Category: SL User Group Meetings

2025 week #19: SL SUG meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Buddha Garden, February 2025 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 6th, 2025 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 of the meeting. Pantera also recorded the meeting, and that recording is embedded at the end of this piece – my thanks to Pantera, 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 6th, the Main SLS channel was restarted without any update.
  • On Wednesday, May 7th:
    • BlueSteel and the snack channel running the Elderberry simulator update (see below) should be restarted.
    •  All remaining RC channels should be updated with Elderberry.

Elderberry Update (2025.05)

  • A new option to llDerezObject – DEREZ_TO_INVENTORY, which returns the targeted object to inventory and saves its current state (e.g. has the same behaviour as Build → Object → Save Back to Object Contents.
  • llIsLinkGLTFMaterial  – which can can determine if a face on a linked prim is PBR.
  • REZFLAG_DIE_ON_NO_REZZER – which will cause a rezzed prim to die if its rezzer is no longer present in the region.
  • llSetGLTFOverrides, rather than changes to llSetColor and llSetAlpha to work with PBR, as changing the latter was “starting to lead down some very scary paths WRT ‘What is the right thing to do'”.
  • Possibly a fix for llSetGroundTexture, which currently has the NE & SW values swapped. The question was asked in this was in the release, but the question wasn’t fully answered.

Upcoming Deployment – Fig Pudding (2025.06)

  • This is still being put together.
  • The update is unlikely to surface before June, as the simulator team has been focusing on some necessary internal work (e.g. ensuring various repositories build and deploy via Github actions correctly; updating where docker images are stored) which has drawn attention away from feature work on the simulators.

SL Viewer Updates

  •  Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th.
    • New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
    • The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
      • Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
      • Use Preferences → Graphics →  Advanced Settings →  Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
    • An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
    • Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
    • Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
  • Release Candidate: 2025.04 – 7.1.14.14742193597, May 2nd 2025 – NEW.
    • Includes the following new features:
      • Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers.
      • My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
    • Key updates:
      • Build Floater improvements: increase to scale boundaries; Physics Material Type now updates when selecting linked objects; Repeats per Meter value no longer incorrect for non-uniform sized objects
      • Hover height: the minimum/maximum is now +/- 3 meters.
      • Snapshot floater: L$ balances can be hidden independently of the rest of the UI.
      • Preference Search bar: general usability and readability improvements.
    • Refer to the release notes for full updates and fixes.
  • Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd.

In Brief

  • A request for SLua events to be updated along the lines suggested in this canny request. Rider Linden indicated that a update will be made prior to SLua moving to wider beta testing, and will likely It will likely end up looking similar to the Canny proposal. However, there is no current time frame as to when the update will be made.
  • A Canny request was filed in January for a llGetRegionWorldMapTile feature. This was reportedly now sitting in the backlog of requests and work the server team are hoping to work through in time.
    • This saw a follow-up request at the meeting to be able to zoom down to the level of centring a parcel on the map. Rider indicated that it should be possible to give the full region map as a as a texture ID, allowing scripts to adjust the offset and scale of the texture to achieve desired results.
  • A discussion on regions idling (at 1 FPS(?)) when not in use (e.g. when there are no avatars in the region, no child agents registered with in and no HTTP IN/OUT functions running); the ability for llGetEnv to obtain a region’s status.
    • Regions are not completely shut-down when “empty”. as most require scripts to keep running.
    • This broadened into a discussion on how low a region takes to start-up. The most accurate might be “no long in the scheme of things, but variable”.
  • In response to a question on progress with combat 2.1 features, Rider stated:
Combat 2.1 is pushed back. I’ve got no eta when that will come back up. I’d like to get it moving, I think it introduces some important additions that have impacts outside of just Combat, but there are lots of things that need doing and I can only type so fast.
  • The latter half of the meeting was taken up with discussions of texture loading, the impact of alpha layering, non-optimised contents and similar, the majority of which was more viewer-centric. They arose from a complaint that Fantasy Faire is overloaded with “4K textures” (which aren’t actually a thing in SL) causing viewer performance issues.

 

† 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.

2025 week #18: SL CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Campsite: venue for CCUG meetings
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting of Thursday, May 1st, 2025. Please note that this is not a full transcript, but a summary of key topics, and timestamps are to the official video, embedded at the end of this report. .
Table of Contents

Meeting 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 generally held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.

