Category: SL Tech

Return to Radegast

Posted on by Inara Pey

rade-logo

It’s been over two years since I last looked at Radegast, the lightweight virtual worlds (SL and OpenSim) client for Linux, Windows and Mac. However, given it has just had two short-order updates, it seemed appropriate that I also bring my coverage of it a little more up-to-date.

Given so much has gone on with the client since I last blogged on it, this isn’t so much a review of the recent updates – or any updates – but more of a quick reminder of what Radegast is and what it can do.

For those unfamiliar with Radegast, it is a feature-rich client, offering almost all the functionality of the actual SL viewer, with the core functionality perhaps summarised as:

  • Chat (local, IM, group, friends conference)
  • Inventory management (manipulation, deletion of the items, moving them around, sending to other people by dropping item on their profile)
  • Manipulation of object contents, notecard and script editing
  • Ability to wear/take off clothes and attachments from the inventory
  • Avatar appearance – others using 3D client will see you appear correctly, and will not be able to tell that you’re using a text client
  • Backup of all scripts and notecards from the inventory
  • World map
  • Object finder – list objects nearby, sort them by distance, name, see details
  • A.L.I.C.E AI chat – turn it on in tools menu and have fun with automatic responses to chat/IM generated by a built-in Artificial Intelligence
  • Radar functionality
  • Movement controls
  • Support for activating gestures from the inventory
  • Streaming music
  • Accessibility improvements for visually impaired users, including speech recognition for controlling UI and entering text in chat and text-to-speech for reading out loud incoming messages
  • Experimental voice support for local chat
  • Partial RLV support
  • Group management
  • 3D scene rendering for Windows and Linux
Radegast provides a 3D scene rendering in which you can interact with others and object, move around, teleport, move your camera ...
Radegast provides a 3D scene rendering for Windows and Linux in which you can interact with others and object, move around, teleport, move your camera …

All of this makes it an extremely powerful client, and one which can offer significant advantages over some of the more traditional text-based clients for SL power users who may have a need to access SL from a computer other than their usual system – such as a low-powered laptop while on the move (an option which could also potentially be more cost-effective for such users when compared to SL Go).

Since my last hands-on review of Radegast (version 2.2), there have been a series of updates which have ensured the client has kept pace with developments within SL. These mean, for example, that Radegast supports Marketplace Direct Delivery, Server-side Appearance, interest list updates and support for the recent server-side HTTP protocol improvements. In addition, bugs and issues have continued to be addressed, there have been further improvements to inventory handling, attachment point updates, rendering improvements (including some I encountered very early on and which are now long-since fixed) and a whole lot more.

Radegast takes mesh and sculpt rendering in its stride in the 3D scene view
Radegast takes mesh and sculpt rendering in its stride in the 3D scene view

One area in particular that has been focused upon with Radegast is that of accessibility by the visually impaired and audio gamers. Roxie Marten and Celene Highwater have written a comprehensive Accessibility Guide to help people get started with Second life through Radegast (and which also serves as a very good introduction to the client for anyone who has not used it before), and Latif has done a considerable amount of work on improving the Radegast speech plug-in.

If you’re looking for a means of accessing Second Life from something like a low-end laptop while on the move, and would prefer to be able to see what’s going on in-world (on Windows and Linux) rather than relying on text only, or if you have an old computer you’d like to occasionally use for SL access but which labours under the load of running a full-blown viewer, then there is little doubt that Radegast offers a very capable alternative. And as nice and shiny as SL Go is when on the move, it’s also nice to remember that there are alternatives, particularly if you have to take the old laptop with you …

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Viewer release summaries 2014: week 10

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending: March 9th, 2014

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
  • By its nature, this summary will always be in arrears
  • The Viewer Round-up Page is updated as soon as I’m aware of any releases / changes to viewers & clients, and should be referred to for more up-to-date information
  • The Viewer Round-up Page also 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.

