Category: SL Tech

SL projects update week 20 (2): materials beta, SSB/A

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 20

As always, please refer to the release forum  thread on the weekly deployments for the latest updates and discussions.

Second Life Server (Main channel)

On Tuesday May 14th, the Main channel received the Experience Keys project. This means the project is now available across the grid, although there are no visible changes to be seen at this point. Release notes.

Release Candidate (RC) Channels – JSON Capabilities

On Wednesday May 15th, all three RC channels received a new server maintenance project (release notes (Bluesteel)).  The project is designed to fix two crash modes and two bugs, and introduce new LSL support creating and parsing of JSON-formatted strings – see part 1 of this week 20 report.

Commenting on the JSON capabilities at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May 16th, Maestro Linden said, “There are some issues with this week’s Json functions… the keys in key-value pairs are not quoted, but should be and right now you’ll run into problems when you add stings which contain escaped quotes.”

In addition, a further confirmed bug has been found in the code on the three RC channels (BUG-2601), described by Lucia Nightfire as:

Seems that the release on the RC channels has brought about an annoying bug that affects control event triggering in attachment’s child prims after changing regions.

There are two different effects depending how you enter a version 13.05.14.275813 RC region.

After going into an RC region while using any controls, those controls will lock under execution and remain locked until you reset the script or the control perms or detach the object.

After going into an RC region without using controls like with a teleport, the control event will not trigger when attempting to use any controls until you re-request/re-grant control perms or go back to a main channel region.

Should this problem be encountered, returning to any Main channel region should restore the broken functionality.

Because of both of these issues, it is believed the code currently on the three RC channels will remain on them for a further week while fixes are developed and implemented.

SL Viewer Updates

Beta Viewer

The current SL beta viewer code, which contains the FMOD Ex updates is expected to be merged with viewer release shortly, prior to going to testing. Depending on the results of the testing, an updated SL release viewer should appear early in week 21.

Viewer Release Process

Because the version upgrading changes will move to the viewer release channel with the move of the current beta viewer, the viewer beta repository will stop being used, and viewer releases will start switching over to the new release process. As a part of this, two new wiki pages will be appearing in the next future (probably in week 22).

The first of these will be a revamped Alternate Viewers page on the wiki, which will list all the available LL project viewers and beta viewers and release candidates which are available, as well as the current viewer release, all of which will have download links and links to their respective release notes.

The second wiki page will have the same information together with pointers to which repository used to build the viewer, which changesets were used to build a viewer, and whether or not the repository is public.

The plan remains that under the new release process, all beta and release candidates will have public repositories, while project viewers many not initially have public repositories, but will have as they reach the later stages of their development.

Cocoa Project

The Cocoa project for Mac versions of the viewer has been largely stalled as a result of redeploying TPV assistance from that project to the materials project. It is anticipated that once materials moves to a beta viewer status, the emphasis will shift back on to the Cocoa viewer work

Materials Processing

Providing all goes according to plan, the Materials Processing code should move to a beta  status within its own repository and hopefully also make an appearance in week 21. Commenting on this, Oz Linden said at the TPV Developer meeting o Friday May 17th, “It’s still not 100% there; there’s still a few known bugs, but we think we’ve got all the serious ones and so we’re going to put it out where people can play with it.”

Once the materials viewer does reach beta, the anticipation is that it will remain there for “a little while” and the it will not be a one-spin beta release prior to moving on.

Detail on the hint of a Katana created entirely using the new materials capability. The sword is made by June Dion and has an LI of 7
Materials used to create details on the hilt of a Katana created by June Dion – soon to be visible in the Materials Processing beta viewer

Continue reading “SL projects update week 20 (2): materials beta, SSB/A” →

What dreams may come: Kirstenlee further updates S19

Posted on by Inara Pey

kirstensKirstenlee Cinquetti has issued a further update to the S19 version of Kirsten’s Viewer – version S19 1.19.4 (407). Released on Thursday May 16th, 2013, the update primarily fixes a nasty cache crash when user settings and local cache are manually deleted.

There have been a lot of questions as to why the S19 (v1-style) viewer from Kirsten’s stable is being updates rather than the S22/S23 viewers. In a blog post accompanying the release, Kirsten/Lee gives an answer:

So I guess the most pertinent question is why? It is probably the most pointless one to answer also.

But lets just take a wild stab at it!