Official Viewer Status and Updates

Viewer Status

  •  Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th.
    • New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
    • The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
      • Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
      • Use Preferences → Graphics →  Advanced Settings →  Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
    • An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
    • Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
    • Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
  • Release Candidate: 2025.04 – 7.1.14.14742193597, Issued May 2nd 2025.
    • Includes the following new features:
      • Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers.
      • My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
    • Key updates:
      • Build Floater improvements: increase to scale boundaries; Physics Material Type now updates when selecting linked objects; Repeats per Meter value no longer incorrect for non-uniform sized objects.
      • Hover height: the minimum/maximum is now +/- 3 meters – requires a simulator-side update, currently in the process of being deployed.
      • Snapshot floater: L$ balances can be hidden independently of the rest of the UI.
      • Preference Search bar: general usability and readability improvements.
    • Refer to the release notes for full updates and fixes.
  • Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd.

Upcoming Viewers

[Video: 2:22-5:16]

2025.04
  • See above.
2025.05
  • Internal discussions on what form this should take remain in progress.
  • As a result of delays with 2025.03 and 2025.04, coupled with a need to consider how to better offer viewers with features / capabilities user will find valuable, rather than simply lobbing buckets of changes and updates into each release, the viewer team is backing off of the idea of a monthly release cadence for the immediate future.

More on the glTF Mesh Uploader

[Video: 7:41-12:22]

  • Overall, the focus remains on getting the flow of model uploads working smoothly and in providing the same capabilities when uploading glTF models as is currently the case for COLLADA models.
  • However, there will be some constraints on capabilities:
    • Higher vertex limits on uploads will not be supported for glTF, as it is described as requiring a “whole mesh format upgrade”, which requires further thought before moving in that direction. As such the current 65K vertices per face limit will apply to glTF model uploads.
    • Due to the complexity, and until things can be re-thought, glTF materials cannot be imported as a part of a glTF mesh (outside of the Base Colour map); they must be imported separately and then applied.  Direct import of glTF materials as a part of a glTF mesh requires an large refactoring of code which is not possible in the immediate future.
    • The above point prompted the question from Geenz on whether people would prefer the Base Colour to be uploaded, or simply just have a blank face provided until such time as full glTF materials can be imported with the mesh. Opinion at the meeting leaned towards the blank surface.

In Brief

  • [Video: 6:02-7:10] Feature request: Make Appearances Height = Prim Height – responded to as “something that could be looked at”.
  • [Video: 15:25-20:21] Are there plans to support Unreal Engine? – No, and defined as “probably never happening”.
    • This led to a question about supporting Unreal Engine plug-ins and perhaps getting plug-in support for Marvelous Designer, often used as an adjunct to making and rigging SL clothing (in fact, Linden Lab struck a deal with MD so a plug-in could be provided for the Sansar platform and its avatars).
    • While not averse to the idea of plug-in support, it was noted that in respect of rigging to the avatar skeleton, the latter would need additional work to make it offerable to third-parties to support.
    • This led to a general acknowledgement and discussion on the need for better pipelining to support popular tools, what those tools might in fact be, beyond Blender, how widespread is their use, availability of SDKs, convergence in trends (e.g. towards OpenUSD) – although how this might all be achieved is a head-scratcher.
    • Overall, such work is seen as “worth discussing” but well beyond the current roadmap.
  • [Video: 20:24-25:52] In terms of the SL skeleton, it was stated that “everyone” uses Avastar – including the Lab -(although the MayaStar plugin by Cathy Foil also gets good usage), due to the SL skeleton having issues.
    • Geenz suggested the way to offer easier compatibility between the SL skeleton and commercial tools like MD would be to get the skeleton files updated and offer them as glTF and / or OpenUSD downloads.
    • This grew into a general discussion on the skeleton, its complexity compared to other games / platforms, etc.
  • [Video: 25:52-33:30] A general discussion on the Avatar Welcome Pack, specifically some of the shortfalls in how it has been put together.
    • Some of the issues are known, and have been raised by the creators who provided the content for LL to bring together, others may not have been identified.
    • The request is for any issues identified by experienced users opting to try / test the avatar, etc., to be filed as a bug report.
    • It was also noted that clearer instructions were not provided with the Avatar Welcome Pack – such as *copying* a body folder / outfit from the Library to Inventory, rather than adding / wearing an avatar or outfit directly from the Library (and thus spawning multiple copies in Inventory.
    • In relation to the above, Kyle Linden suggested the Lab offer the pack’s contents on a Lab-driven Marketplace store to help with discoverability, and this was positively received.
  • [Video: 33:35-38:24] A discussion on lighting  – “block” (aka volume) lighting, improving the flexibility of lighting in SL, implementing physically based lighting capabilities, etc.
  • [Video: 41:20-46:29] A discussion on filling the “voids” between continents and regions with water / air open space to allow free passage to boats and aircraft, and why this currently in not feasible on technical or financial grounds.
The system complexity of doing is so enormous … to do that, we’d have to either run a single server in each one of the void spaces, which would obviously put us out of business overnight [fees to Amazon] or… to build mega regions. But the trick to those mega regions need to sit on top of existing regions, or something. Because otherwise, you have the protocol for cross-region communications at the boundaries, and you no longer have cardinal boundaries. Every programmer here can imagine the horror of going from having one neighbour to your left to having between 1 and 600 neighbours to your left, or something. We just didn’t code Second Life that way, so that we could have regions of different size adjacent to each other. I don’t know how to solve that … I don’t have an easy answer off the top of my head.

