Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, July 29th
This summary is generally published on 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 test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.6.516459 and dated June 15th, promoted June 21st – formerly the Pálinka Maintenance Release Candidate – No Change
“That’s no moon…” – Rider Linden (seen at the bottom of the image) teases with possibilities whilst talking Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) on the forums. Credit: Rider Linden
The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, July 26th, 2018 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
Note that the audio presented here may not be in the exact order of discussion during the meeting; as subjects were at times returned to following their initial discussion, I have attempted to bring together key points of discussion by topic / subject matter. Also, please note that audio drop-out when Vir is speaking appears to be an ongoing Voice issue.
Animesh
Project Summary
The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and server-side changes.
The Animesh viewer updated to version 6.0.0.518080, which appeared in the pipeline on Wednesday, July 25th. It comes with the following notes:
It has a fix for a bug that caused rigged meshes to fail to display intermittently [BUG-225063]. There is a significant change to orientation handling for Animesh objects in this build. If you make an Animesh object from a linkset that contains a rigged mesh as the root object, then the rotation for the object will be corrected to try to make the rigged display line up with the physics representation (correction is based on the bind shape matrix). This will change the behavior of some existing content – for example, the gift raptors on Agni are now rotated 90 degrees. Content that uses a non-rigged object as the root should be unaffected by this change. LOD calculations for Animesh objects now use the dynamically updated bounding box, so they should be more accurate and consistent.
The rotation fix does have an impact on some content, which can end up moving “sideways” compared to the expected direction.
Additional Work for Animesh to reach RC Status
Server-side: Vir is currently trying to track done the cause of some server issues which are probably the result of the simulator having to “remember” a lot more information with Animesh, and failing to do so properly, which can impact things like streaming costs.
Viewer-side: still some outstanding work to be done with getting LODs to behave / display consistently.
Both of these are seen as requiring resolution before the Animesh viewer moves to release candidate status.
Future Animesh Work
There has been some discussion about possible follow-on projects for Animesh, but no final details on what will be in the mix has been made.
Animesh customisation, including assignment of a body shape is considered to be “high” on the list of follow-ups. However, no decisions have been made on whether:
It will include LSL support for customisation.
It will add body shape support (and the use of the body sliders for customisation.
It might include an extension to Bakes on Mesh for Animesh.
Animesh and Scale Animation
Scale animation is something that has been requested since Bento. However, the problem here is the SL animation format doesn’t have any notion of scale animations, so in order for support to be added, the entire animation system would require an overhaul.
Another issue, as found with Bento, is that things can become tricky (if not confusing for some) when animations and sliders are both controlling the same thing – as would be the case with scale animations (although this was eventually done with bone translations).
In Brief
BUG-225153 “Animesh issue: Multiple faces don’t work – Reverts back to one texture when animation played”: this does not appear to have been reproduced by others, and it is unclear whether it is an issue, or something specific to the user.
BUG-225158 “[ANIMESH ] Inconsistent default graphics settings with relation to current mainstream viewer as well as ‘recommended settings’ button”: this appears to be a change in how graphics settings are detected in the viewer in general, rather than specific to Animesh. further testing / investigation is required.
Bakes On Mesh
Project Summary
Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos, clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies as well as system avatars. This involves server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, and may in time lead to a reduction in the complexity of mesh avatar bodies and heads.
This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing Bake Service.
Still with the Lab’s QA team, and the viewer is internally flagged for product reviews, so a project viewer update could be appearing soonTM. This should include a number of bug fixes that have been worked on recently.
In addition, Anchor Linden has been adding new LSL constants for the various Bake Channel textures, so that if someone wants to use LSL to change a particular face on a mesh object to use Bakes on Mesh, they will be able to do that using a constant.
A reminder for those trying to test Bakes on Mesh: the capability requires server-side support, which has not been deployed to Agni (the Main grid), but is only available on Aditi (the Beta grid) on the Bakes on Mesh test regions.
To prevent confusion, it’s been suggested the Bakes on Mesh viewer is blocked from accessing Agni until such time as the server-side support has been deployed.
Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)
Project Summary
A set of environmental enhancements, including:
The ability to define the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) at the parcel level.
New environment asset types (Sky, Water, Days that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others.
Day assets can include four Sky “tracks” defined by height: ground level (which includes altitudes up to 1,000m) and (optionally) 1,000m and above; 2,000m and above and 3,000m and above, plus a Water “track”.
Experience-based environment functions
An extended day cycle (e.g a 24/7 cycle) and extended environmental parameters.
There are no EEP parameters for manipulating the SL wind.
EPP will also include some rendering enhancements and new shaders as well (being developed by Graham Linden), which will allow for effects such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”)
These will be an atmospheric effect, not any kind of object or asset or XML handler.
The new LSL functions for finding the time of day according to the position of the windlight Sun or Moon have been completed,and are more accurate than the current options.
Rider Linden has been working on the viewer UI (presumably as a result of QA feedback). It is thought that a first cut project viewer is not that far away from appearance publicly.
However, as EEP requires additional back-en changes which have yet to be deployed to Agni, it is likely that when the project viewer does appear, initially, it will only work on Aditi (the beta grid).
Rider has also been teasing people with EEP-related images on the forums!
Another EEP teaser from Rider Linden: the new Fixed Environment Sun / Moon editing panel in the upcoming EEP viewer. Credit: Rider Linden
Other Items
BUG-225157 “[RC BlueSteel 18.07.17.517953] Adjusting specular horizontal offset also adjusts specular vertical offset on BlueSteel regions only”: this has been imported into the Lab’s internal JIRA and may be receiving attention.
Increase to maximum prim size: the current prim size limit in SL is 64m on a side. There have been calls to increase this to allow bigger meshes to be imported (e.g. large land forms for landscaping a region).
There are no plans to increase this limit in the immediate future, and it’s been pointed out that increasing the size could be somewhat self-defeating in that it results in a loss of vertex position resolution (vertex space being limited to 64K), which could result in odd artefacts occurring in uploaded models, and, as Elizabeth Jarvinen (polysail) succinctly put it, “your vertex positions will wobble like nuts at high altitudes”.
Next Meeting: due to the Lab’s start-of-month internal meeting and vacations, the next CCUG meeting will most likely be on Thursday, August 16th – check the wiki page to confirm nearer the time.
On Tuesday, July 24th, 2018, the Firestorm team announced the release of Firestorm 5.1.7.55786. Coming somewhat later than had been hoped, it incorporates some significant updates from recent Lab viewer releases, together with updates from, and contributed to, the Firestorm team, plus the inevitable bag of bug fixes as well.
In keeping with my usual approach to Firestorm releases, what follows is an overview of the release, highlighting some of the more significant changes I feel will be of most interest to users.
Please use the table of contents on the right to jump to any specific topic of interest. Full details of all changes, and contributor credits can be found in the official release notes.
The Usual “Before We Begin” Bit
As per my usual preamble:
There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 5.1.7.
Core Updates
Firestorm 5.1.7 has parity with all version of Linden Lab’s viewer, up to version 5.1.6, with additional cherry picked fixes from upstream of that release.
Firestorm 5.1.7 has been updated to Restrained Love API: RLV v3.2.1 / RLVa v2.2.0.55786 – see the RLVa 2.2 Release Notes for details.
Major Lab Derived Updates
This is a summary of the main updates derived from Linden lab’s core viewer code.
64-bit Project Alex Ivy: rebuilds the viewer using 64-bit address space, utilising Linden Lab’s Alex Ivy code base. This should improve viewer stability, particularly for those with more than 4 Gb of memory, and possibly also improve performance.
As the 64-bit Alex Ivy code uses Linden Lab’s Havoc sub-libraries that are specific to Second Life, this means that the 64-bit versions of Firestorm for Windows and OSX now have both Second Life and OpenSim flavours, the latter allowing for continued support of OpenSim users.
The 64-bit Linux build remains with the Firestorm team’s own 64-bit code.
Media Updates – Project Dullahan: a series of updates, fixes, improvements and security patches for the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), that is the basis for the viewer’s built-in web browser.
