Category: SL Tech

SL projects updates 2014: week 4 (1): Server releases, viewer, snapshot uploads

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments, week 4

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the SL forums for the latest updates and news.

Main Channel: Tuesday January 21st, 2014

The Main channel received the server maintenance project which had been on the RC channels for the last couple of weeks. This comprises:

Details on the scaling functions can be found by following the links, or by checking my week 2 projects update. All of these functions, including llLoadURL can be used in any current viewer.

There were two further updates included in the package, both of which require viewer-side updates which have yet to be released by the Lab. These are:

  • Preliminary support for custom default permissions on newly created objects – currently awaiting viewer-side support via STORM-68
  • Preliminary support for the viewer fetching the LSL syntax rules from the simulator, for up-to-date syntax highlighting in the script editor – currently awaiting viewer-side support via STORM-1831.

Release Candidate Channels, Wednesday January 22nd, 2014

All three RC channels should receive the same server maintenance project, which contains a single fix for a crash mode.

SL Viewer

As per my last report, the “Project Interesting” viewer appears to be running at a substantially reduced crash rate, and has seen the majority of issues resolved within it. If this continues through the current week, given the amount of time the viewer has been in the release channel as an RC, it could be a good candidate for promotion to the de facto release viewer in week 5 (week commencing Monday January 27th), assuming the Lab keeps to its plans of promoting a release candidate  every two weeks.

the Fitted Mesh viewer is also a potential candidate for promotion. However, as there are currently two significant issues with this RC at present,  any promotion of this candidate may well be delayed.

The two issues concerned are:

  • Certain non-rigged mesh invisible with ALM disabled -see FITMESH-20 – which has been confirmed by Marissa Linden and
  • worn mesh which is not rigged to the collision bones is seen to stretch away towards the 0,0,0 point of the region the avatar is standing in when using the Fitted Mesh viewer on systems with AMD graphics and with ALM turned off – see FITMESH-6 –  which Oz Linden has confirmed the Lab is investigating.
The Fimesh-6 issue, which affects how mesh garments not rigged to the collision bones can appear in the Fittted Mesh viewer running on systems using AMD graphics and with ALM disabled, is getting a further look at from the Lab
The Fitmesh-6 issue, which affects how mesh garments not rigged to the collision bones can appear in the Fitted Mesh viewer running on systems using AMD graphics and with ALM disabled, is getting a further look at from the Lab

Other News

Snapshot Uploads to SL Feeds

As many are aware, the ability to upload snapshots to the profile feeds was broken for many before the Christmas / New Year holidays. While the functionality was restored for some who could not upload snaps was restored, many have remained unable to use the facility. However, speaking at the  simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday January 21st, Simon Linden indicated that the Lab believe the issue has now been completely resolved for all users. I’ve not had time to test the upload myself due to RL issues, but those who have continued to experience problems my wish to try things out once more. If problems are still evident, please raise a JIRA.

Viewer release summaries 2014: week 3

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending: January 19th, 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 Viewer Round-up 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 version updated on January 9th to version 3.6.13.284995 (formerly the PackageFix RC) – core update: fix for old versions of the viewer executables not being removed during viewer installation after the executable was remained in the 3.6.12 code (release notes)
  • Release channel cohorts (See my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • HTTP RC version 3.6.14.285253 released January 16th – core updates: DNS look ups changed; improvements to mesh uploads / downloads (download and release notes)
    • Fitted Mesh RC version 3.7.0.285178 released January 16th – core updates: latest changes and fixes to the Fittted Mesh project plus a number of STORM contributions (download and release notes)
    • “Project Interesting” RC  updated on January 14th to version: 3.6.14.285213 – core updates: more viewer-side control of which objects are loaded in memory at any given time; more aggressive scene caching; faster scene load when visiting a region never previously visited; expanded performance metrics (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • HTTP and Fitted Mesh project viewers retired due to RC releases

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-style

  • No updates

V1-style

  • No updates

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

SL projects updates week 3 (2): upcoming server releases, Fitted Mesh, HTTP, Oculus Rift & more

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments: week 4

Because Monday January 20th is a holiday in the USA, Maestro Linden has posted details of the deployments which will take place in week 4. Despite the US holiday, the deployments will still take place on Tuesday and Wednesday as usual.