Philip Rosedale

  • [Video 48:13-54:30] General comments on providing VR support – options, issues, technical hurdles.

Next Meeting

2025 week #18: SL SUG meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Isla Enchanted, February 2025 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 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 of the meeting.

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, April 29th, the Main SLS channel was restarted without any update
  • On Wednesday, April 30th:
    • BlueSteel and a snack channel should be updated with the Elderberry simulator update (see below).
    •  All remaining RC channels should be restarted without any change.

Upcoming Deployment – Elderberry

  • A new option to llDerezObject – DEREZ_TO_INVENTORY, which returns the targeted object to inventory and saves its current state (e.g. has the same behaviour as Build → Object → Save Back to Object Contents.
  • llIsLinkGLTFMaterial  – which can can determine if a face on a linked prim is PBR.
  • REZFLAG_DIE_ON_NO_REZZER – which will cause a rezzed prim to die if its rezzer is no longer present in the region.
  • llSetGLTFOverrides, rather than changes to llSetColor and llSetAlpha to work with PBR, as changing the latter was “starting to lead down some very scary paths WRT ‘What is the right thing to do'”.
  • Possibly a fix for llSetGroundTexture, which currently has the NE & SW values swapped. The question was asked in this was in the release, but the question wasn’t fully answered.

SL Viewer Updates

  •  Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th – No Change.
    • New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
    • The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
      • Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
      • Use Preferences → Graphics →  Advanced Settings →  Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
    • An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
    • Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
    • Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
  • Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd.

In Brief

  • A (reasonable) request was made to have simulator release names (“Elderberry”, “Puff Pastry” or whatever) actually reflected on the release notes rather than referencing them solely by release number.
  • Questions llDerezObject() DEREZ_TO_INVENTORY:
    • Is the clean-up procedures after de-rezzing any different to other objects? Should not be, the; the object is killed from in-world on receipt of the derez command, then a new asset is generated to replace the deleted one in the rezzing object’s inventory.
    • Is DEREZ_TO_INVENTORY to to any capability? No. The code was originally set up to respond to a message from the viewer and so would report messages back that way; however it is being updated to be smarter than that to avoid missed messages, etc.
  • A feature request to allow attachment rezzing directly from another object’s inventory has been received (e.g. to assist with changing outfits). It is regarded as a large project and, if accepted, has yet to be added to the development roadmap.
  • A feature request to Add function to get a list of objects in the region (somewhat similar to the Area Search in some TPVs) has been submitted and is currently being tracked. Upvote if you’d like to see it get onto the roadmap for implementation.
  • A discussion on prim manipulation and LSL and differences between viewer-side and simulator-side disconnects (e.g. LSL cant set sphere taper, and viewer can’t set floating text or particle). This drifted into discussion of prim / linkset ordering and an actual node hierarchy for the same that is known to the viewer, together with a means to set the linkset number for a given object in the linkset / “click and assign” root prim for a linkset.
  • Leviathan Linden offered some feedback to those testing the SLua regions on Aditi:
One thing I was working on a week or two ago but currently on hold: people on the Lua servers were using the faster scripts to thrash a log of prim properties, which would generate a storm of Full Updates. Someone noticed some hot spots in the generation/sending of those updates, slowing things down making the problem look like Lua’s fault. So, I was working on a speed-up there. Wasn’t done, got side-tracked. Will get back to it.