Official LL Viewers

  • Current Release:  no change
  • Release channel cohorts (See my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Maintenance RC updated to version 3.7.3.287491 on March 6th – core updates: assorted MAINT fixes (download and release notes)
    • Voice viewer RC version 3.7.3.287288 released on March 5th – core update: Vivox 4.6.x update for improved voice stability and to address Mac Mavericks issues (download and release notes)
    • Sunshine / AIS v3 RC version 3.7.3.287158 released on March 5th – core updates: removal of old viewer-side baking code, stability and performance improvements (download and release notes)
    • Merchant Outbox RC version 3.7.3.287344 released on March 3rd – core updates: fixes for accurately detecting Merchant status and improves recovery for Merchant Outbox errors (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-style

  • Black Dragon updated to version 2.3.9.6 (incorporating 2.3.9.5) on March 6th – core updates: experimental shadow blurring enhancements, UI updates  (release notes)

V1-style

  • Cool Viewer updated on March 8th to the following versions: Stable: 1.26.10.13; Experimental: 1.26.11.13; Legacy: 1.26.8.50 – core updates: backport of LL’s sunshine / AIS v3 code; backport of potential crash fixes; backport of RLV llRegionSayTo() blocking policy; Implemented a new “ResetVertexBuffersOnLowMem” setting + more  (release notes)

Mobile / Other Clients

  • Radegast updated on March 4th to version 2.14, and was followed on March 8th by version 2.16 which addressed a couple of issues in 2.14 – core updates: catch up with Second Life protocol changes, fixes for issues in the 2.14 release, general fixes and tweaks (release notes for 2.14 and release notes for 2.16)

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

SL projects update 10/2: group ban preview

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments: week 10 – recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

  • On Tuesday March 4th, the Main channel was updated with the infrastructure update deployed the RC channels  in week 9.
    • On Wednesday March 5th, Magnum remained on the same server version as week 9, comprising the infrastructure update and enabled support for AIS v3.  BlueSteel and LeTigre were updated with a new server maintenance project which contains the following bug fixes:
      • Fixed a bug in which the server release notes link in “About Second Life” would sometimes fail to appear
      • Fixed a bug in which certain objects had incorrect status when crossing between regions
      • Fixed a crash mode

A question in the forum thread on the nature of the fix for “bug in which certain objects had incorrect status when crossing between regions” was responded to by Maestro Linden, who explained the fix was limited to what appears to be a single-case issue.

SL Viewer

The Sunshine project viewer moved to RC status on March 5th, with the release of version 3.7.3.287158 (download and release notes), and a new Voice viewer with Vivox updates entered the release channels as an RC viewer, version 3.7.3.287288 (download and release notes), both of which I previewed here.

The Maintenance RC viewer updated on March 6th to version 3.7.3.287491 (download and release notes). This view includes a range of LL-driven MAINT fixes, including crash fixes, updates to address CHUI-related issues, bug fixes and some localisation work – please refer to the release notes for details.

Group Bans

The Group Ban viewer is approaching a point where it will be appearing in a project viewer form, and it was put through its paces in a group test on Aditi (where some regions have the server-side support), during the Sever Beta meeting on Thursday March 6th.

I’ll be providing a complete overview of how this ability, which allows group own and those within the group assigned the group ban power, to eject and ban people – such as spammers – from a group. The capability is specifically aimed at groups with open enrolment, and those banned are unable to re-join it until such time as their ban has been lifted – although there is a maximum limit of 500 on the group ban list. Go beyond this, and attempts at further banning will fail until such time as one or more names are removed from the list.

I’ll be reviewing the capability in full once the viewer reaches a project viewer status, but in the meantime I’m including a couple of screen caps showing the some of the addition to the group floater which allow group bans to be managed but those empowered to do so.

Goup bans: the option to ban people from a group is available from the Members tab (l), and allws individual or multiple bans to be applied. Those banned are listed in Banned Agents tab (r), which include a button to unban names and a button to pre-actively add names to the ban list using the people picker
Group bans test viewer: the option to ban people from a group is available from the Members tab (l), and allows individual or multiple bans to be applied. Those banned are listed in Banned Agents tab (r), which include a button to unban names and a button to pre-actively add names to the ban list using the people picker

There’s still some work to be done on the viewer (there are some missing notifications, for example, and some issues were found in the when banning people, which need to be addressed). Also, the server-side code has yet to be deployed to the Main grid. So it may still be a little while before we see the group ban functionality progressing more towards more widespread use.

Other Items

Inventory Loss Issue

There are reports of some users experiencing inventory loss. It is said that around three JIRA reports have been filed on the matter, which started occurring on Magnum regions after the AIS v3 was enabled. However, whether or not the losses are linked to the code or not is unclear. The issues are being described as corrupt inventories, with all contents gone, and LL’s own inventory repair tools have failed to rectify matters. The situation is currently under investigation by the Lab, and it appears that the issue may be related to the use of “obscure” viewers.