The option to not accept cookies has been removed due to complexities of not doing so in the in-viewer browser. For a more controlled cookie experience, an external full-featured browser may be better.
Also includes updates to VLC, that provides support for video media playback.
Rendering Improvements – Project love Me Render: this is a large collection of rendering improvement from LL. See the Love Me Render release notes for details.
Vivox Update and Voice Fixes: a number of updates / improvements:
Adds support for a higher quality voice using SLVoice version 4.9.
Fixes the apparent position of the speaker in nearby voice.
Improves retry behaviour when there are problems connecting or during temporary connection problems.
Logs more detailed information to the Lab for quantifying connection issues.
Improves security of the communication between the viewer and SLVoice.
Note that with these changes:
Local teleports will cause a short (a few seconds) voice interruption because the viewer now detaches from voice a little earlier in the teleport sequence.
With some SLVoice changes, the SLVoice executable can be copied into another viewer – that will not work with this update. There are changes to the connection between the viewer and SLVoice that are required. Talking to any viewer version should work.
Unrelated to voice, improves the validation of TLS certificates (security improvement).
Additional Lab-Derived Updates
This update also includes:
Avatar Physics improvements / safety checks: this fixes the problem with boob movement freezing & boobs getting stuck at odd angles (BUG-202903 / FIRE-22135)
Sculpties no longer rendered until fully loaded (or fail to load): this should remove the blobs and spheres see in-world as sculpties load.
Viewer frame rate fix (BUG-6943): viewer FPS should no longer drop when facing away from certain objects.
Inventory directory (BUG-214575 / FIRE-22281): the inventory directory should no longer be deleted while keeping the Delete key.
Report Abuse (BUG-202904 / FIRE-22152): double-clicking the Report Abuse option will no longer crash the viewer.
Materials update: normal and specular maps are no longer downloaded if ALM is off.
See the Firestorm Change Log for a full list of Lab and Firestorm fixes.
Firestorm Updates and Additions
User Interface: New Features and Updates
Menu Updates
Avatar:
A new Favorite Wearables option for accessing the Favorite Wearables panel (see below).
A new Show / Hide User Interface option (also ALT-Shift-U). Use the keyboard shortcut to show the UI when hidden, and note that chiclets and script dialogues remain visible with the UI hidden. CTRL+ALT+F1 will still hide / show the UI as well.
World:
Set Home To Here relocated to be with the other place-related options.
Teleport Here has an added separator between it and the menu options below it.
World menu: Set Home to Here has been relocated, and Teleport Home has an additional separator below it to help avoid incorrect clicks when using it.
Help: new item: Firestorm Events Calendar – opens the Firestorm Google Calendar of event, including all Firestorm classes.
Preferences Updates
Firestorm:
Uploads: new button to reset custom uploads folders to their viewer defaults.
Build 1: it is now possible to switch the Script Editor font type and adjust the font size. All pre-processed output also obeys the chosen font.
It is now possible to set the font style (drop-down arrowed left) and font style / size (drop-down arrowed right) for the Script Editor
Move & View: new options to manage viewer-side region crossings add to the Movement sub-tab. See Experimental Region Crossing Code, below.
User Interface:
2D Overlay: new option to make the statistics bar ignore focus requests when closing other floaters with CTRL+W. When enabled, the statistics bar will never receive focus when another window is closed. Actions such as changing graph layout for items are still possible when enabled.
New Toolbar Buttons
Beacons: opening the Beacons floater panel.
Wearable Favorites: see Favorite Wearables Panel, below.
Panels and Floaters
Appearance Panel:
Wearing Tab: the Wearing tab now lists the rendering complexity of each worn in-world object. This can be accessed via the Avatar menu > Appearance (or CTRL-O) and then open the Wearing tab.
Outfits Tab:
Double-click will add/remove.
Wearing tab – double-click will remove for “Wearables” and “Temporary attachments”.
Inspect Panel:
A new “Options” button has been added to the Inspect panel allowing you to select which columns are displayed.
New object complexity count added to the information display on the left of the panel.