† 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.

2025 Week #17 Project Zero User Group Meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
via Linden Lab
The following notes were taken from the Thursday, April 24th 2025 Project Zero User Group (PZUG) meeting.

  • They are based on my audio recording of the meeting + chat log.
  • They should not be taken as a full transcript of the meeting.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The Project Zero User Group provides a platform  for open discussion about Project Zero, the cloud-streamed version of the Second Life Viewer. Topics can range from sharing the goals for Project Zero, demoing the current experience, and gathering feedback to help shape the future of cloud access for Second Life.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
    • The second and fourth Thursday of every month at 13:00 noon SLT.
    • In Voice and text.
    • At the Hippotropolis Campsite.
  • 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.

Resources

Note: “Zero” or “Project Zero” in these summaries always refers to the SL official viewer running in a browser; “Firestorm Zero”, “FS0” or “FS Zero” always refers to the Firestorm viewer offering in a browser.

Avatar Picker

  • Released on April 24th, 2025.
  • Actually the first part of presenting Project Zero with a new UI, built using HTML / React, and first discussed by Philip Rosedale when Project Zero was initially launched.
  • Takes the form of a UI element that “pops in and out” of the left side of the browser window for the viewer.
  • Allows a user to select one of the avatars available within the new Avatar Welcome Pack, and the dress it in one of the available outfits.
  • The idea is to help new users get started with the kinds of avatars and avatar accessories more generally found in SL, thus grounding them more in the platform and the avatar ecosystem.

Project Zero and On-Boarding New Users

  • With the resumption of direct advertising of SL, the Lab has noted:
    • Only around 10% of users responding to an ad and who are directed through the sign-up process that requires them to download and install the viewer, actually get as far a logging-in.
    • However, the number responding to an ad and being directed to the sign-up process culminating in them being able to access SL directly through their browser using Project Zero, has a success rate of over 50% actually logging-in.
  • Data gathering on incoming new users responding to ads suggest that the majority are using computers that would not be able to run the viewer to its fullest visual extent; however, 90% of those users coming in via the Project Zero route are able to properly “see people and hear the birds”.
  • The next strategic step is seen as encouraging those new users to more fully engage with the platform, and two steps are being taken in this direction – the Avatar Picker noted above, and an upcoming “Destination Picker”, which is seen as an extension to the avatar onboarding process.

Project Zero “Destination Picker”

  • This is liable to be the next element for the new UI.
  • When available, it will allow (new) users to select one of the 12 destinations, in a similar manner to the Go button seen on the web account registration  / join pages.
  • The desire being to point them towards locations and experiences that bring home the value of Second Life, and which encourage them to continue to log-in to the platform.
  • In this it is recognised that:
    • Simply listing a plethora of destinations which may or may not have active use risks losing incoming new users on the basis if they get sent to places where there is no engagement with others, they simply will not stay.
    • Similarly, just sending people to “crowded” places (clubs, shopping areas, etc.), is not necessarily a good idea, and people within those environments may not be amenable to answering questions / offering assistance. etc.
    • People are much more likely to stay if they find people who are friendly, willing to offer help, point them towards community resources, etc.
  • As such, the destinations placed in the Picker are going to be curated (and possibly rotated), based on how well they assist in helping new users feel “part” of SL.

Additional Notes on Destinations / On-boarding

  • Selections for inclusion are liable to be along lines that reflect the typical reasons people give for signing-up to SL – such as an interest in art, a desire to experience live music, etc.
    • In this regard, incoming new users are already being “round robined” to a number of potential starting points: the Welcome Hub, Gateways such as Firestorm’s gateway, experience-oriented hub like MadPea, etc.
    • However, the Lab wants to move this on to the users themselves being able to make a choice as to where they go on logging-in.
  • A new channel will be provided to those managing the selected destinations, which will provide them with data such as: numbers of new users returning for a further session, number of users going to no upgrade to a subscription tier, and other data that can help illustrate the success of a location in supporting new users, and possible highlight areas for possible optimisation.
  • With regards to the success of destinations used within the on-boarding of new users over the year, Philip Rosedale noted the following:
Over all these years, when we have looked at the statistics for destinations for areas as different as those I’ve mentioned – the Welcome Hub, the Adventure Island, the Firestorm Welcome Island, the MadPea games, for example – fascinatingly enough, we see that the success at retaining new users is virtually identical for all of those destinations; and overall, is of course very poor. 
So its interesting to not that we’re not even close, it would seem, on what the right on-boarding experience is; because all of the ones we have tried are equally unsuccessful. 

