The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday February 5th, 2025. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.
The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), the forums.
As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
As reported following the January meeting, the dashboard page (secondlife.com) received something of a refresh, utilising the new colour scheme, banner, etc., but not offering a choice of themes.
Featured News Blog feed: the Feature News blog widget on the default viewer log-in screen (“Linden News” on Firestorm) has been fixed to display correctly, the the Event screen on that splash screen has been enlarged.
The blog feed on the viewer splash screen has been fixed, and the Events listing increased in size
Second life web maps – fixes to several issues, and a basic refresh (change of colour to the teleport button); however, web maps still do not provide meaningful information on places highlighted, which has previously been noted as something the Web Team would like to address; nor does it search by region name.
A new “secret thing” which, at the time of the meeting, “could not be talked about”.
Marketplace
[Video: 13:37-18:51] A suggestion to allow people to “subscribe” to their favourite stores, allowing them to see a page for those stores listing all of the recent new items added to the stores.
However, this functionality already exists (albeit it with a limited display) using the Marketplace Favourites > Newest First; so rather than adding new functionality which effectively repeats what is there already, why not:
Refresh the existing page so it can display more than just 4 items per store – such as by using a left / right scrolling display a-la the Related Items section of the listing pages (and add an RSS feed based on the listing order selected via the drop-down options).
Surface this page better, so users are aware it exists and can access it quicker. , and perhaps make that page more accessible/visible and (if required) add an RSS feed to it which pushes information based on the selected drop-down?
[Video: 19:56-20:14] Marketplace: a request for an update on Marketplace Styles (aka “variants”) – e.g. allowing multiple colours of an item in a single listing – was made. This was functionality Reed Linden indicated would likely be deployed at that start of 2023, but which is (for whatever reason) still “not prioritised” for finishing / deployment.
[Video: 20:29-21:00] It is know that the keyword blocking on Ad Blocker (and similar tools) can actually block Marketplace listings.
[Video: 36:56 -38:17 ] Marketplace Shopping Events: having shopping event pages on the MP creators could register to join and on which have their nominated products listed. The pages could be set-up by creators on the MP for creators on the MP (like in-world shopping events), rather than jus LL-created events.
In Brief
It has been repeatedly noted across multiple meetings that the What’s Next pages (accessed via the menu bar at secondlife.com) are in need of update. This message has been repeatedly heard by LL, and noted as heard, such that updates to these pages should hopefully be deployed some time in the next month.
[26:35-36:30] A request from the web team for suggestions on what people would like to see added / improved. Suggestions included:
Making secondlife.com more dynamic (something I’ve directly discussed with Brett Linden and Philip Rosedale).
Making the websites feel more an extension to users’ in-world lives.
Web-based inventory management capability for carrying out basic inventory sorting tasks (moving items between folders, etc.).
Ability to respond to / send IMs from the web, rather than having to log-in via the viewer / SL Mobile.
Ability to carry out basic Group task: see notices, etc.
This discussion tipped into 3rd party tools such as browser extensions (such as Marketplace Enhancer – note: link does not indicate endorsement – for Firefox / Chrome / Edge) people use alongside of any SL web properties.
A request for some Last Name updates to include more “regular/international” names, rather than only rolling out updates based on a specific theme and / or holiday/event (e.g. as with the current crop of “Valentine’s Day” themed last names).
A suggestion for LL to promote resident-organised events celebrating notable days / holidays outside of those marked by the Lab as well (Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.), such as by a category in the Destination Guide.
Request for more genuinely international themes of Linden Homes (e.g. “Alpine”, “Victorian” and “Mediterranean” are all US-centric versions of such buildings, and not necessarily representation of their European equivalents).
Also with Linden Homes, the promise to make the Premium Plus ability to request specific locations for a home more streamlined, rather than relying on Support tickets, has also slipped down the priority list.
An informal discussion on the Web team – all are remotely based, rather than office-based, they do have occasional get-togethers in person (although the formal annual full-staff meet-ups the Lab used to have – as noted on more than one occasion during Ebbe Altberg’s time with the Lab – have not been held “in a while”), as well as regular in-world team meetings/meetings via Zoom (or similar).