Favorite Wearables
The Favorite Wearables panel can be used to list frequently used items (e.g. HUDs, attachments) in a floater so they can be quickly attached or removed as needed. This can help with performance, as you can conveniently detach attachments you’re not using and remove their simulator script overhead, or take off HUDs you’re not using, to remove their texture memory use, then quickly re-attach them when needed without having to locate them in Inventory.
The panel has its own toolbar button for quick access., or can be opened via the Avatar menu > Favorite Wearables.
To add items to the panel:
Open the panel and your inventory.
Drag the items you want to display in the panel from inventory into the panel window. Note this will create a link to the original item in the #Wearable Favorites folder in inventory.
To remove an item from the panel, right-click on the item to highlight it and then click the Trash icon at the top of the panel. This will remove the item from the panel’s list, delete the link in the #Wearable Favorites, but will not delete the item from your inventory.
To attach an item listed in the panel, simply right-click on it to display a menu comprising the familiar Add, Wear, Attach to and Attach to HUD (for HUDs) options. This menu also allows you to view the object’s profile, or use Show Original to open your Inventory and highlight the original version.
The Favorite Wearables panel can be accessed via the Avatar menu or a new Toolbar button. It can be used to list HUDs and other frequently used attachments which can be added / removed via a menu.
Right-clicking on an attached item (shown in a different colour in the panel) will display a menu with options to edit the attachment (opens the Build panel), detach it, open its profile or locate the original in inventory.
In addition, the panel includes a search bar that will cause the panel to only display items which fully or partially match the text typed into it, and a drop-down list of sort options.
The Lab’s Second Life developer and product team, et al, all are on an off-site to discuss further plans for the platform (which we’ll gradually get to hear about in due course in the coming months … hopefully). Unofficially, this is now known as the Linden Summer of Love Palooza Extravaganza Fête Conference thingy – just so you know 😀 .
Server Deployments
None planned. Main channel regions should have been restarted on Tuesday, July 24th, in accordance with the 14-day restart policy. The BlueSteel and LeTigre RCs should in theory be restarted on Wednesday, July 25th for the same reason.
SL Viewer
On Friday, July 20th, Linden Lab issued the BugSplat RC viewer, 5.1.7.518003.
This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer. However, it includes now crash reporting capabilities based on the Lab using BugSplat, a commercial service, rather than their own crash reporting mechanism derived from Google Breakpad.
The aim of this work is to allow the Lab to focus on actual viewer development and support, rather than having to pour time into maintaining and updating the crashing reporting software and workflow associated with it.
Other than this update, the viewer pipelines from the Lab remain as:
Current Release version 5.1.6.516459 and dated June 15th, promoted June 21st – formerly the Pálinka Maintenance Release Candidate – No Change
Release channel cohorts:
Quinquina Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 5.1.7.517594, on July 12th.
Project viewers:
Animesh project viewer updated to version 6.0.0.516979 on June 25th.
Bakes on Mesh project viewer, version 5.1.6.516270, dated June 14th.
Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29th November, 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, July 22nd
This summary is generally published on 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 test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.6.516459 and dated June 15th, promoted June 21st – formerly the Pálinka Maintenance Release Candidate – No Change
The BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.7.518003, released July 20th, 2018. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, July 19th, 2018 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
Note that the audio presented here may not be in the exact order of discussion during the meeting; as subjects were at times returned to following their initial discussion, I have attempted to bring together key points of discussion by topic / subject matter. Also, please note that audio drop-out when Vir is speaking appears to be an ongoing problem at his end.
Animesh
Project Summary
The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and server-side changes.
In one (BUG-139251), when some static mesh objects are converted to Animesh, the visual mesh is rotated through 90 degrees when seen in the Animesh viewer, but the physics mesh isn’t, leaving it perpendicular to the model. This is possibly an orientation issue, with the viewer expecting the mesh to be aligned to +x=forward – which not all mesh modelling tools follow.
The second problem is that when linking a series of objects into a single Animesh, then are visually located where the avatar skeleton supporting them is located, but the physics shapes remain in the original location of the objects prior to linking / converting.
Both of these problems pre-date Animesh, but have been effectively “hidden” because until now, rigged meshes could only be attached to an avatar, effectively masking the issues.
