On Wednesday March 26th, Dave Rowe released CtrlAltStudio version 1.2.0.40751.
While the release does not contain significant updates to either Oculus Rift support or to the stereoscopic 3D capability, the version number change 1.2, as Dave notes, serves to reflect the convergence of the 1.0 and 1.1 Alpha versions, and also brings CtrlAltStudio to parity with Firestorm 4.6.1.
With regards to the latter, this means CtrlAltStudio now includes all updates found in the Firestorm 4.5.1 and 4.6.1 releases, including a number of significant LL-driven viewer updates, such as:
Fitted mesh support – for those unfamiliar with Fitted Mesh, I have an overview here
Temporary attachments no longer get removed improperly
and more
(Further information on the recent Firestorm releases, please refer to my 4.5.1 review and my 4.6.1 review.)
In addition to the above, the release includes a number of fixes:
Fixed turning off Basic Shaders while in Riftlook messing up display.
Fixed Kinect fly up and fly down gestures sometimes being swapped when shouldn’t be.
Removed –riftlook command line option which wasn’t working properly.
An important point to note, again as Dave points-out, is that this release does not include any of the Lab’s own Oculus Rift support – for the simple reason that the code hasn’t been made available for integration into TPVs.
As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates.
There was again no server deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday March 25th. Of the three RC channels, there will be no change to either BlueSteel or LeTigre on Wednesday March 26th. However, the Magnum RC will be updated with a new server maintenance project, comprising:
Crash mode fix.
Fixed a rare case in which certain users were unable to log in (BUG-5130)
Fix for a case in which multiple scripts in the same prim calling llTakeControls() with heterogenous ‘accept’ and ‘pass_on’ parameters would not receive a control() event correctly in some cases (BUG-5281)
Updated LSL syntax file to use a new schema (fixes STORM-2000)
The LSL syntax file update for STORM-2000 is part of a large project being undertaken by Ima Mechanic with assistance from Oz Linden (see STORM-1831). This work is currently awaiting the release of viewer-side changes, which have been undergoing testing by LL’s QA.
A lightly-attended Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday March 25th
SL Viewer Updates
On Monday March 24th, the FmodEx Hotfix viewer (3.7.4.288138, release notes here) was updated to the de facto release viewer. The core updates in this viewer comprise:
Crash fix (MAINT-3703)
Update FmodEx library to 4.44.31
Additional work for MAINT-2718 (Linux viewer was using logging version of library)
Group Chat Work
During the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday March 25th, I asked Simon Linden about the outcome of the group chat tests run on Thursday March 20th, now that there’s been time to check the logs files. He said, “It didn’t have any surprises, but that was a good result. That test was mostly checking out the new statistics it gathered, which worked fine too.” He also confirmed that testing with a large group (most likely the Firestorm support group) is the next step in proceedings:
It’s been delayed a bit due to some people being out of the office. I’m hoping to do something next week … I think that’s the earliest possible. In the mean time I’m working on another layer in the back-end system that is inefficient, so I’m hoping to finish that up today or tomorrow and roll it in together.
Other Items
Revision to the TPVD Directory
The Third-party Viewer Directory received a change to the section listing viewers that report crash statistics. Whereas previously, viewers in this section had been ranked from best to worst crash rate (% of sessions that end in a crash), as from March 25th, they are now ordered from best to worst disconnect rate (% of sessions that end without the simulator seeing a logout).
Regions Size Trivia
During a discussion on vehicle design and region crossings, Simon Linde made mention of the factor that he once spent time looking at region sizes in SL. This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned this work. The last time he raised it, he went to far as to indicate that were regions ever to be resized, increasing them to 1 km a side rather than 1024 metres a side would be preferable, although this would impact the power of 2 approach taken with building SL. At the Simulator UG meeting, he reiterated this latter point, saying, “unfortunately the 256×256 region space is carved into the SL design all over … from the database to the simuators to the viewer and the messages. Changing that would be huge.”
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.
