Category: SL Tech

Alchemy 3.8.0: Experience this, and colour that

Posted on by Inara Pey

Alchemy-logoUpdate: Drake Arconis has pointed-out an inaccuracy in the original version of this review in relation top the Avatar Hover Height slider and spinner. I’ve now corrected the article to reflect his feedback.

Alchemy released their latest beta viewer on Tuesday, June 16th. Version 3.8.0.35816 is described as “another step in the road to Alchemy’s first major release and includes hundreds of new fixes and improvements over it’s predecessors.”

Quite what all the fixes and improvements are is a little hard to tell without pouring over this and the last release, as the release notes are light on details – assuming the “hundreds” in the description for the release is not hyperbole. Ergo, this review is more a set of highlights for the release.

What we do know is that this beta brings Alchemy right up to date with the Lab’s most recent 3.7.30 code base, and includes the Experience Tools updates (which, as they are at RC status in the official viewer, and there are no known issues with them, are ripe for incorporation in RPVs).

Installation

The viewer comes in Windows 32/64-bit, a Mac universal 32/64 bit and Linux 64-bit flavours via the download page, However, some Windows users may see the following message when trying to run the viewer:

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b)

As per the Alchemy release notes, should this happen, please download and install one of the following two files from Microsoft:

(The above links will take you to the respective download pages at Microsoft, where you can review the file details prior to downloading.)

Experiences

Alchemy 3.8.0 supports the Lab’s new Experience Keys / Tools. This means that when you visit a location using the Experience Keys capabilities, you will receive complete information on the Experience and the permissions it requires you to give in order to join it, as opposed to the brief summary which is displayed by viewers that do not currently have the Experience Keys code included in them.

In addition, it also means you can review the details of the experiences you have joined, and those to which you may have contributed, through the Experience floaters, accessed via Me > Experiences.

Alchemy now includes support for Experience Keys, allowing users to see full details of an experience and the permissions it is requesting (l), use the persmisions floater to search for experiences and review the details of those they've joineed / to which they have contributed or those they own (c) and review the details of individual Experiences they've joined (r)
Alchemy now includes support for Experience Keys, allowing users to see full details of an experience and the permissions it is requesting (l), use the permissions floater to search for experiences and review the details of those they’ve joined / to which they have contributed or those they own (c) and review the details of individual Experiences they’ve joined (r)

For details on Second Life experiences, please read my early review of the official experiences release candidate viewer (note a more updated review of Experience Keys will be produced when the capability has been formally rolled-out).

Avatar Hover Height

Hover
The Avatar Hover Height slider / spinner can be found in Alchemy’s Quick Preferences

Alchemy 3.8.0 includes the on-the-fly Avatar Hover Height capability from the Lab. However, rather than being a slider / spinner control accessed from the avatar right-click context menu, it has been implemented as a chat command: “/hover”, followed by the amount by which you wish to adjust your avatar’s apparent height. For example, “/hover 0.1” will raise your avatar’s apparent height by 0.1 metres, and “/hover -0.1” will decrease you avatar’s apparent height by the same amount.

Update: As noted in the comment from Drake Arconis, the slider for Avatar Hover Height can be found on the Alchemy Quick Preferences (use the cog at the top right of the screen to display – see above right right or the floater itself).

Continue reading “Alchemy 3.8.0: Experience this, and colour that” →

Second Life project updates week 25/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Flux Sur Mer; Inara Pey, June 2015, on Flickr Flux Sur Mer (Flickr) – blog post

Server Deployments Week 25

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

  • On Tuesday, June 16th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC channels, comprising further Internal server logging changes.
  • There will be no deployment or restart to the three RC channels on Wednesday, June 17th.

SL Viewer

On Friday, June 12th, the Lab issued a new viewer directly to release status. Version 3.7.29.302599 offers no functional changes to the the previous release viewer, but does include two DLL files – MSVCP100.DLL and MSVCR100.DLL which were missing from the Windows version of the viewer, and as a result causing problems for some users by their absence.

As a result of this release, the Attachment fixes RC viewer (Project Big Bird) RC viewer updated to version 3.7.31.302640 on Tuesday, June 16th, and the Experience Tools viewer updated to version 3.8.0.302622.

An “obsolete platform viewer” has also been issued by the Lab. Version 3.7.28.300847 of the viewer is a “static” release of the viewer which is aimed at providing users on Windows XP or versions of OS X below 10.7 to be able to continue to log-in to SL following the upgrade of the tools used to build the viewer. As I reported at the time, the key points to note about this viewer are:

  • It will not receive new features or bug fixes
  • It will not be promoted to release status
  • It does not change the Lab’s support policy on Windows XP or versions of OS X below 10.7, and is purely – as noted – an interim offering to help people
  • It will be provided for as long as is reasonable – but not indefinitely.

