Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, November 19th, 2023
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 version 6.6.16.6566955269, formerly the Github Actions (GHA) RC viewer, version , issued October 20, promoted October 25 – No Change.
Release channel cohorts:
glTF / PBR Materials viewer, version 7.0.1.6894459864, November 17.
Maintenance X RC, version 6855926535, issued November 14 – usability improvements.
Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6855930358, issued November 14 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
Le’eaf Forest Retreat, September 2023 – blog post †
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creators User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, November 16th, 2023.
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 viewer development work.
As a rule, these meetings are:
Held in-world and chaired by Vir Linden, in accordance with the dates and times given in the the SL Public Calendar, which also includes the location for the meetings.
Conducted in a mix of voice and text..
Open to all with an interest in content creation.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript.
Official Viewers Status
No updates for the latter part of the week, with the current crop of official viewers being:
Github Actions (GHA) RC viewer, version 6.6.16.6566955269, issued October 20 (with major CEF update and number version numbering) and promoted on October 25.
Release channel cohorts:
Maintenance X RC, version 6855926535, issued November 14 – usability improvements.
Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6855930358, issued November 14 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
glTF / PBR Materials viewer, version 7.0.1.6750600769, November 11.
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
General Notes
The PBR viewer now appears to be the no 1 on the runway for promotion to release status – see the notes below for more.
The next viewer LL is hoping to promote after PBR is the Emoji RC viewer.
As there are now four Maintenance RC viewer in the pipeline (V, W, X, and Y), it is likely some of them will be merged together to reduce the load on the release schedule.
glTF Materials and Reflection Probes
Project Summary
To provide support for PBR materials using the core glTF 2.0 specification Section 3.9 and using mikkTSpace tangents, including the ability to have PBR Materials assets which can be applied to surfaces and also traded / sold.
The overall goal for glTF as a whole is to provide as much support for the glTF 2.0 specification as possible.
Up to four texture maps are supported for PBR Materials: the base colour (which includes the alpha); normal; metallic / roughness; and emissive, each with independent scaling.
In the near-term, glTF materials assets are materials scenes that don’t have any nodes / geometry, they only have the materials array, and there is only one material in that array.
As a part of this work, PBR Materials will see the introduction of reflection probes which can be used to generate reflections (via cubemaps) on in-world surfaces. These will be a mix of automatically-place and manually place probes (with the ability to move either).
List of tools and libraries supporting glTF: https://github.khronos.org/glTF-Project-Explorer/ – note that Substance Painter is also used as a guiding principal for how PBR materials should look in Second Life.
Following a meeting this week, the current plan from the Lab is to deploy PBR Materials grid-wide on the simhosts during the first week after US Thanksgiving (so week commencing Monday, November 27th, 2023).
Currently, all RC simhost have been updated to the PBR simulator code which leaves only the SLS Main channel to go.
The plan is also to promote the PBR RC viewer to de facto release status that same week.
Note that these plans are subject to late-breaking issues or other requirements not getting in the way of things.
Recent Work
Fixes are progress for what are seen as to remaining notable issues:
One to correct the issue with normal maps uploaded via the glTF uploader always coming out square post-upload and with lossy compression.
One to correct the issue of not being able to revert an Alpha mode from blend or mask to opaque without having to save the material back to inventory after making the change in order for it to apply properly.
There are some additional bugs within the system, some of which do have fixes in the works, but these aren’t seen as having significant impact, and will be subject to release with the first maintenance update to PBR Materials.
That said, there some issues which have been identified, but will not be addressed until the first PBR maintenance viewer is issued. These include:
A “slim minority” of users with very, very large inventories and Friends lists may find some objects in a scene do not render when logging-in. Currently, the steps for correcting this are to a) re-log, and if that fails to resolve the problem, b) clear cache.
Some users on Macbooks and / or Apple Silicon systems may experience poor performance on the PBR viewer.
BUG-234235 “[PBR] alpha blend on water is acting a bit like invisiprim” – this is being worked on, and is seen as somewhat related to another change under consideration: environmental haze.
Currently, local lights are not affected by environmental haze. Runitai Linden is working on a change that will make local lights responsive to haze (e.g. if you are in a foggy environment, lights at an increasing distance from your camera position will appear fainter and fainter due to the influence of the fog).
This work will likely be surfaced in the first PBR viewer maintenance release.
The reason this is related to BUG-234235 is that it will also require an adjustment to water haze as well, and this should resolve the issue reported in the bug (haze will essentially get its own render pass, with a single shader being used for both atmospheric and water haze, rather than them requiring separate render passes).
