Category: 2012 Project Updates

SL project news week 46/2: Code freezes, avatar baking, interest list wierdness and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments

Wednesday November 14th saw the same code deployed to all three RC regions in preparation for the US Thanksgiving week code freeze (see below). This primarily brought all three RCs to the same code level, release-wise and fixed a bug discovered in week 45.

There will be no rolling restarts in week 47 (week commencing Monday 19th November) due to the code freeze.

SL Viewer Update

The beta viewer rolled to the last of the 3.4.2 releases on Thursday November 15th, with the release of 3.4.2266995. Providing the crash statistics remain good (they were very positive for the first 24 hours), it will be going to the production (release) viewer QA in week 47 and should result in the release of a new version of the viewer shortly after the Thanksgiving weekend.

This beta contains a lot of updates and improvements, as well as a wide range of fixes for issues encountered with earlier releases up to and including the previous beta release, 3.4.2.266708, issued on November 8th. For a comprehensive list of changes, please refer to the release notes.

At the same time, the development viewer rolled to 3.4.3.267061, marking a further update of the development viewer to the 3.4.3 code, which should be appearing in the next release of the beta viewer. This include the new viewer-side code for the HTTP texture fetch project developed by Monty Linden as a part of the Shining Project improvements.

The code for faster texture fetching / rezzing has moved from a project viewer into the viewer-development stream and is present in the 3.4.3267061 Ddevelopment viewer release and should appear in the beta viewer after the US Thanksgiving weekend

As the holiday period is approaching, viewer releases will be slowing down, but the aim remains to try to clear the backlog of waiting merges and updates by the New Year with a view to resuming their more usual cycle of releasing a development / beta update around every three weeks. Once things are back on track, LL will be looking more closely once again at the question of disabling tcmalloc completely within the viewer.

Code Change Freezes

The official dates for code change freezes during the upcoming holiday periods currently stand at:

  • Week 47 – Monday 19th November through to Sunday 25th November
  • Week 51 – Monday 17th December through Sunday 23rd December
  • Week 52 – Monday 24th December through Sunday 30th December.

No status has yet been given for the New Year week (Monday 31st December through Sunday 6th January 2013.

Avatar Baking

Bake fail: work on new service progressing

On Friday 16th November, Nyx Linden provided a brief update on the Avatar Baking project, which again forms a part of the Shining project improvements to Second Life. In short:

  • The viewer code is starting to look stable. However, merging the new code into the existing viewer code is liable to be somewhat more “painful” (Nyx’s term) than had been hoped
  • Work is progressing on the server-side elements (the composite baking server), with the code reaching a point where avatar texture can be generated server-side
  • Currently, the plan is to continue working on both sides of the equation, with the aim of ensuring the new code is successfully merged into the viewer development branch, and then offering it in a “very alpha” form to TPVs so that they can start merging it into their code and assist with testing. As this happens, one or two regions on the beta (Aditi) grid will be set-up to allow testing on the new service.

There is still no time frame for the appearance of the viewer code in the development branch or any test regions on Aditi, but in Nyx’s view, both are liable to be on the horizon “pretty soon”. Overall, the plan still remains to have at least a two month period from when the code is made available for testing purposes through to the official implementation of the new service.

Interest List Demonstration and Weirdness

The focus of this project is to optimise the data being sent to the viewer, information already cached on the viewer and the manner in which that data is used in order to ensure it is used more efficiently so that things rez both faster and in a more orderly manner than is currently the case.

This work is being undertaken by Andrew Linden in a number of stages, the first being to clean-up the code related to information sent to the viewer from the simulator relating to objects in the camera’s viewing range such that only objects actually in the camera frame are updated (if updates are required) and that objects outside of the current camera frame are not updated, thus reducing the amount of data both the server and the viewer need to process, which should lead to performance improvements.

It is possible to visualise the update process using a viewer debug setting (Develop > Show Info > Show Updates to objects or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U) to show object updates being received by the viewer. This shows updates in three colours: red, which indicates the viewer is receiving a “full” update on the object (generally because it is being “seen” / is within draw distance) for the first time; blue, which indicates the viewer already has data on the object and is receiving “terse” updates relating to changes in the object’s appearance / position relative to the viewer’s camera position; and green, which indicates the object has been deleted / remove from the camera view, and updates are about to cease.

