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.
Updates for the week ending: October 6th, 2013
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version: 3.6.7.281793 – October 4 (download page, release notes) (formerly the Maintenance RC viewer with support for new particle capabilities; automatic avatar render limit and feedback system)
The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday October 4th. A video, courtesy of Northspring, can be found at the end of this report. The numbers in braces after each head denote the time stamp at which the topic can be listened-to in the video.
A typical TPV dev meeting gathers (stock)
Release Pipeline Recap
Release viewer
Maintenance RC viewer 3.6.7.281793 was promoted to the de-facto release viewer overnight on the 3rd/4th October (release notes). This primarily comprises:
Viewer-side support for new LSL particle capabilities (blend, glow, ribbon)
The automatic avatar render limit and feedback system
Fixes for the Cocoa release regression issues (see below)
Fix to prevent orientation being lost on teleporting (if you’re facing west when you teleport, you’ll still be facing west on arrival)
Further bug fixes as listed in the release notes, including further CHUI and materials fixes
The remaining release candidates (Google Breakpad, SLShare and the Snowstorm contributions RC) continue to produce good numbers, and the Lab hasn’t seen any major issues with them.
Interest List Viewer Updates
[37:16 -38:40]
It is currently anticipated that the viewer-side code supporting the recent batch of work on the interest list will finally arrive in week 41 as a release candidate viewer. This will be discussed at the next TPV Developer meeting, scheduled for Friday October 11th.
Mac OS X 10.6
[41:00 – 45:40]
As reported here, recent updates with Cocoa on the Mac viewer led to users still running Mac OS X 10.6 to experience some “obnoxious problems“. As a result, the Lab initially implemented a mandatory roll-back of viewers for users on OS X 10.6 to viewer release 3.6.4.280048 (August 20th, 2013). However, some of the issues have been resolved fixes within the last maintenance RC viewer (3.6.7.281793), which as noted above has now been promoted to the de facto release viewer. As a result, the roll-back to version 3.6.4.280048 has now been made optional and has been left available until such time as the remaining issues with Cocoa and OS X 10.6 can hopefully be addressed.
A broader advisory from the Lab is that as the viewer is a lot more stable on later version of the Mac operating system, those who are on OS X10.6 and in a position to upgrade should consider doing so.
Other Potential Viewer RCs
[40:12 – 41:00]
The next round(s) of viewer releases from the Lab are expected to include:
A further maintenance viewer RC
The SSA / AIS v3 viewer updates (anticipated in the next couple of weeks – see below)
Monty Linden’s viewer-side HTTP updates, which are currently on internal QA at the Lab.
Advanced Inventory Service (AIS v3)
[02:18 – 15:02]
The inventory service updates, initially being undertaken alongside Server-side Appearance (SSA), are now ready for deployment.
A core part of AIS v3 covers the inventory changes that the second round of SSA updates use to manage the Current Outfit Folder (COF) more reliably, including hopefully improving the response time for re-requests for an inventory item / update; however there is more to the updates than this.
Two wiki documents have been produced for the new API:
As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for the latest news and updates.
There was no Main channel deployment in week 40
The three RC channels all received the same update, comprising a fix for a bug affecting group notice delivery to large groups whereby the notice randomly fails to reach some group members; a new JSON_DELETE option for llJsonSetValue(); interest list preparatory work for more correct sort order during scene load – release notes (BlueSteel).
Having fun at the Server Beta Meeting
Upcoming Bug Fixes
There are a number of upcoming server-side bug fixes due. It is hoped all of these will reach one or more RCs in week 41. However, this depends on them passing QA, etc. The fixes include:
llGetCameraRot() Issue
There has been a series of bug reports from across the grid being raised about problems with camera updates when operating in Mouselook with scripted objects using llGetCameraRot() (HUDS, weapons, etc), and which may also affect scripted objects using llGetCameraRot() when in 3rd person view. Commenting on the issue at the Server Beta meeting, Maestro Linden had this to say:
There were a few bugs reported today [Thursday October 3rd] about llGetCameraRot() being ‘lazy’ about updates, which we’ve been able to confirm. If you’re aiming in mouselook and make subtle adjustments, the llGetCameraRot() rotation doesn’t change (but should) …
In any case, Andrew took a look at the bug and found the cause; one of the interest list changes affected how often the simulator updates the reported camera rotation value. He had added some hysteresis so that only large changes that would affect your interest list (cone of objects you’re seeing) would cause the value to update, not realizing that it affected llGetCameraRot(). There’s a fix pending, so we should hopefully have that ready for the next rolls.
