Category: SL Tech

2016 SL project updates 34 (2): TPV Developer meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Arranmore; Inara Pey, August 2016, on Flickr Arranmore – blog post

The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August 25th. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, and references to it are indicated through the use of time stamps in the paragraphs below. My thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

This is not intended to be a transcript of the entire meeting, which featured discussions of some situations specific to individual region rather than SL as a whole. However, key discussion points have hopefully been highlighted.

Server Deployments

There were no scheduled deployments for week #34.

SL Viewer

Release Candidates

[00:15] Both of the current release candidates – the VLC Media Plugin replacement for Windows and the Visual Outfits Browser viewer, have elevated crash rates. Each is liable to receive a further RC update in week #35 (week commencing Monday, August 29th).

[00:53] There will be a new Maintenance RC viewer appearing as well.

64-bit Viewer

[00:58] Progress is being made on the 64-bit versions of the viewer, and these are expected to surface (Windows and Mac) as project viewer quite soon.

Bento Project Viewer

As noted in my Bento update #24, the Bento project viewer was issued in what is hoped will be the final project viewer iteration before it progressed to Release Candidate status. Version 5.0.0.318969, released on August 25th, includes the following updates among its changes:

  • The latest viewer updates body size less frequently (starting / stopping an animation) so vertical height repositioning should be less jarring.
  • During mesh upload, SLM files are by default not created and not used. This can still be overridden by changing the debug setting MeshImportUseSLM
  • The show bones display has been modified to use colors differently, distinguishing between joints that are skinned to, joints that have position overrides defined, and all other joints.
  • Animation of collision volumes has been fixed.

Voice Updates

[02:17] The voice updates are progressing, but is not expected to appear in a project viewer soon due to some remaining issues which need to be resolved.

[03:56] There are some server-side voice updates currently on Aditi undergoing test. When these will be moved to the main grid is subject to further discussions with Vivox, which are due to take place in the forthcoming week. When these updates are enabled on the main grid, they will be gird-wide.

[33:10] Oz offered a reminder that in-world / region issues are unlikely to be related to / cause Voice issues in the majority of cases where the latter are being experienced, as the only way the simulator and its host server are involved in voice is when a user is initially connecting to Voice (the simulator provides the channel addresses to the viewer). After this, all communications are between the viewer (via the SLVoice plugin and the Vivox voice servers.

[34:10] As a part of the ongoing work to better monitor and control Voice, the Lab will be introducing improved logging on exactly what the viewer is doing when connecting to Voice.

Exceptions Handling, etc

[02:44] As noted at the last TPV Developer meeting, the Lab is going to be making some source code changes, including a clean-up of asserts in the viewer and how exceptions are handled (the latter to try to prevent the viewer crashing as a result of encountering an exception), and further rendering pipeline clean-up. These will be showing up in a project viewer at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Accessing Crowded Regions & Increasing Max Number of Users Per Region

[08:30] Trying to access a crowded region for an event is often a matter of pot luck. when full, you have no real choice but to get re-trying via teleport or crossing  a region boundary. As a result, the Lab has frequently been asked to add some form of access queuing system to regions.

While a queuing system has been considered, the Lab feels it brings with it may questions around how it work to present an optimal solution for users. As such, while they are open to proposals for a queuing system, optimally, they’d rather work towards trying to increase the number of avatars regions can support. This is something also being looked at from time to time (see my May 27th, 2015 SL project update as an example), although there is no work actively being carried out on it right now.

Abuse Report Categories

[17:00] As indicated in my last TPV Developer meeting update, the Lab will be introducing a new region capability to handle abuse report categories. Once implemented, TPVs will be able to adopt the use of this capability, rather than having abuse categories held within the viewer, where they may get out-of-step with the categories supported by the Lab.

There is also a reminder in the meeting that abuse situations should be reported ASAP after the event, so that the Lab can refer to the related simulator logs during investigations, and that there is a L$10,000 bounty payable on SEC JIRAs which identify actual or potential abuse vectors  / exploits which the Lab can act upon to close.