– Philip Rosedale

New Users and a Sandbox

  • Sntax floated the idea of offering incoming users the opportunity to go to a specific sandbox environment were they could join other users and new users in collaborative building / learning to build.
  • Active Worlds used to have something similar for its incoming new users.
  • Responses to this at the meeting were mixed.
    • Positives: offers the opportunity for collaborative work using the built-in tools; allows experienced 3D content creators new to SL experiment with importing mesh; could become an informative learning “playground”.
    • Negatives: built-in tools for content creation are both complex and have not seen any real TLC in years; primitives fall well short of more refined meshes; the potential for griefing.
  • This lead to a more general discussion on engaging new users, opportunities for engaging them in activities and how to direct them (e.g. offering those wanting to use Voice to “Voice friendly” locations; offering experiences such as games, sailing, flying, etc.

Notes on Availability

  • Existing users can also use the Avatar Picker, however:
    • It is only available on Project Zero.
    • Project Zero is geared towards incoming new users, so existing users might find it difficult to obtain a slot when trying to log-in via Zero.
  • Part of the reason for this is the Lab feels the capability needs to mature before becoming more widely available to existing users.
  • That said, if people would like to use Zero because it would potential offer a better experience than a viewer running locally on their computer, should IM Sntax Linden stating why they want to use Zero and what, specifically, they would use it for and the perceived benefits. Such use cases might then help speed the development of the capability.
  • Passes for Firestorm Zero are currently not available.

Date of Next Meeting

April 2025 SL Mobile UG meeting summary: avatar updates

Posted on by Inara Pey
Campwich Forest grounds: location for the Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG)
The following notes were taken from the Thursday, April 24th 2025 Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG) meeting. These notes should not be taken as a full transcript of the meeting, which was largely held in Voice, but rather a summary of the key topics discussed. The meeting was recorded by Pantera, and her video is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks, as always to her in providing it.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The Mobile User Group provides a platform to share insights on recent mobile updates and upcoming features, and to receive feedback directly from users.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
    • The last Thursday of every month at 12:00 noon SLT.
    • In Voice and text.
    • At Campwich Forest.
  • 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.

Resources

Release Updates and “Coming Soon”

[Video: 2:57-8:46]

Version: 2025.3.548 (Android); 0.5.534 (iOS)

  • Issue: Not receiving items! – inventory offers received when using Mobile failing to appear in Inventory once logged-in on the Desktop viewer. This has now been fixed.
  •  Dash for Cash has proven popular, and has seen a small update in that it now references avatars by name.

“Coming Soon”

  • If you teleport whilst in the Lobby, a teleport pop-up will be displayed in addition to the teleport progress bar at the top of the Lobby screen.
  • Settings clean-up:
    • The Max Avatars drop-down is due to move from the Developer tools list (Menu → Settings → </> Developer Tools) up to the main Settings menu.
    • Group notifications are to become more granular, allowing notifications for specific groups to be turned on / off.
An upcoming change will see the Max Avatars setting move from the Developer Tools to the main Settings screen (note: the above is for illustration only; final update may appear differently).
  • Initial groundwork so that people can access the Lobby feature without their avatars having to be physically in-world:
    • This will see the the Sign Out button move from the Menu up to the Profile bar, and a new button introduced to the Menu: Return to Lobby.
    • When implemented, avatars will still be rendered in-world and seen as on-line, as this is only the groundwork.  However, it is hoped that things will progress over the next few months to reach a point where using the Lobby, as noted, does not require the avatar to be present in-world.
  • Additional quality of life updates are also targeting the May update, but the meeting was considered “a little too early” to discuss them.

Avatar Update

[Video: 9:27-43:00]

  • The core of the meeting was a presentation from Adam Sinewave on some of the challenges involved in rendering avatars on SL Mobile, the approach taken, status to date and work that should be appearing in upcoming releases.
  • This presentation took the form of a slide show with comments from Adam, and I’ve embedded a video of it below, with a concatenated summary of Adam’s comments. to see the latter in full, please watch the video directly in You Tube and click the transcript button in the video’s description area.

