Category: SL Tech

2024 SL viewer release summaries week #23

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, June 9th, 2024

This summary is generally 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 Current Viewer Releases 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. This page 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.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Release viewer: 7.1.6.8745209917, formerly the Maintenance Y/Z RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history), dated April 19 and promoted April 23 – No Change
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • Lovesense Viewer version 1.0.1, June 5  – no release notes.

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable branch updated to version: 1.32.0.26 (PBR); and Experimental to version 1.32.1.9 (PBR) on June 8 – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2024 week #23: SL CCUG and TPVD meetings summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
TheNest : Sunbird, May 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from:

  • My audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, June 6th, 2024.
  • My audio recording + the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this summary) of the Third-Party Developer meeting (TPVD) held on Friday, June 7th, 2024. My thank to Pantera as always for providing it.

Meetings Purpose

  • The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work. This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
  • The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • For both meetings: dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they re conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.

Official Viewers Status

[Video: 0:27-3:03]

  • Release viewer: Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.7.8974243247, dated May 8th  promoted May 13.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Materials Featurettes RC viewer, version 7.1.8.9375512768, June 5.
    • Maintenance C RC (reset skeleton in all viewers), version 7.1.7.8820704257, May 6.
    • Maintenance B RC (usability updates / imposter changes), version 7.1.7.8820696922, April 29.
  • Project viewers:

General Viewer Notes (Both Meetings)

  • The latest Graphics Featurettes RC viewer is seen as the last RC update prior to this viewer being promoted, hopefully in week #24 if it passes QA. This will see the official release of Viewer-side setting of PBR materials for terrain; 2K texture upload support; glTF / PBR mirrors.
    • A request has been made to fix an alpha asset mode issue prior to release. This is seen as unlikely, unless QA reject the viewer going to release status.
  • It is anticipated the WebRTC viewer will move from project viewer status to RC viewer status with its next update.
    • The initial RC viewer will support both Vivox Voice and WebRTC, depending on how voice is handled on the back-end for any given region.
    • However, there may be issues when trying to use Voice across different regions / in groups where use of WebRTC and Vivox is mixed.
    • See here for more on the WebRTC project.
  • A planned Maintenance RC viewer (Maint A) is currently pending the resolution of a number of fixes, hence why Maint B and C are currently in the pipeline.

Graphics / glTF

General Notes on glTF / PBR (CCUG Meeting)

  • Cosmic Linden is working on custom repeats for PBR terrain, allowing for higher texel densities to help reduce the “stretching” of textures of elevation changes)  and better support 2K textures.  This work is *not* part of the PBR Terrain updates in the Graphics Featurettes viewer, but will be part of a follow-on set of glTF updates currently contain within a development viewer branch on Github.
    • This branch also includes a improvement specifically for Mac performance related to actions such as editing, moving UI elements around, etc.
  • It has been noted that the current implementation for reading & writing glTF data has some limitations in terms of SL, so there is some internal work to re-write it to better fit the SL systems / services. Part of this work means Geenz is re-writing some of the work on glTF transmission to better fit the SL asset loader.
    • This work will also assist the development work going into the glTF scene import project.

glTF Scene Import (TPVD Meeting)

[Video: 5:18-18:10]

  • Recap:
    • Development of the ability to import glTF scenes (objects, materials, animations, etc.), directly from Blender to Second Life. This includes a node hierarchy which will allow some degree of editing / modification of scene elements once imported. There will also be the ability to export scenes back to Blender for more extensive update by the creator. Both of these latter points (editing / export) will be subject to the SL permissions system.
    • Scenes are liable to use the MSFT glTF extension for Level of Detail (LOD), as this allows LODs to be set per node within a scene, providing more intuitive / consistent LOD switching management (based on screen coverage).
    • There will be constraints placed on scene imports (e.g. will not be able to have a scene which exceeds the capacity of a region; scenes will not be able to span more than one region (so as to avoid issues with physics, etc.); and so on).
  • Status:
    • Rapid prototyping of the ability to upload and preview glTF scenes is progressing. This can be tested via prototype viewer made available through the Content Creator Discord channel (apologies, but due to a request from Linden Lab I cannot provide details on how to join this channel, outside of contact Vir Linden) and on the glTF development / test regions on Aditi.
    • The functionality currently remains that of being able to preview a scene – there is no actual simulator-side representation of the scene (e.g. it is viewer-side only, so only visible in the viewer used for the preview). Obviously, this will change as the work progresses.
    • For those wishing to test the capability, note that there is an known issue with large file uploads for glTF scenes failing. This is being investigated by Pepper Linden.
    • The work is now within the general development branch of the graphics / glTF work.
    • Limits (avatar limits, land impact, number of vertices, faces, etc), will be defined in detail as the project develops, with any defined as a “must” within the glTF specification being a hard line, those defined as a “should” being considered as the baseline.
  • [Video: 20:50-21:55] Transitioning to glTF scene support (when it ready for more widespread availability) will be in a manner akin to the introduction of mesh support back in 2011/12: those running viewers that have not updated to the code supporting glTF scene rendering will not see any scenes they enter, but will instead see “something akin to a little chiclet of a sculpt”.