AMD Graphics Issues

[26:10] Many users with AMD GPU (notably the RX400 series) have been experiencing glitches and “tears” appearing in their world view  – see BUG-20057 and FIRE-16829. User Hurana Ugajin reports she is having a dialogue with AMD on the issue, and a solution may be forthcoming soon. When / if available, a request has been to post it to the SL technology forum.

Region Resource Allocations

[36:19] A question is asked on whether it would be possible to allocate simulator resources (script usage, etc), on the same basis as object land impact – thus allowing resources to be assigned / capped by parcel size, etc.

The Lab does not believe this can be done without significant changes to SL, as a lot of the underpinning resources are not location-based (e.g. scripts are run on the basis of where they are). Instead, the Lab is focused more on penalising individuals for excessive use of resources (e.g. if you run a script which abuses resources in a region, all your active scripts are throttled, not just the offending script). Such abuses can also be AR’d by those noting them.

Other Items

Aditi Access

[04:42] Some users are apparently being told that in order to access Aditi, they require Payment Information On File (PIOF) and to have completed a tutorial. These are actually part of the requirements to be able to upload mesh. No special requirements are required to access the beta grid other than your user name and password.

There is , however a problem with new user accounts not showing up on Aditi when they should, and a request has to be passed to support to enabled them. This is down to changes in how the Lab is handling account data, which has left Aditi in a state of flux, but a fix for this is in the pipeline.

Account Management

[06:22] The account work mentioned above is part of ongoing back-end work the Lab is carrying out related to personal data is handled and stored even more securely, and help resolve some account management issues. One outcome of this will be a single change to a user’s password will be applied pretty much immediately to both Agni and Aditi.

Large Texture Over-Use

[43:40] A continuing problem in SL is the over-use of large (1024×1024) texture on every surface, no matter how small. While this is a bad content choice, it has been suggested that to discourage this, LL should consider charging differently for different texture sizes. This has been discussed by the Lab, with the admission that given the already low cost for uploads (L$10 per item), there is a certain lack of conviction that introducing a nominal fee scale based on image size will do much to discourage the practice.

Avatar Complexity Calculations

[48:18] As noted at the last TPV Developer meeting, the Lab will be carrying out further refinements in how Avatar Complexity is calculated. A suggestion put forward at this meeting is that as well as having a per avatar limit, if a scene-wide limit could be defined / set. This is viewed as an “interesting” idea.

Project Bento User Group update 24 with audio

Posted on by Inara Pey
Bento: extending the avatar skeleton
Bento: extending the avatar skeleton

The following notes and audio were taken from the weekly Bento User Group meeting, held on Thursday, August 25th at 13:00 SLT at the the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle. For details on the meeting agenda, please refer to the Bento User Group wiki page.

Note that this update is not intended to offer a full transcript of the meeting, nor does it present the discussion points in chronological order. Rather, it represents the core points of discussion, grouped together by subject matter were relevant / possible, whilst maintaining the overall context of the meeting. My apologies for the background birdsong. I usually turn off local sounds for these recordings – but in this instance I forgot!

Bento Viewer

The Bento project viewer updated on Thursday, August 25th to version 5.0.0.318969. This release includes the following changes / improvements, but please refer to the release notes for the full set of updates.

SLM Files

Following previous discussions (see my Bento week 23 update), MeshImportUseSLM has been set to FALSE in the viewer, so that SLM files are by default not created and not used. Switching MeshImportUseSLM to TRUE via debug settings will re-enable them once more.

Avatar Vertical Position (height above ground) Calculation

See here for further background noted. Essentially, any position or scale changes for joints that are included in the body size calculation (those up through the left leg from the foot, the pelvis, torso, chest, neck, head and skull. can trigger issues with an avatar bobbing up-and-down unexpectedly as a result of the frequency of the calculation being increased to once per frame. To help compensate, this new version of the viewer only updates the body size calculation when starting / stopping an animation, so hopefully the changes will be less visually jarring.

Overall, however, the best fix is still to avoid using animations that change the positions of the joints used to calculate the vertical position of the avatar.

