Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 18th
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.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.1.512121, dated January 26th, promoted February 7th formerly the Voice Maintenance RC – No Change.
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting and the Web User Group meeting, both held on Friday, February 16th 2018. A video of the TPVD 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.
SL Viewer
[0:55-3:02] The Media Update RC viewer version updated to version 5.1.2.512574 on February 15th, and the Nalewka Maintenance viewer updated to version 5.1.2.512522 on February 14th, bringing both into line with the current release viewer (currently version 5.1.1.512121, at the time of writing, formerly the Voice RC viewer).
The rest of the SL viewer pipeline remains as:
Current Release version 5.1.1.512121, dated January 26, promoted February 7 – formerly the Voice Maintenance RC.
Project viewers:
Project Render Viewer version> 5.1.1.512446, February 9.
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.
Note that the voice package in the SL release viewer will not work with older versions of the viewer. A further voice SDK update for Mac systems is also due from Vivox.
Updates should be forthcoming soon on the Animesh and 360-snapshot viewer.
Viewer with 1024 Support for Avatar Textures
[4:33-7:05] A project viewer for handling 1024×1024 wearables should be appearing “soon”, as a prelude to the Bakes on Mesh project (see my Content Creation User Group (CCUG) updates for more on this project). This will have an impact on the avatar rendering cost for system avatars making use of 1024×1024 textures and wearables.
The goal for a Linux flavour of the viewer is for the Lab to provide a basic Debian build of the viewer, without additional libraries so as to allow TPVs to add the dependencies they require for their flavour of Linux build. Once this has been achieved – with the help of open-source contributions – the Lab will then maintain the Linux build, with the caveat that it will only be subject to cursory QA, and will continue to look to the Linux community for contributed updates and fixes.
[15:44-20:40] The repository for Linux contributions is awaiting update to the current viewer release and needs to be publicly made available. A skeleton build process of the Debian package is available, but again has yet to be made visible.Both of these should happen in the next few weeks.
Several of the libraries which will be used in the build are seen as “problematic” and requiring patches, etc.Until this work has been done, the Lab can’t supply the build process.
One of the problems in seeking contributions is that Linux developers appear to be in short supply – the Lab doesn’t have any Linux resource in-house for the viewer, and some TPVs are finding it similarly difficult to find a resource they can use, and who can provide contributions to the Lab. The flip side of this is the Lab is not seeking contributions that provide a “complete” solution for a Linux build; they would rather people work on specific aspects of the viewer, the only criteria being that:
Contributions are in line with the Lab supporting a basic Debian package build process.
Contributions do not require changes to the build process which could break the Windows or Mac build process.
[12:01-15:40 and 24:55-28:23] Project Arctan is the code-name for the project to re-evaluate object and avatar rendering costs, and hopefully make them more reflective of the actual cost of rendering objects and avatars and also remove some of disincentives for making optimised content.
This work is still in its preliminary stages, focusing on how best to gather the required data.
For avatar complexity, it will include evaluating the cost of avatars and their attachments (tri counts, textures, use of alpha layers, skeletal animations used, etc), with a view to adjusting the avatar rendering cost weightings – with the caveat that even when made more reflective of the actual cost of avatar rendering, people will still see some variation in the ARC information displayed by their viewer as a result of using different GPU cards, and how well different cards handle things like alpha masking and / or alpha blending.
For Land Impact: LI will be scrutinised as well, to take into consideration texture cost. However, as LI changes could be disruptive (e.g. unexpected objects returns), any new LI calculations will be run alongside the current calculations, to allow LL gather data on if and how many parcels will be pushed over their LI capacity were the new calculations to be applied (and thus force object returns) and by how much. They then might increase region land capacity to compensate as far as possible. Then, for those who still exceed their limit, there will be a period of grace when they can consolidate and bring their LI use within the limit of the revised calculations before the latter are enforced.
As Animesh will likely be released before Project Arctan is complete, this means Animesh will be released with an initial land impact calculation assigned to it for objects, which may then be revised once Arctan is finalised.
Project Arctan – Oz and Vir Linden discuss (CCUG and TPVD meetings)
Note again: this work is just re-starting, and there will be no immediate or sudden changes made to either ARC or Land Impact.
