Category: SL Tech

Kokua offers .DAE exports

Posted on by Inara Pey

kokua-logoKokua have released a further update in the form of version 3.6.3.29169 (August 23rd). With it comes some important notes, and the addition of the .DAE (Collada) object export capability.

Installation Notes

This is the first release from Kokua to use the auto update mechanism from Linden Lab, which was incorporated into the viewer with release 3.6.2. However, for Windows users, there are two important points to note:

  • If you are a Windows user and have a pre-3.6.2 version of Kokua installed on your PC, you should first try to run the viewer and allow the auto-update process to fetch and install the latest release. This should work OK with versions of Kokua at least back as far as version 3.6.1.28998 (June 28th 2013).
  • Because all Windows versions from 3.6.2 onwards are installed into a folder called Kokua (rather than Kokua Viewer). So if you have a version older than 3.6.2 already installed on your PC, note that the new version will be installed alongside it, rather than over it. If you then subsequently remove the older version using the uninstaller, your settings (located in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Kokua) will be lost – so make sure you back-up / move this folder before removing any old versions of the viewer & then restore it afterwards.

Those on older versions of Kokua (pre-3.5.1? I’m not entirely clear on this from the blog post) may find that the updater will direct them to install the official SL viewer from the Lab. As Nicky points-out, this is not some conspiracy to force people into using the SL viewer. Should it happen, quit out of the installer and use the Kokua download links (and take note of the 2nd bullet point above).

Collada Export

The major update for Kokua 3.6.3 is the inclusion of the Collada .DAE export capability which was recently added to Singularity, together with the ability to export objects in Wavefront .OBJ format. As the Singularity team made the export options available under a LGPL licence,  Jessica Wabbit has extracted the.DAE export capability and contributed to Kokua.

The export option works in exactly the same manner as with Singularity: it respects object permissions, and you can only export those objects for which you are the creator and owner.

To export an item which fit the criteria, simply right-click on it and:

  • If you are using context menus, select EXPORT > COLLADA DAE
  • If you are using the pie menu, select MORE > MORE > EXPORT COLLADA DAE

Either option will open a window allowing you to save the object to your hard drive. Once exported, the object can be used into applications which support the editing of .DAE files and / or imported as mesh to other virtual environments.

The DAE expoert options in Kokua's context and pie menus. If you're not the creator & owner of the item you're trying to export, they won't be available to you
The DAE export options in Kokua’s context and pie menus. If you’re not the creator & owner of the item you’re trying to export, they won’t be available to you

Note that if you do not have the requisite permissions to export the item, the export option will be unavailable on both menus.

Currently, the system only exports naked prims / sculpts (no textures), but this may be changing in the future – keep and eye on the Singularity team for news.

Commenting on the export capability, Kokua’s Nicky Perrian has said that if there is sufficient interest, the option to export to .OBJ may also be added to the viewer.

Additional Updates

This release sees Kokua use the Lab’s viewer 3.6.3 code base, and the following updates / additions:

  • The upcoming OpenSim Community Conference grid on OS Grid has been added to the grid drop-down list
  • Some tuning of the auto-update feature
  • Addition of a plain text chat history option in the chat preferences tab
  • Addition of new “Permissions” sub-menu for friends on the People floater for setting the usual options of whether friends can see when you’re on-line, etc. Enabled options display the requisite icon alongside the avatar’s name
  • Addition of group and role UUIDs at the end of the group’s General and Roles panels.
(l) Setting permissions for friends can now be done via a sub-menu int he people folder; (r) the UUID for a group can now be obtained from the group's general tab (role UUID can also be obtained from the Roles tab)
(l) Setting permissions for friends can now be done via a sub-menu int he people folder; (r) the UUID for a group can now be obtained from the group’s General tab (role UUID can also be obtained from the Roles tab)

Feedback

Another, small, tidy update with Kokua which adds what is likely to be a popular feature, given the excitement which followed Singularity’s release with the export options. Using Kokua 3.6.3 myself (although again very briefly due to RL commitments), I found it to be fast, stable and smooth – pretty much as with 3.6.2.

As I already had 3.6.2 installed, I allowed the auto-updater to upgrade me. This actually took a few seconds to acknowledge that an update was available (the delay seemed to be longer than the official viewer, which often has the update pop-up appear as soon as the splash screen has loaded). This tiny point aside, update was smooth and returned me to the log-in splash screen when finished, with 3.6.3 ready to go.