Two other updates worthy of individual note are:

  • The show bones display has been modified to use colours differently, distinguishing between joints that are skinned to, joints that have position overrides defined, and all other joints.
  • Animation of collision volumes has been fixed.
Teager's Bento Raptor
Teager’s Bento Raptor

Move To Release Candidate Status

Currently, the Lab believes there are no known active bugs which are sufficient enough to prevent the Bento viewer moving to Release Candidate status, potentially in the next few weeks. With the core AvaStar issues also seemingly resolved (see below),  creators are being encouraged to  complete any additional testing they wish to make so that any remaining potential blockers are found before the viewer goes to a wider audience. Move the viewer to RC status will expose it to a wider cross-section of users, allowing the Lab to get a better feel for the viewer’s overall stability or whether any non-Bento regressions have slipped into the code, etc.

Mesh Distortions with Altitude

Vir has looked further into the issue of facial distortions with altitude when software skinning is used (some meshes can also be distorted when right-clicking on an avatar). The problem seems to be in the base avatar mesh itself, although one idea he had for the cause of the problem didn’t pan out.

Cathy Foil demonstrates the mesh deformation which becomes more pronounced with altitude (starting at around 1,000m and getting progressively worse through 4,000m)
Cathy Foil demonstrates the mesh deformation which becomes more pronounced with altitude (starting at around 1,000m and getting progressively worse through 4,000m)

As this particular problem can be overcome by using hardware skinning, and seems to be a subset of a broader issue affecting worn meshes (floating point calculation error), it may not prevent the Bento viewer going to RC, but Vir is going to continue to look at it.

AvaStar Issues

Matrice Lavalle of the AvaStar team believes he’s resolved most of the issues affecting their software (see here for some background), and his testing indicates that bones should now be correctly positioned and adjusted when using sliders, although there are some minor nips and tucks he still wants to take care of. He also noted an issue affecting the torso bone, which came up shortly before the meeting and which may be limited to a particular way in which the torso is modified, and he is looking into that.

Maya / MayaStar Notes

Cathy Foil provided background information on some of the lessons she’s most recently learned in using Maya for avatar models, relating to joint orientation requirements, performing freeze transformations, etc.

Cathy also provided some advice to Maya users on ensuring that facial bones which have a custom position but which are not rigged to, are included in the skin cluster, otherwise the bone will be excluded from the .DAE file, leading to issues with the model in Second Life.

Matrice noted that as a result of Cathy’s discovery, AvaStar has been updated to ensure custom bones without weights are automatically exported.

When she has time, Cathy plans to produce some video tutorials on the lessons she’s learned through the Bento process  to help Maya users avoid issues like these. Currently, she is still working on updating MayaStar to work with all of the new bones, which is currently a manually intensive task.

Bone Position Information and Slider Values

Cathy points to an issue with the neck bone slider, which, rather than having a neutral position of 50 (as with most bones), has a neutral position value of 66.6667, which can lead to neck alignment problems when adjusting the neck bone position. She asked if in the future, the Lab could update the default avatar shape to ensure all slider positions as close to neutral (50) as possible. This initiated a discussion on the feasibility of doing so, and some of the broader issues slider position value calculations.

Matrice also provided an overview of how AvaStar now handles neutral positions and the default avatar, before he and Vir discuss using other tools and the avatar BLEND file.

Following the meeting proper, Cathy and Matrice further discussed the differences between Blender and Maya in handing bone positions / rigging on export through the use of weight maps (Blender) and skin clusters (Maya).

Other Items

Bento Collaboration and Future Projects

Troy reported that overall, the Lab like the outcome of the Bento project, with the level of collaboration and cooperation between content creators and the Lab, particularly vis the user group meetings etc. While not the first time the Lab has worked with SL users on a project, Troy indicated that the approach taken with Bento is something the Lab would like to continue, where appropriate. Vir seconded this view, noting how the collaboration has made Bento a far more usable product.

Bento Content Documentation

An interesting point of discussion with Bento is the need for content creators to consider documentation carefully given the way the bones can be re-purposed – or at least define a common means of annotating how they have used various bones  – in order to help avoid potential conflicts which might arise on those occasions where a user might attempt to use two mesh elements, each of which calls upon the same bone, but require it to be positioned differently to one another.

2016 SL project updates 34 (1): server, viewer, wiki

Posted on by Inara Pey

Binemust; Inara Pey, August 2016, on Flickr Binemust – blog post

Things are still a little quiet, so not a lot to report at the start of the week.