SL Go: of pricing and models and some thoughts from OnLive

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL go logoImportant note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.

Update: On April 3rd, 2014, OnLive announced a revised pricing structure for SL Go.

While only launched on Wednesday March 5th, OnLive’s new SL Go offering for accessing Second Life from Android devices, low-end computers and TVs (additional hardware required) has already received a lot of kick-back due to its initial pricing model.

As it stands, OnLive, in something of a departure from their normal pricing models, are initially presenting the service on a pay-as-you-go offering starting at $3.00 for an hour in SL (with an initial 20-minute free trial period for new sign-ups), through $8.00 for up to three hours access, to $25.00 for up to ten hours. This is being seen as prohibitively expensive for using Second Life.

But is that really the case? Ultimately, the answer to this is both yes and no.

SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet - but the pricing model is upsetting to many
SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet – but the pricing model is upsetting to many

On the one hand, SL Go is being presented as an adjunct – not a replacement – to people’s “normal” means of accessing Second Life; something to be used to get in-world when access via home computer and local viewer isn’t an option. This was very much underlined by Nate Barsetti,  the Senior Manager of Customer Relations at OnLive, and Don Laabs, Linden Lab’s Senior Director of Product with overall responsibility for Second Life, emphasised when both appeared on a Designing Worlds special presentation shown a few hours after the launch of the service.

In such instances, a pay-as-you-go option is actually valid, as it potentially offers a better means of managing costs than something like a subscription payment system, such as OnLive’s new $14.99-a-month CloudLift subscription service, which was also launched on March 5th alongside their new OnLive Go service (of which SL Go is actually a part)..

For example, someone who find they need to access SL for, say, 4 hours a month when they are away from their home PC and viewer would have to pay a maximum of $31.00 a quarter in order to do so. But if SL Go were pitched at the same price as CloudLift, then their cost for the same 3-month period would be $44.97.

Of course, how far the pay-as-you-go payment plan remains attractive is on something of a sliding scale, and a tipping-point can easily be reached. There’s also the fact that were SL to be “rolled into” something like CloudLift, then it becomes more attractive on a subscription service as users gain access to it and other titles provided by CloudLift should they wish to make use of them. But that doesn’t negate the fact that there are genuine use-cases where pay-as-you go is potentially far more cost-effective, and therefore attractive, than a flat subscription rate.

On the other hand, however, SL Go has been presented as a means of accessing the full richness of SL on computers otherwise incapable of doing so. This suggests that SL Go could be used as a more general means of using SL than those on such low-end machines can currently enjoy – and as such, it is where the pay-as-you-go option falls flat on its face, and an alternative means of paying for the service to be used in this way is required, such as a subscription model. And OnLive aren’t actually blind to this fact.

Continue reading “SL Go: of pricing and models and some thoughts from OnLive” →

Sunshine viewer updates reach RC status, new Vivox RC

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Wednesday March 5th, two new release candidate viewers appeared in the viewer release channel, bringing the total number of RC viewers back up to five, with more still sitting in the queue and yet to be seen, together with some project viewers as well.

Sunshine Release Candidate

The Sunshine RC (version 3.7.3.287158 – download and release notes) contains the latest updates related to Server-side Appearance (Project Sunshine, hence the viewer’s name), which comprise two key elements.

The initial AIS v3 updates are aimed at further improving the reliability of SSA baking, including issues where
Part of the Sunshine viewer updates is aimed at improving the reliability and performance of the  baking process & resolving issues, including those where an avatar’s appearance may appear to be stuck

The first of these is a code-clean-up / polish which includes the removal of a lot of the old avatar baking code from the viewer, as this is no longer required for Second Life, and the removal of a number of redundant viewer requests related to avatar baking operations. In addition, the code has performance and stability improvements and bug fixes, all designed to further improve avatar baking, such as dealing with conditions where an avatar’s appearance may appear to be stuck.

The second part of the update – which is related to SSA – is the support for the Advanced Inventory System version 3 (AIS v3). This is a set of changes which are being made both to the viewer and to the simulator software. Currently, the simulator code is only available on the Magnum RC, and will be progressing to the other RCs and the Main channel in due course. However, the viewer code is compatible with both the “new” simulator AIS v3 code and the current AIS v2 code, so this release candidate can be used freely across the grid.

