Category: SL Tech

Facebook support coming to the SL viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Eagle-eyed (or given his avatar, should that be owl-eyed? :)) Daniel Voyager spotted a pointer that a degree of Facebook support is coming to the SL viewer for those who already have a Facebook account.

The new capability is called Second Life Share, which is being aimed at the viewer 3.6.6  code base (although it isn#t a part of the latest Materials RC viewer, 3.6.6.280797 released on September 11th).

When it does appear, the capability will be opt-in, an important point to remember. Nothing happens vis-a-vis the viewer and Facebook unless you want it to happen (and you have a Facebook account). It will apparently consist of a new viewer floater, itself comprising a number of tabs:

  • Account Tab: will allow those with a Facebook account to connect their SL account to it for the purposes of posting from SL to Facebook
  • Check-in tab: will allow someone to share the SLurl for their current in-world location via Facebook, together with a short comment on the location and a map image if they wish
  • Status tab:  will allow someone to share a text comment with friends via Facebook
  • Photo tab: will allow someone to upload a snapshot to their FB account. As with the current Profile Feed option in the snapshot floater, the resolution of the image can be selected at upload (minimum 800×600), and an optional SLurl / comment can be included with the image.

Details on the capabilities are outlined in Viewerhelp on the wiki, which also references a new Knowledge Base entry, Second Life Share. Unfortunately, clicking the link generates a 404 error, and a search of the Knowledge Base at the time of writing did not yield and further relevant results. I’ve included the link here in anticipation of the issue being fixed by LL.

Whether the title of the new functionality is “Second Life Share” is indicative that it may be extended to include other social media options remains to be seen. It will also be interesting to see what it might mean for the future of the snapshot floater – if anything at all – if this is the case.

I’ll follow-up on this post once the new functionality is visible.

SL projects update week 37 (2): particle capabilities – viewer release imminent

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update: The maintenance release viewer with the particle capabilities is now available – version 3.6.6.2.80939 – release notes and download.

Server and RC Deployments

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

In a change to the usual server-side deployments, the Main channel and all three RC channels have had their deployments and restarts made on Tuesday September 10th. The reason for the single pass was to apply updates server-side relating to recent Vivox service maintenance.

Details of the updates can be found in part 1 of this week’s update.

Server and RC Deployments Week 38

While the final decisions on deployments will not be made until that start of week 38 (week commencing Monday September 16th), it currently appears as if the following are likely to form part of the deployments:

  • The server-side HTTP updates will be promoted to the Main channel
  • A small server maintenance release will be deployed to at least one RC, which includes a number of crash fixes and an update to parcel access priorities “making it so that avatars who are on the ‘allowed’ list can bypass some of the other access restrictions (payment info on file was listed specifically)”

Particle System Viewer Imminent

Back in week 12, the Lab indicated that the SL particle system would be getting new capabilities, specifically:

  • Glow
  • Ribbon effects
  • Blending options.
Ribbon particle example

The server-side support for these capabilities was duly deployed, but have since been awaiting the viewer-side support in order to be accessible to users.

Commenting on the situation at the Server Beta meeting, Maestro Linden indicated that a release candidate viewer should be appearing with the necessary viewer-side support for the new LSL particle functions and parameters on Friday September 13th.

In preparation for the release, Maestro has also updated the wiki with details of the new particle parameters.

“The new particle glow options are pretty simple,” he said. “If you look at the wiki page, we’ve just added PSYS_PART_START_GLOW and PSYS_PART_END_GLOW, which take a float in the 0.0 to 1.0 range. It basically looks the same as the prim glow setting on prims.”

He went on, “particle blending takes 2 parameters, PSYS_PART_BLEND_FUNC_SOURCE and PSYS_PART_BLEND_FUNC_DEST, and each of those takes one of the 8 ‘values’ listed underneath, so there are actually 8*8 = 64 blend options! You can do crazy things, like having particles invert the thing underneath.

“Anyway, the blend parameters are pretty technical.  It’s basically exposing OpenGL’s glBlendFunc to LSL. And the main  glBlendFunc documentation at http://www.opengl.org/sdk/docs/man/xhtml/glBlendFunc.xml goes into the details better than I can.”

For those who can’t wait for the RC viewer with the necessary support to appear, an autobuild version is available.. However, keep in mind this is a test build for the capability, and as such is liable to be behind the curve compared to the RC version in terms of bug fixes, etc., so be sure to update to the RC version when it appears on the wiki page. The RC version is now available.

An example of how the now ribbon capabilities might be used in SL, showing the arc of the sword through the air, supplied by Maestro Linden (courtesy of Hollowfear.com)

The new ribbon capability should allow for much better particle effects for things like ropes and chains links between objects (amount other things), using a ” go-from” prim/position (the prim centre), and a “go-to” prim/position (defined by PSYS_SRC_TARGET_KEY), the advantage being there would no longer be any gaps in the particle stream. However, there may be times when the ribbon effect may not be facing your camera (so there may be times when you need to reposition your camera in order to see the effect).