On the 15th November, Andrew used this debug setting, together with a set of scripted “bouncing” cubes to demonstrate his improvements to this update process. Observers were asked to focus their camera on the cubes, which were initially static and had no coloured data stream associated with them.  The cubes were then set bouncing, which generated a stream of blue “terse” updates, indicating the motion of the cubes in the viewer was being updated. However, when observers angled their camera to view the space above the cubes (so the cubes were not directly in their world view), the update stream ceased – indicating the viewer was no longer receiving update data for the cubes.

This may seem a small change, but it does dramatically decrease the amount of information the viewer has to process relating to in-world objects, and should result in performance improvements within the viewer. In the future, further work will be undertaken to enhance the interest list code even further – such as prioritising the order in which objects in the world view are actually rezzed, so that items closest to the camera view are rezzed first, etc.

HUD Issues

Following the demonstration, however, some people started noticing an odd issue: they could right-click on the centre of their screen and reveal a prim attachment belonging to someone else’s HUD. Chieron Tenk was the first to raise the issue, although Ana Stubbs also quickly reported the same problem.

Chieron Tenk posted an image of the problem: a prim appears in the centre of his viewer which, on inspection, appears to be linked to a HUD worn by Rex Cronin

After initial confusion, investigation revealed it was possible for anyone to find they had random prims from other people’s HUDs appearing on their screen, simply by attaching a HUD or a prim to their own screen. Concerns were further raised when it appeared that events might be able to be triggered if the prim was touchable.

I find I have a prim belonging to Ana Stubb’s Mystitool appearing on my screen

The issue appears to be tied to changes made to the interest list code on the test region, and is obviously going to be the subject of further investigation on the Lab’s part prior to the interest list project being carried forward.

Related Links

SL projects week 46/1: server, projects and general news

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 46

Deployments for the week are progressing as planned.

Main Channel

The main channel received the code which had been running on the Magnum RC channel as well as some updates.

This now means that the server-side Group Services code to improve the loading and editing of very large groups (10K+ members) is active right across the main grid – see the section on Group Services below for further information.

This roll-out restored functionality within the Estate Tools which allows region physics to be put in a condition of limited functionality, which is sometimes useful in dealing with issues and problems within a region. The capability was disabled around the time of the mesh roll-out, and has now been restored with this release. This caused some minor inconvenience on some regions (at least one), where the option has been enabled at some point, with the result that following their restart, objects within the region(s) were not functioning correctly. However, this was corrected without major incident.

Main channel release notes.

Release Candidates

Wednesday 13th November will see all three Release Candidate channel receive the same update package, including the BUG-166 update, which means that linksets with bounding boxes larger than 64m (in any dimension) are prevented from being rezzed if doing so will cause the object to collide with an avatar excluding the object owner.

Release notes:  Magnum, BlueSteel, LeTirgre.

Week 47 Deployments and Christmas Run-up

There will be no server roll-outs in week 47 (week commencing Monday 19th November) due to the forthcoming Thanksgiving weekend in the United States. There will be deployments between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it currently looks as if these may be limited to a couple of weeks during that period according to Simon Linden (details on the likely number pending), and there will as usual be no releases over the Christmas / New Year period.

Interest List and Object Caching

Andrew Linden reports that the first phase of this work is drawing to a conclusion, and he is planning on having a possible demonstration of the capability on the beta (Aditi) grid on Thursday 15th November, most likely during the Bet Server User Group meeting.

The focus of this project is to optimise the data being sent to the viewer, information already cached on the viewer and the manner in which that data is used in order to ensure it is used more efficiently so that things rez both faster and in a more orderly manner than is currently the case.

Interest lists and object rezzing: initial srver code updates almost ready

Andrew reports that general performance on object rezzing should be improved, although the overall sorting element of the code (ensuring objects closer to an avatar’s camera position rez sooner than those further away) isn’t currently as rigorous as it could be. However, the server and viewer do now interact better, so less information is sent to the viewer relating to in-world items which are not visible within the current camera view for the viewer.

