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: 3.8.6.305981, October 26 – formerly the Notifications RC viewer download page, release notes
Restrained Love Viewer updated to version 2.9.15 on October 27th – core update: parity with the Lab’s 3.8.5 code base; RLV updates and fixes – release notes
UKanDo updated to version 3.8.6.28161 on October 27th – core updates: parity with the Lab’s 3.8.5 code base and RLV 2.9.14 – release notes
The Firestorm Gateway: partnering with MadPea Games
I recently covered the soon-to-be-launched Lab trail progamme which will see a new set of community gateways active within Second life and geared towards helping incoming new users get to grips with the platform more positively, and help them to start to engage in activities, thus hopefully improving the chances that they’ll “stick”.
The Firestorm team are one of the groups invited by the Lab to be a part of this new trial programme, and as I reported earlier in October, they will be launching their Gateway on Saturday, October 31st with a special party followed by a month-long Spooky Nights hunt which will take place across the five core regions of the Firestorm Gateway.
What I couldn’t reveal in that article, but am able to now, is that MadPea Games have agreed to partner with Firestorm to help get new users engaged in Second life.
A number of MadPea games will be available in the Firestorm Gateway regions
In a press release on October 28th, MadPea confirm they are providing Firestorm with a number of their vintage games which income new users will be invited to play free-of-charge, in order to present them with even more opportunities to learn about and engage in Second life.
Commenting on the partnership, Kiana Writer, CEO and Queen Pea of MadPea Games says, “We are all very excited about the opportunity of working with Jessica and her team and waving the flag for what is achievable for user-created content on the grid. There’s a huge learning curve when you enter SL for the first time and we believe Firestorm, along with their partners, are best placed to help guide new users through that arc.”
Jessica Lyon, speaking for the Firestorm team, said: “We are super excited to announce that we’ve formed a mutually beneficial partnership with MadPea Productions! Essentially MadPea will install some of their older games as free play in our environments, and in exchange new residents will learn about MadPea Games to become potential new customers. MadPea will also then be able to send their new users to our installations to learn how to play MadPea games.”
The Firestorm Halloween Party stage area
The Firestorm Halloween Party will kick-off at 13:00 SLT with a series of live performances running through until 16:00, when things will switch over the DJs, and the Spooky Nights Halloween Hunt will launch.
Topping the bill for the party are:
13:00 SLT – Mankind Tracer
14:00 SLT – Nance Brody
15:00 SLT – The Changhigh Trinity Sisters Fireshow
14:00 SLT onwards – DJ Quad
Over 150 well-known Second Life merchants have contributed to the hunt, and you can read a list of participating creators on the Firestorm post on the party, and also catch photos of some of the prizes on offer.
Four landing points will be in operation for the party, as follows:
For further information on the party and the Firestorm Gateway, please refer to the Firestorm blog post, or to find out more on the Gateway and the new Gateway programme, please refer to the articles in this blog.
On Tuesday, October 27th, the Main (SLS) channel received the same server maintenance package as deployed to the three RC channel in week #43. This comprised server-side improvements for delivering group notice attachments, together with some simulator crash fixes and code to prevent the uploading of “hacked” mesh content (e.g. mesh items which show a LI of 1 no matter what their actual complexity, or which spoof a creator’s name).
On Wednesday, October 28th, the RC channels should be updated as follows:
BlueSteel and LeTigre will each receive the same new server maintenance package, comprising a simulator crash fix
Magnum will also receive a new server maintenance package, comprising the same simulator crash fix as BlueSteel and LeTigre, together with a fix for a security issue.
SL Viewer
On Monday, October 26th, the Notifications viewer was promoted to the de facto release viewer. Version 3.8.6.305981 comprises the new floater for managing incoming notifications (Group, Transactions, Invitations, System).
The notifications viewer became the de facto release viewer on Monday, October 26th.
Also on Monday, October 26th the HTTP release candidate viewer updated to version 3.8.6.306549, which includes fixes for the following issues:
MAINT-4952 Replace old http client usage with llcorehttp
In my last project update, I reported on asset upload validation checks, and the Lab’s work to move them from the viewer to the simulator (e.g. checks to ensure animations are what they say they are, further checking of mesh uploads to ensure they can be rendered correctly, etc.). the overall aim is to improve reliability in SL. However, one impact of these changes is that once implemented, it will no longer be possible to upload mesh items weighted to attach points.
While the Lab has never regarded this as a supported means of handle mesh attachments, it has nevertheless been widely used by creators in SL. So much so that when Firestorm removed the ability to upload such meshes from their viewer, it caused some consternation (see FIRE-17144).