Sunshine / AIS v3 RC – temporarily withdrawn on March 21 due to the number of viewers in the release channel
“Project Interesting” RC – temporarily withdrawn on March 21 due to the number of viewers in the release channel
Voice viewer RC – temporarily withdrawn on March 21 due to the number of viewers in the release channel
StatTest RC version 3.7.4.288282 released on March 20 – This is a maintenance release that has no functional changes compared to the current release viewer (download and release notes)
FmodEX Hotfix RC updated to version 3.7.4.288138 on March 18 – to correct a suspected thread race crasher in the FmodEx audio streaming library (download and release notes)
Cool Viewer updated on March 22 to the following versions: Stable: 1.26.10.15; Experimental: 1.26.11.15; Legacy: 1.26.8.52 – core updates: all – FMOD Ex updated to v4.44.32; added support for individual UI sounds disabling; Added support for the “delete in-world objects” UI sound; numerous code fixes and updates; added support for OpenSim/Aurora’s “VARREGION” feature; Experimental: minor fix to the AISv3 code (release notes)
As noted in part 2 of my week projects update, the Hotfix RC viewer was updated to version 3.7.4.288138 on March 18th
Two new RC viewers entered the channel during the week in the form of:
The latest iteration of the Google Breakpad RC, version 3.7.4.288045, on March 17th
The StatTest RC, version 3.7.4.288282, on March 20th
Neither of the latter two include functional changes compared to the current release version of the viewer (3.7.3.287491).
Because the arrival of the Google Breakpad viewer and the StatTest viewer pushed the total number of RCs in the release channel to seven, the Project Interesting RC viewer (3.7.3.287127), the SL Voice RC viewer (3.7.3.287288) and the Sunshine / AIS v3 RC viewer (3.7.3.287158) have been temporarily withdrawn from the release channel (all were incidentally due a rebuild anyway).
Both of the latter two RCs will be returning to the release channel, most likely in updated versions, once the total number of RCs currently in the channel has been reduced.
There are a couple of things server-side making their way towards a release:
Fix for login issues of agents with number display names – this is a fix an issue where users with display names made-up of numbers are unable to log-in. “It was a subtle change in a low-level library that started treating those as numbers and not strings,” Simon Linden said of the issue’s origins.
Fix for llTakeControls() issues with multiple scripts with mixed parameters in same prim
These fixes are liable to testing on Aditi prior to moving to an RC.
SL Viewer
On Wednesday March 18th, the Hotfix viewer was updated to version 3.7.4.288138. This now lists three core issues as being addressed:
Crash fix (MAINT-3703)
Update FmodEx library to 4.44.31
Additional work for MAINT-2718 (Linux viewer was using logging version of library)
A typical Server Beta meeting
Group Chat
As indicated in part 1 of this week’s report, there is work underway to try to improve group chat. A small-scale test with a dozen people was carried out with some of the initial improvements during the Sever Beta meeting on Thursday March 20th. “This is really a test that shows it doesn’t fall over with minor load,” Simon Linden said of it.
During the test, those present were asked to send lots of short messages at speed to two test groups while moving around and between various regions (walking, flying, teleporting). Few issues appeared to be noted, at least none that Simon indicted he was interested in (e.g. messages showing delay between being sent and appearing), but as noted, it was a small group. In terms of what has been done with the code and plans for the future, Simon went on:
Basically I dug into the code and found some inefficient parts and cleaned them up. I also added more metrics, so I’m hoping it can show an improvement. I’m pretty sure it will be better, but it’s really hard to guess how much better. I’m hoping to test it on the main grid soon. It would get put on a server and then it would affect a fraction of the groups. I can pick one group to target and make sure it covers that group.
As chat is handled back dedicated back-end servers, no simulator or viewer change will be required to take advantage of this work as it progresses. If the logs from this initial test show nothing unpleasant or unexpected, and providing LL’s QA are happy, testing on the main grid could start in a week’s time.
