Category: SL User Group Meetings

2019 SL User Groups week #33/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Otter Lake; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrOtter Lake, June 2019 – blog post

Server Deployments

  • There was no deployment to the SLS (Main) channel on Tuesday, August 13th.
  • On Wednesday, August 14th the RC channel should be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel and LeTigre should be updated to server maintenance update 19#19.08.07.529856, containing internal updates which should see improvements to the percentage of scripts running per CPU cycle (particularly for Full regions) and reduce the portion of a cycle given over to idle scripts.
    • Magnum should be updated to server maintenance update 19#19.08.06.529800, containing internal fixes.

SL Viewer

The Love Me Render viewer, version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5th, was  promoted to de facto release status at the start of the week.

The rest of the official viewer pipelines remain as follows at the time of writing:

  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, promoted to release status 29th November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

In Brief

Scripts

  • Script usage is still seen as possible cause of contention (e.g. because one parcel owner is consuming all script resources within a region). A means has been suggested for changing (see BUG-225391), but the Lab see the issue as complex and so wanted to get improvements such as those being initially deployed to the BueSteel and LeTigre RC channels issued first before potentially digging more deeply into the question of script usage and allocation.
  • How clear a picture does the Full private region Top Scripts give for script usage in a region? Obviously, it can help, but as Mazidox Linden noted: “I do something similar all the time. It doesn’t give you the fine grained details you’d imagine for our set-up however. For that I use other (mostly internal) tools/techniques.”
  • It’s been suggested that script information could be extended to parcel level. This is something the Lab has indicated it is musing doing – but no firm plans to implement any changes if the Lab go in that direction have been indicated. It is also a complicated issue, as Simon Linden summarised:

So how would you treat someone with 1/4 of a region and a club [and] 50 avatars come to see a popular performer, and the other 3/4 are empty at the time? Give [the club] all the script time? Or leave 75% for the  …  other land?

Region Memory Bloat

As a reminder: a region can suffer significant memory bloat during repeated terraforming. Simply put, this is the result of the navmesh (part of the region’s physics) being reformed during the terraforming. This can have numerous impacts: overall performance can be affected, as can rezzing objects. Nominally,  if a Full region’s memory allocation hits approx 900 Mb, or a homestead 230 Mb, it will shut down rezzing (if the underpinning simulator gets within ~90% of its memory limit (256MB for a Homestead & 1024MB for a full region) it will disallow rezzing).

So, if you are running a region that starts reporting issues with rezzing and have been terraforming, consider a restart (or requesting a restart from support).

2019 SL User Groups 32/2: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Witchwood; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrWitchwood, June 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August 9th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording and providing it. The key points of discussion are provided below with time stamps to the relevant points in the video, which will open in a separate tab when clicked.

This was another  short meeting.

SL Viewer

[0:34-3:12]

The Umeshu Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 6.2.4.529755 on Wednesday August 7th.

The remaining pipelines are as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5th, promoted June 18th – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, promoted to release status 29th November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Viewer Promotions

The hope is that some of the current four RC will gain promotion to full release status in August, as the bug list on all of them is “really small”.

In Brief

Inventory Issues, Fixes and Log-in Changes

[3:34-10:50]

  • Some Firestorm users are reporting an uptick in inventory issue, such as corruptions. It appears that, while usually a last resort, clearing inventory cache may correct it if it occurs.
  • There is some work being carried out by the Lab that improves their ability to fix back-end inventory issues. This work is getting an “unusually thorough” QA pass, so may be a while before it is ready for support deployment.
  • Also, the Lab is working on a new log-in process that adds more checks to the inventory queries performed during log-in.
    • Currently, some of the queries, a necessary part of the log-in process, can be subject to database look-up failures that go unreported to the viewer, leading to inventory issues for the user.
    • The new process will ensure that if a query fails, an error message will be returned to the viewer, allowing it to request further look-ups. However, it will be a while before this enters production.
  • A reminder that large flat inventories (e.g. thousands of items on the same level) can cause the inventory queries to time-out and log-in to time-out. Should this happen, an inventory transform can be requested from support, which breaks large flat inventories down into a folder structure.

Second Life Engineering Jobs

[16:23-17:25]

  • The position for a Second Life Senior Graphics Engineer remains open.
  • A new position has opened for a software engineer (C++). Oz linden “would love” to recruit someone who has the relevant experience / background and who is a Second Life resident.
  • Applicants need to be US residents.

2019 SL User Groups week #32/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Small Town Green; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrSmall Town Green, June 2019 – blog post

Server Deployments

  • There are no planned deployments for week #32.
  • The update(simulator package 19#19.07.10.529179), intended for the Magnum RC originally deployed and then rolled back on Wednesday, July 17th (the roll-back the result of a bug being discovered during the attempt at deployment), will likely be re-deployed to at least one RC channel, during in week #33 (commencing Monday, August 12th.