It’s great to see Kokua rolling along like this.

Related Links

SL projects update week 34 (3): SSA update and z-offset update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update August 27th: In reference to the “z-offset” notes at the end of this report. Marine Kelley has issued an important fix for her implementation of the capability for the Restrained Love Viewer (2.8.5.5). If you’re already using 2.8.5.3 as originally referenced in this article, you’ll need to update. I’ve revised the piece to point to 2.8.5.5’s release notes (download will also go to 2.8.5.5).

Week 34 saw Server-side Appearance go grid-wide in Second Life. Overall, the deployment went smoothly for the majority of people, although some have encountered issues, of which more below.

Commenting on the deployment in general terms, Nyx Linden said:

The roll-out this week went really well and seems to be performing well. We definitely have enough ovens to do the baking with, and there have only been a handful of users with issues, as far as I’m aware currently.

Issues

Where problems have occurred, there appear to be a mix of known issues and issues which appear to be related to the user’s connectivity between their viewer and the SL servers.

SUN-99

In the case of known issues, there have been further reports of issues arising with people having multiple versions of the Current Outfit Folder in their inventory (SUN-99).

Multiple instances of the COF (images courtesy of Cinder Roxley)
Multiple instances of the COF (images courtesy of Cinder Roxley)

Nyx reports that the Lab has been analysing the issue, and as a result has a list of accounts likely to be affected by it. They are currently putting in place a system by which these accounts will be flagged and automatically fixed when they next log-in. If all goes well, this new system should be coming into play in week 35, or at least in the not-too-distant future.

The Lab is reasonably confident that this work will eliminate the SUN-99 issue; however, Nyx has requested that if people continue to see multiple instances of their Current Outfit Folder appearing, to please raise a JIRA, including the viewer (and version) being used, so that it can be investigated for other possible causes.

Nyx also indicated that there has been one report of a user who was able to move their duplicate COF folders to their trash and then flush them, although this shouldn’t be possible. So if you do encounter the problem, it might be worth a try.

Until the new automated fix solution is implemented, instructions have been passed to LL’s support team, and they generally will try to provide a manual fix when contacted, and will do so for both Premium and Basic members. It has been suggested that the best way to gain support’s assistance is to file a ticket under Account Issues and then clearly marking it as being a BUG-99 / Current Outfit Folder problem.

High Bandwidth and Draw Distance

Issues relating to a poor connection between the viewer and the SL servers are resulting in people having either fully grey avatars or one of the three skin layers (head, upper body, lower body) remaining grey. The Firestorm support team in particular have had reports on this. Commenting on it at the TPV Developer meeting, Lead Support for Firestorm, Ed Merryman, said:

For the most part, in my personal experience, it’s been people with bandwidth and draw distance settings that were, let’s say, “extreme”. Normally, if we get them to drop their bandwidth and draw distance to a reasonable setting, they’re fixed.

The Firestorm team have a wiki item about checking and setting the viewer’s network bandwidth which is useful as a rule of thumb for all viewers.

HTTP Textures

Ed also reported that some users who found a part or all of their avatar grey were seeing the problem resolved if they disabled HTTP textures from within the viewer.

Whether this was due to a poor connection with the SL servers or a hardware issue is unclear. However, the thinking is that it is most likely due to something in the network path between the viewer and the SL servers getting hit with too many HTTP connections (which now include avatar baking). Disabling HTTP textures in the viewer forces regular texture downloads to shift back to the UDP service, thus reducing the number of HTTP connections, allowing avatar textures to load.

Issues when Connecting to SL via a Cell Phone

Problems have also been reported for those using a connection via their cell phone (non-public JIRA BUG-3323). This appears to be down to a issue whereby the size of the packet that the viewer is expecting from the SSA servers doesn’t align with the amount of data actually in the packet. The Lab is currently investigating this, but the issue does seem to be constrained to only a few users.