Commenting on demonstrating the capability when speaking at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday 13th November, Andrew acknowledged that it may be difficult to achieve on Aditi, which is a relatively static environment (improvements will hopefully be more noticeable on regions where there is a lot of movement and activity); however, anyone interested in this work may want to try attending the Beta Server Group meeting on the 15th November, in case a demo is provided.

Currently, this represents the fist pass in Interest list improvements, and one which is liable to be heading to an RC channel in the near future – it does not require any specific viewer updates to work -, and Andrew expects to be building on this work in the future.

Group Services

As mentioned above, Baker Linden’s Group Services HTTP code is now available across the main grid. As there was some confusion evidenced on Plurk yesterday, here’s a quick re-cap on what this means:

  • The new code allows for improved loading of membership lists of very large groups, together with improved reliability in editing such groups (i.e. assigning roles, removing people, etc.), by the group moderators
  • The code requires a viewer update. At the time of writing, this is available with the official Second Life beta viewer (3.4.2.266708+), and the code will be filtering into the majority of popular TPVs as they update (and currently appears to be available in Zen (3.4.2.2+) and Niran’s Viewer (2.0.3.2262+) and Cool VL (1.26.4.38), all of which successfully loaded large group lists for me)
  • Until such time as the viewer-side code has been incorporated into TPVs, the “old” method of loading group lists into the viewer will still be available. However, viewers using the “old” method (a protocol referred to as UDP) will have group loading capped at 10K members. This means:
    • That for groups with 10K or fewer members, there will be no change regardless as to whether the viewer is using HTTP or UDP
    • But for groups large than 10K, viewers running the UDP code will be unable to load the group until such time as they have been updated to the new code
  • The code will not lead to any improvements in group chat reliability, and is not aimed at improving group chat.

Materials Processing and Avatar Baking

No news on either of these, beyond what has been previously reported in these pages. Materials processing has a test region on Aditi, but there is no timeline on when a project viewer is to be made available. For an overview of the initial capabilities for material processing, please see my project update here, and remember that the capabilities will be applicable to prims and mesh, but not directly to avatars or system layer clothing.

Avatar Baking is progressing, but without any significant update at this time, please refer to my last detailed update on this project for information.

Mesh Importer Fix

JIRA SH-3055 records a  problem with the official viewer’s mesh uploader which has been affecting people over the course of the year. The fix for this, released as a project viewer (3.4.2.266471, available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS) on November 5th, is still available for those experiencing uploader issues, although it is in the pipeline to be merged with the beta viewer now that crash issues seem to have been resolved. Bear in mind that – as Runitai states in his JIRA comment, the viewer is a pre-beat project version, and may include other bugs and problems. While reports on the JIRA seem to point to it being relatively stable, caution should still be taken if attempting to use it as a primary viewer.

Related Links

SL project news week 45/2: server news, viewer updates Steaming ahead, and surprises

Posted on by Inara Pey

Week 45 Deployments

The deployments schedule for this week (Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th November) went ahead as planned, namely:

  • Tuesday 6th: the Main Channel received get the code currently running on BlueSteel and LeTigre – release notes
  • Wedneday 7th:
    • Magnum received get fixes and updates to the code currently running there (including the Group Services code) – release notes
    • LeTigre and BlueSteel should get the next bug fix server in the pipeline, which includes the code currently on Magnum, and more – release notes (BS) and release notes (LT)

The main channel deployment now means that all regions are running on the same version of Havok with the exception of Magnum regions, which should be getting the update in week 46 (see below).

LeTigre and BlueSteel both have an additional “feature”: Linksets which have bounding boxes larger than 64m (in any dimension) are prevented from being rezzed if rezzing would cause the object to collide with an avatar excluding the object owner (BUG-166).

In addition, both LeTigre and BlueSteel include the following oft-requested bug fixes:

  • Script Time in the Statistics Bar now correctly shows 0ms when scripts are disabled in the sim (BUG-311)
  • Script error messages now include information about the object’s root prim, when certain operations fail due to the object’s pathfinding setting (PATHBUG-198).