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 4th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for providing it.
Meeting Overview
The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Simulator Deployments
On Tuesday, February 4th, 2025, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were restarted with no update.
On Wednesday, February 5th, 2025:
The Banana Bread update will be deployed to the BlueSteel channel. This include expansions to llGetObjectPermMask that let you get an object’s permission mask taking into account the permissions on its inventory, and that ability has been added to llGOD.
The remaining RC channels will be restarted, most likely without any deployment.
SL Viewer Updates
Default viewer: version 7.1.11.12363455226, formerly the ExtraFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, aesthetic improvements and UI optimisations), dated December 17, promoted December 20 – No Change.
Release Candidate: Forever FPS, version 7.1.12.12999043440, February 4, 2025.
Numerous crash and performance fixes.
SL Mobile (Beta) version 2025.1.542 / 0.5.533 – Create / Delete accounts, fixes – February 4, 2025.
2K Bakes on Mesh is Live
2k BoM is now live! As of yesterday, we’ve switched over to the new bake service, and we’ll be posting a blog post soon!
– Pepper Linden
This deployment does not require a viewer update, and is grid-wide – more in the Lab’s official blog post (published February 6th). The update should also see faster bake times.
In Brief
Please refer to the video below for the following:
There are reports of an uptick in packet loss in simulator – viewer exchanges (reportedly 20% on average), and some are reporting associated lag with local chat.
This will allow a region owner/EM to set and adjust ground textures on a region, including some of the PBR features like rotation, offset and scale.
This work should be surfacing in the next simulator update after Banana Bed – called Carrot Cake.
Those who have tested ForeverFPS are reporting it offers an improve Linden Water appearance (fresnel reflection/refraction).
A request for increased terrain resolution led to a discussion on overhauling the terrain system in various ways, during which Leviathan Linden offered some history about Second Life and Linden World:
The terrain layer currently uses lossy DCT compression … The reason it uses DCT is ancient history: in the beginning SL (or Linden World as we called it back then) was expected to be sending dynamic layer data (terrain, water, wind, clouds, moisture, and ???). For dynamic layers we thought we should be using more compact compression. So terrain was a “layer” and grouped with the others. Eventually all the other layers were dropped and we ended up with a single mostly static layer that is using the wrong compression scheme.
The above was interwoven with a discussion on KVP data.
Various discussion on Luau and scripting.
A general discussion on region crossings.
Questions were asked on the Havoc physics engine. Currently, the viewer-side sub-library is being updated to Havok 2022, the simulator is running 2012.1, with Leviathan Linden noting that Havok has tried to “encourage” LL to update on the server-side; however, no physics update is likely to occur in the next year.
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, February 2nd, 2025
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: version 7.1.11.12363455226. formerly the ExtraFPS RC, dated December 17, promoted December 19 – No change.
Release Candidate: Forever FPS, version 7.1.12.12999043440, February 4, 2025.
Campwich Forest grounds: location for the Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG)
The following notes were taken from the Thursday, January 30th 2025 Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG) meeting.
These notes should not be taken as a full transcript of the meeting, which was largely held in Voice, but rather a summary of the key topics discussed. For this initial meeting, video recording was not permitted, we hope that changes with future meetings.
The Monthly Mobile User Group provides a platform to share insights on recent mobile updates and upcoming features, and to receive feedback directly from users.
These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
The last Thursday of every month at 12:00 noon SLT.
Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Ability to create accounts via Mobile, including creating an initial avatar and logging in using the existing new joiner workflow.
SL Mobile – the ability to create a Second Life account from within the app
Addition of an Address Bar to the app, making it possible to:
Search landmarks /create landmarks.
Share SLurls with people on other apps (Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp, etc.) via the native share cards found in Android and iOS.
Allow maps.secondlife.com work on the Mobile App.
Coming soon – the SL Mobile: Address Bar
The new Lobby feature, intended to enable communications, allow users to see who is on-line and provide general information whilst the app continues to load things like the 3D world view in the background.
This is also seen as a means for those on lower / mid-tier mobile devices to make use of the App as a communications tool.
Coming soon: the SL Mobile: Lobby
Other work in progress includes:
Providing quicker access to chat when using the app.
