Category: SL Tech

Lumiya: now you rez it, then you take it

Posted on by Inara Pey

lumiya-logoLumiya, the SL / OpenSim viewer for Android has seen two further updates since my last review. Version 2.4.3, released on February 16th, primarily saw the addition of flexiprim support in the 3D view, and the option to teleport to an avatar as well as some nips, tucks and tweaks.

Version 2.4.4, release on March 7th added object rezzing options and inventory-taking option to Lumiya as well as the ability to create landmarks. Taken together, both updates significantly add to Lumiya’s capabilities, and as I had a little free time, I took version 2.4.4 for a spin to try all the updates out.

Teleport to an Avatar

Teleporting to an avatar using Lumiya is a simple matter of selecting them from your Friends list, the Nearby list using a long touch and then selecting Teleport To from the pop-up menu. You’ll be asked to confirm the action – note that Yes is on the RIGHT of the confirmation dialogue; clicking it will teleport you to the avatar (or any landing point near them, if one is set at their current location).

Creating a Landmark

To create a landmark at any time, display your inventory, then click on the Landmark icon displayed in the bottom right of the inventory window (portrait display) or top right (landscape display). If the icon isn’t displayed in the latter view, tap the Menu button on your device and select Create Landmark from the displayed menu.

Use the Menu button on your device when displaying the inventory window to display a list of options of the Create Lanmark icon isn't already displayed
Use the Menu button on your device when displaying the inventory window to display a list of options of the Create Landmark icon isn’t already displayed

Note that you can access inventory either from the Lumiya Suitcase icon when in text view or in the 3D world view. If the icon isn’t visible in the latter, tap the menu bar on your device to display a list of options – inventory access should be at or near the top.

Tap the Menu button on your device to display all available menu options when in 3D world view
Tap the Menu button on your device to display all available menu options when in 3D world view

Rezzing Objects and Unpacking

Rezzing an object in-world in Lumiya is a simple matter of locating the object in your inventory and then long-touching it to display a pop-up menu. Tap Rez on the menu then confirm you wish to rez the object in-world in response to the dialogue displayed.

Objext rezzing from inventory & copying / moving the contents of an object back to inventory
Object rezzing from inventory & copying / moving the contents of an object back to inventory

Assuming you have object entry / rezzing rights for the parcel you are on, the object will be rezzed in-world. To display the contents, long-touch it (note that you may have to adjust your camera position to select the object, particularly if it is rezzed on another touchable object), and select the Open option from the displayed menu. An inventory-like window is opened to display the contents of the object, which can be copied / moved to your inventory by tapping the Copy button at the top right of the contents window.

Other Bits and Feedback

Lumiya supports flexiprim motions in the 3D world view as of version 2.4.3
Lumiya supports flexiprim motions in the 3D world view as of version 2.4.3

Versions 2.4.3 and 2.4.4 see improved handling of large meshes, improved notification settings and assorted bug fixes.

The flexiprim support in the 3D world view works well, although rendering things like flexihair when in motion may result in slight oddities; for example, when walking, my hair tended to all but vanish at times, but would quickly come back once I stopped, and Lumiya reproduces SL’s signature “hair flair”  – long hair flairing out behind your avatar like a comet’s tail – very well :).

Overall, these have been two somewhat “low-key” updates for Lumiya compared to recent passes (mesh support et al). However, I know that 2.4.3 marked another milestone for Alina, as she’s been working on getting flexiprims to work for the last several months – so it’s good to see she’s succeeded.

The ability to rez / open objects adds another fundamental capability to Lumiya, as does the ability to create landmarks. All-in-all, another good set of updates which once again increase Lumiya’s attractiveness as a very capable means of accessing Second Life and OpenSim while on the move.

My only real issue with the viewer is that if Alina keeps developing Lumiya, I’m going to have to go out and buy a Tablet just so I can really enjoy using it! :D.

Related Links

SL project updates: week 10 (3): viewer, CHUI, SSB and HTTP work

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL Viewer Beta and Viewer Development  and CHUI

There have been updates to both the beta and development viewers. The beta viewer moved to release 3.5.0.271345, and development to 3.4.5.271386. Both releases were focused on CHUI, and according to Oz Linden, “Right now they are almost identical; different only in the viewer number I believe.” He went on to say, “There is significant uncertainty as to when CHUI will come out of the beta channels, and it’s very likely that will remain true for a while yet – that is, that the two will remain pretty similar.”

With one CHUI update having just gone to the beta viewer, the Lab anticipates there will be at least one more update for the project while in beta before it makes any more to the viewer release channel.

