On Tuesday, February 3rd, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package deployed to the three RC channels in week #5, which includes:
a fix for BUG-8247 “[Experience Tools] Issue with llRequestExperiencePermissions() triggering experience_permissions_denied() and XP_ERROR_NOT_PERMITTED_LAND after prior 5 minute no response period.”
Internal improvements for experience tools key-value functions.
There were no deployments to the RC channels for the week.
Following the Main channel deployment on Tuesday, a number of regions reported issues with objects failing to load and render, textures remaining grey, mesh outfits failing to rez / render teleport issues, etc., all of which appeared to be consistent with region capabilities failing on re-start, and thus requiring the affected regions to be manually restarted. As reported by Whirly Fizzle in the forum thread linked-to above, this has been an intermittent problem which has been occurring for over a year.
SL Viewer – Mesh Importer Update
On Wednesday, February 4th saw the release of the Importer project viewer, version 3.7.25.298441. This viewer brings various improvements to the mesh uploader / importer, which are given in the release notes as:
In this viewer we’ve modified the importer to (optionally) improve debug output, perform name-based LOD association, and handle models with many materials.
Using these new features, models with more than 8 unique faces can be imported. Gone are the days of importing complicated meshes in pieces with “some assembly required”. At import, these models are automatically split into pieces so that each satisfy the current face limits for a volume.
The same limitations on LODs and materials remain in place (e.g. your low LOD mesh materials must be a subset of the full LOD materials).
LODs and Physics reps can now be explicitly associated with a given mesh in the full LOD model using name-based matching.
By properly naming the meshes in your lower LOD meshes and physics reps, you can avoid issues with ordering of the meshes within your DCC tool and other material mismatching errors.
An ImporterDebug option has been added to the settings.xml file which, if enabled, causes more information to be output during import than you can shake a stick at. The extra output can be very helpful for diagnosing authoring errors (e.g. violating the material subset constraints mentioned above) and pinpoint what needs to be fixed in the source model for successful import.
Note that project news is a little light this week due to on-going SL planning meetings taking place at the Lab.
SL Go user? Now you can get help and personal assistance at the SL Go Island – and it’s a good place for escaping the worlds, as well!
Important note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.
On Wednesday, February 4th, Dennis Harper, OnLive’s Product Manager for SL Go kindly invited me to preview the new SL Go island in Second Life, which is designed to offer users of the the SL Go service a in-world place they can visit should they need assistance.
SL Go Island officially opens its doors for business at 10:00 SLT on Thursday, February 5th, 2015, and is modelled along similar lines to the Firestorm Support Island, which originally opened in August 2012 (see my review on it).
The idea for such a in-world venue was originally suggested during the special Firestorm Q&A meeting, alongside the idea for the SL Go support group, which launched in January 2015.
SL Go Island: the landing point offers information and clickable signs for obtaining assistance – and more, with the SL Go greeter bot standing alongside
SL Go island offers a rural environment, with the landing area acting as the support hub. Here information boards and signage provides initial assistance.
A main board offers basic information, while thee signs hanging from it will take visitors to the OnLive Support web page, the support forum, and – for those who have yet to try it, a link to the SL Go sign-up page. A further sign allows SL Go users who have not already done so to join the in-world SL Go support group.
However, it doesn’t end there. On the table under the main noticeboard sit s small silver bell. If a member of the SL Go support team isn’t already on the island (they all tend to spend a fair amount of time there) or near the landing point, ring it, and personal help should be forthcoming.
SL Go Island: support staff can frequently be found at the beach bar ….
The rest of the island, all of which has been designed by OnLive web engineer and Second life resident Jersey Silent, is given over to walks among the trees and down to the beach. Here sits a bar (providing support is thirty work!), and if folk aren’t around the landing point, they can generally be found here. There are also a number of spots scattered around the island, make it a welcoming place for those who wish to sit and relax.
SL Go Product Manager, Dennis Harper, in-world
“I really like it here,” Dennis said to me as he and Jersey showed me around. “If you want to find me, I’m usually at the beach bar, it’s a great place to relax, although there’s a cool swamp on the other side, which is also nice to visit after a day at the beach. But we’ve tried not to make it anything fancy – just a place to hang out.”
“But don’t forget, for the fastest and most timely support for SL Go, visit us on SL Go Island!” He added.
