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.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, February 4th
This summary is 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.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.0.511732, dated January 9th, promoted January 16th formerly the Alex Ivy Maintenance RC – no change.
On Tuesday, January 30th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with server maintenance package #18.01.17.511913, which comprises internal fixes.
There are no scheduled deployments for either the Magnum or LeTigre RC channels planned for Wednesday, January 31st, 2018. A deployment to the BlueSteel RC has been indicated, but no deals were available at the time of writing.
SL Viewer
A new Media Update RC viewer was released on Tuesday, January 30th, 2018. Viewer 5.1.1.512264 includes updates to the built-in media support that were not quite ready to be integrated when the 64 bit Viewer (Alex Ivy) was released. These include various fixes, updates, security patches and improvements for CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) that is the basis for the built-in web browser and VLC that provides support for video media playback. Fixes are included to Dullahan (the third-party library that uses CEF) as well as all the media plug-in code itself. As per the Alex Ivy 64 bit viewer, there is no Linux version.
Otherwise, the SL viewer pipeline remains as:
Current release viewer: version 5.1.0.511732, dated January 9th, promoted January 16th. Formerly the Alex Ivy Maintenance RC – no change.
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.
Other Items
Joe Magarac (animats) continues to look into region crossings with vehicles. As noted in my previous update, he’s learning-by-doing, and testing ideas with a self-compiled version of Firestorm (see this forum thread for more). He currently believes he has workarounds for vehicle animations topping on a crossing and bad camera positions after a crossing. His workarounds are a scripted camera re-set of the camera and animation re-start. Not ideal, and as he noted at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, 30th January, 2018 – the preferable solution would be a server-side fix.
Part of the problem is that vehicle region crossings are extremely complex, as Simon Linden notes:
The avatar and object are disconnected, passed to the new region, then re-assembled. It’s supposed to be transparent, of course, but things get weird when any part gets slow or fails
One of the things that can go wrong is what is being referred to as a “half unsit” situation, where the vehicle crosses to the next region but the avatar is stuck in the old one and unable unsit, move or teleport, leaving only a relog as a means to recover. The problem is recognising where things break: is it a server-side problem, something in the viewer or the result of a race condition? In theory the hand-off of a vehicle and its passengers should commence until the root prim of the vehicle actually crosses the boundary. This is to prevent avatars sitting on the vehicle in advance of the root prim being handed-off and the vehicle then turning back, possibly leaving the avatars stranded in the neighbouring region.
Simon’s thinking is that the receiving region is doing a more than it should while it waits for everything to come together, potentially attempting to move an avatar and / or run scripts before everything is available to put back together correctly. He also acknowledges that specific issues can be difficult to reproduce and so solve.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, January 28th
This summary is 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.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version 5.1.0.511732, dated January 9th, promoted January 16th formerly the Alex Ivy Maintenance RC – no change.
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, January 26th 2018. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, 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.
Viewer Pipeline
[0:00-1:25] The Voice RC viewer updated to version 5.1.1.512121 on January 26th, bringing it to parity with the Alex Ivy release viewer. The reaming viewers in LL’s pipelines remain as:
Current Release version 5.1.0.511732, dated January 9th, promoted January 17th. Formerly the Alex Ivy Maintenance RC – NEW.
Release channel cohorts:
Nalewka Maintenance viewer version 5.1.1.511871, January 17th.
Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 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 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.
Forthcoming Updates
The Voice RC is the next in line for promotion to release status, and this could happen in week #5 (commencing Monday, January 29th, 2018).
The Animesh and Project Render project viewers both have new updates in QA.
There is a new project viewer for media handling (with updates to the latest version of the Chrome Embedded Framework) also due to be made available.
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
[12:25-15:43] Rider Linden now has a test simulator on Aditi where he is able to successfully apply windlights at the parcel level. The work will now allow windlight settings to be applied by height above ground, but this will likely be fixed ranges defined on the simulator rather than allowing completely arbitrary heights for different windlight settings, as can be done viewer-side with some TPVs at present.
General Discussions
Level of Detail / RenderVolumeLODFactor
[4:17-5:21] The latest Firestorm release, 5.0.11.53634, has altered the behaviour of the debug RenderVolumeLODFactor so that changes with set it to any value higher than 4.00 will not persist across log-ins (see my Firestorm release overview here for more). The Lab is now considering implementing a similar change within the official viewer.
Land Impact / Avatar Complexity Calculations
[5:33-5:52] I’ve referred to this project a number of times, which is intended to gather more representative data on the actual cost of rendering object in-world and the cost of rendering avatars and their attachments, with a view to revisiting the formulas used in calculating them, to see if anything can be done to make the calculations more representative of the “real” rendering costs (allowing for issues such as the potential to break content). It is currently hoped that the Lab will have enough data on this in the next for weeks to start carrying these investigations forward.