Group Access to Parcel when “Sell Passes” Set
I reported on this issue in my week 39 updates. Essentially, if a region is set to group access and to “Sell Passes”, Group members ended up unable to enter the parcel at all. The problem was accidentally introduced with the recent parcel access updates, and while not widespread, is still recognised as a pain for those using the option.
Region Crossing Fixes
There are two upcoming fixes for region crossings.
The first is a fix for “‘Ghost’ avatars and vehicles sometimes appear to an observer at the sim border”. This is caused by an avatar or vehicle making a region crossing just at the limit of the observer’s draw distance, so the simulator that the vehicle / avatar was leaving didn’t send an ObjectDelete message, since it figured the destination region would handle future object updates. However, as the observer’s viewer wasn’t connected to to the destination region, no update would be received, leaving the “ghost” image in view (“touching” it would cause it to vanish).
The second is a fix for “Vehicles which exit a region with a passenger are incorrectly autoreturned and ‘ghosted'”. This is related to a vehicle being rezzed in a region with auto return set, and then “loitering” in the area before coincidentally trying to cross the region boundary at the time the auto return delay expired. during the crossing process, the vehicle would appear to be unoccupied to the region it was leaving – and thus be returned to the owner. In addition, the vehicle’s collision body would be “left behind” (marked as “pending delete” without actually being deleted) which could then be run into as a “ghosted” object by other vehicles.
Currently, a region restart fixes this issue.
SL Viewer Updates
There has been no promotion of an RC viewer to the de facto release viewer so far in week 40. The Maintenance viewer (support for new particle capabilities; automatic avatar render limit and feedback system) gained a further update on September 30th, with the arrival of version 3.6.7.281793.
Mac OSX 10.6 Viewer roll-back
As reported here, due to the recent Cocoa updates causing regression for users on Mac OSX 10.6, the Lab has opted to roll-back all users on that operating system to version 3.6.4.280048 (August 20th, 2013).
Interest List Viewer
It’s now believed that the Interest List viewer is around two weeks from appearing as either a project viewer or an RC viewer.
UKanDo (pronounced “You Can Do”, and a play on the fact that the developer hails from the UK), started as a personal project for Connor Monaron and friends for use in OS Grid. However, it has grown over time (and use) to become a fully fledged viewer project, and one of the latest to go through self-certification and appear on the Third Party Viewer Directory for Second Life.
The viewer is based on the Linden Lab codebase, rather than being a fork from another TPV, and which sees a number of additional features added to it. Connor’s aim in producing the viewer is to have something which is relatively close to the Linden viewer – which as he states, is fast and usable which having additional functions and features he and his friends find useful.
The list of current additional features is already of reasonable length, and includes some popular additions from other TPV viewers and elsewhere, including:
Marine Kelley’s RLV (disabled by default) and her v3 implementation of the updated “z-offset” capability and menu bar slider
Enhanced build options from other TPVs / developers (high precision within the position, size and rotation fields of the Build floater’s Object tab; prim alignment tool; option to sync values between diffuse, specular and normal maps; expand / collapse Build floater; reset / delete scripts from within the Build floater’s Content tab, etc.)
Katharine Berry’s Flickr upload capability
Right-click to open contents on a worn attachment
Turn avatar when walking backwards on by default
Draw distance slider in the menu bar
and more
I’ve actually been keeping an eye on UKanDo since early August, and thought it was high time I offered something of an overview of it using the current release, 3.6.7.27838.
Download and Installation
The Windows installer is 28.7 MB in size – approximately that of the official LL viewer installer, and runs pretty much as expected, installing the viewer smoothly and I experienced no pesky anti-virus warnings on starting-up SL voice (on AVG Pro), which have crept back into the last couple of viewer installs I’ve run since the last AVG update.
Starting the viewer launches the default LL splash / log-in screen, with buttons in an interesting blue colour.
Camera
For those used to the LL camera default, logging-in will reveal the first noticeable difference: the default camera placement is a lot different.
Camera placement: the default for the SL viewer (l) and the default for UKanDo (r)
Of course, this is somewhat subjective, as we likely all have different views on what constitutes a “good” camera placement; so whether one likes this or not is going to be subjective. I’ve been a supporter of Penny’s alternative camera positioning for a long while now – she allowed me to include in my blog’s tutorial section and I use a variation on one of her other settings -, so while the default used in UKanDo is slightly different to my own, I nevertheless found it refreshing not to have to fart around with camera debugs for once, but simply get on with using the viewer.