Wandering the island with Dennis and Jersey, I couldn’t help but notice the care take to keep things open, relaxed, and as welcoming as possible. Jersey’s Landscape blends content from a number of designers who are bound to be familiar to many visitors, and she’s taken a huge amount of care to provide open spaces and quiet little spots for visitors to enjoy.
So – if you’re an SL Go user and need help, or if your curious about SL Go, or if you just want somewhere new to wander and spend time in, SL Go island may offer the perfect solution!
Jessica Lyon was back on Tuesday, February 3rd with another Firestorm Tool Tip Tuesday video, and this one focuses on the use of the Auto-Replace function, and how it might well be more useful than people might appreciate.
As explained in the video, Auto-Replace can be found under Preferences > Chat > Text Input in Firestorm, and generally under chat in other viewer supporting the same Auto-Replace functionality. It is shipped with two lists: Spelling Corrections, which offers corrections for common spelling errors, and Abbreviations (which is the list I actually use and have customised myself).
The Auto-Replace function in Firestorm and the supplied lists
The Abbreviations list converts commonly used abbreviations such as bbl, afk, gtg, etc., into their long-hand equivalents (be back later, away from keyboard, got to go, etc.), just by typing-in the abbreviation followed by a space.
So far so good, nothing especially exciting there. But did you know, using Auto-Replace you can:
Create a custom greeting you can use when working as a greeter or host, or simply on meeting people?
Combine abbreviation entries to create statements?
Use abbreviations to display SLurls and URLs in chat without having to type them long-hand?
Export / import your lists so you can share them with friends or easily copy them between the computers you use with SL?
If you didn’t – then this video is certainly for you, as Jessica reveals all!
Note that you can use Auto-Replace like this in any viewer that supports the same Auto-Replace functionality as found in Firestorm, including the official SL viewer.
Important note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.
OnLive, the company providing the SL Go service, announced on Tuesday, February 3rd, that they had implemented a fix for the issue that prevented users of their SLV version of the viewer (the version based on the Lab’s code) teleporting anywhere when using SL Go.
The news the the fix had been made broke on the SL Go support group when Dennis Harper, OnLive’s SL Go Product Manager announced, “I’d like to announce: THE SLV TELEPORT ISSUE IS FIXED AND LIVE ON PRODUCTION!”
The problem initially started around week 3, with a handful of users initially reporting problems in teleporting, but only when using SLV – the version of Firestorm running on SL Go was unaffected. However, this gradually spread until anyone using SLV could not teleport.
By Friday, January 30th, the Lab had traced the issue down to something going wrong within the handshaking between the two simulators involved in a teleport attempt, although at that stage, what was initially triggering the problem had yet to be determined.
Further investigation revealed that a recent server-side update involving a cleaning-up of the code related to how avatars are handled during region crossings (see my week 3/1 SL project update) has triggered the issue. Essentially, the update removed the ability to have a single quote (“‘”) in the viewer’s channel name. Unfortunately, the channel used with SLV had been called “‘Onlive”, and the presence of the quote lead to teleports failing.
Once the problem had been identified, OnLive were able to make a small change to the SLV viewer via a command line change, and after some extended testing, were able to deploy that change to the production SL Go service.
As a result, any users employing the SLV viewer on SL Go (whether via computer, iPad or Android tablet) should find teleports are once again working as soon as the log-in to the service; there is no requirement to re-download the SL Go client or anything.
I’ll have more news from OnLive ans SL Go coming later in the week.
Updates for the week ending: Sunday February 1st, 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.
The following notes are taken from the Server Beta User Group (SBUG) meeting held on Thursday, January 28th, 2015, and the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, January 30th. A video of the latter is included at the end of the article (my thanks as always to North for recording it and providing it for embedding), and any time stamps contained within the following text refer to both it and the TPV Developer meeting.
Server Deployments Week 5 – Recap
On Tuesday, January 27th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to Magnum and LeTigre
On Wednesday, January 27th, the RC channels should all receive a new server maintenance package comprising an Experience Keys / Tools related fix, and internal Experience Keys / Tools improvements.
It was stated during the TPV Developer meeting that this update saw the support for the Avatar hover Height (AHH) capability extend to all three RC channels, although no mention of it was made in the release notes.