I need to be in SL occasionally so I need a viewer (Duh), V2 is dead sorry S22 it was fun, V3 is well lets just say it’s not my cup of tea. I could just download someone else’s viewer but thats not what I want.

I LIKE S19 it was and still is quick, its code in comparison to newer clients is simpler it has much more modest hardware demands I can merge from many sources more rapidly etc, etc, etc..
It ticks all my boxes, on a more personal note it’s NOT limited to Second Life.

That is important to me, so it may have bugs, it may not compile on macs very well… sorry.

But if I wish to drift around SL or jump into Opensim I can.. anyway hope that kinda answers some of my motivations, and why I share the corresponding installer.

As mentioned in my last piece marking the “return” of the S19 viewer, and people shouldn’t anticipate routine updates and improvements; as Lee indicates in his bog post, this viewer has been updated and is being tweaked purely to suit his needs – and rightly so.

A couple of notable changes have been made since version S19.1.19.4.(404), the last version I used. Preferences have been moved from their “traditional” location in the File menu to appear under the S19 menu, and Depth of Field (DoF) has been added to the Graphics tab, in a dedicated sub-tab.

DoF is back!
DoF is back!

Sadly for me, I’m unable to test DoF, as deferred will not run on my hardware set-up, no matter how I fiddle with AA (which was Lee’s suggestion to me after I’d encountered problems with the 404 build). But then, as I noted last time, while I’ve always like Kirsten’s Viewer, my hardware has tended to sulk badly when using it.

However, for those of you missing Kirsten’s Viewer, here’s yet another update for you! Going on feedback following my original piece on S19’s return (in comments, IMs and DMs), it’s good to know the viewer still has loyal fans!

Related Links

SL projects update week 20 (1): server, JSON, viewer release process

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 20

As always, please refer to the release forum  thread on the weekly deployments for the latest updates and discussions.

Second Life Server (Main channel)

On Tuesday May 14th, the Main channel received the Experience Keys project which is widely regarded (and referred to by LL staff) as the “experience permissions”. This means the project is now available across the grid, although there are no visible changes to be seen at this point. Release notes.

Speculation is still running high on exactly what the new project is – and whether it is “just” the experience permissions to partner the existing advanced creation tools ot something more – as well as whether the capabilities will be available for use across the grid (i.e. on Mainland as well as private estates). Details will be forthcoming from the Lab in time; for the moment, they’re holding their cards close to their collective chest.

Release Candidate (RC) Channels – JSON Capabilities

On Wednesday May 15th, all three RC channels should receive a new server maintenance project (release notes (Bluesteel)).  The project is designed to fix two crash modes and two bugs, namely:

  • A fix for ‘Overriding “Sitting on Ground” animation while sitting on the ground makes “stand up” button disappear’ (BUG-2424)
  • A fix for ‘ApplyImpulse now works only in the root prim’ (SVC-8227)

In addition, this project introduces new LSL support creating and parsing for JSON-formatted strings. The new LSL functions comprise: 

  • list llJson2List(string json) – converts the top level of the json string to a list.
  • string llList2Json(string type, list values) – 
    • Type is JSON_ARRAY or JSON_OBJECT
    • Converts either a strided list of key:value pairs to a JSON_OBJECT or a list of values to a JSON_ARRAY
  • string llJsonGetValue(string json, list specifiers) – gets the value indicated by spcifiers from the json string.
  • string llJsonSetValue(string json, list specifiers, string value) – returns a new json string that is the json given with the value indicated by specifiers set to value
  • string llJsonValueType(string json, list specifiers) – returns the type constant for the value in json indicated by specifiers.

At the time of writing, the RC deployments still had a question mark over them as testing was, according to Simon Linden when speaking at the Simulator User Group, “down to the wire, although it all looks good.”

Further information on the new LSL support for JSON can be found on the LSL JSON wiki page.

The project is being lead by Kelly Linden who described the reason for implementing them as being because he’s “keen on improving the ability to interface LSL with the larger web. The previous maintenance version expanded the content-type support of http-in and http-out which ties in with this.”

It is likely that further LSL support for JSON will be added in the future.

SL Viewer

Beta Viewer and the Viewer Release Process

A further beta viewer release was made on May 11th (3.5.2.275565) – see the release notes for details – in preparation for the deployment of the new viewer release process. The beta 3.5.2 viewer incorporates changes required by the new service.

