add (optional) X, Y, Z coordinate fields; 4. Click the Teleport button to teleport your avatar.

Teleport via a Landmark

  • When you are logged in to Second Life with Speedlight, click on the Inventory option in the left-side menu.
  • Open your Landmarks folder and click on the Landmark you wish to use.
  • The landmark’s details are displayed in the Inventory Details tab.
  • Click the Teleport button to teleport.
Teleporting via Landmark

Buying and Selling Land

As of March 2020, it is possible to buy / sell land using Speedlight.

Buying Land

As with a viewer, you need to be on land that is for sale in order to purchase it.

  • In the Summary Tab, click on the About Land link displayed to the top and right of the map.
  • The About Land tab is opened, detailing information relating to the land – location, name, description, whether it is for sale or not, etc.
Buying Land in Speedlight: the Buy Land button
  • At the bottom of the tab will be a combination of up to three buttons: Sell Land, Buy Land and Abandoned Land.
  • Click Buy Land.
  • A summary of the land you are about to purchase is displayed, giving information on size, purchase price etc.
  • If you want to purchase the land:
    • Click the check box to accept the covenant (required whether or not a covenant is displayed). This enables the Purchase Land button.
    • Click Purchase Land.
    • To cancel a purchase, return to the Summary tab display without clicking the Purchase Land button.
Buying Land in Speedlight: completing the purchase
  • Providing you have sufficient funds on account, the purchase will be made, and the summary screen will update to display your purchase has been made and display you as the owner.
    • Note that you may be required to complete additional steps to make full use of the land – such as contacting the estate owner and request group access for rezzing rights, etc. These are land-dependent and outside the scope of this article.
  • With the land purchased, you should be able to rename it and change the description, and use the Parcel Options link to set the parcel’s capabilities (Fly, Build, Object Entry, Run Scripts).

Selling Land

To sell land you have permission to sell:

  • In the Summary Tab, click on the About Land link displayed to the top and right of the map.
  • The About Land tab is opened, detailing information relating to the land – location, name, description, whether it is for sale or not, etc..
  • At the bottom of the tab will be a combination of up to three buttons: Sell Land, Buy Land and Abandoned Land.
  • Click Sell Land.
  • The Land Management summary is displayed.
  • You must now:
    • Set the price for the land.
    • (Optionally) set an avatar name against the sale (so the land can only be sold to that avatar, if required).
    • Set whether or not any objects on the land are to be sold with the land.
  • When you have done so, click the Set Land On Sale button.
  • The summary tab will update, and will display an orange Cancel Land Sale button, should you wish to cancel the sale at any time prior to a purchase being made.

3D World View

The Speedlight 3D world view, March 2020, showing an avatar “mannequin”

Speedlight’s 3D world view is in the early stages of development, but is currently available for Gold subscribers to test. The capability comprises two elements:

  • The client-side world renderer.
  • A “world storage” server-side database. Details on this are not clear, but I assume it is a server operated by Smartbots that received asset data from the Lab (via CDN) and then feeds that data to the client.

The renderer has a number of limitations / issue at this point in time, all of which are being worked on:

  • Limitations:
    • Avatars can only be rendered in “mannequin” form.
    • The renderer will not draw avatars seated on objects.
    • There is no avatar / world interaction (so you cannot touch objects, etc).
    • Avatar mannequins  cannot walk or move (teleporting is possible).
  • Issues:
    • Semi-transparent textures will render in black.
    • Other texture issues may be encountered.
    • Numerous additional problems and issues to be resolved.

Obviously, the “mannequin” avatar form is only rendered by Speedlight, Those using a viewer will see your avatar fully rendered when you are logged-in to SL via Speedlight.

For those wishing to try the 3D renderer / help with its development, Gold subscriptions are available at L$1990 (US $8.00) a month, and can be purchased in L$ through the client for those wishing to obtain an early look at the capability.

Feedback

A good set of updates, along with a series of issues fixes made in the end-of-February 3.059 release that demonstrate Speedlight is continuing along a steady development path.

It’s still – as noted – early days for the 3D renderer, and before anyone complains at the avatar appearance, lack of functionality, etc., at this point in time, it’s worth pointing out that 3D world rendering in Lumiya started from a very similar point, and went on to become flexible and usable, so time should be allowed for Speedlight’s capabilities to develop.

Related Links

2020 viewer release summaries week #11

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, March 15th

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 version 6.3.7.535996, formerly the Yorsh Maintenance RC, dated February 7, promoted February 20 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Premium RC viewer updated to version 6.3.8.538264 on March 12th.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.24.11 on March 14th – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2020 Simulator User Group week #11 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Dream of Asia, January 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, March 3rd.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the simulator deployment thread for updates.

  • On Tuesday, March 10th, the majority of the grid (the SLS “main” channel) updates to server release 537423, primarily focusing on improvements to make rolling the grid more gentle on the Lab’s non-simulator servers.
    • This update has some changes that may help improve vehicular-based  / physical region crossings. People are asked to check & report.
  • An RC deployment is pending for Wednesday, March 11th, but details were TBA at the time of writing this summary. According to Simon Linden, the update shouldn’t contain any user-visible changes.

Continuing Object Rezzing Issues

There continue to be reports of on-going object rezzing issues (reported and noted in past SUG meetings), some of which appear to be specifically tied to the 53743 release whilst on an RC deployment (see: Potential showstopping bug on many mainland regions. Anyone else experienced this?). The issue is again being complicated in that it cannot be easily tied to simulators specifically on that release, because – as some of the comments on the thread note – the possibly offending script calls do not misbehave consistently between different regions on the same channel / release. 

No update was provided at the SUG meeting, but within the thread, Mazidox Linden notes:

Just to chime in here that we’re aware of this issue (as mentioned up-thread it’s not particularly new unfortunately, dating back to late last year), and using the latest information you all have provided we’re able to confirm that the issue under discussion (object_rez events never fire) reproduces in the regions mentioned, but work fine in other regions running the same code. We’re not sure why that is just yet, but we’re going to do our darnedest to find out and get a fix for this behaviour in your hands as quick as we can.

Some people have also reported of a return of breedable issues which may (or may not be) related to this problem. In short, if you are seeing issues with scripted object rezzing – file a Jira.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates to mark the start of the week to leave the official viewer pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.7.535996, formerly the Yorsh Maintenance RC, dated February 7th, promoted February 20th – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Premium RC viewer, version 6.3.8.537335, released March 3rd.
    • EEP RC viewer updated to version 6.4.0.536347, February 11th.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.3.7.536179, February 10th.
    • Camera Presets RC viewer, version 6.3.6.535138, January 24th.
  • Project viewers:
    • 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.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17th, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th, 2019.

2020 viewer release summaries week #10

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, March 8th

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 version 6.3.7.535996, formerly the Yorsh Maintenance RC, dated February 7, promoted February 20 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Premium RC viewer, version 6.3.8.537335, released March 3rd.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • Black Dragon updated to version 64-bit 3.7.4, March 2nd (no release notes).

V1-style

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links