[27:13-28:12] One of the reasons often cited for creating one very detailed level of detail (LOD) model and a very low LOD model, rather than a number of LOD models (high, medium, low and lowest), is that the latter can penalise the finished model’s overall Land Impact (LI). This is something the Lab is going to be looking at in order to try to remove / reduce disincentives to making optimised content for SL as a part of this work.
[28:35-30:25] These updates are likely to affect the LI of existing and rezzed content. However, they will not be made in Q1 of 2018. Instead, the Lab plan to carry out simulator-side testing to ensure whatever changes that are decided upon cause as little disruption as possible, and will offer a strategy to help people transition to the new system to try to avoid any unnecessary item returns, show the revised formula run the risk of some content being returned when implemented (this might even comprise an increase in land capacity, if the difference between the “old” and “new” LI calculations aren’t too big). Improved tools for understanding LI are also planned as part of this work.
[31:08-31:47] To help people understand LI, content building, etc., Oz Linden has been trying to get more of the Lab’s own documentation on design and building to where it can be seen in public. This also extends to making more of the Lab’s own scripts being made available for public viewing.
Camera Presets Project
[7:09-8:00] Jonathan Yap is moving ahead with his camera presets project (see here and STORM-2145). This will most likely include Penny Patton’s recommendations for improved camera placement as one of the default sets of camera presets.
AIS Project
[8:51-10:28] The Lab is initiating a further Advanced Inventory System (AIS) project. this project will initially be focused on bug fixes, then will include looking for opportunities to deprecate old UDP-based inventory operations in favour of AIS – this work will likely take several months to complete, once started. Once any patches related to this have been made available to TPVs (with time given for them to be implemented), inventory UDP messaging will be turned off at the simulator end.
Texture Rendering and Caching
[16:05-17:15] Kitty Barnett has been looking at texture fetching/decoding and has noted some issues around discard levels in the viewer. Oz Linden would like to learn more on this.
In the meantime, the Lab’s own attempt to re-work how texturing caching works in the viewer hasn’t produced the results LL had hoped (e.g. improving the amount of textures which can be loaded per second). However, tests will continue in the hope that improvements can be gained. If the work is successful, then the Lab will look towards improving object caching as well.
Inventory Folders and Load Times
[18:52-20:50] Inventory and folders: the recent change (current SL maintenance RC viewer and Firestorm 5.0.11) to include folders in the total inventory count has raised concerns about increasing inventory load times.
The Lab’s rule-of-thumb remains one of balance:
Individual folders with tens of thousands of item in them (object, links, sub-folders) – including trash – can cause the inventory load process to freeze, due to the way folders are individually loaded at log-in. Therefore, these are best avoided.
Conversely, having an individual folder for every single item – or just very small number of items can cause lots of little fetches that don’t achieve very much.
Therefore, somewhere between these two extremes is preferable.
Other Items
A resource has been made available to update the wiki documentation on the new viewer log-in screen widget.
There is liable to be something of a focus on the render pipe (there’s already the rendering project viewer in the pipeline), as a resource with SL rendering expertise has returned to the fold from Sansar.
Next TPVD Meeting
[1:35-2:05] The next Third-Party Developer meeting is set for Friday, February 16th, 2018 (although in theory this should be a date for the Web User Group meeting, which usually alternates with the TPVD meeting).
On Wednesday, January 24th, 2018, the Firestorm team released Firestorm 5.0.11.53634. This is a significant update to the viewer, incorporating code updates from a number of recent viewer releases from Linden Lab, as well as some major updates from the Firestorm team and a number of important new features and updates, as well as a range of bugs fixes and improvements.
Given the extent of the updates in this release, and in keeping with my usual approach to Firestorm releases, what follows is not an in-depth review of everything new / updated in version 5.0.11.53579, but rather an overview, highlighting some of the more significant changes and updates I feel will be of most interest to users.
For full details of all changes, and all due credits to contributors, etc., please refer to the official release notes.
The Before We Begin
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 5.0.11.
Major Lab Derived Updates
Firestorm 5.0.11 brings the viewer up to parity with the Lab’s 5.0.9 code base. It includes the following major updates from the Lab.
Asset-HTTP Project: Firestorm now fetches the majority of inventory assets (landmarks, wearables – system layer clothing and body parts), sounds, gestures and animations) the same way as textures, mesh and avatar baking information: via the Content Delivery Network (CDN), rather than through the simulator. This should make loading of such content both faster and more reliable.