While at the Open-source Dev meeting on Monday May 13th, I asked Oz Linden on the status of the new process. “Internally, we’re essentially already using it in that all projects are based on viewer-release,” he replied. “We’re starting system test of the server-side infrastructure changes this week… once those are tested, it’s just a matter of deploying them and we can fully switch over to the new process. ‘just deploying’ on our scale is always an understatement, incidentally.”

This does not mean the release process is about to be deployed, however. The server-side infrastructure testing is liable to be on-going for a while. One aspect which the Lab will be checking carefully is the changes made to the log-in process.

When a user logs-in to Second Life using an official viewer, a check is carried out to see if a mandatory upgrade is required. To prepare for the new release process, is check has been updated. “that’s not something one deploys without having taken every step one can think of to quadruple-check just a bit,” Oz explained.

How long the tests will take to complete is unclear, but it is unlikely the new release process will be deployed in week 20.

Materials Processing

May 8th saw the The materials project viewer updated with the release of version 3.5.2.275470, with the release notes available here.

Detail on the hint of a Katana created entirely using the new materials capability. The sword is made by June Dion and has an LI of 7
Detail on the hilt of a Katana created entirely using the new materials capability. The sword is made by June Dion and has an LI of 7

Work is continuing with the viewer, focusing on the UI issues which need to be resolved in order for the code to progress towards mainstream  release.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 20 (1): server, JSON, viewer release process” →

Server-side Baking / Appearance: key questions answered by the Lab

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Monday May 13th 2013, Troy and Nyx Linden appeared on a segment of Designing Worlds to discuss Server-side Baking / Appearance (SSB/A), alongside Brooke and Oz Linden, who were there to discuss Materials Processing.

Troy Linden is a Senior Producer at Linden Lab, who has been working on high-level server-side baking, and Nyx Linden is a Senior Software Engineer at the Lab, who has been working with the technical aspects of SSB/A and has been very much the public face of the project. Together, they answered a series of questions on the project put to them on behalf of users (the questions having been requested in advance of the show being recorded) by the Designing Worlds hosts, Saffia Widdershins and Elrik Merlin.

The following is a summary of the questions asked and answers given.

Nyx Linden (l) and Troy Linden (r) on Designing Worlds
Nyx Linden (l) and Troy Linden (r) on Designing Worlds (image courtesy of Wildstar Beaumont / Designing Worlds)

Saffia Widdershins (SW): Let’s start with the basics: what is baking, and how is it being handled now?

Troy Linden (TL): Baking is a process where we take all the information that involves your avatar – how it looks – and we combine it to deliver a finished avatar. Currently, how it’s handled right now [is] your computer, the individual’s computer, handles all of the processing involved in determining your avatar’s appearance, and it sends all the result back to our servers. So it’s a pretty involved process and there’s a bunch of time that it takes to do all that.

SW: So how is that going to be changed in the future … and will it simplify it?

TL: Server-side baking is our new system. It’s where we actually stand up a new service that will handle all of the baking process on our end. And what this actually does is it takes the load away from your computer, the individual user’s computer, and the results are a faster, more consistent experience during the whole baking process in Second Life.

Elrik Merlin (EM): Just to be clear about this … in the new system, what will be handled by the server and what will be handled by the viewer, exactly?

TL: The new viewer will be sending the server and [be] the recipient of all the avatar data, while the server does all the calculations required. So your viewer will download the results [of the baking process] over a lot faster HTTP connection.

EM: So that’s the basics of how it works, so to speak; how would you summarise the benefits to users?

Designing Worlds hosts Saffia Widdershin and Elrik Merlin
Designing Worlds hosts Saffia Widdershin and Elrik Merlin (image courtesy of Wildstar Beaumont / Designing Worlds)

TL: Well, simply put, it’s a much faster, more reliable avatar rendering experience. So hopefully you’ll see less avatars being stuck in their clouded state as well as being stuck untextured. So they’ll actually appear the way the user actually intended much quicker.

SW: So it will be an end to that problem where you half-rez but, (laughs) your make-up is blurred so you look as though you’ve been having a really heavy night!

TL: (Laughing) That’s the plan. We’re actually seeing some great results so far, so we’re very excited.

SW: Are there likely to be any downsides? There will be less impact on peoples’ machines, is that what you’re saying, or could there me more?