  • SL Mobile is a fully ground-up rebuild of Second Life for Mobile devices (utilising the Unity engine), utilising a very different architecture compared to the Desktop Viewer and with no common code, in order to work within the constraints of most Mobile devices.
  • This is particularly evident in the case of avatar rendering, where the different approaches to avatar skeletons as substantial:
    • The SL system is largely “monolithic” (for want of a better term): a single skeleton per avatar containing multiple bone sets, all capable of being positioned be shape, deformer animation, with no deterministic (or even an entirely random) approach to the ordering / priority of such changes.
    • The Unity system is more flexible and robust, but as a result can bring rendering quirks and issues hidden by the SL system into sharp relief.
  • Testing such avatar for issues and the effectiveness of fixes applied (regression testing) has until recently been manually-intensive requiring eye-on testing for each an every issue / fix. However, time has been spent building an in-house testing / regression system to automate a lot of this work, greatly speeding the process of issue identification, fixing and testing.
  • Outside of the above, there are still areas of work associated with avatars (some of which impact in-world objects as well) still to be address, and doing so will take time. These include at the time of the video:
    • “Not Working”: Animesh; avatar lighting; transparency on avatars (alpha layers); PBR materials rendering. All of these will be addressed, but the time frame is liable to be longer-term and the priority of work subject to change.
    • Partially working: Flexi wearables (partially supported, but in need of improvement); system eyes (positioned based on a “average” placement within the skull and which requires further improvement).
  • Silhouetting (avatars appearing transparent in the Mobile app): this is viewed as overly-aggressive, but has been necessary to ensure avatars only render when “complete”, so as to avoid any nudity that might collide with Apple’s rules on such. Unfortunately, this exposes a number of areas where avatar loading can fail and the avatar becoming such as a silhouette. Work is progressing on addressing these issues, but it will require a cycle of multiple updates.
  • A look at (at the time of the meeting) some of of the  upcoming avatar fixes improvements – including expanding the avatar test suite and, for users: improvements to resource loading and texture handling, allowing more to be seen and enabling avatars to be loaded / unloaded as they enter / leave view.
  • It was noted that much of this work has yet to reach the Mobile app (Alpha or Beta), be will be doing so in upcoming releases.

In Brief

Please refer to the video for details on the following and other questions which may have had a simple “yes” or “in progress” reply.

  • [Video: 45:56-47:10] A question on whether mesh creators simply using the default right-hand attachment point of avatar items can cause issues with losing items or how alpha blends work when compared to Desktop.
    • In terms of alpha blends, Mobile uses a different approach to layering (order-independent transparency using Z-depth rather than attachment order), such issues of layer ordering doesn’t apply.
    • It’s acknowledged that this might not quite match what creators are expecting, but it allow for a more efficient use of resources.
  • [Video: 47:38-48:48] SL and Unity handle rotation differently.
    • SL’s coordinates are based on right-handed rotation with the Z axis as up; Unity uses left-handed rotation with the Y axis as Up.  Thus, a translation system between the two is required, which can lead to issues.
    • Further complications can be introduced as a result of animations using rotation.
    • Fixes have been developed to address the more noticeable issues, which will be appearing in the next “update or two”.
  • [Video: 49:37-50:44] Inventory access through Mobile is on the roadmap. However, it is a very large, resource-intensive project with a lot of impact.
    • As such, as, when and how it is tackled is a matter of strategic consideration alongside other priorities.
    • Currently, it is not something that has seen any “substantial” work carried out.
  • [Video: 50:52-50:54 (text]  Mobile app hanging with “Not Responding” and the options to Close App or Wait:
    • The workaround for this at present is to go to the Developer Tools (Menu → Settings → </> Developer Tools), locate the Max Memory Limit drop-down and reduce the amount of memory (e.g. to 30% or 25%).
    • Further work has been made to general performance, which should be going into upcoming releases. As such, reports on the issue would be appreciated if it continues to manifest after these are available.
  • [Video: 51:01-52:53] Has anything been learnt from Mobile (thus far) that can be used to improve the Desktop experience?
    • Suggestions have been passed to the Desktop viewer team from Mobile.
    • There is a desire to unify experiences between the viewer and Mobile where possible (e.g. such as unifying chat history) and which may require changes to the viewer as well as updates to Mobile. However when such work will be carried out was unclear at the time of the meeting.
    • Outside of user-facing work, the avatar testing tool is something potentially of interest to the Desktop team as well.
  • There is an issue with certain fonts in name tags not displaying correctly on Mobile. This is known and will be investigated.