Other TPVD Items In Brief
Deprecating UDP Messaging for Asset Fetching And Further Inventory Improvements
[7:24-11:05] The Lab is looking to remove the remaining UDP code for all assets now fetched via HTTP and the CDNs from the simulator code, most likely in the June-August time frame. Once this has happened, any old viewer versions not using the latest HTTP asset fetching code will be unable to retrieve inventory assets. A version of the updated simulator code will be made available on Aditi, likely in the spring of 2018, so TPVs can double-check asset fetching.
A further general clean-up of inventory messaging should follow this work to improve inventory handling and robustness. This will include a clean-up on UDP inventory management paths and the remove of multiple ways of manipulating inventor, and may be a multi-round effort of work.
Abuse Reporting Capability
[39:30-42:26] A new cap is being introduced to the viewer to return the currently accepted Abuse Report categories. This is a change, once available, TPV well be asked to adopt quickly, as it should help smooth the initial triaging of ARs, by reducing the amount of time spent trying to marry old / no longer valid AR categories with valid options, etc. (or risking ARs being closed on account of a filing that appears non-actionable). For information on how ARs are handled and should be filed, please see: Raising Abuse Reports in Second Life.
Web User Group
The following notes are taken from the Web User Group meeting held on Friday, February 16th, 2018. These meetings are chaired by Alexa and Grumpity Linden at Alexa’s barn. The focus is the Lab’s web properties, which include the Second Life website (including the blogs, Destination Guide, Maps, Search, the Knowledge base, etc.), Place Pages, Landing Pages (and join flow for sign-ups), the Marketplace, and so on and the Lab’s own website at lindenlab.com.
Meeting Changes
Going forward, the Web User Group will meet MONTHLY and on a WEDNESDAY, possibly at 13:00 SLT.
Notice of each meeting will appear on the Web forum section and on the Web User Group wiki page a couple of days ahead of each meeting.
Marketplace
Marketplace updates:
Updates are being planned, and the Lab is keen to receive ideas (even if they cannot necessarily be implemented).
Suggestions for improvements / new features should be made via the Second Life JIRA under the Project type BUG Project, and then selecting the Issue Type New Feature Request.
Bugs and issues should be raised using the Project type BUG Project, and Issue Type Bug.
Variant of items in a single listing (e.g. different colours for a dress) are being considered as a possible part of the Marketplace updates.
Ideas for discouraging “false” listings, etc., are being considered by the Lab, but there is an understandable reluctance to openly discuss measures until options are better defined, in order to prevent incorrect assumptions and rumours from spreading.
Flagging content and “policing” the Marketplace: requests have been made for more flexibly means to flag / report content / stores on the Marketplace, and the Lab is again considering options.
One suggest put froward by users is for merchants to be able to police the MP, the level of trust in their reports being based on the number of valid reports they file. The Lab is reticent to allow user-based moderation, as this can become subject of subjective feelings, personal disputes, etc.
As part of the overall Marketplace road map, the Lab is considering offering some form of Marketplace-focused benefits for creators and merchant who are / opt to up to a Premium account.
Marketplace featured items: a question was asked about how featured items are selected for display on the Marketplace. There is a section in each item’s listing page which can be used to have it displayed on the Marketplace page, a category landing page, etc., for a fee. Those items actually displayed on a page are then rotated by criteria by the Marketing team.
Recent issues at Hippo Technologies have seen Hippo legacy web services go off-line with a decision to step back from continued support. This promoted questions about enforced removal of no longer functional products from the Marketplace. This is something the Lab is reticent to do (there’s a risk of functional goods being removed in error, etc.), and would prefer creators to take the responsibility to unlist goods that no longer function. However, this specific matter is being taken back to the office for discussion.
Destination Guide
Places to be included in the Destination Guide can be submitted via the Destination Guide application form. General information on the DG, including submissions can be found here.
Queen of Dragons? Surrounded by Animesh dragons by Wanders Nowhere and used by Lucia Nightfire as Animesh test models
The following notes are primarily taken from the Content Creation User Group meeting, held on Thursday, February 15th, 2018 at 13:00 SLT. For the purposes of Animesh testing, the meetings have relocated to the Animesh4 region on Aditi, the beta grid – look for the seating area towards the middle of the region. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
Medhue Simoni streamed the meeting, and his video is appended to the end of this update. Timestamps in the text will open the video in a separate browser tab at the relevant point in the meeting. As always, these notes cover the core points of discussion, and my thanks to Medhue for recording it.