As a part of the approaches to fix these issues, Beq Janus and Elizabeth Jarvinen (polysail) have contributed code to correctly apply the bindpose matrix within the viewer. This code is in the latest version of the Animesh project viewer, which should be available soon, and should cover legacy content not corrected by similar fixes incorporated into Avatasr for new uploads (see my week #26 CCUG summary for more on this).
LOD Issues
Vir is currently working on the server-side issues, but once those have been resolved, his plan is to work on the viewer-side LOD issues, including BUG-224971 and the Dynamic bounding box issues (see my week #25 summary). Once he has completed testing the fixes for these, the hope is that the Animesh viewer can move to RC status.
Mesh Physics Shapes Issues
The deployment of Animesh to the RC server channels has revealed a couple of issues which need to be resolved:
Not all of the mesh information the server is required to “remember” is being properly retained.
Code within the Animesh update appears to be causing some in-world mesh objects to use the wrong physics shapes.
In Brief
Concern was raised whether Maya could be used to produce Animesh, given the rotation fixes seem to apply to Blender / Avastar. As Far as Cathy Foil (creator of Mayastar) is aware, meshes created in Maya / Mayastar can be converted for use as Animeshes.
Animesh does not support custom bones – it works purely with the Bento skeleton, which does allow for bone re-purposing.
BUG-225063 reports that the latest Animesh project viewer fails to display meshes at times, while older Animesh code can cause meshes to display incorrectly. Vir believes the issue may be linked to one he has been addressing, and believed to be caused by an uninitialised variable. The fix for this should be in an upcoming release of the viewer.
BUG-216352 “[Animesh] Issue with animations not rendering if they were stopped and started while host object is selected” – this is still being investigated. However, as it only applies to the same animation, rather than all animations, the issue isn’t regarded as a blocker for Animesh.
Bakes On Mesh
Project Summary
Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos, clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies as well as system avatars. This involves server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, and may in time lead to a reduction in the complexity of mesh avatar bodies and heads.
This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing Bake Service.
Some people have been reporting some “excitement” when using the new universal bake channels for Bakes on Mesh in regions that don’t have the server-side support for Bakes on Mesh. These issues will likely require further viewer and server-side changes to fix them.
At a recent LL meeting on Bakes on Mesh it was decided not to implement any additional features at this point in time – so no LSL support prior to the initial deployment. Rather, the Lab would like to get a basic capability out that can be used and tested, then potentially improve on it with further features in time.
As it is, even moving Bakes on Mesh to release candidate status is dependent on a large number of back-end service changes (e.g. the inventory system must be updated to handle the new wearable types; the Appearance and Bake services must be updated, as well and the simulator and viewer updates.
Asa reminder, it will not be possible to use Bakes on Mesh with Animesh creatures / creations, primarily because Bake On Mesh uses the Outfit system, which Animesh currently does not – but may be extended to use in the future.
The question was asked if Bakes on Mesh could be used to texture an Animesh attachment to an avatar, and in theory it would be – but how useful / practical this might be is open to debate.
In Brief
There will be a CCUG meeting on Thursday, July 26th, however, it comes on top of the SL summit meeting at the Lab (to discuss the SL development roadmap) and so Vir believes there won’t be too much to report on additional work at the meeting.
Concern has been raised over the recent DMCA situation involving around 3 makers of mesh heads, and whether Bakes on Mesh will see changes to the SL Terms of Service / guidelines specifically for UV maps (e.g. what is allowed, what isn’t), given that Bakes on Mesh could encourage the use of the basic SL UV maps and result in multiple claims of people “using” someone else’s maps. This concern is being passed back to the Lab’s legal team.
The latter part of the meeting included a lengthy discussion on animations (adding a function to “instantly” stop an animation / being able to modify animation speeds / priorities in-world; the legitimacy of modifying animations) which also spread to the permissions system (providing “export” permission to allow people to export “full perm” meshes for direct editing and re-upload and / or implementing a “derivative” permission.
Some of the animation discussion touched on the animation discussion may surface as a specific feature request(s).
It’s unlikely there will be any large-scale changes to the permissions system in the near future.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 