Buttons, Preferences and Menus
UKcanDo follows the LL viewer default button display and placement, and the toolbar floater reveals no additional buttons. Similarly, the Preferences floater offers-up more-or-less the same as the LL viewer, although there are some noteworthy additions / tweaks to defaults:
Move and View > Single Click on Land is disabled (rather than set to Move to Clicked Point) and Double Click on Land is set to Teleport to Clicked Point (rather than None)
Colors includes the ability to set name tag text colours
Privacy includes options to Look At / Point AT to private
Set-up includes:
A warning about setting bandwidth no higher than 1500 kbps
An option to always rez objects under the land group, if possible
An option to enable RLV functionality
Set-up also excludes the LL automatic viewer update options
An additional tab – UKanDo offers additional options for the camera, mini-map and avatar (under the Miscellaneous sub-tab) and additional building defaults (under the Build sub-tab, shown below).
UKanDo includes an additional Preference tab – UKanDo – which provides additional build options as well as additional options for the camera, mini-map and avatar (Miscellaneous sub-tab)
The viewer includes an additional menu option – again called UKanDo – which includes options to stop all animations, teleport to ground and show the time (top right of the viewer) in your local time, rather than SLT. The “Me” menu is also renamed “Avatar”, and other menu updates include:
Build > Scripts includes option to delete all scripts in an object
Build > Options includes options to set the build grid mode (world, local, reference)
Help includes options to view the UKanDo viewer support and forum web pages and removes the LL bug reporting option
Advanced includes:
Sub-menu of UKanDo menu options (see above)
Sub-menu for hover tip options
Additional Shortcut sub-menu for build tool selection options
Develop > Avatar includes options to set privacy on Look At and Point At.
Other Points of Note
Given the viewer is based on recent code from LL, it also has the expected support for SSA (which it has had from July 2013), CHUI and materials processing. The viewer also has pathfinding support, including navmesh, which means it is now limited to use with Second Life, as reflected by the Grid Option drop-down on the splash / log-in screen only lists the two SL grids: Agni and Aditi. the SLShare / Facebook options are not in the current UKanDo release, which is hardly surprising given SLShare appeared after the UKanDo 3.6.7 release.
Feedback
UKanDo does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a viewer based on the LL 3.6.7 code base and offers a filtered set of additional options which should actually appeal to a broad cross-section of users.
Performance-wise, the viewer was just shaded by the LL viewer in terms of frame rates in my subjective back-to-back testing on the same region with the same field of view / scene rendered with my usual defaults. The LL viewer managed a consistent 65-70 fps with ALM on, Shadow options enabled and ambient occlusion enabled, with UKanDo hovering around the 58-62 fps, which isn’t a big enough difference to be noticed. Switching off ambient occlusion and setting Shadows to none but leaving ALM active took frame rates over the 100 mark.
Overall I found UKanDo an interesting addition to the TPV stable; as noted at the top of this article, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and does it well. My only slight reservation with it – which is entirely personal – is that I found the combination of blue and white on things like buttons and tabs, etc., a little hard on the eyes after a while. As I generally have the toolbar buttons set to icons only, this wasn’t a major issue with them, but I did actually find myself either leaning forward or squinting at times to read tab labels – which surprised me. Perhaps I am getting old, after all …
The viewer doesn’t include the media filter, so if you are concerned about streams and nitwits, you’ll want to make sure you pop into Preferences > Sound and Media and disable the appropriate options (Allow Media to Autoplay, Play Media Attached to Other Avatars).
If you’re looking for a V3 viewer which is a step closer to the LL default, but which offers a reasonable set of additional functions and options, you might want to take a look at UKanDo and see what you think of it yourself.
As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for the latest news and updates.
Second Life Server (Main Channel)
There have been no updates to the Main channel.