Next Steps

Commenting on what is coming up next while at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday August 23rd, Nyx Linden said:

I also have the next round of [viewer-side] changes ready to push from Sunshine internal [LL’s private repository] to Sunshine external [the public repository] … In it, you’ll see what should be all of the new inventory capabilities for the new inventory functionality for getting your Current Outfit Folder set. These changes appear to work on our developers’ machine, but are completely untested as far as you’re concerned. So this code is definitely not ready for merging into a mainline branch but feel free to do a merge into a side dev branch.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 34 (3): SSA update and z-offset update” →

SL projects update week 34 (2): Server, viewer, group ban list, HTTP

Posted on by Inara Pey

Note: with the exception of the server deployment review, the majority of this update has been taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday 21st August. A video of the meeting, recorded by panterapolnocy, is available at the end of this article

Server Deployments Week 34

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

  • On Tuesday August 20th the Main channel had Server-side Appearance (SSA) enabled, as per this blog post from the Lab.
  • On Wednesday 21st August, the Magnum RC received a new maintenance package with “under the hood” changes which should be invisible to residents, while BlueSteel and LeTigre received an update to the package deployed to BlueSteel in week 33. This includes a fix for the “grey box” attachment issue which affected multiple avatars riding an object over BlueSteel region crossings. Additionally, these channels also saw SSA enabled, meaning the entire main grid is now running SSA.

SSA Update

For information on the Server-side Appearance deployment, please see my separate report.

SL Viewer Updates

A new release candidate debuted on August 20th with the name “CHUIStorm” (3.6.4.280048). This is a merging of the CHUI and Snowstorm RC viewers with the latest de facto release code base. The reason for merging the two RCs is because the Lab felt there were “too many RCs in flight”, making it difficult to determine which one should be promoted to the release viewer if several appeared ready simultaneously. In future, the Lab hopes to keep the total number of RCs in the channel to around two or three.

Interestingly, the Google Breakpad RC has vanished from the list of RC viewers in the Release channel.

The Materials project viewer was promoted to the Release channel on August 21st (RC 3.6.4.280083), leaving the current total number of RC viewers in the channel at three (CHUIStorm, Cocoa (Mac) and Materials).

Next in the Pipeline

While the order in which they appear or the overall time frame for their release is not clear, there are a number of project viewers which will be appearing in the near future. These include:

  • A further Snowstorm project viewer (third-party developer contributions) – currently with LL’s QA team
  • A new Interest List project viewer (which has had trouble passing QA – see below)
  • A further SSA project viewer – for details see my SSA Update
  • A Group Bans project viewer (see below)
  • An HTTP project viewer (see the HTTP update below)

In addition, Oz Linden hinted that he may have a surprise announcement at the next TPV Developer meeting in two weeks. While he said absolutely nothing further on the subject, the resultant speculation was that he might have been referring to the arrival of an Experience Tools project viewer. Linden Lab accidentally exposed such a viewer a few weeks ago, but quickly moved it back to a private status, so there is an awareness that a viewer is in development. Whether the speculation is right or wrong will be revealed in the fullness of time!

Interest List Update

As noted above, the viewer-side updates to the Interest list project continue to evade a project viewer release, but are expected to appear “soon”. While the code does not contain any mandatory changes TPVs must adopt, there are obviously optimisations within the code which will be beneficial for TPVs to pick-up once the repository is public.

Group Ban List

Baker Linden continues to make good progress with the group ban list project. He is currently working on what he sees as the last major part of the initial work: getting the viewer connected to the server. After that, he reports he has “a lot of security checks, and some minor additions”. There’s still no date for a project viewer, but it would appear that it is not that far from reaching a status of “real soon now”.

HTTP Update

Monty Linden is continuing to work on his HTTP updates, although he has most recently been trying to get the ” bureaucratic details” sorted and getting a QA pass on both the server-side and the viewer side work. He’s also trying to get a DNS fix in as well, which he describes as the “great DNS look-up failures problem” which the Lab has had for a number of years. He thinks he has a fix for the issue, but he’s not 100% certain.

Monty's HTTP work is now focusing on mesh connections
Monty’s HTTP work is now focusing on mesh connections

In terms of the HTTP work, Monty is trying to get a project viewer lined-up, and describes the major feature within it as being the reduction of the number of connections used by mesh so that it will be possible to start using keepalives  with mesh as well.