Date of Next Meeting

2025 week #17: SL SUG meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Peng Lai, February 2025 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025 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 of the meeting and Pantera’s video, embedded at the end of this piece.

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

  • This week will see all channel restarted without and deployments.

Upcoming Deployment – Elderberry

  • It is hoped the at Elderberry update will be deployed the BlueSteel RC channel on Wednesday Apeil 30th, 2025.
  • This release will likely include:
    • Anew option to llDerezObject – DEREZ_TO_INVENTORY, which returns the targeted object to inventory and saves its current state (e.g. has the same behaviour as Build → Object → Save Back to Object Contents.
    • llIsLinkGLTFMaterial  – which can can determine if a face on a linked prim is PBR.
    • REZFLAG_DIE_ON_NO_REZZER – which will cause a rezzed prim to die if its rezzer is no longer present in the region.
    • llSetGLTFOverrides, rather than changes to llSetColor and llSetAlpha to work with PBR, as changing the latter was “starting to lead down some very scary paths WRT ‘What is the right thing to do'”.

SL Viewer Updates

  •  Default viewer: 2025.03 7.1.13.14343205944, issued April 9th and promoted April 15th – NEW.
    • New UI element for water exclusion surfaces: Build / Edit floater → Texture Tab → Hide Water checkbox.
    • The maximum amount of Reflection Probes can now be adjusted to better accommodate low VRAM scenarios.
      • Values will be set automatically depending on your chosen graphics quality. OR
      • Use Preferences → Graphics →  Advanced Settings →  Max. Reflection Probes to manually set.
    • An issue with being unable to see Sky Altitude values in the Region/Estate window has now been resolved.
    • Preferences → Graphics → Max. # of Non-Imposters has been renamed Max. # of Animated Avatars for clarity.
    • Bug and performance fixes and memory optimisations.
  • Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha, version 7.1.12.14175675593, April 2nd.

In Brief

Please refer to the the video for details on the following.

  • Ability to rename a group is marked As Planned, but “is not currently in the queue right now”.
  • A request to make gravity / physics variable on a region basis (or as least when underwater. The response to this was twofold:
    • File a Feature Request outlining the requirement and how it might be used (e.g. through the SL Experiences mechanism) and see what the feedback from the community might be.
    • Whether the work could be undertaken or no would depend on a combination of how feasible it would be; the effort required to implement it (particularly in relation to other requests); how it might be employed.
The physics engine can handle a different acceleration of gravity, no problem. But, we’d have to track down all the places where we have hard-coded the normal value of gravity (server and viewer) and then replace that with a value that is communicated from the server, so we’d have to adjust the data protocol a bit, then get that work in all the important TPVs. Just thinking out loud how hard it would all be.

– Leviathan Linden

  • The above threaded through much of the meeting, in placing crossing over  into discussions:
    • About facilitating natural swimming in SL (i.e. Linden Water shouldn’t exhibit the same gravity as land and causing avatars to drop to the riverbed / sea floor).
    • The idea of the official viewer providing a built-in AO system (e.g. akin to Firestorm’s, but making use of llSetAnimationOverride.
    • On the SL wind and its usefulness (and to the ability to have wind-driven weather).
  • The official Discord channel has seen a conversation about allowing experience scripts to optionally rez objects as the experience land owner, rather than only the owner of the object (e.g. let an experience gun rez bullets under land group instead of needing to set land to open rez). Rider Linden stated he’d like to get something like this added to the roadmap.
  • Although more viewer-side, the camera became a focus of discussion:
    • While no work has been taken on it, New llSetCameraParams() rules: CAMERA_POSITION_KEY and CAMERA_FOCUS_KEY is something that might be a part of providing better camera controls for the likes of machinimatographers.
    • A reminder was given, as well: llSetKeyFramedCamera.
    • Leviathan Linden remided people that he had re-implemented follow-cam in the game-control project, so that the camera could be moved around with the game controller device. However, “there was much work to be done there to make anyone happy”.
  • The viewer-side implementation of Lua (not the server-side SLua project currently being tested on Aditi), is apparently “on hold”.

† 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.