Once implemented, the change should only affect new uploads of mesh weighted to attachment points, and not affected any items already uploaded and in use within SL. However, a JIRA on the matter has now been raised directly with the Lab on the issue (see BUG-10543), in which creators who use the technique can provide input and use-cases to the Lab on why the approach is used (if you wish to leave a comment, please try to make it constructive and provide examples / reasoned argument, as these work better than rants).
Commenting on the JIRA, Troy Linden has said, “We realise that there will be a lot of residents/assets affected by this and currently looking into it. Sorry for the inconvenience and worries it caused. Please stay tuned.”
Adding to this at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, October 27th, Oz Linden said:
Up until a couple of days ago, we didn’t know anyone was doing it. You’d be amazed how often that happens. So please allow us a little time to digest what we’ve been learning. It’s actually one of the great things about working on SL. While we don’t always love how people apply their creativity, we all just love seeing how creative our users are.
Region Edge Issues
There has been an occasional problem encountered along the edges of simulators in which, when terraforrming and using the Smooth option, a very thin “cliff” can be raised into the air (see BUG-5979), or where when an avatar gets close to a region, it falls through a “gap” (see BUG-242).
Various reasons have been identified for this – as noted in the bug reports – and at the Simulator User Group meeting, Simon Linden said, “I think I found the cause of those odd region edges you sometimes see, where you can’t move in the areas you think you should at the edge of the land. It’s actually not the navmesh [which had been thought to be one of the possible causes] but it is the physics shape of the land.”
Essentially, the simulator, where no longer connected to a region which might once have been next to it, gets confused as to what it thinks should be alongside it. It then attempts to match the physics and land to what it thinks is in the “neighbouring” region, rather than simply resetting itself.
On Sunday, October 25th, the Alchemy team announced the release of version 3.8.5.36974 of their viewer. This is an update which primarily focuses on a lot of under-the-hood updates and fixes which may not always be obvious to users, but which are intended to further improve viewer stability and improvements. However, it also includes some interesting tweaks as well, of which more below.
As always with any viewer release, please refer to the release notes for details on updates, improvements and fixes, as provided by the development team.
The first noticeable change with this release lies with the version number, which leaps from 3.8.2 from the last release to 3.8.5 – the result of Alchemy (alongside UKanDo and Kokua) pacing the Lab’s version numbers for viewer updates. The idea with this is to make it easier to quickly identify which of the recent releases from the Lab has been merged into a release from any TPV with a matching version number. So in this case, Alchemy is merged-up to the Lab’s 3.8.5 code and the October Maintenance release viewer.
The other major visual change to the viewer with this release is a new skinning option. This allows users to choose the look of the viewer UI skin, and to create their own skins, which they can use on their own or share with others, marking alchemy as the latest viewer to offer support for custom skins.
The option can be found under Preferences > Skinning, and as the release notes indicate, the viewer currently includes just two options at present, in order to keep the install size down: Alchemy’s own dark skin (default) and the Lab’s classic V3 viewer skin. However, the release notes appear to suggest that further skins may be added to the viewer – or perhaps made available for download through the alchemy website – in due course. There will also apparently be a guide produced, offering users instructions on making their own skins.
The Skinning option, new with Alchemy 3.8.5 allows the use of custom UI skins with the viewer
Using a skin simply requires selecting it from the list of available options, clicking the Apply button and then confirming your selection by clicking on Yes in the follow-up dialogue box. Restarting the viewer will then apply the selected skin.
Other Updates
The Alchemy 3.8.5 refresh option allows you to refresh textures / meshes worn by yourself or other avatars
As well as the above, the 3.8.5 release of Alchemy includes:
libcurl 7.45.0, boost 1.59, the replacement of C++11 with C++14
ALCH-312 – a Refresh option has been added to assist with loading avatar mesh and textures
ALCH-278 – the Group list (CTRL-SHIFT-G) now includes an “eye” icon to show if the group can be viewed in your Profile (icon shown) or is hidden (icon not shown) – groups are hidden through the Group Profile floater, as usual
ALCH-270 – a message logger and builder for packet and message inspection for debugging and fixing OpenSim. This feature will be locked to developer builds
ALCH-297 – the Fast Timers legend is now scrollable by the scroll wheel
ALCH-290 – the Destination Guide now updates when teleporting between OpenSim grids
Numerous bug fixes and many under-the-hood changes.
There is still no RLV support for Alchemy with this release, which may disappoint some. However, what is there makes for a useful update, and ensures Alchemy stays on par with the Lab’s continuing run of updates and additions to the official viewer.
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.
Quick Graphics RC viewer updated to version 3.8.6.305942 on October 19 – provides the new Avatar Complexity options and the new graphics preset capabilities for setting, saving and restoring graphic settings for use in difference environments / circumstances (download and release notes)
Alchemy updated to version 3.8.5.36974 on October 25th – core updates: parity with LL 3.8.5 code base, new skinning capability, libcurl 7.45.0, boost 1.59 – release notes
V1-style
Cool VL Viewer updated on October 24: stable version 1.26.14.11; experimental version: 1.26.15.10 – release notes.