 

Next Meetings

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

June 2024 SL Web User Group summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday June 5th, 2024. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.

Meeting Overview

  • The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), the forums.
  • As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
    • On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
    • In both Voice and / or text.
    • At this location.
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Meeting Date and Time

[Video: 4:10-7:04]

  • Following requests for an increased frequency of Web User Group meetings, the web team has been looking to move the standing meeting to a different day / time each month.
  • Specifically, the day being considered is Tuesday, and the time moved from 13:00 SLT to 12:00 noon SLT.
  • Insufficient numbers were present at this meeting (just 7 people, three of whom were Lab employees and one (that would be me) afk throughout the meeting!). Ergo, this idea will be raised at the July meeting.

Marketplace Updates, Testing and Ideas

[Video: 8:56-20:08]

  • “Good progress” has been made on a new responsive layout for the marketplace intended to improve MP displaying on a mobile phone or if you are looking at the marketplace in the viewer at smaller breakpoints.
  • The Marketplace team has just completed a “research spike” looking at Search issues and believe they have some good solutions for some of the problems user have reported, and will be looking to make updates to Search based on the results of this work.
  • Some live experiments have been carried out on Search filters in response to concerns raised at past WUG meetings.
    • Specifically, the experiments focused on how filter changes might impact sales of non limited quantity items.
    • After looking at the data on marketplace for a weekend the team didn’t see much meaningful change in terms of sales or traffic for non limited quantity items.
  • The team is still looking into ways to better promote the viability of original creators and their creations on marketplace. One idea is to have some form of carousel of “most popular creators” (similar to the “customers are buying now” carousel on the MP home page), listing the most popular creators in terms of sales over a given period (e.g. the past 24 hours).
    • Sntax Linden is open to suggestions via the Marketplace Board at Feedback Portal on how LL might accomplish this.
  • Additional ideas for carousels on the Marketplace home page being mulled by the Lab include: “hot and new creators”; “popular items” and “hot & new items”, the idea being to help alleviate the need to use Search and result filters to find new release, new items, etc.
One of the things I would like to accomplish is better promoting creators. Being able to discover a product on the marketplace is great, but I would love more tools for creators to organically promote themselves or for shoppers to be able to find stores/creators.

– Sntax Linden

  • Another area of discussion at the Lab is how a “for you” capability might be implemented down the road, correlating the sales of the most popular items selling on the MP globally with a user’s own shopping history, with it being noted that personalised relevancy is something the team would like to “tackle across the platform”.

General Discussion

[Video: 20:12-end]

  • There was a general discussion on Search and how it is used to find good, creators, etc. This touched on idea around a system-generated tag cloud based on new / popular / “hot” items; better system-managed filters, etc.
  • Providing a New MP category geared towards specifically for new users that would enable to them to locate items that would be interested in (e.g. Senra clothing and accessories, easy-to-unpack and use items), with an emphasis on ease-of-use (e.g. does not require in-world unpacking, the need to read a notecard or wade through lots of options, etc.
  • The above touched on the core limitations of Senra – that even for new users, it requires a level of understanding of SL to make proper use of it post web-customisation during on-boarding, including:
    • What inventory is, how the system Library works.
    • How to copy items from the Library to inventory.
    • The difference between clothing layers and attachments, understanding the basic iconography they use.
    • As such broadening the knowledge base for Senra, providing information on it beyond the web-based onboarding was discussed.
  • Towards the end of the meeting was a general discussion on how parcels and land might be better searched in general (e.g. allowing those with multiple parcels to group them together as a “place” entry (not to be confused with Place Pages) which can be searched, and which displays information on all the parcels.
  • As these were general discussion point, rather than ideas for implementation, please refer to be video below for further information.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #23 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
A Place in the Sun, May 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 4th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from my chat log and the video by Pantera – my thanks to her as always for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • On Tuesday, June 4th, the Main SLS channel was restarted without any deployment.
  • On Wednesday, June 5th:
    • The BlueSteel RC channel will be restarted.
    • The rest of the RC simhosts should be updated with a re-deployment of the Spring Break Simulator update.