Server Deployments

There are no scheduled deployment for week #34.

SL Viewer

No changes since my last SL project update, leaving the current official viewer list as:

  • Current Release version 4.0.7.318301, dated August 8th promoted August 11th – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer
  • Release Candidate viewers (refer to my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Visual Outfit Browser RC viewer, version 4.0.8.318686, dated August 17th – ability to preview images of outfits in the Appearance floater
    • VLC Media Plugin RC viewer, version 4.1.1.318504, dated August 15th – replaces the QuickTime media plugin for the Windows version of the viewer with one based on LibVLC
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions), version 5.0.0.317597, dated July 14th – incorporation of final skeleton and slider updates from the test viewer
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, dated May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

SL Wiki

As noted under a separate article, the SL wiki is currently locked from public editing due to spamming issues. There is currently no ETA on when it will be made generally available for access. Those with a definite need to have edit rights should raise a support ticket requesting access.

Second Life wiki: editing locked for now

Posted on by Inara Pey

Crap Mariner has been working on a new Arts wiki page on the SL wiki – on which I’ll have more in a future article – when he contacted me earlier in August to let me know that SL wiki editing had been locked to a limited number of permitted editors / users.

The locking has since become more widely seen, prompting Soft Linden to issue an e-mail update as a result of enquiries on what is happening, made via the open-source dev e-mail list. In the e-mail, Soft states:

There is a ridiculously persistent party who uses numerous wikis to promote fake Microsoft support phone numbers. Given the fraud or malware potential, we couldn’t let that keep returning.

There’s a less intrusive long-term solution in the queue, currently blocked by other work.

Hopefully, whatever is blocking the long-term solution will be cleared soon, allowing full edit access to the wiki to be restored.

In the meantime, those requiring urgent access to wiki pages to maintain data  / information, are asked to create a support ticket (I’d suggest include which pages need to be accessed and why, rather than just raising a generic request to gain access). Third-party viewer developers who require wiki edit rights can also contact Oz Linden to request access to their wiki pages.  If you only require access to update you profile or add a discussion point to a page, etc., it might be advisable to wait until after the wiki has been re-opened to all, rather than filing a support ticket.

This isn’t the first time the wiki had to be placed in lock-down. In October 2014, a lock-down was initiated while the wiki underwent an extensive security update, resulted in limited edit access for users through until January 22nd, 2015. Hopefully, this current period of lock-down, which started in early August, will not be for as long.

2016 viewer release summaries: week 33

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending Sunday, August 21st

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: 4.0.7.318301 (dated dated August 8), promoted August 11 – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer download page, release notes
  • Release channel cohorts (See my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Visual Outfit Browser viewer updated to version 4.0.8.318686, on August 17 – ability to preview images of outfits in the Appearance floater (download and release notes)
    • VLC Media Plugin Viewer RC updated to version 4.1.1.318504 on August 15 – replaces the QuickTime media plugin for the Windows version of the viewer with one based on LibVLC (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V4-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.18.20 and the Experimental branch updated to version 1.26.19.22, both on August 20th (release notes)

Mobile / Other Clients

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2016 SL project updates 33 (2): server, viewer, Bento update 23

Posted on by Inara Pey

West of the Rain; Inara Pey, August 2016, on Flickr West Of The Rain – blog post

My apologies for the latest of this update. Working on my recent Sansar Summary pushed this update completely out of my mind!

Server Deployments – Recap

There were no deployments to the Main (SLS) channel or the RC channels this week. It is currently “doubtful” there will be an RC deployment next week – although this may change. A contributing reason for the slowdown is that the Lab is currently focused on server-side operating system upgrades.

SL Viewer

The Visual Outfits Browser RC viewer updated on August 17th. Version 4.0.8.318686 sees the viewer merged to the current release viewer code, and the following additional updates:

  • A fix for Outfit Gallery failing to use local files Select Photo Picker
  • A fix for Snapshot preview being corrupted
  • A fix for a crash in the viewer when using the snapshot preview.

All other official viewers remain as per my Current Viewer Release List.