A crash bug was also found in the Magnum code, and this has received attention, with the fix due to go out next week.

Week 46 Deployments

Things are gradually slowing down in preparation for the Thanksgiving code release freeze which will see a suspension of code deployments during the Thanksgiving week later in November. As it stands, the following roll-outs are planned for week 46 (week commencing Monday 12th November):

  • Main channel: should receive the code currently running on Magnum (including Baker Linden’s Group Services code – see later in this article)
  • Magnum: should receive the code currently running on BlueSteel and LeTigre, which will mean the entire main grid is now running the same version of Havok
  • BlueSteel, LeTigre and Magnum should also get the same additional updates (details yet to be specified).

Beta Viewer Update – Steaming Ahead with Project Code Merges

As indicated in Part 1 of this report, the crash issues impacting the beta viewer code have been resolved, and LL have been engaged in merging-up code into the beta and paving the way for the first of the 3.4.2 beta releases. These were always intended to have the code from some of the major SL projects which impacted the viewer, including Baker Linden’s Group Services code and Monty Linden’s HTTP texture fetch code.

The first 3.4.2 beta viewer was release on Thursday 8th November (3.4.2.266708), which includes a range of updates from the Lab as well as a number of contributed updates and improvements (see the release notes), although precisely which of the LL project elements are in the release isn’t obvious from the release notes themselves – the removal of JIRA numbers from the release note entries makes identifying updates, features and fixes that much harder, even though the JIRA items themselves are still open for public viewing.

One element that is clearly in the latest beta viewer release is the code for the steam link-up, as evidenced by the arrival of the new splash screen which I first reported on back in August 2012 – complete with a promotional piece for the Lab’s Pattern’s game.

Continue reading “SL project news week 45/2: server news, viewer updates Steaming ahead, and surprises” →

SL project news 45/1: viewer updates

Posted on by Inara Pey

Official Viewer

Beta Viewer

The most recent Beta release (3.4.1.266511), released on November 2nd, showed promising signs over the weekend of having broken the back of the memory leak / crash rates problem affecting that branch of the viewer code.

Large Group loading / editing fix in viewers very soon now

Currently, the beta is being merged up to a number of code releases which have been pending in viewer-development, including the viewer-side code for handling large group editing (Group Services project). Commenting on this at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday November 6th, Baker Linden said: “I’ve learned that my group changes have been pulled into the viewer-beta repo, so once 3.4.2 gets promoted, the beta viewer should be able to load large groups.”

An updated version of the beta viewer should be available on Thursday november 8th, which will not only include LL’s own code, but will include a number of open-source contributions to the viewer, including:

  • New media volume controls
  • Ability to block any worn lights (facelights, etc.), on blocked avatars
  • Animation fix for hands (the end of “starfish hands”)
  • Ability to copy SLurls from landmarks in inventory (i.e. “Copy SLurl” will be a context menu option when right-clicking on a landmark in inventory – STORM-1898)

However, Oz has warned that with the upcoming holiday (notably Thanksgiving in the US, the catch-up process may be a little slow as LL work to clear the overall backlog. However, right now, things are looking very good for the viewer as a whole.

Release Viewer

As a result of the progress made with the beta release, the updates in the most recent Beta Viewer (3.4.1.266511, above) were merged into a Release version of the viewer, 3.4.1,266581, and this was rolled out on November 6th. The release notes list the following “resolved issues”:

  • Unable to change parcel restrictions for scripts-disabled parcel in a damage-enabled region
  • Low FPS on high-end AMD/Asus systems
  • Objects by multiple creators show creator as “(unknown)” in inventory
  • Frame stall in updating geometry when region crossing
  • Non standard sea level not correctly rendered around private islands
  • Crash when clicking “back” button after editing appearance
  • Crash on startup for Linux viewers
  • Tcmalloc re-enabled
  • Particle engine rendering issue
  • Memory corruption on Linux in the case of an ll_aligned_realloc_16() call with a smaller new memory size
  • Crash on Exit in 3.4.0(264194) Beta on Win7
  • Disabled realloc
  • Memory leakage fix.