Upcoming Deployments

The major deployment for June is set to be Summer Fun. Among other things this should include:

  • Leviathan Linden’s game controller event work to support game controllers – although these will require a viewer-side update to expose the updated viewer UI.
  • Rider Linden’s work on the SL Combat System (SLCS) 2.0 updates (see my Combat User Group summaries for more).
  • LSL updates:
    • A new parameter to llRezObjectWithParams REZ_PARAM_STRING – allows the passing of a 1024 char string to the object being rezzed.
    • llGetStartString() to retrieve the string.
  • A fix for the notecard cache so that it a fixed amount of memory (enough memory to store 48 max-sized notecards) rather than the count of notecards.
  • A fix for the “flying on logging-in” issue.

Those wishing to test any of the above in advance of the deployment of Summer Fun (due some time in June), can do so in the region Riders Test Channel on Aditi (the Beta grid).

The July simulator update is to be called Picnics, but there is no information on what it might contain at present, other than EZ_PARAM_DIE_IF_NO_REZZER, and llDerezMyObject.

Bugsmash Work

  • Bugsmash is the term given to a dev team suspending work on their core projects and spending a week(ish) focusing on resolving bugs and smaller features for inclusion in a future simulator release.
  • In recognition of this, it was suggested that if there are specific, niggling bugs people want looked at, they raise them at this meeting and the Tuesday, June 11th meeting. There is no guarantee any specific issues will be addressed during the Bugsmash period, but having a list  – and update to bugs on Canny will help the Lab assess what might be examined / fixed.

SL Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, June 4th, the Materials Featurettes RC viewer updated to version 7.1.8.9357006492.

The rest of the current official viewers in the pipeline remain as:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.7.8974243247, dated May 8 and  promoted May 13 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance C RC (reset skeleton in all viewers), version 7.1.7.8820704257, May 6.
    • Maintenance B RC (usability updates / imposter changes) 7.1.7.8820696922, April 29.
  • Project viewers:

In Brief

Please refer to the video for the following:

  • A discussion on further LSL functions / updates.
  • Commentary about avatar animations states / syncing between viewers / the simulator in terms of updates being passed back and forth.
  • The batting of ideas around particles and the particle system.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 SL viewer release summaries week #22

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, June 2nd, 2024

This summary is generally 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 Current Viewer Releases 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. This page 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.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Release viewer: 7.1.6.8745209917, formerly the Maintenance Y/Z RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history), dated April 19 and promoted April 23 – No Change
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V6-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • Cool VL Viewer Stable branch updated to version: 1.32.0.25 (PBR); and Experimental to version 1.32.1.8 (PBR) on June 1 – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2024 SL SUG meetings week #22 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Mirai Melody, May 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 28th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from my chat log and the video by Pantera – my thanks to her as always for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • On Tuesday, May 28, the Main SLS channel was restarted without any deployment.
  • On Wednesday, May 29th:
    • The BlueSteel RC channel should be updated with a re-deployment of the Spring Break Simulator update, after this had to be rolled back in week #20, and didn’t make the cut for week #21.
    • The rest of the RC simhosts will be restarted.

Upcoming Deployment

The major deployment for June is set to be Summer Fun. Among other things this should include:

  • Leviathan Linden’s game controller event work to support game controllers – although these will require a viewer-side update to expose the updated viewer UI.
  • Rider Linden’s work on the SL Combat System (SLCS) 2.0 updates (see my Combat User Group summaries for more).
  • LSL updates:
    • A new parameter to llRezObjectWithParams REZ_PARAM_STRING – allows the passing of a 1024 char string to the object being rezzed.
    • llGetStartString() to retrieve the string.
  • A fix for the notecard cache so that it a fixed amount of memory (enough memory to store 48 max-sized notecards) rather than the count of notecards.

SL Viewer Updates

No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the pipeline as:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.7.8974243247, dated May 8 and  promoted May 13 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:

In Brief

Please refer to the video for the following:

  • A further discussion on potential HTTP updates (such has the ability to read HTML).
  • A question on increasing the memory limit for scripts – in short, nothing in the works at present.
  • Both of the above sparked a general and overlapping discussion – please refer to the video below.
  • A request was made for a SL Combat 2.0 feature – the ability to teleport vehicles (which obviously could be used for other applications).
    • As Rider Linden pointed out, just one issue here is that regions (and parcels within them) can block object entry, and thus could cause teleports of vehicle at scale to go awry at times, as the teleport would have no way of knowing if vehicle entry is permitted at the destination location.
    • However, he requested the idea be submitted as a feature request so that it can be discussed internally.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.