As I’ve previously reported, Monty has already reduced the number of mesh connections from 32 to 8. Going forward, eight will be the new default (rather than 32), with the aim being to cap the total number of mesh connections used by the viewer, with adaptive throttling and two different re-try schemes. The hope is that this will further improve network utilisation by creating more effective viewer / server connections; it should also help less capable routers.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 34 (2): Server, viewer, group ban list, HTTP” →

SL project updates week 34 (1): server releases, SSA, viewer, Oculus Rift

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments Week 34

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

Second Life Server (SLS Main) Channel – Tuesday August 20th

The Main channel had Server-side Appearance (SSA) enabled, as per this blog post from the Lab. As I’ve previously noted, users will need to run a maintained viewer which incorporates the SSA code in order for other avatars to render correctly in their view. See the release notes for additional information to the above links.

There were no other updates in this deployment.

Release Candidate Channels – Wednesday August 21st

  • Magnum should receive a new maintenance package which “only includes a few internal bug fixes which shouldn’t show any visible changes to the residents”. In describing this at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday August 13th, Simon Linden said, “There’s one performance fix that you might see in the viewer … you shouldn’t get those situations where you see lots of ‘duplicate caps. messages” – this package was deployed to LeTigre in week 33
  • Bluesteel and LeTigre will both be on an update to the package deployed to BlueSteel in week 33, which includes:
    • A fix for the “grey box attachment  issue” (non-public BUG-3547, details below)
    • A (further?) update to for “llListen in linked objects is listening at root instead of linked object local position *after re-rezzing the linkset*”, which was also listed in the BlueSteel release notes for week 32  (non-public JIRA BUG-3291)
    • The code to block avatars entering a region / objects being rezzed in a region during the last 60-seconds before a restart. In addition, restart warning pop-ups will include the region name. This was again in the release notes for week 32, so would appear to be a further update to that code
    • Fixes for further simulator crash modes.

Further, all three RC channels will have Server-side Appearance enabled at the conclusion of the Wednesday August 21st deployments.

SL Viewer Updates

Release Viewer Updated

Tuesday August 20th saw a new update to the de facto release viewer, when the former Maintenance Viewer RC 3.6.3.279564, dated August 12th, was promoted. The full list of updates for this release can be found in the release notes. However, of most interest to many will be the fact that it includes the particle selection capability.

As previously reported in these updates, this capability (MAINT-2268) allows a user to right-click on a particle emitter and mute it, blocking the particle emissions from their viewer. This is liable to be very welcome to those using regions which are frequently the target of particle griefing, as it means that the emitter itself no longer needs to be located and blocked. In addition, the new code has a FPS limit on particles, and will stop generating new particles when frame rates drop to 4 FPS or lower.

Other SL Viewer Updates

The promotion of the Maintenance Viewer RC to release status leaves four remaining release candidate viewers at this time: CHUI, the MAC-focused Cocoa RC viewer, the Google Breakpad RC for better crash / stats reporting and the Snowstorm RC, which contains updates contributed to LL by third-party developers. As is now the practice, these will each be rebuilt using the “new” de facto release viewer code, and so will have updates appearing over the coming days.

Oculus Rift

Oculus Rift - UI work progressing at the Lab
Oculus Rift – UI work progressing at the Lab

Work is progressing with integrating Oculus Rift with Second Life. While I’m not overly interested in the Rift myself, one are that does interest me is that of the UI and how it is going to be integrated with the headset – as I’ve commented in the past, while others see it as a potential issue, I don’t necessarily agree, although I’ve felt that a balance would have to be struck in order to avoid the UI completely overwhelming  / spoiling the first-person view.

Speaking at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday August 20th, Simon Linden indicated that this is on the Lab’s collective mind as well – and that a potentially clever solution is being tried-out to ensure the UI menus, etc., are usable without interfering with the user’s view of things:

I know recently they were working on how to have the SL UI appear … having menus hanging out in your vision is an interesting design, but you’re not in a “window” anymore … In the Rift it’s projected on a surface around you … so you look up to see the menus and they float there in mid-air … I think they’re experimenting with the shape of that surface too … if it’s flat, the text can look funny as it’s slanting away from you.

This, I have to say, does sound intriguing, and I’d be curious to see it in action; if nothing else, it gets me thinking somewhat of Bruce Branit’s World Builder – although admittedly, the protagonist in that piece is physically “inside” his virtual realm…

If nothing else, that gives me an excuse to post the new HD version of World Builder Bruce posted to his YouTube channel earlier this month (yes, I know it’s not the first time I’ve posted it, but I do love the movie).