Server-side Baking (SSB)

Server-side Baking saw the release of a further viewer update – 3.4.5.271419 – on March 7th, which was partially in response from information gained from the first public pile-on / load test for SSB, held on Thursday February 21st.

Commenting on the ongoing work to integrate SSB into TPVs at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday March 8th, Oz linden thanked the TPVs for their work to date on trying to integrate the viewer-side SSB code into their offerings in order to keep the project on track. “I’m very pleased to say that right now it does not look like support for it [SSB] in third-party viewers is going to end up being the limiting factor on when it can be deployed,” he said, although he did caution against showing any complacency in getting the code to a deployable condition.

Merge with CHUI

Also at the TPV Developer meeting, Nyx indicated that overall, the project viewer for SSB is becoming more and more stable, and that his team now has and initial merge with the CHUI code, which they are going to be “hammering on”, prior to pushing it to the internal Sunshine branch. As such, the most recent release of the SSB project viewer is possibly the last push prior to CHUI appearing in the viewer.

Given there are concerns over the merger and its possible impact on TPVs, Nyx is going to see if it is possible to maintain a side branch of the SSB viewer code which does not include the CHUI merge, which could continue to receive fixes and make it easier for TPVs to obtain them, however, until this has been looked into in more detail, he is unwilling to commit to how easy it would be to achieve and maintain – or how long for.

Second Pile-on  / Load Test

Serer-side baking - further testing on March 14th
Serer-side baking – further testing on March 14th

Attending the Server Beta meeting in week 10, Nyx Linden announced that the updated viewer will be required  for a further pile-on / load test, which has been scheduled for Thursday March 14th. The test is liable to be in much the same format as the first test, and those wishing to participate are advised to attend the Server Beta meeting on Aditi ahead of time (the meeting commences at 15:00 SLT on Thursdays).

Those wishing to take part in the test should also ensure they are using the latest version of the SSB project viewer linked-to above, as this as this has been specifically set-up to enable correct logging of data, etc., for the test. Nyx hopes that the latest updates to the logging parameters, coupled with the recent inventory fixes applied to Aditi should do much to both lessen the impact of Aditi issues should they occur and make them easier to identify when analysing feedback. However, Nyx suggested that those who have experienced Aditi inventory issues and who wish to join-in the test on March 14th should log-into the Sunshine test regions ahead of time and confirm that they can access their inventory using the project viewer.

Continue reading “SL project updates: week 10 (3): viewer, CHUI, SSB and HTTP work” →

SL project updates: week 10 (2): server, SSB, materials and SSAO

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments Update

All of the deployments planned for week 10 went ahead as scheduled. While further issues related to region crossings have been reported, these are not thought to be related to any of the new code deployments for this week (see below for more).

The one issue that has been noted with the deployments is for VWR-786, which formed a part of the Magnum deployment.

This was supposed to ensure that if a friend does not have ‘See my online status’ permission, they will now see “User is not online ..” message following IM or inventory offer. However, the result has also been that if you IM a non-friend, the server always returns the “User is not online” message. The short-term solution for this is to remove the change from week 11’s releases in the interest of getting the other fixes (BUG-1612 and SVC-8019) across the grid.

The Lab is particularly keen to see SVC-8019 deployed to the entire grid, as this should fix issues of regions not handshaking correctly with one another following a rolling restart. The cause of this is believed to be due to regions looking at stale cached copies of a neighbouring regions’ status. With the update, regions grab more up-to-date copies of the status of their neighbours.

Server-side Baking: Further Pile-on / Load Test

Nyx Linden has announced that there will be a further SSB pile-on / load test on Thursday March 14th, following-on, as with the last test, from the Server Beta meeting on Aditi. The test is liable to be in much the same format as the first test, of which Nyx notes, “It gave us a lot of information and we’ve been working on a number of fixes, both to Aditi inventory, as well as viewer and back-end changes. Given this, the reason for the next test, in Nyx’s words, is because, “We’d like to see how much progress we’re making.”

The first SSB pile-on / load test (image courtesy of Latif Khalifa
The first SSB pile-on / load test (image courtesy of Latif Khalifa

Those wishing to participate will be required to be using the latest version of the Sunshine project viewer (3.4.5.271419), and are advised to attend the Server Beta meeting on Aditi ahead of time (the meeting commences at 15:00 SLT on Thursdays). Addressing those who participated in the first test, Nyx added, “If you had trouble at the last pile-on with outfit switching, feel free to test out the new build in advance – you should be able to comment on the JIRA tasks you filed, or email me directly with any issues.”