Future work on glTF will allow for more greater control of lighting sources, such as lamps, etc., and provide for luminosity to be defined in terms such as lumens. However, this work will depend on glTF scene import, which will be worked on in the next tranche of work, together with HDRI import / export (which is not as yet on the glTF implementation roadmap).
A Materials folder is to be added to the system library and available through the Library section of inventory.
In Brief
A Feature Request has been filed to allow system-generated sounds to be overridden by Experiences to provide more immersive sounds (e.g. on entering a door and being teleported, the sound heard might be the creaking of the door opening, rather than the ding-sing-whoosh of the default teleport sound – which can only currently be disabled on a per viewer basis by the user). See (and Watch) BUG-234682 “Override UI sounds within the scope of experience keys” for more.
Next Meeting
13:00 SLT, Thursday, December 7th 2023, at the Hippotropolis Campsite (but check the public calendar).
† 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.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 14th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.
Apologies for the lateness of this summary, RL is not playing nice at the moment.
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.
They 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.
Server Deployments
No deployments for SLS Main channel, but the simhosts were restarted.
Wednesday, November 15th should have seen the deployment of the PBR Material simulator support to all RC channels.
Please remember: if you have anything that uses PBR materials and you rez that object (or wear it) on a non-PBR simulator, the PBR Materials will be stripped from the object and forgotten.
There are currently internal discussions on whether or not to deploy the simulator support for PBR before or after US Thanksgiving.
Viewer Updates
Two new Maintenance viewers were issued on Tuesday, November 14th:
Maintenance X, version 6855926535, comprising viewer usability improvements.
Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6855930358, comprising improvements to the My Outfits folder (display thumbnails on hover) and to remove entries from landmark history
The rest of the official remain unchanged at the start of the week:
Github Actions (GHA) RC viewer, version 6.6.16.6566955269, issued October 20 (with major CEF update and number version numbering) and promoted on October 25.
Release channel cohorts:
glTF / PBR Materials viewer, version 7.0.1.6750600769, November 11.
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
Game Controllers
The simulator code for the game controller support is now in the “Fall Colours” simulator RC update, which is currently scheduled as the first simulator RC deployment in December.
The viewer code needs further work, including: keyboard mapping to controller input channels; the ability to set the dead zone of various axes; support for “less common” controllers; additional UI to work alongside existing support options (e.g. SpaceNavigator).
In terms of the SpaceNavigator, the project will not include an update to support the latest 3dconnexion drivers, as it is felt this will break expected behaviour for the SpaceNav mouse in SL – the aim is to continue to support SpaceNav as is.
This work does not, as yet, include the ability to control avatar motion, although there was additional discussion around this.
Expansions to inputs have been filed in Feature Request BUG-234678.
There was also significant discussion on game controller / LSL interactions.
When available via the Alternate Viewers pages, the viewer will has a MacOS build as well. Meanwhile, documentation on the game controller work can be found on the SL wiki, and this includes Github link for downloading a pre-release version of the Windows viewer.
SL Combat
A further general discussion on updating SL’s support for combat gaming, most of which has been covered in recent SUG summaries here (e.g. adjusting the avatar bounding box and hit box when crouching / seating (so the form allows for crawling under object, for example, and the latter makes for a small target).
Camera control options:
A new request was for a native means to set the camera to follow remote objects (e.g. RC vehicles) rather than having to relay on “janky” scripts to achieve the capability.
There were also requests for offsetting mouselook view (see VWR-28745 for an example of such a request).
Rider suggested updates to the camera control mechanism and positioning might be better suited to an update to scripted camera capabilities he is considering (but not anywhere close to being in a position to discuss in terms of what might / can / cannot be done).
In Brief
A lot of requests for updates to SL terrain, including updating the textures and improving the resolution (which should hopefully be covered by the PBR terrain support Cosmic Linden is developing, which should also reduce texture stretching as the heightmap is morphed); full terrain painting (not currently on the books); a general smoothing terrain deformations to make movement, etc., smoother.
Region Crossing: following the most recent pile-on tests, Monty Linden is working on some updated code, which he is trying to get onto Aditi (the Beta grid) on server channel DRTSIM-565, however there is a bug he needs to hammer on first.
Monty is also working on “an EventQueueGet thing”, which he hopes to get on to Aditi on DRTSIM-577.
Further requests for a means of masking Linden Water from the interiors of object – see BUG-227965 as a reference for this.