Development Viewer

Similarly, the Development viewer rolled to version 3.4.1.266625 on November 6th, presumably with the same fixes as in the current beta release version.

CHUI

The Lab released an update to the Communications Hub User Interface viewer on the 29th October. The precise changes between it and the original 23rd October release are unclear without examining the update (which I have yet to do), as there is currently no supporting documentation.

The fully expanded Conversations floater in the CHUI project viewer

During the OpenDev meeting on Monday November 5th, CHUI was discussed in general terms and functionality, with some perceived shortfalls being highlighted (such as the removal of the teleport invitation button from individual IM windows). While the right-click context menus within CHUI have been made more consistent with the rest of the viewer (which is a good move), the loss of such convenience buttons is liable to count against CHUI with some users.

There is still no information as to when LL will issue their promised survey on the viewer. As previously reported, feedback from users testing it has been good via the forum thread, and Oz indicated that there has been feedback within Ll on the project as well.

Mesh Uploader Project Viewer

JIRA SH-3055 records a  problem with the official viewer’s mesh uploader which has been affecting people over the course of the year.

On Monday November 5th, Runitai Linden issued an update to the JIRA item, indicating a fix for this problem is available in a project viewer (3.4.2.266471) which is now available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Bear in mind that – as Runitai states in his JIRA comment, the viewer is a pre-beat project version, and may include other bugs and problems; don’t try using it as your primary viewer.

However, if you have been experienced mesh upload issues, you may want to give the viewer a try.

You can get it here (all three flavours).

SL project news: week 44/4: server and viewer news

Posted on by Inara Pey

Quick Links

Server Deployments, Week 44

There was some confusion on the server channel deployments this week. As reported earlier this week, roll-outs were put back by a day due to issues within LL. This meant that the main channel deployment did not occur until Wednesday 31st October, and the RC channels on Thursday 1st November.

There was further confusion as the main channel had been scheduled to receive the code which had been on BlueSteel and Magnum, but it instead received code which had been on BlueSteel some two weeks ago, and caused some confusion on the Server Deployment forum discussion for the week.

Other than being 24 hours late, the RC releases were more-or-less as planned and previously documented:

  • BlueSteel received the Havok updates deployed to LeTigre, complete with the lHTTPRequest header “fix”
  • Magnum has the Group Services code from Baker Linden for handling the editing and managing of large in-world group lists. The code includes some fixes to problems found in the Snack RC deployment of the Group Services code (again, see part 2 of this report)
  • LeTigre received further updates for the Havok deployment, etc.

In addition, Magnum received a fix for the Estate Tools debug capability to disable collisions. When enabled, the option freezes all physical objects in a region in place and prevents avatars colliding with objects. As such, it is primarily a useful tool when trying to sort-out performance issues or locate and remove unwanted objects (although in the latter case, any TPV with Area Search included can achieve the same result. The option has been broken for some time, and the code deployed to Magnum should fix it.

Also on Magnum, Qie Niangao reported issues which may – or may not – be linked to previously encountered problems with llsensor(). However, it is not clear as to how widespread this might be.

Deployments for Week 45

As they currently stand, the plans for Week 45 (commencing Monday 5th November) are:

  • Tuesday 6th: the Main Channel should get the code currently running on Bluesteel and LeTigre  – so this will be the Havok updates, etc
  • Wedneday 7th:
    • Magnum should get fixes and updates to the code currently running there (including the Group Services code)
    • LeTigre and Bluesteel should get the next bug fix server in the pipeline, which includes the code currently on Magnum, and more.
  • Further details will be available as the release notes are issued

Threaded Region Crossings

This has been a project which has been going on for some time now, with Lindens working on it quietly in the background. As it hasn’t been openly mentioned in User Groups for some time, it had led some commentators to believe the project was no longer being worked on. However, as I’ve commented in these pages (and more recently quoted Baker Linden as commenting on it), the work has been progressing, and may now be nearing the time when it will see greater light of day. As a part of this, it looks like there might be a call for volunteers to participate in a “pile-on” test in the near future, specifically to test whether the new code is easing region crossing issues and generally leading to an improvement.