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

Main Channel: Tuesday January 21st, 2014

The Main channel should received the server maintenance project which has been on the RC channels for the last couple of weeks. As notes in previously SL projects updates in this blog, this comprises:

  • The forced delay in llLoadURL has been reduced to 0.1 seconds
  • New LSL functions for uniformly scaling linksets (integer llScaleByFactor(float scaling_factor), float llGetMinScaleFactor(),float llGetMaxScaleFactor() )
  • Preliminary support for custom default permissions on newly created objects – currently awaiting viewer-side support via STORM-68, which has yet to be released
  • Preliminary support for the viewer fetching the LSL syntax rules from the simulator, for up-to-date syntax highlighting in the script editor – currently awaiting viewer-side support via STORM-1831, which has yet to be released.

Release Candidate Channels, Wednesday January 22nd, 2014

All three RC channels should receive the same server maintenance project, which contains a single fix for a crash mode.

SL Viewer Updates

The following section contains notes taken during the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday January 17th, a video of which is included below. My thanks, as ever, to North for the latter.

Fitted Mesh

As reported here, the Fitted Mesh viewer reached release candidate status on Thursday January 16th, with the release of version 3.7.0.285178, which also includes a number of bug fixes and STORM contributions from third-party developers.

Issues Affecting ATI/AMD Users

There are reports of additional issues arising within the Fitted Mesh viewer which are not apparent in other version of the SL viewer.  These issues appear to impact those using ATI/AMD graphics cards and have Advanced Lighting Model disabled.

In the first issue, non-rigged mesh is invisible when viewed on the Fitted Mesh viewer (see FITMESH-20), which was reported for the new release candidate version of the viewer. In the second (FITMESH-6), worn mesh which is not rigged to the collision bones is seen to stretch away towards the 0,0,0 point of the region the avatar is standing in (which is oddly similar to how viewers without the Fitted Mesh updates render garments rigged to the collision bones in an avatar).

Rigged mesh which is not using the collison bones as seen with the Fitted Mesh viewer
Rigged mesh which is not using the collison bones as seen with the Fitted Mesh viewer when running on systems with ATI / AMD graphics and Advanced lighting Model disabled (image courtesy of Willow Wilder)

Again, these problems only appear to impact those using ATI/AMD graphics cards and who are running with ALM disabled. Initially, the problem had been thought by the Lab to be a  driver issue, but testing reveals the problem to occur across a range of ATI/AMD drivers, including the most recent Catalyst updates.

New Sliders and Asset

Redpoly Inventor has also raised a feature request (see FITMESH-19) for what he calls a “Mesh Clothing Adjuster” which can be used to scale specific parts of the collision skeleton in order to achieve better fitting for the likes of knee boots, tank top straps or any clothing that doesn’t look good with alphas. He also includes code with the JIRA which people can add to their viewer in order to create slider to the shape menu which controls the clavicle volumes.

Continue reading “SL projects updates week 3 (2): upcoming server releases, Fitted Mesh, HTTP, Oculus Rift & more” →

Lab issues Fitted Mesh release candidate viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update January 22nd: As per the comments below, Oz Linden has posted the correct region restart sound to STORM-1980, and the sound is now included in the boday of this report.

On Thursday January 16th, Linden Lab issued a release candidate version of the Fitted Mesh viewer. Given the changes made to the avatar skeleton, the  release sees the viewer’s release number increment by 1, so the Fitted Mesh RC is version 3.7.0.285178.

The upgrade of the project to a release candidate status had been expected to come relatively early in 2014, given that Oz Linden gave a “last call” for issues in which he indicated that a release candidate would be forthcoming “after the holidays”. Speculation that the RC was at the status of Real Soon NowTM was heightened at the Open-source Developer meeting on Wednesday January 8th, when Oz further revealed that as far as the Lab was concerned, there were no further outstanding issues.

It is currently not clear as to how long the viewer will remain as a release candidate prior to promotion to the de facto release viewer.

STORM Contributions

As well as the Fitted Mesh updates, the new release candidate includes a number of open-source contributions from Jonathan Yap and Ansariel Hiller.

Jonathan’s contributions notably include the following, but please refer to the viewer release notes to see all of them:

STORM-1975: IM windows occasionally report false typing status – an annoyance to many for some time has been the situation whereby, during an IM conversation, the recipient of an IM will see the “…. is typing” message (where “…” is the other person’s name), even though the other person isn’t actually sending a message. This update should fix this issue.