SL Viewer

The Love Me Render viewer updated to version 6.2.4.529638 on Monday, August 5th.

At the time of writing the rest of the official viewers remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

In Brief

Lumiya / Android Client

No major change in situation: aspects of Lumiya – notably in relation to the in-world view the app has ( changing their outfits, using animations / AOs, etc.) – have not been working since the last of the UDP asset messages were removed from the simulator. Calls are still being made for the Lab to work on an Android client, given they are developing an iOS client. However, as I noted in week #30:

  • The initial versions of the iOS app will be for chatting and messaging only – which can still be done with the Lumiya app.
  • While the capabilities of the iOS app will be extended over time, the Lab has not committed to what additional functionality will be provided or a time frame of when they will be provided. Simply “diverting” development from iOS to Android (assuming LL has the in-house skills for Android development) will not really change that; ergo, it’s unlikely a change in development at this point in time will overcome the current Lumiya issues.

Other Notes

  • Simulator performance:
    • Some region holders are reporting improved performance in their regions over the last 2-3 weeks. Nothing has been altered on the back-end to account for this.
    • Some region holders are conversely reporting frequently degraded physics performance in their regions that requires frequent restarts to overcome. If this is occurring with a recently terraformed region, the suggestion is to check for any “land leveller” prims that may have been buried in the terrain.
  • Ghosted attachments: issues of attachments being “ghosted” – that is, failing to render whilst still being attached or remaining rendered (in your view) when they have been detached (“killed”) as a result of a teleport seem to be on the increase. The problem appears to be with attachment “kill” messages being incorrectly sent, or with multiple “kill” messages being incorrectly received. It’s not clear how / when this might be dealt with.

2019 SL User Groups week #31

Posted on by Inara Pey

Tyraina; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrTyraina, June 2019 – blog post

SL Feature Summit

This week is the week of the Lab’s Second Life feature summit. This is the time when engineers, developers and product managers for Second Life get together in person to discuss and plan the next several months of Second Life’s development.

This means that most / all of the Second Life user group meetings for the week are cancelled.

Next Meetings

The following table outlines when the next SL user group meetings will likely take place.

User Group
 Next Meeting
Simulator User Group
 Tuesday, August 6th
Governance User Group
 Tuesday August 6th
Open-Source Development Wednesday, August 7th
Content Creation
 Thursday, August 15th
Concierge & Land Thursday, August 22nd
Server Beta User Group
 TBA – possibly Thursday, August 1st

Server Deployments

Again, due to the Second Life Feature Summit, there are no planned server deployments for this week. However, channel restarts may occur in accordance with the Lab’s 14-day restart policy.

SL Viewer

It is likely that there will no updates to the current pipelines for the official viewer this week, again as a result of the SL Feature Summit, although some of the RC viewers have updates either queued ready for, or getting close to being ready for, update. In the meantime, the pipelines remain as follows at the time of writing.

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

2019 SL User Groups 30/3: TPVD Meeting and Singularity

Posted on by Inara Pey

Summer Edge; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrSummer Edge, June 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, July 26th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording and providing it. The key points of discussion are provided below with time stamps to the relevant points in the video, which will open in a separate tab when clicked.

This was a short meeting with text chat around animation systems and options – please refer to the video for details.

SL Viewer

[0:00-1:48]

There have been no changes through the week with regards to the viewer pipelines. With the SL Feature Summit in week #31, it likely means there will be no updates then, either.

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer promoted June 18th – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, June 5th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, promoted to release status 29th November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Both Love Me Render and Rakes On Mesh are considered as being “very close” to promotion. However, as noted in my notes from the Content Creation meeting, BOM is going to be going through a QA review at the Lab, so Love Me Render might be the nearer of the two in terms of suitability for promotion.

SL Feature Summit

[1:51-2:00]

As noted, there is a SL Feature Summit in week 31, so there will also be no simulator releases next week.

Other Topics

UDP Messaging – Further Deprecation

[22:29-23:48]  There are still “a couple” of inventory-related UDP operations that need to be deprecated. This will not be a short-term change, however, as the corresponding HTTP operations handling has yet to be written. Once they have been, the UDP operations will be removed from the official viewer. Time – measured in months – will be allowed for TPVs to adopt the HTTP before the UDP is deprecated on the back end.