Providing the means to indicate which Group notifications you wish to see pushed to your mobile device.
Improving in-world interactions within the app – making it easier to identify objects with which an avatar can interact, and know that something is happening when long-pressing an interactive object.
The identification will initially likely be the display of a timer under the finger when placed on an interactive object – when the timer expires (approx. 1 second), the interaction (e.g. a dialogue box) will be initiated.
Once available, this will be iterated over time to include selections form things like list views, where appropriate, limiting selection by distance, etc.
Roadmap Approach
Grumpity Linden reiterated the approach to Mobile development is focused on batching together requests and feedback on what users would like to see (allowing for us all having different expectation / needs / wants), to build end-to-end experiences covering a specific aspect (“journey”) in using the app.
To help with this, Grumpity also indicated that feedback (preferably through the Mobile app using the Feedback option in the menu) is greatly appreciated and does go into thinking about the roadmap and feature set for SL Mobile.
Avatar Rendering
As there are numerous differences between avatar rendering / operation in Second Life and Unity (e.g. in SL the Z axis references vertical movement; in Unity it references horizontal back / forth movement; each system handles rigged meshes differently, etc.), the entire rendering system for SL Mobile has had to be built for the ground-up over a period of over a year.
While much progress has been made, the team acknowledge avatar rendering within Mobile is not as yet on a par with avatar rendering in the viewer, therefore more work is to be done in this area.
However, because the SL avatar system is so open, there are still numerous specific issues where avatars may not render correctly in SL Mobile for assorted reasons (such the the way an attachment has been made, how it attaches to the the avatar, etc).
These issues require fixing on a case-by-case basis (and the team already have a library of 50 such “avatar classes”), and each one must undergone extensive regression testing to make sure any custom fix does not break avatar rendering elsewhere.
This is a current focus of work, and users noting persistent rendering issues as a result of clothing / attachments are asked to report it via the Mobile app’s feedback option, including information on the attachment / item which seems to cause the problem they are seeing, and where a copy of it might be obtained.
Once the focus can turn from the above work, there are plans to further improve avatar rendering performance, making it more efficient – and thereby improve app performance as a whole.
There are some tonal differences in how avatars appear SL Mobile (e.g. skin tone). This is because SL and Unity use different approaches to rendering ambient light. Again, the hope is that in time, lighting in the Mobile app can be made more “viewer-like” to help reduce such issues, but, this work will take time to develop and deploy.
Avatar Transparency Issues
During the run-up to the initial release of the Mobile app there was concern as to whether or not the app would get through the vetting process and onto the major app stores, particularly in terms of the risk of avatars appearing nude during rendering.
The transparent avatar approach was specifically to solve this risk; keeping the avatar transparent until such time as it has fully loaded and be preventing it from rendering properly should an attachment fail to apply as expected.
Unfortunately, the system is not fool proof, and false positives can be received which result in an avatar becoming “stuck” in the transparent mode.
There is thought being given to help overcome this (e.g. by forcing the avatar transparency mode to time-out after a set period to allow the avatar to complete loading), but this has yet to be finalised.
Those who do have repeated issues with being stuck in transparent mode, even after an outfit change (e.g. via the Desktop viewer) should file a feedback report, and if possible indicate the item they think might be causing the problem.
Memory Use (and PBR Rendering)
Another key difference between Mobile and the viewer is (obviously) available system and video memory.
Computers running the desktop viewer generally have at least 4Gb of memory to play with, with those with dedicated GPU cards also have dedicated VRAM.
Mobile has around 500MB-1Gb to play with. This necessarily limits Mobile in some ways (e.g. dropping texture resolutions as limits are more easily hit, etc.). However, there is work being put into this in the hope of again making Mobile more efficient in its use of memory.
In the meantime, the fact that memory is limited is one of the primary reasons why, as yet, there has been no attempt to implement PBR rendering into the Mobile app, and it significantly ups memory use.
The memory limit is also the reason why the number of avatars SL Mobile can render is set so low: avatars have a high rendering / memory cost, and can push the app to its limits, stopping other things from rendering – including leaving avatars transparent.