There was a request to be able to adjust the centre of mass for a linkset (e.g. a vehicle). While this can be done to some degree via prim cutting, it is not so possible with mesh; how it would be handled is unclear, but Leviathan Linden indicated he would kick some ideas around.
somewhat/ sort-of related to the above, a Feature Request has been filed to allow control of where a vehicle rotates from without having to do prim hackery – see BUG-234649, an update to SVC-6619). It was noted this could be useful for objects other than vehicles alone.
† 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.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, November 12th, 2023
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 version 6.6.16.6566955269, formerly the Github Actions (GHA) RC viewer, version , issued October 20, promoted October 25 – No Change.
Release channel cohorts:
glTF / PBR Materials viewer updated to version 7.0.1.6750600769, November 11.
Maintenance-W RC viewer updated to version 6.6.17.6709258523, November 9.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 7th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and is not intended to be a full transcript.
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.
They 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.
Server Deployments
No deployments for SLS Main channel, but the simhosts were restarted.
The planned Wednesday, November 8th deployment of the PBR Material simulator support to all RC channels has been put on hold pending the resolution of a late-breaking issue.
At the time of the meeting, the proposal was to restart simhosts on the Ferrari and Magnum RC channels, whilst BlueSteel and LeTigre (the two currently with the PBR support) to receive updated code before the end of the week.
Please remember: if you have anything that uses PBR materials and you rez that object (or wear it) on a non-PBR simulator, the PBR Materials will be stripped from the object and forgotten.
As it turns out the new message introduced by Materials was generating unacked packets back to the simulator. In groups of one or to agents this isn’t a big deal… but add a user here and a user there and pretty soon you’re talking about real data, and this extra overhead was causing some performance issues on our end that would eat into script time. We have a solution to it and we are just trying to reach a consensus on how best to roll that onto the grid.
– Rider Linden, describing the issue which prevented the simulator-side PBR code deploying to all RC channels
Viewer Updates
No updates to viewers for the start of the week, leaving the official viewer pipelines as:
Github Actions (GHA) RC viewer, version 6.6.16.6566955269, issued October 20 (with major CEF update and number version numbering) and promoted on October 25.
Release channel cohorts:
glTF / PBR Materials viewer updated to version 7.0.1.6658224456, November 2.
Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 6.6.16.582201, October 16.
Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 6.6.16.582075, October 5.
Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
SL Combat
Regarding the “Combat Committee” and requests for capabilities for combat in Second Life, Rider Linden stated:
I don’t have news on any sort of when for that. I am actively working on a proposal that I’m going to float around the lab and then bring to the community. That may end up involving creating what I’ve been calling a “Combat Committee”… because I love alliteration. I don’t think I’m going to have anything useful to report on that though until January next year. I would really like to get some tools in that would allow people to create some interesting combat systems.
– Rider Linden
In Brief
Requests from users:
An update on the recent region crossing tests (see October’s SUG summaries). Monty Linden is working on this, but has been out-of-office, so a further update may be forthcoming at an upcoming meeting once he is back.
Custom pivot points – a capability being considered as a further part of the glTF project, as this will enable hierarches that will make arbitrary pivots a lot easier.
Animation priority updates: these was going to be looked at as a part of the on-hold Puppetry project. However, any such work is unlikely to include things like changing priorities by script, as these are seen as problematic.
A request for new sensor functions which could better enable RP functions (e.g. detacting NPC, casting speeling), together with further requests for Feature Requests such as BUG-4329 “Feature Request: New sensor functions that are not bound to a prim’s position & rotation plus inclusion of an Owner filter” and BUG-233784 “Add sensor type LOW_SCRIPTED as an option”, and also increasing the number of objects a sensor can report on from 16 to 32.
Rider Linden is developing ideas for possible scripted camera control updates, and is adding BUG-6325 “More Flag parameters for llSetCameraParams()” to the list.
Requests are being made for those with games controller to try the pre-release Game Controller viewer and offer feedback. This is still currently Windows only, but a MacOS version is coming Soon™.
† 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.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, November 5th, 2023
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 version 6.6.16.6566955269, formerly the Github Actions (GHA) RC viewer, version , issued October 20, promoted October 25 – No Change.
Release channel cohorts:
glTF / PBR Materials viewer updated to version 7.0.1.6658224456, November 2.
Cool VL viewer updated to version 1.30.2.35 (Stable) and version 1.31.0.13 (Experimental) on November 6 (hotfixes for the Nov 4th releases) – release notes.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 