Category: SL Tech

2018 SL UG updates #19/1: Simulator User Group meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Luane's World; Inara Pey, April 2018, on FlickrLuane’s World – blog post

The following notes have been taken from the Simulator User Group, held on Tuesday, May 1st, 2018.

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.

  • On Tuesday, May 8th, the Main (SLS) channel received server maintenance package 18#18.04.30.515008, which includes updates to simulator communication protocols aimed at improving region crossings and teleports.
  • On Wednesday, May 9th, all three main RC channels should receive server maintenance package 18#18.05.07.515224, which includes two new LSL functions: llRequestUserKey and llName2Key –  see below for more.

Region Crossing Updates

Commenting on the region crossing updates, Simon Linden revealed he’d be out of the office for next week, but:

After I’m back I expect to continue region crossing work … the servers are now doing a better job tracking all the attachments and objects you may be sitting on. The goal is to know when the region thinks that’s all done, and the viewer acknowledges it. If that doesn’t happen, it can do better fixing it.

llRequestUserKey and llName2Key

llRequestUserKey and llNameToKey, both of which will be across all RC channels following the Wednesday deployment, are in connection with the upcoming return of Last Names (see this blog post and this blog post for more). These functions can be summarised as:

  • llRequestUserKey:
    • Requests the Agent ID for the agent identified by name from the dataserver. The name given may be either the current name of an avatar or a historical name that has been used in the past. If no agent can be found with the supplied name this function returns the value NULL_KEY.
    • It returns a handle (a key) that can be used to identify the request when the dataserver event is raised.
    • Note that agent being searched for with this function does not need to be signed on to Second Life.
    • See the llRequestRequestUserKey wiki page for more.
  • llName2Key:
    • Returns a key the Agent ID for the named agent in the region. If there is no agent with the specified name currently signed onto the region, this function returns the value NULL_KEY. Names are always provided in the form “First[ Last]” or “first[.last]” (first name with an optional last name.)
    • If the last name is omitted a last name of “Resident” is assumed. Case is not considered when resolving agent names.
    • Uses a different mechanism to look up agent information to the older llKey2Name().
    • See the llName2Key wiki page for more.

SL Viewer

There have been no SL viewer updates for the start of the week, leaving the current pipeline as:

  • Current Release version 5.1.3.513644, dated March 27, promoted April 13 – formerly the media update RC.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Other Items

Region Restarts and Server Moves

Once upon a time, the Lab used to put effort into trying to ensure adjacent regions in the same server or nearby server. This was most notably done through server re-balancing exercises (see my notes on one of them here, for example), carried out a couple of times a year and which could take some 6 weeks to complete. These operations generally required additional restarts for the regions being moved, and were thought to bring improvements to teleports and physical region crossings.

With hardware and infrastructure improvements over the years, coupled with other sets taken to improve overall grid performance, these operations are no longer carried out – although efforts are taken to ensure multi-region events are placed on simulators all located on the same or adjacent servers. However, nowadays, for the majority of region, they are moved purely as a part of the weekly rolling restarts.

Those wishing to know which regions might be sharing a server with their own can use Tyche Shepherd’s Grid Survey (use the region search and then click the region name link in the results). However, keep in mind not all the result may be up-to-date.

Next Meeting

As noted above, Simon Linden, who usually leads the Simulator User Group meeting will be out of the office in week #20. However, the meeting for the week will still go ahead as scheduled.

2018 viewer release summaries week #18

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, May 5th

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 5.1.3.513644, dated March 27th, promoted April 13th – formerly the Media Update RC.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

  • Kokua updated to versions 5.1.3.43237 (RLV) and 5.1.3.43238 (No RLV) on May 6th. This release includes a Linux flavour built using LL’s Alex Ivy code base and Kokua’s Linux libraries – release notes.

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer stable branch updated to version 1.26.22.4 on May 5th – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Kokua presents Alex Ivy based 64-bit Linux Viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Viewer support has been a subject of frustration among SL users who prefer to use Linux (around 1%-1.5% of the total SL user base) over the lack of official support for the operating system.

As I reported at the time, in 2015 and due to a lack of Linux expertise, Linden Lab pulled back from active Linux viewer development in favour of seeking support from the open-source community in order to maintain a Linux version of the viewer (see here for more). More recently, the Lab has been looking to provide a means to build a Linux flavour of the viewer, based on their Alex Ivy 64-bit code base and libraries, but not distribute or build all the various dependencies required for the viewer, instead leaving this to TPVs to do as part of providing their own support for Linux users (see here for more), although this is taking time to happen.

In the meantime, on May 6th, 2018, the Kokua team released the first third-party viewer for Linux based on Lab Lab’s 64-bit Alex Ivy code base, although built using Kokua’s own Linux libraries.