Related Links

Kokua 3.6.2: all set for auto-update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update August 21st: Nicky Perrian from Kokua has added a comment about a Windows issue with uninstalling, due to a change in the installer.

kokua-logoKokua released version 3.6.2.29072 on August 16th, becoming the first TPV to start operating LL’s viewer update capability since the Lab formally announced it was making the capability available to TPVs if they want to make use of it (Catznip has actually has an auto update capability since release R7, but I’m not clear on whether that uses any of the LL code, or is something the Catznip team built for themselves). Along with this change comes a number of smaller updates.

Download and Installation

The latest Kokua installer (Windows) weighs-in at 36.8 Mb. As expected, the installer runs without a hitch. As I’m still getting around to re-installing viewers on an “as needed” basis on the new PC, I didn’t have to perform a clean install (not that one is recommended in the release notes).

Auto Update

Oz Linden announced that the Lab would be making their viewer release mechanism available to TPVs via an e-mail earlier in the month and also at the TPV developer meeting on Friday August 9th, when he indicated that the Lab were already working with some viewer development teams to help them implement it, Kokua clearly being one of them.

Kokua implements LL's viewer update mechanism code
Kokua implements LL’s viewer update mechanism code

With Kokua, the update options are presented exactly as they are in the official viewer – complete with the check box to update to release candidates. Whether this means Kokua will be completely following suit with the overall release process implemented by the Lab, I’ve no idea.

Obviously, while the code is from LL, viewer updates obtained via it are still coming from Kokua – it doesn’t mean people sill suddenly start getting SL viewer updates!

The change does mean that from now on, updates will be obtained from Kokua’s SourceForge repository as the code does not work with BitBucket. However, the team are at present continuing to post updates to both BitBucket and SourceForge.

Additional Updates

This release brings the viewer up to parity with the Linden Lab 3.6.2 code base, which means it has the more recent materials processing code updates, although not necessarily the very latest to surface in the SL Materials Project viewer, and well as other recent updates within the official viewer. Other notable updates comprise:

  • A return to standard SL viewer Debug for the login menu. This allows the selection of Debug level before logging in
  • “Stop animating me” short cut has been assigned to Shift-S
  • There are several Linux build changes to allow compiling on current compilers (builds on gcc-4.7 and gcc-4.8 have webkit runtime issues)
  • Maximum number of groups has been corrected for OpenSim
  • Freeze/Unfreeze and Eject/Ban context menu options have been added to the people / radar floater, as per Feature Request #1254
  • The Reach Out slider on the people floater mini-map is renamed Radar Range, has been repositioned above the mini-map and now has a maximum range of 4095 metres
  • The Map button in the tool bar is renamed World Map
  • Clicking on the bandwidth or packet loss graph will bring up the Statistics floater
  • The middle mouse button can now be used as a paste function and / or to scroll the world map.

This is another small but very tidy update for Kokua, and the release notes are available on the Kokua blog. While I only had a very brief time to try it out over the weekend, I didn’t notice any issues of import / impact (other than the issue of mesh clothing on other avatars failing to render, which I frequently encounter on Firestorm and the official SL viewer, so is not a Kokua issue).

All-in-all a tidy update.

Related Links

Server-side Appearance to go live across the grid August 20th/21st

Posted on by Inara Pey

A blog post has appeared from the Lab announcing that Project Sunshine – otherwise known as Server-side Appearance (or Baking as was), and a part of the Project Shining initiative – will go live across the grid this week.

The blog post doesn’t provide any date(s) by which this will occur, however Nyx Linden has confirmed that:

  • The Main channel will have Server-side Appearance (SSA) enabled following the server deployments on Tuesday August 20th
  • BlueSteel and LeTigre will have SSA enabled following the Release Candidate deployments on Wednesday August 21st (as Magnum is currently the only channel with SSA enabled).

So, if you haven’t already updated to an SSA-capable viewer, you have less than 24 hours in which to do so before you start seeing a lot of avatars failing to render correctly.

Currently, all maintained TPV viewers with the exception of Dolphin (V3-style) and Imprudence (V1-style) support SSA rendering of avatars.

Commenting on the upcoming enabling, Nyx Linden said:

We have stats that show that it should speed up avatar loading time for everyone, so hopefully it will go smoothly and be a great improvement across the grid.

As with previous blog-posts on the subject, the Lab have included a viewer of the new service and what it means.

So, as the video says, “Don’t be cloudy and grey, enjoy Sunshine today!”

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