STORM-1980: Region Restart Warning Changes – described in the release notes as “World-shaking improvement to region restart warnings”, STORM-1980 is designed to improve the awareness of region restarting message and add a default region restart sound. The sound is designed to be played automatically by the viewer on receipt of a region restart message, adding an additional warning of an approaching restart (for those with their viewer’s sound on!).

STORM-1981: Changes to Tracking Beacons – alters the behaviour of three types of tracking beacon: the avatar tracking beacon, the landmark tracking beacon and the beacon shown as a result of clicking on the map. Under these changes:

  • Beacons begin at a height of 0 metres and extend up to the maximum unassisted flight ceiling (5,020 metres)
  • The beacon colour is blue from 0 metres to the base height of the object being tracked, and red from 5,020 metres down to the height of the object being tracked
  • Users can optionally set the beacon to pulse towards the target object using the CheesyBeacon debug setting (Advanced->Highlighting). The blue beacon will pulse up towards the object, the red beacon will pulse down towards the object.

Ansariel provides two contributions in this release aimed at fixing a couple of issues in the UI:

  • STORM-1979: Groups count in groups list does not display if the floater is resized
  • STORM-1984: Mousing over UI elements does not make them light up.

Related Links

SL project updates week 3 (1) Server and viewer + misc items

Posted on by Inara Pey
Simulator User Group meeting (stock)
Simulator User Group meeting (stock)

Server Deployments: week 3, 2014

There are no server deployments this week on either Tuesday 14th (Main channel) or Wednesday 15th January (RC channels). The latter was anticipated to be the case, after Maestro Linden indicated there were no maintenance or other projects in the RC pipeline during the Server Beta meeting of Thursday January 9th.

While it had been thought that issues relating to STORM-1831 were not sufficient to prevent the RC package deployed in week 2 from being promoted to the Main channel, the decision has been taken to allow the package to run a further week on the RCs.

Week 4 Deployments

It now seems as if the plan is to deploy the RC maintenance project to the Main grid in week 4 (week commencing Monday January 20th), and to issue a new server maintenance project on the Wednesday of that week, although details on this have yet to be finalised.

SL Viewer

The Project Interesting viewer with the viewer-side interest list changes (notably the changes to how region information is cached and re-used by the viewer) gained a further update on Tuesday January 14th, with the release of release candidate 3.6.14.285213, which includes a number of additional bug fixes – see the release notes and download page.

STORM-1831: LSL Syntax Highlighting

This contribution by Ima Mechanic will allow LSL syntax highlighting in the viewer’s LSL editor to be updated and defined using a file obtained directly from the simulator the viewer is connected to, with the intention to eliminate issues of the viewer using outdated versions of the file. The server-side updates for this work are currently deployed to all three RC regions. However, as of the end of week 2, additional work was required on the syntax file itself.

In addition, there are a number of issues which are currently being addressed with the viewer-side code. These are listed on the JIRA for the project – STORM-1831, and require resolution prior to the code being issued  in a release candidate viewer. Most of these are currently being worked on, and are not seen as major show-stoppers, but will delay the code’s appearance in the short-term.

Other Items

Values for brush constants in calls to llModifyLand

One issue which has (again) been raised through STORM-1831 is that the values for brush constants in calls to llModifyLand, used for scripted terraforming operations, are out by 1 each (they are set to 1, 2, 3 and should be 0, 1, 2). This means that, for example, a call using LAND_SMALL_BRUSH will edit an area of 4×4 metres, not 2×2. The wiki documentation for the function notes the error as well. As a result of discussing this issue in the Open-source Developer’s meeting on Monday January 13th, a STORM JIRA was raised to (again) highlight this issue (STORM-2006).

However, as the issue itself is actually related to either STORM-1831 per se and because it will actually require server-side changes, the issue is liable to be moved to a BUG status and triaged from there.

Snapshot uploads to the SL Feeds

“It has to do with authentication under the hood when getting the credentials and then using them to fetch the snapshot config info,” Simon Linden said at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday January 14th. The problem is still being worked upon for those still affected by it (I am), but there is currently no ETA as to a complete fix for the matter.

With thanks to Mona Eberhardt for the meeting notes.

Viewer release summaries 2014: week 2

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending: January 12th, 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 Viewer Round-up 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 version updated on January 9th to version 3.6.13.284995 (formerly the PackageFix RC) – core update: fix for old versions of the viewer executables not being removed during viewer installation after the executable was remained in the 3.6.12 code (release notes)
  • Release channel cohorts (See my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • No updates
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-style

  • No updates

V1-style

  • Cool VL updated on January 11th to:

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links