The functions initially being deployed with AIS v3 (server and viewer) are mostly related to improving the reliability of outfit changes, which should also improve performance and see a drop in failure rates once the AIS v3 simulator code is fully enabled across the grid, and the necessary viewer code merged into all viewers.

Longer-term, AIS v3 has broader goals, as Don Linden explained at a TPV Developer meeting back in October 2013 (see the section titled Advanced Inventory Service (AIS v3)). These are (in part) aimed at giving more control to the viewer about what it wants to do with the inventory without necessarily having to go through the simulator when working with one’s own inventory or the Library inventory; the viewer will communicate directly with the inventory service. However, certain capabilities will remain unchanged; avatar-to-avatar inventory transactions will still be handled via the simulator, and it will still not be possible to copy personal items to the library folders, for example.

TPVs will be integrating this code so that their users will benefit from the SSA improvements, although the release of TPV updates with the code may take a little longer where there is s need to avoid the removal of the “old” avatar baking code to maintain support for OpenSim users.

 Voice Viewer Release Candidate

vivoxAs many who routinely use voice will be aware, there have been issues with voice for some considerable time, some of which were exacerbated recently with the release of the Vivox API  4.5, updates used in recent versions of the SLvoice.exe plugin which did not play well with earlier versions of SLvoice.

Whirly Fizzle and Ed Merryman produced a couple of videos demonstrating the issues, one of which is included below.

As I recently reported, Vivox reached out to Linden Lab to help resolve many of these issues, and a starting-point for this work was seen as getting all viewers updated to the latest version of the Vivox API (4.6.x). This release candidate viewer (version 3.7.3.287288 – download and release notes) includes the updated API in the SLvoice plugin, and is aimed at improving voice reliability and performance as well as hoping dealing with some of the significant issues users on Mac Mavericks have been experiencing.

To encourage TPVs to integrate the Vivox updates into their own offerings, the autobuild packages for generating the new voice modules for the viewer have been made available to TPVs, allowing them to test new voice builds alongside LL rather than having to wait for the Lab to build, test and release new voice plugins.

It is also hoped that once built, the new modules will be binary compatible and have no related viewer code changes, potentially allowing TPVs to offer the updates directly to their users who prefer to run older versions of a viewer, thus allowing them to (hopefully) resolve their voice issues without being forced to update their viewer if they’re not ready.

If you use the official SL viewer, and you have been experiencing problems with voice, you may want to manually download and run this RC if you haven’t been selected to receive it as part of the RC testing.

Related Links

SL Go: Second Life on a tablet, on the move and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL go logoImportant note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.

Update: On April 3rd, 2014, OnLive announced a revised pricing structure for SL Go, and on June 3rd, 2014, they  announced the extension of the free trial period to 7 days.

On Wednesday March 5th, Linden Lab and OnLive, the streaming / cloud gaming company announced the launch of the SL Go by OnLive (SL Go) public beta (available to UK, US and Canadian residents at the moment).

SL Go is a service which streams the SL viewer and  SL content directly to the user’s computer or tablet device (during the beta period, only Android is supported for tablets). As a streamed service, it allows, subject to network connectivity, the full richness and depth of Second Life to be displayed and used on tablets and low-end computer systems and laptops. The public beta is intended to broaden the use of the service, and to obtain further feedback in order to further enhance and refine it.

As a part of the preparations for the launch, I was one of a number of journalists and bloggers given preview access to the new service in order to try it out and provide initial reviews for readers. However, if you’re rather just skip ahead to the review part of this article, you can follow this link – but if you do, be warned, you’ll be missing out! 🙂 .

News that Linden Lab were involved in developing a mobile means of accessing Second Life first surfaced in October 2013, when selected users received an e-mail inviting them to sign-up for a closed beta for a new mobile service. Shortly after that, rumours began circulating that the work was linked with OnLive. Given the viewer’s complexity and  the dynamic nature of SL content, using a streaming service is perhaps the only way in which to bring the full richness and depth of the SL experience provided by the viewer to devices such as tablets.  Interestingly, however, the idea for using OnLive didn’t actually come from the Lab.