Avatar Baking

Avatar bake fail

Questions about server-side baking are a common occurrence at OpenDev and TPV meetings.

Currently (and as all too often indicated in these reports!) work is progressing on both sides of the equation within LL, but there is currently little of major impact to report. The emphasis has been on the viewer code (which will be used as the basis for the new Texture Compositing server the Lab will be implementing.

However, it remains that are still  no ETAs on the availability of either the viewer code or the server. The plan, however, remains that TPVs should receive around 2 months notice as to the availability of code for merging into test viewers. Given this, it remains highly unlikely that there will be visible progress with the project before the start of 2013.

Please use the page numbers below to continue reading

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SL Project news week 44/3: mesh deformer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Testing is continuing with the latest release of the Mesh Deformer project viewer, which can be used to deform mesh items to either default or custom human shapes. While the pool of test items remains small, people appear to be testing using their own creations, with at least some feedback being given to the JIRA (STORM-1716), which remains open to comment. If you are testing the deformer using the latest project viewer, please be sure to provide feedback on your results – be they with default shapes or custom shapes – to the JIRA.

Some problems with breast fittings might be down to an incompatibility between Avastar and the viewer, which is currently being corrected

Most of the results obtained to date appear to be satisfactory, although some issues still remain with custom shapes. Darien Caldwell, working with Gaia Clary, has identified one issue which exists specifically with the Avastar add-in for Blender co-produced by Gaia.

Avastar is a Blender add-on for Second Life mesh creators and animators which provides a wide range of capabilities, including (for mesh creation): SL shape import into Blender, SL shape sliders support, support for attachment bones, and so on.

The issue has been that Avastar’s sliders have been based on a scale of 1-100, whereas the viewer’s sliders operate on a scale of 0-100 , leading to some scale miscalculations within Avastar which in turn have led to issues with mesh fitting over body parts such as breasts. According to Darien Caldwell, she and Gaia now have this “pretty well nailed” and an update to correct Avastar will apparently be out shortly (Update: please see Magus Freston’s comments at the end of this article).

This still leaves the broader deformation issue, as reported recently, which is still being looked into, and awaiting some feedback from Qarl.

Other issues outside of these which have arisen with the deformer have been largely the result of unrealistic expectations – that it will, for example, mimic facial morphs or hand movements closely or some changes to feet. However, in these situations, it is important to remember that the deformer was never developed to deal with these, as it works off the avatar’s bone structure, and facial features and hands don not have any bone structure within the avatar associated with them.

Time Frame for the Deformer

While progress with the deformer continues to look good, there remains no ETA as to when the code will appear in the release version of the official SL viewer.

The major reason for this is the ongoing problems with the Beta release channel for the viewer (of which more in the next update for this week!). As it stands, the deformer is positioned roughly at the back of the queue of releases which are being held as LL work to resolve the current crash issues with the Beta viewer. This means that, at least until the Beta issues are resolved, there is no official ETA for the deformer code reaching the release viewer. However, the latest revisions are starting to be incorporated into some TPVs.

In the meantime, and if you have been testing the project viewer, please remember to give feedback via the JIRA.

Performance Concern

While it is not actually an issue with the deformer per se, commenting at the Content Creation User Group on Monday 29th October, Siana Gearz highlighted a potential problem with mesh clothing utilising the deformer and avatar physics.

The concern is that the deformer uses the same morph-based schema as is used by the avatar physics system. This means that the GPU has to do a lot of additional calculations for the polygons in an item of mesh clothing to simulate movement (such as “bouncing boobs”) when avatar physics are in use. This obviously leads to a performance hit. So long as the polygon count in clothing is kept low, the impact is minimal, but the concern is that clothing build using high polygon counts to provide detail could have a larger impact on the viewer.

One possible way for this to be avoided, should it become an issue, is for clothing makers to optimise their mesh clothing with lower poly counts – and the forthcoming materials processing capabilities should go a long way towards helping with this.

Related Links