Related Links

SL project updates Week 37 (1): server releases

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server and RC Deployments

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

In a change to the usual server-side deployments, the Main channel and all three RC channels have had their deployments and restarts made on Tuesday September 10th. As a result, there will be no RC restarts on Wednesday September 11th.

The reason for the single pass – Main channel first, followed by the RCs – is to apply updates server-side relating to recent Vivox service maintenance.

  • Main channel: received an update related to the recent voice service maintenance and no other changes – release notes
  • BlueSteel and LeTigre: received a new maintenance package, comprising:
      • A fix for an issue where an avatar sitting at high altitude may appear to be located at 0,0 on both the world map and mini map (BUG-3332)
      • A fix for “llReturnObjectsByID breaks on string uuids”
      • Fixes for a number of JSON function issues:
    • Nerfing of recursive rezzing. Again, this was outlined in my week 35 (1) report. Under the new code, the copy of the original object will inherit the temp-on-rez and parcel time of the originating object and so be returned at the same time
    • Crash mode fixes
    • The update related to recent voice maintenance
    • These channels also no longer have Monty Linden’s HTTP updates on them).
  • Magnum remained on the HTTP update package deployed in week 36, and also received the update related to the recent voice maintenance.

Region Crossing Update

In addition to the updates listed in the release notes, Bluesteel and LeTigre also received a threaded region crossing update. This is not expected to have a major visible improvement on vehicle crossings, or as Andrew Linden put it at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday September 10th, “It doesn’t mean the death of region crossing problems, but the data streaming on the way OUT of the region is now threaded, which doesn’t make the crossing any faster, but may reduce lag spikes as witnessed by everyone else.”

Kelly Linden added, “The threading change Simon mentioned moves vehicle serialization only into the same thread as agent serialization to fix a rare server crash mode due to a race condition serializing scripts in some very specific cases.”

SL Viewer Updates

On Monday September 9th, the Cocoa release candidate viewer was promoted to the de facto release viewer – version 3.6.5.280370 (release notes). This currently leaves just the materials updates as a release candidate viewer, although further viewer releases (either RCs or project viewers) are expected soon.

Group Ban Lists

Baker Linden is finishing-up the work prior to it going to RC (server and viewer), which is still a “few weeks” away. However, he’s planning / hoping on having the server code on Aditi by the end of the month, for which a “test viewer will be provided”.

Anti-griefing

Commenting on the update to the Auto-return capability to nerf recursive rezzing, Andrew indicated he took the discussion which followed his initial raising of the subject in the week 35 Simulator UG meeting back to the Lab, where there was discussion about limiting the functionality to “unattended” self-rezzing objects (i.e. those for who an owner is not present in the same parcel). He went on:

However after an internal discussion we decided to not open up that exception since it causes inconsistent behavior: different autoreturn times depending on whether the owner is present or not can lead to confusion, and also it would bypass the spirit of the autoreturn feature which parcel owners are expecting — that objects get autoreturned.

He went on to say that there is no single project at the top of his list,  and that the anti-griefing work is one of a number of projects he’s juggling with at present.

Viewer release summary 2013: week 36

Posted on by Inara Pey

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: September 8th, 2013

Official LL Viewers

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-Style

  • No updates

V1-Style

Other Clients

  • Lumiya updated to 2.5.4 on September 4th – core updates: advanced rendering on PowerVR;
    ability to resize HUDs; support for llTextBox function in scripts; fixed issue with avatar shape not being updated after changing outfits (release notes) – Google Play , Android Pit

Additional TPV Resources

Deprecated / Discontinued Viewers

  • Niran’s Viewer – discontinued as of version 2.2.0.2701 & superceded by Black Dragon
  • SLiteChat removed from listing; no updates since 2011, removed from TPV Directory & no response from developer
  • SL Second Life Beta viewer – deprecated as of version 3.6.2.278491, July 15, 2103
  • SL Development viewer – deprecated as of version 3.5.2.274629 April 24, 2013
  • Zen Viewer – discontinued by developer and no longer available, January 27th, 2013
  • Phoenix viewer – development and support ended on December 31st, 2012

Related Links

SL projects update week 36 (2): Server releases, viewer, HTTP

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 36

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback. Deployments are a day behind the usual schedule due to the US Labor Day long weekend.

  • On Wednesday September 4th, the Main channel received the maintenance package deployed to all three RC channels in week 35, which includes Preparatory work to support new estate and parcel access controls and the new manual region restart capability which sees a region restart as soon as the last avatar leaves (release notes)
  • On Thursday September 5th, the three RC channels received the same maintenance package, which comprises  server-side HTTP updates which require a future viewer-side update. In the meantime, these changes should not be apparent in any current viewer release (release notes – BlueSteel)

Upcoming Server Deployments – Week 37

It looks likely that the HTTP updates deployed to all three RCs in week 36 (of which, more details below), will go back to just one RC in order to make way for additional packages “to get the server flow going again”.

Speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday September 5th, Maestro Linden provided some information on some of the updates expected to go to at least one RC in week 37 (week commencing Monday September 9th):

  • The llXorbase64 issue reported on in my week 35 (2) report for details
  • A fix for an issue where an avatar sitting at high altitude may appear to be located at 0,0 on both the world map and mini map
  • Nerfing of recursive rezzing. Again, this was outlined in my week 35 (1) report. Under the new code, the copy of the original object will inherit the temp-on-rez and parcel time of the originating object and so be returned at the same time.
  • Fixes for a number of JSON function issues, including:
    • JSON implementation treats blank string and JSON_NULL interchangeably
    • Issue with llJsonSetValue with strings that end in ‘]’
    • RFC 4627 Non-Compliance by llJsonSetValue() with out-of-range Indices

SL Viewer News

There were no changes to the SL release viewer this week, again most likely due to the long weekend in the US.

Snowstorm Project Viewer

As reviewed earlier in the week, there has been a new Snowstorm contributions project viewer released, which includes various fixes and Jonathan Yap’s request teleport feature and a port of Cinder Roxley’s “eject from group confirmation” pop-up.

New request teleport capability - Snowstorm project viewer
New request teleport capability – Snowstorm project viewer

Interest List Viewer

Delays continue with this viewer, largely as a result of bug stomping requirements. Commenting on the situation at the TPV Developer meeting, Oz Linden said:

As you might imagine, monkeying with the interest list is full of opportunities for errors; and I think the team is really sensitive to that and trying hard not to have a bad launch. I keep hearing status updates from them, but none of them have been, “We’re going to launch the viewer right away”.

Hoz Linden then added, “They honestly are really close on the interest list, but there continue to be a string of bad bugs that need to be fixed.”

Animation Override Interface

Viewer-side hooks for LSL AO capabilities in the future?
Viewer-side hooks for LSL AO capabilities in the future?

As reported in week 34, Oz Linden is looking-in to the possibility of developing a viewer-side API / hook into the LSL AO capabilities introduced server-side earlier in 2013. Initial discussions with the Lab’s own developers seemed to go well (or as Oz put it at the time, they didn’t run screaming from the room…

As Oz will shortly be in San Francisco in the near future, he’s going to poke some more at the idea with the people at Battery Street and “see if there is something we ought to be doing.” Again, this is still a nascent idea, even with the offer of import from Kitty Barnett, and Oz went on to say:

If this is going to happen, and it is still a major league “if”, I think we would want to do it as part of a project in which a substantial improvement was made to how the viewer interacts with animation in general, and that means I would want a set of open-source devs involved in doing the viewer-side work. So be thinking about whether or not you can commit to that.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 36 (2): Server releases, viewer, HTTP” →

SL viewer gets “request teleport” feature and group eject confirmation

Posted on by Inara Pey

A new SL project viewer was released on September 3rd. The Snowstorm Project viewer 3.6.5.280476, brings with it a number of issue fixes, and includes two capabilities new to the viewer:

  • A “request teleport” feature (STORM-1838) contributed by Jonathan Yap, which allows users to request a teleport form another user (currently with caveats – see below)
  • A group eject confirmation pop-up (STORM-1952), submitted by Cinder Roxley, which some may be familiar with from using TPVs such as Firestorm.

Request Teleport

The new request teleport capability, which I first reported on back in week 4, requires both viewers to be using the code for it to work (so for the time being it is limited to the project viewer). Where this is the case:

  • Select the person to whom you wish to teleport (from your Friends list or Nearby list, etc.), and select Request Teleport
  • Enter a message in the pop-up, if required, and click OK.
Select the person to whom you wish to teleport (from your Friends list or Nearby list, etc.), and select Request Teleport. Enter a message in the pop-up, if required, and click
Request teleport: making a request

At the “other end” the recipient of the request will receive the request as an initial pop-up notification and within CHUI:

Receiving a teleport request - pop-up and CHUI message
Receiving a teleport request – pop-up and CHUI message

The recipient can than either accept the request, sending a teleport offer, or reject it, in which case no message is sent.

The teleport offer is again displayed in the requester’s viewer as both as an initial pop-up notification (below) and within CHUI.

Receiving the teleport offer
Receiving the teleport offer

Note again, that the system will only work where both viewers are running the new code (e.g. the Snowstorm project viewer for the time being). If someone on a viewer with the capability to someone using a viewer which does not have the teleport request code, the request will not be received / displayed.

Group Eject Confirmation

The group eject confirmation sees the official viewer get a new pop-up asking for confirmation when ejecting someone from a group, in order to help with issues where the wrong name is selected and ejected.

The new gtoup eject confirmation pop-up for the official viewer
The new group eject confirmation pop-up for the official viewer

Again, as noted above, the release notes for the viewer provide a full list of updates in the viewer.