Kokua release 5.1.3.43237 (RLV) and Kokua release 5.1.3.43238 (no RLV) are  are supplied in Windows, Mac and Linux flavours. In addition, and as is to be expected, both are built using the latest LL release code base (SL 5.1.3) while the RLV version is at parity with RLV release 2.9.23.0.

The viewer is currently available for download on the Kokua website for those who wish to try it – just scroll down to the RLV 64 bit (active development) or the NORLV 64 bit (active development) sections of the download page for the version you’d prefer to use.

If you are a Linux user and opt to download the viewer, please do take the time to report any issues you find with it via the Kokua Issue Tracker at Sourceforge,  as refinement and enhancement of the Linux flavour of the viewer is dependent on the Linux community, perhaps more so than the Mac and Windows flavours (which each have the advantage of larger user bases and more chances of issues being more widely identified and reported).

It should be noted that the Linux flavours of the viewers does come with a warning:

Some areas of the Linux release are still being worked on, however we believe that enough is working and well enough to share this with a wider audience to help us squash any remaining gremlins.

– The Kokua May 6th 5.1.3 release notes

However, the news that there is now an up-to-date 64-bit Linux viewer available for download which is based on the Lab’s current code-base should hopefully come as good news for Linux users.

Additional Links

2018 SL UG updates #18/1: Simulator User Group meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Green Story; Inara Pey, April 2018, on FlickrGreen Story – blog post

The following notes have been taken from the Simulator User Group, held on Tuesday, May 1st, 2018.

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.

  • The was no deployment or restart for the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, May 1st. The channel remains on server maintenance package 18#18.04.13.514504, containing internal fixes and a fix for BUG-214702.
  • On Wednesday, May 2nd, the simulator release candidate channels should be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel should receive server maintenance package 18#18.04.20.514703, which includes two new LSL functions: llRequestUserKey and llName2Key –  see below for more.
    • Magnum and LeTigre should receive server maintenance package 18#18.04.30.515008, which includes updates to simulator communication protocols aimed at improving region crossings and teleports, deployed for the last week to a number of selected regions on Blake Sea via the Snack RC channel.

LlRequestUserKey and LlName2Key

The Lab has released two new LSL functions: llRequestUserKey and llNameToKey, both of which are in connection to the upcoming return of Last Names (see this blog post and this blog post for more):

  • llRequestUserKey:
    • Requests the Agent ID for the agent identified by name from the dataserver. The name given may be either the current name of an avatar or a historical name that has been used in the past. If no agent can be found with the supplied name this function returns the value NULL_KEY.
    • It returns a handle (a key) that can be used to identify the request when the dataserver event is raised.
    • Note that agent being searched for with this function does not need to be signed on to Second Life.
    • See the llRequestRequestUserKey wiki page for more.
  • llName2Key:
    • Returns a key the Agent ID for the named agent in the region. If there is no agent with the specified name currently signed onto the region, this function returns the value NULL_KEY. Names are always provided in the form “First[ Last]” or “first[.last]” (first name with an optional last name.)
    • If the last name is omitted a last name of “Resident” is assumed. Case is not considered when resolving agent names.
    • Uses a different mechanism to look up agent information to the older llKey2Name().
    • See the llName2Key wiki page for more.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the current SL viewer pipelines, leaving them as follows:

  • Current Release version 5.1.3.513644, dated March 27th, promoted April 13th – formerly the media update RC.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Ouzo Maintenance RC, version 5.1.4.514802, dated April 27th.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.4.514788, dated April 25th.
  • Project viewers:
  • 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.

Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)

Rider Linden re-confirmed that while EEP will allow different Windlight settings at altitude above a region / parcel, the zones will be set at 1000 metre intervals (1,000, 2,000, 3,000 and 4,000) and set by the simulator – they will not be user-configurable as can be done with Firestorm (viewer-side only). His hope is also to have scripted per-agent Windlight settings as part of the initial deployment of EEP; however, this is TBC.

2018 viewer release summaries week #17

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, April 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 5.1.3.513644, dated March 27th, promoted April 13th – formerly the Media Update RC.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer stable branch updated to version 1.26.22.3 on April 28th – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • MetaChat updated to version 1.2.601 on April 29th.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2018 SL UG updates #17/4: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Ruins of Deepmarsh; Inara Pey, March 2018, on FlickrRuins of Deepmarsh – blog post

The majority of these notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, April 27th 2018. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Time stamps in the text below will open the video in a new tab at the relevant point of discussion.

Once again, this was a short meeting, but one with extended periods of silence; hence some of the gaps in the time stamps below. There’s also a conversation on the forthcoming Bid A Linden Bald event, as part of the Relay Rockers annual

SL Viewer

[0:07-0:36] The Love Me Render RC viewer updated to version 5.1.4.514788 on Wednesday, April 25th, 2018, and the Ouzo Maintenance RC updated to version 5.1.4.514802 on Friday, April 27th. Both of these RC viewers have had “significantly higher” crash rates than the default viewer, so the Lab will be watching to see what happens with the two updates, and with the crash rate for either is reduced as a result of their release.