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. The project is in two phases:
The current work to update the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures on avatar meshes.
An intended follow-on project to actually support baking textures onto avatar mesh surfaces (and potentially other mesh objects as well). This has yet to fully defined in terms of implementation and when it might be slotted into SL development time frames.
This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing baking service.
Current Status
A reminder that this will not initially include Animesh as the Baking Service requires an avatar shape, which Animesh currently does not support.
There is a lot of confusion about this project and what it will do, so an overview document has been suggested.
One example of some confusion: Anchor linden mentions being able to “upload 1024 textures” – this is actually a reference to the Baking Service supporting 1024×1024 textures, not to users uploading 1024 textures (because they are already supported).
[5:21] The target date for completing this first phase of this work is the end of March 2018.
[12:09-22:15] Alpha layer and Alpha masking discussion:
[12:09-13:55] A means to hide the system avatar has yet to be determined, but Anchor hopes to focus on this in the course of the next week.
[13:06-15:44] One suggestion for this is to have a new “avatar” alpha mask which would allow specific parts of the system avatar to be hidden in a similar manner to how it is currently handled (e.g. to allow the body to be hidden when using a mesh body, but the head exposed, for those not using a mesh head).
[13:55-15:44] These updates should allow elements of a mesh body to be hidden much as can be done with the system avatar, possibly eliminating the need to break the avatar into multiple faces which can be individually masked. However, this has yet to be tested.
[19:05-22:15] Repeat that alpha layering via the Baking Service (e.g. make-up / tattoo layers), and full alpha masking (e.g. hiding an entire body / body part) should work with mesh avatars exactly the same was as for system avatars at present (again, as per above, without the need for the mesh itself to have multiple faces which can be individually masked).
[22:56-24:46] Clothing layers when applied to a mesh body should hopefully work as per the system avatar (e.g. “jacket” layers are applied over “shirt” layer, which are applied over “underwear” layers, with the last worn item in each layer being uppermost and the most visible.
[25:56-27:37] Discussion on wearable layers for specific mesh models, branding and creator / user understanding.
Project ARCTan
[3:55-5:03] This is the code-name for the project to re-evaluate object and avatar rendering costs. It also now falls under Graham Linden’s leadership as a part of the overall rendering system work.
[32:02-34:06] Oz explains the function of the project, and the fact that originally, the weightings (land impact / avatar complexity) applied to avatars and in-world objects, were somewhat biased to allow for the simulator having to handle a lot of texture, etc., transfers to the viewer (so for example, avatar complexity include texture counts, LI doesn’t). As all of this data now goes via the CDNs, rather than the simulators, this bias can be removed, and the actual costs of rendering complex objects made (hopefully) a lot more accurate and thus promote better content creation.
[34:48-35:48] There are currently no details of how LI / avatar complexity values may change, as the Lab is still gathering data at this point in time in order to make informed decisions on how best to revised the calculations.
[35:51-37:04] For Animesh this means the project will be released with an initial land impact calculation assigned to it for objects. However, as with the rest of SL, these may be subject to change as a result of the work on Project Arctan. See this Animesh forum comment from Vir for more.
[39:59-43:30] In brief: the value for Animesh will primarily be based on tri count based on the high detail LOD version of the mesh, with Medium,, Low and Lowest having less of an impact in pushing up the overall LI. This will be added to a basic cost component for driving an avatar skeleton (uniform across all Animesh objects). Again, no precise values are available as yet, as LL are still performance testing.
[37:07-39:40] Land Impact: obviously, Land Impact changes are potentially disruptive. To ease this, the Lab plan to add code to the simulator and the viewer to calculate the new LI values but not enforce them. Instead the data on LI using the new calculations will be gathered with data on the existing values, and the Lab will then assess how many parcels they might push over their LI capacity (and thus force object returns) and by how much, were the new values to be enforced. Depending on the overall impact, they will look at increasing region land capacity to compensate to some degree.
So, for example, if the new calculations so parcels will on average go over their LI limit by 10% under the new calculations, region LI might be increased by 15% to compensate. Then, for those who still exceed their limit, there will be a period of grace when then can consolidate and bring their LI use within the limit of the revised calculations before the latter are enforced.