SL Viewer
Tool Chain Project viewer
The Lab issued a new Tools Update project viewer, version 3.7.25.298587, on Wednesday January 28th. This viewer has been built using the new viewer tool chain for Windows and Mac builds (which includes the upgrade to Visual Studio 2013 for Windows and, Xcode (5 or 6) for Mac, and the use of the autobuild 1.0 process).
Wiki notes for using the new build tools are in the process of being written / enhanced for self-compilers – please note these are a work in progress. Notes on the new autobuild process can also be found on the wiki.
[06:42] It is anticipated that this viewer will progress through to release candidate status, quite probably in week #6 (week commencing Monday, February 2nd).
Maintenance RC Viewer Issues
Users receiving the Maintentance RC, version 3.7.25.298030, released on Tuesday, January 27th, have reported a series of irritating bugs with the viewer:
BUG-8324 (and duplicate BUG-8333) reports the appearance of the term “nolink>” in numerous places within the viewer – such as toasts and notifications – this issue has been imported by the Lab and a fix is apparently in development
BUG-8331 – some links containing the text secondlife or lindenlab incorrectly open a Place Profile in the Places panel when clicked
BUG-8328 – very jagged pictures created by the snapshot floater
BUG-1028 – the fix for MAINT-2056 “Lots of CURL GET FAILED spam in logs when browsing World Map – Beta viewer only” appears not to have fixed the problem, but rather replaced it with an equally spammy message.
Issues with this viewer can be tracked on the JIRA using this filter.
Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM)
[00:12] Brooke Linden was at the TPV Developer meeting to provide an update on the state of play with the Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM) work, which has been undergoing some beta testing with the project viewer on Aditi.
As a result of this testing, the Lab has been re-visiting the project viewer and incorporating feedback and observations for improvements into it, and are “really close” to having an updated version of the viewer available. When the appears depends on whether the Lab opt to release the updated viewer for limited beta testing on Aditi, or to wait until they’re ready to go with beta testing on the main grid, which is also not too far over the horizon.
The current plan is for more widespread beta testing to commence some time after February 14th (so as not to clash with any Valentines Day sales and promotions merchants may be running between now and Feb 14th), then run the beta for around a month, possibly longer, depending on feedback / issues. After this, VMM support will be deployed as a production tool, and things will move to a migration period which will also last around a month.
All this is still TBC, but a schedule will be posted (presumably via the Commerce / Merchant’s forum) once the Lab has worked through dates and requirements.
Experience Keys / Tools
[03:50] The Experience Keys / Tools project is currently awaiting some final server-side updates to be fully deployed (see the server release notes above). It is not anticipated that the Experience Tools viewer which is currently in the viewer release channel (version 3.8.0.298001) will require any further significant updates, so its promotion to the de facto release viewer is pending the server-side updates.
In the meantime, the Lab has already commenced work on a set of enhancement to the Experience Keys / Tools which will further extend capabilities once they are ready to be deployed.
Avatar Hover Height Project
As noted above, server-side support for the Avatar Hover Height project (see my overview for details) is now on all three RC channels, and the plan is to deploy the server code to the Main channel in week #6 (week commencing Monday, February 2nd). Because of this, the current project viewer (currently version 3.7.25.298129) is liable to be superseded by a release candidate viewer following the server-side deployments for that week.
Now in a project viewer (and soon to be a release candidate: Avatar Hover Height provides a means of adjusting your avatar’s graphical height above the ground / floor / objects, as seen by yourself and others
[18:00] A couple of small issues have been noted with AHH, and which only occur is very specific instances. One is that if an adjustment leaves your avatar floating more than around 1/2 a metre above the ground, an attempt to sit down can result in your avatar going up. In the other, standing on a prim and lowering your hover height into the prim can result in your avatar’s legs buckling as you slide into the prim. On terrain, where there can be limited physical penetration, this can be expected behaviour; but when occurring on a prim, it is suspected that the system may not be accurately assessing your avatar’s position.
[19:38] There have been one or two points of concern raised about the similarity in the name of this function – Avatar Hover Height – causing people to confuse it with the existing avatar hover slider (which will not be retired or removed from the viewer once AHH is fully deployed, as the two capabilities provide different use case solutions). The concerns are being fed back internally at the Lab, and if a name change is thought to be required, it may be slipped into the upcoming RC rebuild for the viewer, or the Lab may opt to wait and see if any confusion does arise.
Umbral Photography, Hydra Isles (Flickr) – blog post
Important note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read 
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 