Materials Processing

Following-on from his replies to my question at the open-source dev meeting on Monday March 4th, Oz Linden talked some more on the status of the materials processing project at the Wednesday meeting on March 6th, “There’s one build floater bug and one crash that need fixing,” he said in kicking-off the discussion on materials, “I might even be willing to let it out without the crash fix (though it’s pretty bad).”

However, before everyone starts shouting, “Yes, yes!” :), even the release of a crashy version of the project viewer requires the “other” problem to be fixed. This appears to be related to a texture list getting corrupted, and which can manifest in a number of ways, including:

  • The normal map picker reverts to displaying the diffuse (texture) map after a normal map has been selected and the picker closed, with the normal map failing to render on the object / face it has been applied to
  • If deferred rendering is turned off, anything using materials appears black
  • If bump mapping is disabled, objects using materials appear to randomly adopt nearby textures (including skin textures) which can change as the camera is rotated / moved.
Normal map application issue: a normal map is selected and apllied to an object face (l); however, on re-opening the build floater, the map appears to have reverted to the diffuse map (r), and the object face does not render as expected
Normal map application issue: a normal map is selected and applied to an object face (l); however, on re-opening the build floater, the map appears to have reverted to the diffuse map (r), and the object face does not render as expected

Continue reading “SL project updates: week 10 (2): server, SSB, materials and SSAO” →

SL projects updates: week 10 (1): server, materials and SSB

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments Week 10

A full set of server deployments this week.

On Tuesday March 5th, the Second Life Server (SLS) channel received the server maintenance project that was deployed to all three RC channels in week 9. This update only contains a fix to a single crash mode.

On Wednesday March 6th, the three Release Candidate channel should receive the following code deployments:

  • BlueSteel and LeTigre: a new server maintenance project, which fixes a fairly common crash mode, together with Baker Linden’s large (as in file size) object rezzing project aimed at improving simulator performance (see below)
  • Magnum: a new server maintenance project, which includes a mix of bug fixes and stability improvements. Specific fixes mentioned in the release notes are:
    • BUG-1612: region Owners and estate managers finding they are unable to teleport back to their region after disabling direct teleports to the region
    • SVC-8019: region visibility delays following region restarts. This may help with the problem of diagonally adjacent regions failing to render
    • VWR-786: if a friend does not have ‘See my online status’ permission, they will now see “User is not online ..” message following IM or inventory offer.

Large Object Rezzing Project

Baker Linden has been looking to improve how objects with large file sizes are handled by the simulator software when being rezzed. He describes the work thus, “What I’ve been working on is hopefully significantly decreasing lag spikes when rezzing large, complex objects [such as those with lots of scripts]. Large does not necessarily imply size, but size of the files being read. When an object is rezzing, we have to parse the object / mesh files and create our in-world objects with that data.”

Until now, reading and parsing of any files related to objects which require rezzing has been on the main thread. When several such objects requiring rezzing at the same time, the simulator stalls. Baker has been moving the reading / parsing operation to a background thread in the expectation that this will prevent the simulator being choked.

The key point about this work is that it is specifically aimed at preventing the simulator processes from choking and a region stalling when there are a number of large object files being read / parsed, not at actually “speeding up” the physical rezzing process. As such, it is unlikely that objects will appear any faster in people’s in-world view as a result of this work. However, what it does mean is that the simulator code will be better able to handle rezzing multiple “large file” objects without the attendant region lagging which can occur as a result of the simulator being unable to process messages from viewers and other simulators, etc.

Materials Processing

In my last update on this work, I reported that the Lab believed they had one more issue to resolve with the materials processing project, after which the way should be clear for a project viewer to be made publicly available. At the time, it wasn’t clear exactly what the problem might be. However, on Monday March 4th, I was able to ask Oz about the problem, and it appears that it is with the project viewer itself.

“We’ve got a viewer, but it’s so crashy, and the crashes are mostly in material property editing, that I don’t want to distribute it yet…. I’m concerned that doing so would result in a lot of broken content lying around,” Oz informed me.

Materials processing: viewer issues delaying project viewer release (image courtesy of Geenz Spad)
Materials processing: viewer issues delaying project viewer release (image courtesy of Geenz Spad) – click to enlarge

I asked Oz if the crash problems were related to physically applying maps to objects and / or object faces. He confirmed that this is indeed the case – and that the latest (non-public) version of the project viewer can crash if even the parameters for maps applied to an object / object face are modified. However, he went on to say, “Hopefully we’ll get the worst of the crashes dealt with soon, and then we can start giving it to a wider audience. We’ve already solved a bunch of them, but it’s not quite ready for even open alpha testing.”