Nyx Linden (NL): The one downside to the new system is, because it is such a big change from how we have done things in the past, everyone is going to have to update their viewer. It will be a mandatory update. Users who don’t update will start to see even more avatars fail to load. Fortunately, we have the viewer that people need to download released, and users who use any actively maintained third-party viewer should be able to download an update presently as well. As long as users do update, they won’t see any downsides.

EM: This is obviously nearing completion and we’re nearing implementation. Can you tell us a little about where the project is, what its current status is, and what the time scales are for introduction are going to be?

NL: Absolutely! So, we’re in a multi-stage release; at this point we have our first viewer out the door. So the next stage is that we’re going to be standing-up the service that is going to be doing all the work for rezzing your avatar. Over time we will slowly roll-out the new system across the grid. That’s going to take some time, and we’re going to be following-up through our blogs and forums to let people know how that process is going, but we want to take our time with that process, to make sure that everything is working as well as we think it is.

Continue reading “Server-side Baking / Appearance: key questions answered by the Lab” →

Viewer release summary 2013: week 19

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: May 12th, 2013

Depreciated / Discontinued Viewers

  • SL Development viewer – depreciated 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

Restrained Love Viewer updated

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update: May 13th: The Linux version of RLV was updated by Kitttin Ninetails to version 2.8.4.1 on Sunday May 12th, and is available here.

On Friday May 10th, 2013, Marine Kelley released the latest version of her standalone version of the Restrained Love Viewer (RLV) for Windows – RLV 2.8.4.1. The release is the first update to RLV in 2013, and is based on LL’s 3.5.2 viewer code (3.5.2.264760, dated April 21st, 2013). As such, it brings RLV pretty much up-to-date with the majority of LL’s viewer-side updates and fixes.

Note that this article only applies to RLV for Windows, as supplied by Marine Kelley. The Linux and Mac versions supplied by Kittin Ninetails remain at version 2.8.3.5.

Communications Hub User Interface

With this release, RLV now uses the Communications Hub User Interface (CHUI) and the standard means of managing chat and IMs, together with the majority of fixes and updates made to CHUI through recent development and beta updates.

RLV 2.8.4.1 includes CHUI for managing communications
RLV 2.8.4.1 includes CHUI for managing communications

Server-side Baking / Appearance

Despite no mention being made of it in the release notes, version 2.8.4.1 of RLV appears to also include viewer-side support for the upcoming deployment of Server-side Baking to the main grid.

To confirm this, as I was somewhat surprised that the release notes failed to make mention of any support, I dropped into the SSB/A test regions on Aditi to see how my avatar would render to others, and they would render to me when using the viewer. With the aid of my Crash Test Alt, all appeared to be fine.

Server-side baking: my avatar and Crash Test Alt as seen through RLV 2.8.4.1 (l) and through another SSB-capable viewer (r). Both render correctly; no greying or ghosting
Server-side baking: my avatar and Crash Test Alt as seen through RLV 2.8.4.1 (l) and through another SSB-capable viewer (r). Both render correctly; no greying or ghosting

I also didn’t encounter any issues in changing / re-ordering outfits which others have reported as encountering recently (although I admittedly have  – perhaps fortunately – yet to encounter any issues of this type while using any SSB/A-enabled viewer).

Other Updates and Fixes

Marine provides a list of additional updates and fixes:

Changes:

  • Camera focus is no longer lost when clicking on an in-world object. To change camera focus, right-click on your avatar, press Escape or focus on something else
  • Viewer allows moving an item or a folder from a locked folder to another locked folder (prevent only from locked to unlocked and from unlocked to locked)
  • Viewer does not expect the user to press Enter before chatting while in Mouselook, since they don’t have to when in 3rd person view
  • Viewer does not automatically rename folders or items in the inventory unless “RestrainedLoveAutomaticRenameItems” is set to TRUE (it is FALSE by default). This is no longer necessary since the viewer no longer needs to figure out whether or not it will kick a locked object because it now Adds by default now.

Fixed:

  • It is no longer possible to drag and drop an item from an object in-world directly into  inventory, regardless of RLV attach restrictions
  • It is no longer possible to wear rezzed items by right-clicking on them in-world and selecting “attach to”, even when @unsharedwear was active
  • It is now possible to hide the UI when unable to rez
  • It is no longer possible to create new pieces of clothing regardless of RLV outfit restrictions
  • The Control key wouldn’t work in Mouselook. Fixing this removes the ability to control the speed of the mouse view while holding Control, but Shift already does something similar.

Related Links