Second Life RC BlueSteel, RC Magnum, and RC LeTigre – Wednesday October 2nd
All three RCs should receive the same maintenance package comprising:
A fix for a bug affecting group notice delivery to large groups whereby the notice randomly fails to reach some group members
Interest list preparatory work for more correct sort order during scene load
New JSON_DELETE option to llJsonSetValue(), for deleting elements in JSON strings. Usage: ‘string output_json = llJsonSetValue(string input_json, [list location, JSON_DELETE)’ will delete the element specified by the location argument
Speaking at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday October 1st, Andrew Linden reported that both he and Maestro had been looking into the recent problems with region crossings which have been hard to pin down to a specific cause. However, Andrew was confident one cause had now been identified, saying:
It appears that there is a bug when vehicles cross region boundaries on parcels with autoreturn. “In particular, if the vehicle has been on the parcel long enough to trigger autoreturn, it won’t actually get autoreturned because someone is sitting on it. But when it tries to cross the region boundary with the rider things fall apart.
Simon Linden indicated he had a proposed fix for the issue, which he wanted to discuss with Andrew outside of the meeting, but hopes that the fix will be in a position to be deployed in week 41 (commencing Monday October 7th).
Group Ban List
The obligatory Baker Linden shot 🙂
Following-on from the update given on his behalf at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday September 27th, Baker Linden appeared at the Simulator User Group meeting to provide a rapid-fire update on his latest state-of-play with the group ban list work (see JIRA VWR-29337):
Today I’ll be working on merging the viewer code with what’s in release, and I’ll be working on getting up some actual builds to deploy to a grid for internal testing (it is not Aditi yet). so by the end of the day, I should have all the components deployed and ready for internal testing, and depending on how well that goes, it’ll be ready for Aditi soon!
In terms of the viewer code becoming visible, Baker believes his project viewer repository will become visible soon, most likely around the time of the next TPV developer meeting, when he is due to explain the new functionality.
In the meantime there’s still some further work required on the code, as he explained. “There are still a few small bugs and issues I have to work on in the code — I’ll be working on those while internal testing is happening. There’s a major refactor in llpanelgroupinvite, which is what I’m trying to hand-merge today.”
Interest List Work and Video
Andrew Linden has been finishing-up on some additional interest list work, and is now looking to produce a video showing the “before” and “after” scene loading within a region. The “before” part of the filming is already in the can, but the region he used is now “long gone”, and so he picked-up a few suggestions from the Simulator group on regions which may offer go locations for shooting the “after” segment of the film. Essentially he’s looking for regions with lots of objects be which are not ridiculously overloaded with textures.
Other Bits
Render Weights and Calculations
Work has been going on around the issue of render weights and how they are calculated. The current Maintenance viewer has code for a new “automatic avatar render limit and feedback system”.
Que Niangao raised concern at the meeting and on the SLU forum that a constant forming a part of this system – OBJECT_RENDER_WEIGHT, which requires feedback from the viewer, and so might be used for grefing people; such as through a viewer tweaked to return highly inflated numbers for others in a region, thus allowing it to become a tool for griefing.
Responding to Que’s enquiry, Simon Linden said, “Yes … OBJECT_RENDER_WEIGHT needs to be used carefully. First, the way that is calculated is likely to change … I’m going to be working on it today, in fact.”
He went on to indicate that he’s been gathering data on avatar weightings (samples from about 500 avatars) which he’ll be using to make the changes, although he may be seeking further assistance. The changes he’s looking to make are on the server, but he was a little circumspect on details out of concern that going too deeply into how things work on the server as do so could make it easier for the unscrupulous to game the system.
One area where the new system will hopefully have an impact is in preventing the use of worn sim laggers impacting a region as can currently be the case.
Update October 5th: The downgrade to viewer 3.6.4.280048 for those on OS X 10.6 has been made optional rather than mandatory, as the latest de facto release viewer (3.6.7.281793) contains fixes which address some of the issues users on OS X 10.6 were encountering. Those still encountering issues may wish to revert back to 3,6,4,280048.
Recent Cocoa updates to the Mac version of the viewer have led to problems for those running Mac OS X 10.6. Because of this, the Lab has opted to roll users on that version of the operating system back to an earlier release of the viewer – specifically version 3.6.4.280048 (August 20).
Commenting on the problems at the Open-source Dev meeting on Monday September 30th, Oz Linden said:
We found some obnoxious problems with the newer releases for users still on OSX 10.6. We’re working on getting them fixed … but in the mean time we decided that 10.6 users would be better off on the older version. We’ll be watching how many users it would affect, I’m sure. Newer versions of OSX have significantly better crash rates, so if a user can upgrade, they definitely should.
Affected users should be automatically “rolled back” (so to speak) to this viewer release via the viewer update system. However, if you’re running OS X 10.6, experiencing issues and are running a later version of the viewer, you can manually download it here.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 