 Other Items

 Experience Keys  / Tools

As noted above, the Experience Tools RC viewer has been updated to match the current release version as the Lab continue to work on the back-end services. One issue that has been encountered  – albeit it in a single case so far – is that access to the KVP store used to hold information on the experience can be delayed in very permissive areas where there is a lot of natural in-world rezzing going on (e.g. public sandboxes) – see BUG-9027. This is because access to the store uses the same resources as used for rezzing objects.

The concern with the problem is that it could have an impact of grid wide experiences. However support for running experiences on a grid-wide basis is, in the Lab’s eyes, “still some time in the more distant future”, as they are focused on the region / parcel level and ensuring the capability works within these extremes first. As such, this issue is unlikely to prevent the initial deployment of the Experience Tools capability, although the Lab will look into this particular matter at a latter date.

Combat and Damage

During the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, June 16th, the subject of damage, combat and protection within regions controls. Commenting on the matter Simon Linden said, “I’m beginning to think more and more we need regions set to different modes … something safe for general use, then raise the limits for combat (and the like) where you are freer to hurt yourself.  It’s just an idea at this point, but the one-setting-for-everything seems to always make someone unhappy.”

The problem here is that the existing Linden Damage system is seen as being somewhat inflexible, hence the development of various combat systems within SL. However, that there are so many systems now available, makes the Lab hesitant to change things, as Simon went on to explain:

We’ve talked before about working on the damage feature but I think that’s a case where everyone has their own usage, and so it would be better to have the features so others can make the damage systems they want. We probably can’t alter the current one. I’m sure somewhere somebody is using it and we can’t break their content. We could add to it, if it’s backwards compatible, but like I said, I think it would be better to hear what the CS and other system builders want to make their system nicer.

As Simon states, this doesn’t mean the Lab are about to make changes, or consider making changes where combat systems and damage are concerned; just that they are aware of the limitations within the current land settings.

That said, a recent change within the LL viewer has been noticed. Under it, damage cannot be set it the parcel level only; also, the viewer does not display the health meter on damage enabled parcels, but people can be “killed” and teleported home.  While Oz acknowledged this may be due to the Lab not fully following through on a set of changes to the viewer code, Simon also pointed out that the two-state on / off capabilities between regions and parcels has never really been fit for purpose:

Basically if you have any larger or high level setting, as well as a smaller scale (like regions vs parcels)  the higher one can’t just be “on” or “off”. It needs to be “on with override smaller settings” , “on without override”, “off override smaller settings” , “off without override” … It just doesn’t work with simple on/off settings.   You need more info about the intent on how it relates to the smaller areas

However, he again warned against anything being done on this in the near future, commenting, “if we want to fix this in SL, it means viewer UI changes, new data being passed back and forth to the simulator (which can be a hassle depending on the messages), new values in the database (which is another issue) and of course simulator changes.” In other words, were anything to be done, it would be a large-scale project, something which the Lab has yet to even consider taking on.

2015 viewer release summaries: week 24

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending: Sunday, June 14th, 2015

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: 3.7.30.302599, June 12 – hotfix update with MSVCP100.DLL and MSVCR100.DLL files missing form recent Windows releases of the 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):
    • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8 – 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 and will not be promoted to release status (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-style

  • Black Dragon updated to version 2.4.3.1 on June 14th – core updates: bug fixes for microphone issue and potential crash on start issue (release notes)
  • UKanDo updated to 3.7.29.34273 Beta on June 10th – core updates: latest changes to VMM (release notes)

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.12.46, and the Experimental branch to version 1.26.13.15, both on June 13th (release notes).

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Lab offer “obsolete platforms viewer” for unsupported OS

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeThe recent switch by Linden Lab to an updated set of tools for building the viewer (which are also being adopted by active TPVs) has meant that as viewers built using these new tools will no longer install on either Windows XP or versions of OS X below 10.7.

Given that neither Windows XP or version of OS X below 10.7 are regarded as supported products by either Microsoft or Apple, the most preferable thing for users on them to do is to upgrade. However, in some cases, this might be easier said than done. To help users who might, for whatever reason, be unable to upgrade to a later version of their OS in the short term, the Lab has issued an “obsolete platform viewer” into the viewer release channel, which will be provided for as long as is reasonable – but not indefinitely.

Version 3.7.28.300847 of the viewer (dated May 8th although it only appeared in the release channel this past week), is a “static” viewer, meaning:

  • It will not receive new features or bug fixes
  • It will not be promoted to release status
  • It does not change the Lab’s support policy on Windows XP or versions of OS X below 10.7, and is purely – as noted – an interim offering to help people.

The viewer is based on the April 2015 maintenance viewer release (version 3.7.27.300636), and so includes things like the unified snapshot floater.

Given it is offered only for as long as is reasonable, it should not be relied upon for long-term use, but rather as a means for those who prefer the official viewer and who use Windows XP and older versions of OS X to continue to access SL until such time as they are in a position to update their systems (or the viewer has to be withdrawn from use).