The following notes are primarily taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, October 23rd, 2015. A video of the meeting is included at the end of this report, and time stamps to it are provided. My thanks as always to North for the video recording and providing it for embedding.
Deploys for Week #43 – Recap
There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, October 20th. On Wednesday, October 21st, all three RCs should receive the same new server maintenance package, which include server-side improvements for delivering group notice attachments, together with some simulator crash fixes and code to prevent the uploading of “hacked” mesh content (e.g. mesh items which show a LI of 1 no matter what their actual complexity, or which spoof a creator’s name).
SL Viewers
[00:00] There have been no further updates to the SL viewer currently at RC or project status since the update to the Quick Graphics RC, which I covered in part 1 of this week’s report.
It still appears as if the next RC that will be promoted to a de facto release status will be the Notifications RC viewer (currently version 3.8.6.305981), although this won’t be confirmed until the start of week #44.
[00:37] As previously noted, the Quick Graphics and HTTP viewers still have some problems which need to be addressed before either one can proceed forward to release status. So except to see further RC updates to both of these in due course.
[00:54] The Chromium Embedded Framework project viewer is getting some good public testing, and is expected to get some “fairly frequent” updates.
[01:05] The Oculus Rift viewer currently isn’t being worked on, as attention is focused on the other viewers in the various pipelines. However, it is hoped work will resume “pretty soon”.
[01:20] There are further bug fixes and updates in progress, including some fixes for some minor regressions in the current release viewer, and these are getting fast-tracked and will be appearing in a further Maintenance RC in due course.
[15:00] It is likely that when the next release viewer promotion takes place (Notifications viewer), the Lab will block a series of much older versions of their viewer, but not the Obsolete Platforms viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, which they still plan to have available until such time as it simply stops working – although it should be remembered this viewer is already regarded as unsupported by the Lab.
Grid Status Page RSS Feed
[01:58] In week #31 I reported that the Lab are working to update the Grid Status page RSS feed from RSS version 1 to RSS version 2. As existing web pages, etc., using the feed may need to be adjusted to accept the updated feed format, a proxy URL (http://beta.status.secondlifegrid.net/feed) has been available for testing purposes. It now appears that the switch will be thrown very soon to make the new version 2 RSS feed the default.
Inventory Updates
[02:15] As per the Lab’s recent SL improvements blog post, the first set of viewer-side updates aimed at improving inventory reliability are being queued up ready to appear in the project viewer. however, these are unlikely to appear before the HTTP updates currently in RC reach a release status. Once the viewer-side changes appear, the Lab will start work on deprecating the outdated inventory messages which are no longer required on the simulator side.
Server-side Upload Checks for Assets
[02:50] As a part of their overall work in trying to improve reliability within second Life, the Lab is looking to add further server-side checks to ensure viewers aren’t attempting to do anything the simulators aren’t equipped to handle, or which may cause unintended issues or outcomes, etc., for users.
This work will see the introduction of further validation checking on various asset types at upload. An example of this might be checks to ensure animations are what they say they are, further checking of mesh uploads to ensure they can be rendered correctly, etc.
[08:00] In particular with mesh, a simulator check is to be introduced to prevent the upload of mesh items weighted to all attachment points. There has been a viewer-side check designed to prevent such mesh items from being uploaded, which will in future be enforced simulator side. Existing content weighted in this way should not be “broken”, appearance-wise; but the simulator check will ensure such meshes cannot be uploaded (see FIRE-17144 for further details).
Attachment Point Validation
[04:20] Alongside the above, the Lab will be looking to introduce simulator-side attachment point validation checks. Right now, it is possible to have the viewer attach items to an avatar using points with are not correctly defined on the avatar skeleton. This can result in other viewers showing the item randomly attached to the avatar (or possibly floating nearby – for those with long memories, think of the Emerald “attachment tail” which multiple attachments were introduced on that viewer without adequate simulator support).
To prevent this, the Lab are looking to enforce the recognised attachment points simulator-side, so that any attachments using an incorrect attach point will be mapped to a defined attachment point, and moved there. This work will be carried out incrementally, and will initially offer the changes to Aditi to allow for testing.
Other Items
Firestorm is now in Feature Freeze in preparation for the next release, which is now undergoing testing. Assuming no major blockers are uncovered, the next release should be available in November. This will be up-to-date with the Lab’s current release viewer (3.8.5.305531 – Maintenance release), and may included some additional items cherry-picked from upstream of that release. However, it is unlikely to have the new notifications updates, HTTP, Quick Graphics, etc.