HUDs: something the Lab would like to implement for Mobile, but the volume and complexity of HUDs in use, the screen space they require, etc., does make coming up with a suitable means of handling them difficult.
The likely approach to this will again be iterative: initially offering support for very basic HUDs, and then working up from there.
However, team resources are such that focusing on this as a multi-month project when there are other areas of Mobile to be enhanced and features possibly more easily implemented, means it is somewhat lower on the list.
Inventory:
Another intensive task.
A preview of the work currently being done is in the Mobile app – the Select Outfit option, which is seen as a first step towards inventory support in Mobile.
Exactly what will follow this as it is implemented, is still subject to a final decision.
Mobile is generating a lot of new user traffic into SL, although precise metrics were not available at the meeting.
Date of Next Meeting
12:00 SLT, Thursday, February 27th, 2025, at Campwich Forest.
Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu, December 2024 – blog post
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 28th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for providing it.
Meeting Overview
The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Simulator Deployments
On Tuesday, January 28th, 2025, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were restarted with no update.
On Wednesday, January 29th, 2025 the RC channels will be restarted, most likely without any deployment.
It had been hoped that Banana Bread, the next simulator update, would be deployed to the BlueSteel channel; however, this is likely to be held over until next week due to a late-break issues.
SL Viewer Updates
Default viewer: version 7.1.11.12363455226, formerly the ExtraFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, aesthetic improvements and UI optimisations), dated December 17, promoted December 20 – No Change.
Release Candidate: Forever FPS, version 7.1.12.12935708795, January 24, 2025.
Numerous crash and performance fixes.
2K Bakes on Mesh Update
We have some exciting news regarding 2k bake — it’s no longer blocked, and we are in the process of scheduling a deploy. We anticipate this making its way to Agni within the next few weeks (ideally sooner than later), hopefully at the next SUG I’ll have a specific date.
– Pepper Linden
In Brief
Please refer to the video below for the following:
There was a question concerning the surfacing of llSetAgentRot. Leviathan Linden responded:
Viewer feature development is basically blocked right now. The viewer dev team is focused on FPS improvements. Meanwhile, there has been some pileup of viewer features in the develop branch, but a few months of work there is not included in ForeverFPS [the current RC viewer] viewer. The ForeverFPS viewer project does not want to pull in all of the pileup of changes in develop: they don’t want to destabilize the FPS improvements they are working on.
Leviathan further indicated his viewer-side Game control work is similarly held-up, which led to a conversation on getting the capability out in some form.
Rider Linden hinted that there is “exciting news” in the Lua(u) scripting project “on the horizon”.
A discussion on this forum thread, outlining some of what is seen as SL’s major technical issues. Leviathan Linden re-iterated he’s working on one of these issues: that of slow loading on avatars and in-world objects on log-in / following a teleport.
A discussion on possible issues about linkset messaging and linkset data.
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
Campwich Forest grounds: location for the Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG)
In response to various requests, Linden Lab has announced that a new in-world user group meeting is to launch at the end of January 2025.
The announcement of the Mobile Monthly User Group (MMUG) was made (oddly) via a Feedback portal post by Bridie Linden (have Linden Lab completely given up using their own blogs to make announcement?), who noted:
We will be using WebRTC Voice and text to share updates and listen to feedback. Use the Second Life desktop viewer or Second Life Mobile to join the conversation. We look forward to seeing you there!
– Bridie Linden
The meetings will take place as follows:
Last Thursday every month, commencing Thursday, January 30th, 2025.
The new meeting brings the current total of Second Life active user group meetings to seven (with the Governance user group currently on hiatus). The other active meetings are:
The Simulator User Group:
Purpose: to discuss simulator issues and technology.
Frequency and time: weekly, every Tuesday, 12:00 noon SLT
Purpose: to discuss anything pertaining to the Skill Gaming Programme. How to be part of the SLSG Programme, questions about processes, and any known issues or concerns.
Frequency and time: generally, the 2nd Tuesday of the month, 11:00 SLT.
As a reminder, I attempt to provide summaries of as many meetings as I can attend, and Pantera Północy provide videos of the meeting she attends on her You Tube channel.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 