64-bit Havok sub-libraries: the 64-bit version of Firestorm now uses Havok physics with the mesh uploader , and can now visualise the pathfinding navmesh.
Group ability Always Allow ‘Create Landmark’: this was accidentally removed from the viewer, and has now been returned. When enabled on a group role, it allows members of that role to override the teleport routing (e.g. right-click >teleport to) on the parcel if a landing point is set, as long as Direct Teleport is enabled on the region (BUG-100719).
Incorporation of the Martini (November 2017), Moonshine (September 2017) and Margarita (August 2017) viewer updates.
Note: while Firestorm 5.0.11.53634 includes the 64-bit Havok sub-libraries for Second Life, it is not using Linden Lab’s Alex Ivy 64-bit code base. That will be for the next FS release.
Firestorm Updates and Additions
Viewer Performance: Mesh Rendering Information Features and Updates
Key among the updates to this release of Firestorm are new features and updates to a number of floaters intended to help users make better judgement calls on how content in Second Life might be affecting their viewer performance, and potentially make more informed choices about the goods they purchase in-world.
Build Floater – Physics View
The Show Physics Shape icon (Build Floater > Features tab) – disabled (top); enabled (bottom)
Firestorm now includes an option to viewing the physics shape of objects you can edit. Among other things, this can help avoid having items you drag from inventory fail to appear in-world, with the message “Failed to place object at specified location. Please try again.” appearing in the top right corner of the viewer window.
The option is on the Features tab of the Build floater, and takes the form of an eye icon to the right of the Physics Shape drop-down.
If displayed with a red line through it (default): show physics shape is disabled
If shown without a red line through it: show physics shape is enabled.
When enabled, the selected object’s physical shape is shown in blue. Sometimes this will match the shape of the object itself (below left); other times, it may not (below right). Any attempt to rez another item on the part of the object covered by the blue will succeed; any attempt to rez on the part of an object not covered by the blue will likely result in the “Failure to place object” message.
The show physics shape option: Build floater > Features > eye icon next to Physics Shape Type drop-down. When enabled, it shows the physics shape of an object, which may (l) or may not (r) match the physical shape of the object. Click for full size, if required
Showing the physics shape of surfaces reveals why some may be walkable and why avatars may have problems with others – such as colliding with “something” while apparently not standing close to an object, or being unable to pass through a gap or open doorway.
Notes:
Show Physics Shape can also be accessed via the Build Menu > Options > Show Physics Shape When Editing.
Once enabled, Show Physics Shape remains active until manually disabled, or until you log-out of Second Life (it will be automatically disabled on your next log-in).
The Build floater also provides a range of new information specific to mesh objects and their level of detail (LOD). This can be seen on the Object tab of the floater when a mesh object is selected. For prim objects, the tab is unchanged and will display the “old” information (Path Cut, Hollow, Twist, Taper, etc.).
For a detailed examination of LOD please refer to For LOD’s sake stop! by Beq Janus. The following is intended to provide a brief overview of the mesh object information.
Mesh objects can comprise up to four different versions, as defined by the creator a very High detailed model, with a high count of triangles, displayed with the object is being viewed up close, and then up to three models with progressively less detail (fewer triangles), designed to be used the further away the camera is from the object (Medium, Low and Lowest). These are collectively referred to as level of detail models, and are designed to improve the rendering of scenes. In essence, the further away (or smaller) and object is, the less detail can be seen and so the less detailed versions can be under when rendering it, easing the overall rendering load.
The first two parts of the mesh information related to these models when a mesh object is selected:
Mesh Information: lists the number of triangles used in each of the LOD models the creator has provided (note that if two ore more of the model types has the same triangle count, it indicates the same model is being used (so if Low and Lowest both show 3, or example, the same 3-triangle model is being used for both)
Default Drop-down: allows you to preview each of the different LOD models for the object (make sure Default is selected after use).
Up to four LOD models can be defined for SL – from a highly detailed, high triangle count version to a very low detail / low triangle count version (top). The Mesh information display allows the triangle count for the available LOD models of an object to be checked (Mesh Information section), and the actual models themselves previewed (Default drop-down). It also provides information on when the models will be swapped, one to the next, according to your viewer’s LOD Factor and the distance of your camera from the object (shown enlarged on the right) – click for full size
The Object LOD behaviour section defines the distances from your camera at which the different LOD model will be swapped one for the next, as defined by the Linden Lab (LL) default LOD Factor (1.250), the Firestorm (FS) default LOD Factor (2.000) and your current LOD factor setting.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 