On Saturday March15th 2014, the Firestorm team hosted a meeting and Q and A session to discuss the recent 4.6.1 release, provide updates on a number of issues, and answer audience questions.
While the meeting was recorded, the Firestorm team are aware that many of their users have hearing difficulties, and / or prefer to read text, so this transcript has been supplied on their behalf.
When reading, please remember:
This is not a word-for-word transcript of the entire meeting. While all quotes given are as they are spoken in the video, to assist in readability and maintain the flow of conversation, not all asides, jokes, interruptions, etc., have been included in the text presented here
In the interests of readability, topics in the transcript are not necessarily presented chronologically compared to the video. For example: questions asked during the various updates, etc., are presented in the Q and A section of the transcript, rather than at the point at which they were asked (unless directly relevant to the topic being discussed). Similarly, topics of discussion which came up during the Q and A session, but which were not tied to specific questions, have been placed under their own subject heading outside of the Q and A section
If there are any sizeable gaps in comments from a speaker which resulted from asides, repetition, questions to others etc,, these are indicated by the use of “…”
Timestamps are provided as guidance should anyone wish to hear the comments in full from any speaker on the video
Questions /comments were made in chat while speakers were talking. This inevitably meant that replies to questions would lag well behind when they were originally asked. To provide context between questions and answers, questions in the transcript are given (in italics) at the point at which each is addressed by a member of the Firestorm team, either in voice or via chat.
Please note: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. I am not an official member of the Firestorm team, and technical or support issues relating to Firestorm cannot easily be addressed through these pages. Such requests for assistance should be made through the in-world Firestorm Support groups or at the Firestorm support region.
The TL;DR Summary
The following is a brief summary of topics discussed. Timestamps in braces refer to times in the video where the relevant commentary can be heard. All sections are expanded upon in the main transcript – click on the timestamp to go to them.
[0:0015] viewers are often subject to flase flagging by anti-virus programs as carrying a potential virus / Trojan. With the Firestorm 4.6.1, Norton anti-virus in particular had issues with viewer, prompting a positive response from Norton’s support
[0:14:32] Mac issues update: work is being done on some Mac issues within the Lab, but there is no major project to address problems some users are having. Firestorm are somewhat stymied in dealing with issues due to both a lack of developers / developers with free time and because some of the issues are beyond their ability to resolve
[0:31:00] Windows XP officially reaches its end-of-life on Aprial 8th, 2014. What does this mean for users on XP using Firestorm?
[0:38:25] Even running a 32-bit viewer on a 64-bit OS yields stability improvements, although if you have a 64-bit version available, it’s obviously preferable to use that on a 64-bit OS
[0:57:40] Firestorm are often critiqued on the frequency of releases. The team are moving to imporve things to a 3-monthly cycle, and there are reasons why a more frequent cycle may not be feasible
[1:21:05] It remains that Firestorm will not offer nightly or weekly builds, because there are significant support issues
[1:27:32] The team already try to release based on feature sets, however, a time-based cycle offers potentially better management of releases in keeping with the needs of the developers, QA and support
[1:35:21] The target will therefore be a 3-monthly cycle of major releases, with possible interim releases with bug fixes or for special features, such as might be the case with the group ban functionality
[1:58:53] With a target of a 3-monthly release cycle, it is probable that the next 2-3 releases are going to be primarily focused on incorporating features and capabilities coming out of the Lab, simply because there are so many of them: group bans, SSA updates, AIS v3, interest list, voice updates, etc.
[2:01:55] The new download server has performed admirably with not craches or other issues.
[1:55:40] Firestorm classes – with a new release just out, don’t forget there are Firestorm classes which cover all the new features, including things like the updated Contact Sets
Questions and Answers: including information on clean installs / re-installs; using settings back-ups; troubleshhoting issues; the status of voice improvements; why group limits are unlikely to increase in the near future; helping Firestorm support, etc.
On Wednesday March 26th, Dave Rowe released CtrlAltStudio version 1.2.0.40751.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 