As per all the alternate viewers offered by the Lab, the viewer is listed on the Alternate Viewers page of the SL wiki, or you can use the direct link given above to view the official release notes and download options.

SL project updates week 24/1: server; VMM; group list changes

Posted on by Inara Pey

Goatswood; Inara Pey, June 2015, on Flickr Goatswood (Flickr) – blog post – visit soon, closes June 19th, 2015

Server Deployments Week 24

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

  • On Tuesday, June 9th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC channels, comprising:
    • Change logic on accessing group member lists for large groups – please see more below
    • Internal server logging changes
  • On Wednesday, June 10th, the three RC channels should all receive a new server maintenance package comprising further Internal server logging changes.

Group Member List Changes

The “Change logic on accessing group member lists for large groups” refers to how the members list for groups with more than 5,000 members are now handled. A full explanation of the change and the reasons behind it can be found in my blog post on the matter. however, in short:

  • Groups with 5,000 or more members will no longer display the list of members unless:
    • You are assigned the Owner or Officer role within the group
    • You are assigned an ability within the group which requires the members list to be displayed (e.g. you are able to assign members to assigners roles, or are able to eject / ban people from the group, etc.)
  • Instead, and until corresponding changes are made to the viewer, all you will see on opening the members list as a message stating “Retrieving member list (0 / XXXXX)” – where XXXXX is the total number in the group,

The has already caused concern over how the change may be perceived as a functional breakage – see BUG-9393. In addition, two further issues resulting from the change have been reported:

  • BUG-9404: “Group members of large groups in a role which has “Invite people to this group” ability are not able to send group invites” (initially filed against the RC regions when the change was deployed in week #23, and now applicable to the grid as a whole)
  • BUG-9428: “Users using older viewers are unable to leave groups with >5k members on regions running 15.05.28.302161”

Scripting Memory Limits

A request was made for the Lab to consider allowing llSetMemoryLimit to request up to 128kb or 256kb of memory (whichever is more feasible), with a performance penalty for scripts using less than 50% of the memory requested – see BUG-9382.

The arguments for such an increase are not new; many coders run into problems with utilising memory for both code storage and code operation, resulting in having to write inefficient scripts and additional operations to communicate between scripts. A similar request has also been put forward (see BUG-8761), but which limits the additional memory allocation purely to Experiences on the ground that offering increased memory to all could lead to performance and other issues.

Commenting on the request at the simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, June 9th, Simon Linden said:

I don’t think we’d want to limit performance … that seems like it would get into odd rules and conditions. Plus that’s likely to be in a place where we don’t want to add more code. FWIW, when you have lots and lots of scripts in a region, the time spent rotating through all the scripts becomes significant, so your script time isn’t just running scripts.

Oz Linden then added:

One of our frequent themes this year has been to look at various limits and consider making them better … perhaps we can look at the memory limit at some point too. One of the things I hope will happen as Experiences are adopted is that some of the code that’s being used to manage saving state and communicating can be replaced by simpler code to use the key/value store.

This drew agreement from Simon, who then continued:

I suspect larger script size has been limited by not having script memory limits. But at a smaller scale, it’s easy to add more scripts, so perhaps doubling or a bit more won’t really make it any easier to hog memory.

This doesn’t automatically mean that script limits will change in the future; as Simon also pointed out, script memory is the largest part of each avatar load, and can have an impact on things like physical region crossings and teleporting, which would likely have to be be considered. However, script memory is likely to get added to “The List” of things the Lab is looking at.

Viewer-Managed Marketplace

Some confusion has been evidenced over the use of the term “archived” in recent communications from the Commerce Team regarding what will happen during the auto migration process, and particularly with reference to items that have not seen sales in over a year.

  • The first point to remember is that any “archiving” will only occur for those merchants who have more than 5,000 items on the Marketplace when the auto-migration process reaches them. As noted in my last VMM update, all such affected merchants have already been notified
  • From information made available by those merchants so affected, it would appear that “archived” means “items will be returned to the merchant’s Received Items folder”. Firstly, any items the Merchant has stored on the Marketplace without any associated listing will be returned. If this fails to reduce their total count to below 5,000, then those items which have not seen sales for over a year will be unlisted and the items again returned to the merchant’s Received items folder.  From this it would seem that there will not be any actual “archiving” of listing information or items on the part of the Lab.

 

2015 viewer release summaries: week 23

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending: Sunday, June 7th, 2015

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: 3.7.29.301305 – no change
  • Release channel cohorts (See my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Attachment fixes RC viewer (Project Big Bird) updated to version 3.7.30.302190 on June 3rd – core updates: a number of fixes for various attachment issues (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-style

  • Black Dragon updated to version 2.4.3 on June 2nd – core updates: inclusion of the Lab’s new avatar layer limits code, Windows 10 support, conversion to the new viewer build tool chain (release notes).

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.12.45, and the Experimental branch to version 1.26.13.14, both on June 6th (release notes).

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links