Project Bento

The following notes were taken from the weekly Bento User Group meeting, held on Thursday, August 18th at 13:00 SLT at the the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle. For details on the meeting agenda, please refer to the Bento User Group wiki page. No audio is supplied, as the meeting was fairly short and sharp, without a major amount of discussion.

SLM Files

SLM files are produced alongside of the Mesh .DAE files. They can be a problem as by default, the official viewer is set to check for any existing SLM file when uploading a mesh model, and this can lead to confusion when trying to fix issues by overwriting the original .DAE, only to have the viewer reference the existing SLM file, either causing problems on upload or giving the impression the issues in the model haven’t actually been fixed.

Firestorm has always avoided this by having the debug setting MeshImportUseSLM set to FALSE by default, and the suggestion going forward is for the official viewer to do them same.

Mesh Distortions with Altitude

The issue of facial distortions with altitude when software skinning is used continues to prove difficult to resolve. The general recommendation is to use hardware skinning (my Bento Update #19). The root cause of the problem appears to be a floating point error which can affect any mesh. The Lab is still looking at it, but given there is a workaround by using hardware skinning, the problem is not seen as a major blocker.

The issue of facial distortions at altitude when using software skinning in Bento has yet to be fully resolved (images courtesy of Cathy Foil)
The issue of facial distortions at altitude when using software skinning in Bento has yet to be fully resolved (images courtesy of Cathy Foil)

Proposals for NOT Having Mesh Influenced by Sliders

There have been requests to not have the avatar bones influenced by the shape sliders (i.e. by a creator optionally locking both the scale and position of a joint). The Lab is looking at this, but if any work is done, it will not be prior to the Bento viewer reaching release candidate status. Whether anything may be done was the RC version of the viewer progresses towards release (the work is not seen as a huge amount of effort), or whether it is a piece of “post-Bento” work is still to be decided.

Avatar Test Files

Cathy foil has now updated the Maya male and female avatar models on the Bento Test wiki page so they match the latest Bento skeleton updates (as of August 17th, 2016). Then both utilise the same (female) skeleton, the male version have a male mesh / morphs applied. Cathy has used the Avatar Bento angel weights and apply them to the models, so the faces and fingers are all fully rigged, although both are sans wings and tails.

Cathy will be making a set of .FBX files of the models, which will also be placed on the Bento Test page when available, for those who are not using tools such as 3D Studio Max for their work.

Elizabeth Jarvinen (polysail) is also working on a tool for 3D Studio. Max which is intended to provide a second means of producing animations / meshes etc that isn’t reliant upon Blender / Avastar. However, this requires a considerable amount of work, not least in providing slider support, and Elizabeth has received offers of assistance from Vir and Cathy, who will also see about having the AvaStar team lend assistance.

Rigs Modifying Collision Volumes

As noted in my Bento update #22, recent reports of people encountering problems with Bento rigs which modify collision volumes (see here for details). As noted in that  update, this was not something that the Lab planned on supporting, particularly as it did not come up during the initial Bento development meetings with creators.

However, and as further indicated in my update #22 (with thanks to Whirly Fizzle), an update will be included in the next project viewer release for Bento which should hopefully fix the issues being encountered.

Release Progress

There has been a lot of questioning over the Bento release time frames recently, both within the Bento user group meetings and elsewhere (e.g. at TPVD meetings). Currently the plan is to get a further project viewer released in the near-term (possibly before the end of August), and then progress to release candidate status from there.

However, time frames beyond that become nebulous, because the Bento viewer, as a release candidate, will be vying for release alongside other RC viewers, some of which may have a higher priority, some of which may need to be issued in sequence, or have other pressures, and so predicting a date when Bento will be the de facto release viewer is difficult to predict.

This is further exacerbated by the fact the recent changes and requirements have required extensive updates to  AvaStar, much of which is still work-in-progress (see my Bento updates #22 and #21 for more). Once completed, this work will require further testing in order to confirm any problems within AvaStar are resolved, and any remaining issues (if uncovered) are viewer related, rather than external tools related. Then over and above this, there is the list of existing Bento issues which needs to be worked through, depending on the severity of the problems reported.

That said, it would appear the overall hope is to get Bento formally released before the end of 2016.