Gary Lauder, OnLive Chairman, approached LL's former CEO, Rod Humble, about OnLive providing SL to users through their service (Image courtesy of LinkedIn)
Gary Lauder, OnLive’s Chairman, approached LL’s former CEO, Rod Humble, about OnLive providing SL to users through their service (Image courtesy of LinkedIn)

Instead, it actually came from Gary Lauder, OnLive’s Chairman and owner. His company, Lauder Partners, invested in the original OnLive Inc in 2009, and when that entity got into difficulties in 2012, then stepped-in and acquired OnLive in August 2012 and formed the current company using the name. Lauder has a working relationship with the Lab’s former CEO, Rod Humble, and being aware of Second Life, he approached Humble in early 2013 with the idea of forming a synergy between the two companies.

Lauder made his approach because third-person adventure games have been particularly successful for OnLive. As such, Second Life was seen as a logical choice for extending OnLive’s reach into more immersive environments  while at the same time potentially offering Linden Lab with a solution for providing SL to tablet devices and to low-end desktop and laptop systems.

The task of initially investigating whether SL could be successfully run through OnLive servers was passed to Nick Barsetti, the Senior Manager of Customer Relations at OnLive. “One of my staff members and I were able to get it up and running on the service … and my jaw just absolutely dropped,” he says while discussing the service with Draxtor Despres ahead of the launch. “I said, ‘I’ve never seen it run this fast!’ It was prior to the server-side rending release [server-side appearance, July / August 2013]. And as we know, that has speeded-up local viewers quite a bit … even with that, it was running 150+ fps, and we’ve even seen it run as high as 200 fps on a private island.”

With the proof-of-concept a success, OnLive started into the core development work, with Barsetti playing a key role, being both a former Linden Lab employee (Scout Linden) and a long-time Second Life resident who has been actively engaged in the platform for seven years, notably as a community leader in a Star Wars role-play group. As such, he is intimately aware of how the viewer and platform can be used and very familiar with users’ expectations and requirements when running Second Life, and this is very apparent in his conversation with Drax, which you’ll be able to hear in The Drax Files Radio Hour on Friday March 7th.

The SL Go website
The SL Go website (courtesy of OnLive)

SL Go is a service provided entirely by OnLive, which sits between the Lab’s servers and the user (and is, most likely, one of the contributing factors behind the August 2013 ToS changes). As such, it requires those wishing to use the service (including users with an existing OnLive account) to register at the SL Go website.  Those who don’t have an account with OnLive will obtain one as a part of their SL Go registration. People with existing OnLive accounts will need to register with the SL Go website prior to being able to see SL Go through their OnLive client (computer or tablet).

Once registered, users can then purchase time credits for the service, download the SL Go app for Android via Google Play or the OnLive client for PCs or Macs in order to access SL Go.

SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet
SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet

New SL Go accounts receive a free trial period of 20 minutes 7 days (see the update at the top of this article,  so that they can try the service to see if it suits their needs and assess how well it runs on their home or mobile network. Once this initial 20-minute period has been used, additional time credits can be purchased at the following rates:

  • $3.00 for one hour
  • $8.00 for three hours (representing a 10% saving on the base cost)
  • $25.00 for ten hours (representing a 15% saving on the base cost).

As noted at the top of this article in the updates, OnLive now charge a flat monthly subscription of US 9.95 (UK £6.95) per month for unlimited access to Second Life. 

It is possible that some may balk at having to additionally pay for accessing Second Life. However, as Nate Barsetti explains, there is an underlying reason for charging for the service. “OnLive is another layer placed between you and the Linden Lab network. So in order to fund this and keep it going, there is a payment model associated with SL Go.” He also believes that the potential benefits in using SL Go will sufficiently offset reservations people have about paying for the service. Time will tell on this.

As well as using SL Go on either an Android tablet or a computer system, it is also possible to use SL Go with the OnLive Games System (OGS)  to connect to a television and play games using a suitable USB or wireless keyboard and mouse and / or the included games controller (which can also be purchased separately).

The Online Games System with mini-console (left) and wireless game controller (right) can also be used to access SL using a television (keyboard also required)
The Online Games System with mini-console (left) and wireless game controller (right) can also be used to access SL using a television (keyboard also required)

As part of the preview, reviewers were supplied with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 with the SL Go app pre-installed, together with the OGS and a wireless keyboard for trying SL Go on a television, and a pre-assigned OnLive account. Unfortunately, I have been unable to test using SL Go with a television as a result of not being able to connect the OGS with my home network. As such, what follows is an overview of SL Go running on a tablet and on a low-end computer system (in this case, a 2010 PC EEE 1201N with 4 GB RAM and windows 7 home Edition, 32-bit).

Continue reading “SL Go: Second Life on a tablet, on the move and more” →