Otherwise the viewer pipelines remain as:

  • Current Release version 5.1.3.513644, dated March 27, promoted April 13 – formerly the media update RC.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 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.

[0:39-1:24] The 360 snapshot viewer remains “on hold”, receiving updates to maintain parity with release viewer, but otherwise not receiving any significant work on its key features at this point in time. Work will resume in the future as the specialist resources become available. Both the Animesh and Bakes on Mesh viewers are referred to in the meeting as being “close to coming over to Agni”, although this only hold true for the Animesh project viewer, as the Bakes On Mesh viewer should work on the Main grid already (albeit with the Bake Service’s current 512×512 texture support, as the support for 1024×1024 textures has yet to be deployed).

Viewer Texture Cache Work

[1:46-2:14] The Lab continues to work on the viewer texture cache, and it is hoped that the latest attempt will lead to a “big improvement” in how textures are handled. Currently this code is not available for public consumption, but the hope is that there will be a project viewer with the code available “pretty soon”.

Updated Estate Management Tools

[19:30-20:10] Work is again progressing on enhancing the Estate Management tools in the viewer (e.g. refining ban list management capabilities, etc.). It is hoped that a project viewer will be emerging in the next few weeks. The viewer updates themselves are largely done, and things are awaiting server-side support.

Environmental 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 – the latter comprising multiple Sky and Water) that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others.
  • Scripted, experience-based environment functions, an extended day cycle and extended environmental parameters. This work involves both a viewer updates (with a project viewer coming soon) and server-side updates.

Current Status

[11:39-12:38] Rider Linden has been engaged in some other work for most of the past month, but is now largely back working on the project. It is now a focus for the Lab going forward, with the hope that Rider will not be diverted into other work at EEP’s expense. Some test regions for EEP are also being prepared on Aditi.

Other Items

Testing Viewer Options and the Shared Experience

[5:00-5:45] TPVs sometimes introduce features and options which might be considered as breaking the “shared experience”. The question was therefore asked if allowing people to test / play with new rendering options – as developed by a TPV rather than Linden Lab – might be considered as breaking the shared experience. Oz Linden offered a response which provided some guidance on similar kinds of updates:

I think the best I can give you in terms of a general answer is if it’s the sort of thing that’s going to cause a merchant to include a note card with a product that says, “to see this product correctly, you have to run this viewer with that option turned on”, that’s a sign you’re breaking the shared experience … On the other hand, if you want to experiment with something that you’re then going to contribute upstream [i.e. to the Lab for inclusion in the base viewer code (which is used by all TPVs)] that’s a different problem altogether.

Catznip Displacement Maps Experiements

The question itself was prompted by Kitty Barnett of Catznip, who is working on using displacement maps in the viewer, as well as some other normal mapping tweaks.

Displacement maps, currently being experimented with by Kitty Barnett, can add further depth to surfaces. For example: top left – a prim wall with a brick texture; top right: a prim wall with a texture and normal map applied, as we’re used to seeing in Second Life – some depth is added to the cement grouting between the bricks etc. Bottom centre: the same prim wall with the same texture added, but now using a displacement map: note the greater apparent depth between bricks and cement grouting, etc (highlighted). However, such a capability will have a Land Impact cost.

It would seem that if successful, this work will be contributed to Linden Lab for evaluation and consideration. It’s important to note that Catznip’s work is in the early stages, more work is required on level of detail impact / modelling / potential Land Impact costs, etc., for which Catznip may look to the Lab for assistance.

[6:26-6:46] In the meantime, Oz Linden reiterated that, quite aside of the Environmental Enhancement Project (EPP – see above), the Lab is working on a number of other environmental (render-side) improvements. Previous discussions on rendering improvements have indicated that Graham Linden is already working on a series of environment updates alongside the EEP work being carried out by Rider Linden, which appears to include support for Godrays, potential pre-baking of some environment effects, etc. It’s not clear from Oz’s comments whether he is referring to this work, or something further downstream.

Natty Linden’s Marketplace Job Ad

[16:37-17:00] Natty Linden posted a Marketplace listing for a job at Linden Lab. While offering a little fun, the listing has a serious edge: there is an open Marketplace web developer post at present. As such, Natty’s listing is a further way of reaching those already engaged in Second Life who may have the requisite skills sets, who live in the right location and who may be interested in joining the Lab (which frequently does employ Second Life users – as seen with the likes of Patch Linden, Xiola Linden, and Rider Linden, to name but three of the more well-known resident hires made by the Lab over the years, and who work in different areas within the SL team).