In Brief

  • [3:10-5:50] Can we have more than two shadow casting projectors? Short answer: not without measuring performance impact. Long answer: no further rendering type changes are up for consideration until after Love Me Render, EEP and BOM have been released. See also STORM-2147.
  • [4:04-4:17] OS X and OpenGL deprecation: the lab is still investigating options for Mac support after Apple deprecates OpenGL support.
  • [9:38-10:45] BUG-227350 – a feature request to allow LSL scripted toggling of voice on / off, which could be useful for guest-moderate talks, etc., when a land owner isn’t present – has been accepted by the Lab for consideration, but with the caveat the potential for abuse may prevent it being implemented. However, it stands as a good example of how to submit a feature request.

Singularity News

[16:59-17:33] Singularity was one of the viewers affected by the majority of UDP asset messaging paths being deprecated and removed from the back-endcode recently. While there are Singularity nightly builds to overcome the issue, there has yet to be an official full release – although this is being worked on. Commenting at the TPVD meeting, Inusaito Kanya stated:

We’re nearing release very soon, the build directed to on our site right now is http://links.singularityviewer.org/?to=nightly because we really don’t want anyone getting the UDP assets. We have Linux ready mostly and we’re working on a couple last minute fixes here and there but otherwise we should be good. Mostly graphics fixes and last minute UI touches[ still to be done].

 

2019 SL User Groups 30/2: Content Creation summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

56578 Go Wild Blvd, Watery Cove, IS 245785; Inara Pey, June 2019, on Flickr56578 Go Wild Blvd, Watery Cove, IS 245785, June 2019 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, July 25th 2019 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Environment Enhancement Project

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements allowing the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) to be set region or parcel level, with support for up to 7 days per cycle and sky environments set by altitude. It uses a new set of inventory assets (Sky, Water, Day),  and includes the ability to use custom Sun, Moon and cloud textures. The assets can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others, and can additionally be used in experiences.

Due to performance issues, the initial implementation of EEP will not include certain atmospherics such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”).

Resources

Current Status

  • A further version of the RC viewer is in the pipeline and will be available soon.
  • As the project is seen as a “getting closer” and that now is the time for issues to be reported.
  • EEP and Bakes on Mesh have also swapped their internal QA teams, so that each project has fresh eyes on it as it gets closer to a potential release.

Bakes On Mesh

Project Summary

Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos, clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies as well as system avatars. This involves viewer and server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, but does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing Bake Service, nor are they recognised as system wearables. Adding materials support may be considered in the future.

Resources

Current Status

  • As noted above, the BOM and EEP QA teams have swapped responsibilities, so that there are fresh eyes on both projects.
  • With BOM in particular, this means the project is to be subject to extensive internal review by the Lab ahead of possible release dates being considered.

Animesh Follow-On – Project Muscadine

  • DRTSIM-421 on Aditi now has the server-side code to support the new visual parameters LSL code.
  • The simulator build and a build of a project viewer supporting the new LSL code are both undergoing LL QA testing.
  • Once both have passed QA, the viewer will be made available for public testing on the relevant regions on the DRTSIM-421 channel on Aditi.
    • The viewer might be available within the next 2-3 weeks.
  • It’s been suggested that imposters for Animesh and imposters for avatars should be separated.
    • This would be possible, although it would require some code re-working within the imposter system, which hasn’t been planned.
    • There’s also the question of how many people would use a separate Animesh setting, even if it were provided – or perhaps even be aware of it – or if two settings might not confuse people

General Discussion

Tutorial Videos

  • The Lab is looking to again start producing tutorial videos.
  • Some of these will focus on the basics with content (e.g. how to dress an avatar, wear jewellery, etc.), and how to recognise well-made / optimised content. These videos may start to appear later in 2019.
  • The hope is that as well as helping to educated consumers, these videos may start encouraging creators to think more about issues of optimisation.
  • The Lab will be interested in hearing ideas on this from creators.
  • It is likely this work will be linked to things like Project ARCTan, which will look at rendering costs, etc.
    • It was intimated that in the future, landowners might be able to limit access to their land by avatar complexity as well as by the more recognised script load.
    • Any such changes will be introduced gradually, with the educational programme – videos, etc., preceding it to try to help users better understand optimisation and benefits.

In Brief

  • In-World Pose System: this has grown out of a code contribution, but is current on hold pending resources.
  • Pathfinding: something the Lab would like to look at again, but unlikely to be in 2019.
  • Puppeteering: this is an old project that several have suggested re-vitalising. The view from the lab appears to be that it is now too old and SL has moved on too far for it to be practical to try to just resume work.

Meetings

Due to the Lab’s internal SL Feature Summit and the monthly All Hand meeting at the Lab, the next CCUG meeting will likely be on Thursday, August 8th, 2019 – but check the wiki page to confirm,as it might be possible there is a meeting on August 1st, depending on the start of the SL Feature Summit.