Overall, the Lab is extremely aware of the risks in altering LI values, and will be approaching this work carefully to try to avoid it having a major negative impact with object returns, etc.
Animesh Updates
Some of the Animesh test regions on Aditi (animesh1 through Animesh4, Animesh Adult and Animesh XL, have become more sandbox than testing areas (including being used for non-Animesh items). To prevent this, the regions are to start being cleaned-up, auto-return made a little more aggressive and warnings that they are only for Animesh are to be added to the About Land descriptions.
[50:52-51:50] Worn Animesh Limit: there shouldn’t be an LI cap on worn Animesh, although the limit of only wearing one Animesh at a time remains in place pending performance testing results.
Other Items
Rendering Improvements and Fixes
[2:10-3:50] The Lab recently split work on the viewer’s rendering pipe into a separate viewer development branch (Project Render, with a project viewer – version 5.1.1.512446, dated February 9th at the time of writing – currently available). Graham Linden, a long-time Linden, will be working on rendering updates more-or-less full-time going forward. He’ll be looking at things like increasing rendering stability, fixing bugs, and potentially other aspects of the rendering system.
There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, February 13th, leaving it running on simulator version 18#18.01.17.511913. However, in keeping with the Lab’s policy of running channel restarts every 2 weeks, regardless of whether there was a deployment or not, the channel was restarted.
There will be no deployment to the RC channels on Wednesday, February 14th, and no restarts. All three will also remain on simulator version 18#18.01.17.511913.
SL Viewer
The Project Render project viewer was updated to version 5.1.1.512446 on Friday, February 9th, 2018. Otherwise, there have thus far been no changes to the SL viewer pipelines, leaving the current list as follows:
Current Release version 5.1.1.512121, dated January 26, promoted February 7 – formerly the Voice Maintenance RC – NEW.
Release channel cohorts:
Nalewka Maintenance viewer version 5.1.1.512226, January 31, 2018.
Media Update RC viewer version 5.1.1.512264,released January 30, 2018.
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 Causing Disconnects?
When a region is being shut-down / restarted, a 5-minute warning is given to encourage people to leave (or they’d be disconnected on shut-down). If everyone leaves ahead of the actual shut-down time, the region will wait for about 15 seconds and then go ahead and restart. However, there has been an issue some have experienced whereby if they are the last to leave a region that is shutting-down, they can teleport away, arrive at another location – but as soon as the original region is shut-down for restart, they are logged off (see BUG-5034). Linden Lab had thought this issue to have been resolved, so a new JIRA has been requested to allow for further investigations.
Region Crossings
Joe Magarac (animats) has been doing his best to investigate some region crossing issues, documenting his work via a forum thread. He’s now produced a basic document on his findings. Most of his work is around “patching” things – using a viewer-based RLV (or a permissioned base) approach to forcing an avatar resit on a vehicle post-crossing, if unseated, for example. The Lab’s view is that they would rather work more comprehensively as improving vehicle-related crossings than trying to patch things. The problem here is that region crossings are something of a 3-corner protocol issue (the viewer, the region an avatar / vehicle is departing, and the region the avatar / vehicle is entering), making improvements more difficult to achieve, as it is likely code on all three will at some point need to be revised.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 11th
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.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.1.512121, dated January 26th, promoted February 7th formerly the Voice Maintenance RC – NEW.
This week is the week of the Second Life team’s meeting to discuss future plans. So there is very little news to impart.
There are no planned deployments or restarts for week #6.
All scheduled user group meetings are cancelled for the week.
The next Open-Source Developer meeting will be on Wednesday, February 14th, 2018 at
The next Content Creation User Group meeting will be on Thursday, February 15th, 2018, as 13:00 SLT.
The next Server Beta meeting (Aditi) will be on Thursday, February 15th, 2018 at 15:00 SLT.
The next TPV Developer meeting was set for Friday, February 16th, 2018 at 12:00 noon (same date as the next Web User Group meeting, so one or the other may move).
Further, there have thus far been not SL viewer updates, leaving the current official viewer pipelines as:
Release viewer version 5.1.0.511732, dated January 9th, formerly the Alex Ivy Maintenance RC – No change.
Release channel cohorts:
Nalewka Maintenance viewer version 5.1.1.512226, January 31, 2018.
Media Update RC viewer version 5.1.1.512264, released January 30, 2018.
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.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 