So, for those who commented on the lack of any update following my last SL project update from week 9, I’m afraid the situation still appears to be one of, “Hurry up and wait.”

Continue reading “SL projects updates: week 10 (1): server, materials and SSB” →

Viewer release summary 2013: week 9

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 as the week progresses
  • 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: March 3rd, 2013

  • SL Viewer updates:
      • Beta viewer rolled to 3.5.0.270825 on February 27th – core update: CHUI integration
      • Development viewer rolled to 3.5.1.270826 on February 26th – core update: CHUI integration (wiki page)
      • Cocoa project viewer 3.4.6.270999 (Mac) released on February 28
      • Sunshine (server-side baking project): 3.4.5.271118 on March 1st – core update: fix for z-offset issue
  • Dolphin updated to 3.4.14.27321 on March 1st – core updates: bug fixes
  • Kokua updated to release 3-5-1-27234 on February 28th – core updates: CHUI integration
  • Niran’s Viewer updated to 2.1.0 on February 26th – core updates: UI updates; slight changes to the rendering system
  • Cool VL updated on March 2nd to:
    • Stable version: 1.26.6.13
    • Legacy version (v2.6 renderer): 1.26.4.56
    • Experimental version: 1.26.7.13
    • Release notes
  • Pocket Metaverse for the iPhone updated to 1.8.0 on March 1st – core update: fullscreen support and bug fixes.

Discontinued Viewers

  • Phoenix officially reached end-of-line for SL on December 31st – read more here
  • Zen viewer was withdrawn from the SL TPV directory and all repositories shutdown on January 27th, 2013.

Related Links

SL project update: week 9 (2): servers, HTTP, SSB

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – week 9

Server Life Server (Main) Channel

As noted in part 1 of this report, the Second Life Server (SLS / Main channel) received the server maintenance project which was on all three RC channels in week 8, comprising miscellaneous bug fixes, and the improved region restart notification. Deployed on Tuesday 26th February, the roll-out was followed by a number of issues being reported via the deployment forum thread.

Issues have included:

  • Parcels / regions vanishing from search for a period of time following the restart (an issue WolfBaginski Bearsfoot gave some thought to in commenting on part 1 of this report)
  • Further region crossing issues, with loss of control followed by “broken” camera positioning after recovery. This issue has been reported at some of the Simulator and Server Beta meetings previously, and Eric Gregan has produced a video demonstrating the problem as it occurs on some aircraft, although he’s also come up with a means of avoiding the issue which may or may not work for people.

  • Problems with Dwarfins attachments.

Release Candidate Channels

On Wednesday February 27th, all three Release Candidate channels received a new server maintenance package which includes a fix for a crash mode (see the release notes (BlueSteel)). No significant issues have been reported for this deployment.

SL Viewer

The Communications Hub User Interface finally made its debut in both the SL development and SL beta servers, arriving as release 3.5.1.270826 for the development viewer on Tuesday 26th February, and 3.5.0.270825 for the beta viewer on Wednesday 27th. I’ve provided a brief introduction to CHUI, and there is also a video from Torley Linden.

CHUI is liable to remain in beta for a “Good long run”, to quote Oz Linden. Hopefully, this may mean that materials processing will be the next significant viewer update to arrive as a project viewer.

Interest List

The recent updates to Andrew Linden’s interest list work are apparently won’t reach a RC channel in week 10, but should see deployment in week 11 (week commencing Monday 11th March). This work includes fixing issues with avatar appearance teleporters which use llSetRegionPos(), as well as correcting problems where objects which change appearance behind the camera ‘snapping’ into place when you rotate the camera back.

Server-side Baking

On Friday March 1st, Linden Lab unexpectedly released an updated version of the SSB project viewer (release 3.4.5.271118), which includes their approach to overcoming the problems of the Z-offset capability common to many TPVs being broken as result of the SSB code. The new approach, which I was able to outline when it “launched”, introduces an additional shape slider into the Edit Shape floater; as such, the ease-of-use of the approach, particularly for those who may swap between different avatar shapes (e.g. “normal” and petite) is very questionable.

The new "Hover" option in the Edit Shape panel for adjusting avatar height offsets in the Sunshine project viewer. Not the most elegant solution
The new “Hover” option in the Edit Shape panel for adjusting avatar height offsets in the Sunshine project viewer. Not the most elegant solution

Continue reading “SL project update: week 9 (2): servers, HTTP, SSB” →