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.
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.
Firestorm Zero has – for the time being – been shut down as a streaming option.
Those who still had remaining purchased time for Firestorm Zero should have been refunded and received an e-mail notification that the service was being shut down.
The reason for shutting it down is primarily related to:
The amount of work required to maintain two different streaming products.
The need for the Lab to migrate project Zero to a new platform at the behest of their streaming provider, and not having time to also migrate Firestorm Zero in the same period.
This does not mean there will never be a further offering of Firestorm as a part of the Second Life streaming service.
New Joiner Workflow Updates
There has been a complete refresh of the Lab’s web-based new joiner workflow at join.secondlife.com, which now leverages the Avatar Picker first seen in Project Zero. For more on this, please see A short look at the refreshed Second Life web-based join flow.
As a part of this, the sign-up flow specific to Project Zero has also been updated. In particular, the Project Zero web site web.secondlife.com (formerly zero.secondlife.com) has been refreshed so:
It now shows the same backdrop image as now seen on the web sign-up flow.
It Includes a slide show of Polaroid-like snapshots intended to illustrate to ne users what people can do in SL, whilst waiting for an instance of the viewer to become available and load in their browsero.
My own tests of this suggested that the page will keep parsing through the images seemingly ad infinitum if you cannot be connected to a browser instance of the viewer, rather than indicating this is the case.
The revised web page for launching Project Zero (web.secondlife.com) with the backdrop splash image and the “polaroid snapshots” slide show
Overall, these changes – both to web.secondlife.com and (particularly) join.secondlife.com have resulted in more incoming users sticking around in-world.
Current Focus
In line with Philip Rosedale’s SL22B Meet the Lindens session on Wednesday, June 25th (see the video, or refer to my summary of that event for specifics), Project Zero is focused on the new user experience.
Specifically, how to get a new user from logging in and choosing an avatar through to customising that avatar so it reflects what they want to reflect, as easily as possible, using the Avatar Welcome Pack content, rather than Senra.
This is likely to be an iterative process over multiple months, with a cadence of updates intended to test and refine ideas and approaches.
The work will also involve gathering quantitative data on how well the approach(es) seem to be working, and also qualitative data through spending time at areas where people coming into SL are, and watching and interacting with them as they customise their avatar, and gain feedback.
General Discussion
Project Zero remains primarily focused on use by incoming new users, with a “very small concurrency” of existing users available to access it.
The reason for the focus on incoming new users is because it is easier to try new ideas and iterate on them easier using Project Zero, rather than trying to do so through the desktop.
It is recognised that there is a hunger among existing users to try the streaming viewer, and one way to do this might be to start to offer it on a paid basis as was the case with Firestorm Zero. However, this is not something that is likely to happen in the short-term.
The current action of Project Zero simply booting a user off when their allotted time is up without any warning / gracefully log-out is something to be addressed in “the very near future”.
Whilst the UI for Project Zero largely resembles that of the official viewer, there are differences, some visible (such as the lack of a left-side toolbar button field, and some not so visible.
The not-so-obvious difference is that elements linked to buttons are subject to redesign, so that if any are updated – such as Chat – the associated Conversations floater can be redesigned so it does not obscure so much of the in-world view when it is open.
These aspects of the work potentially allow elements of the viewer to be displayed outside of the world view, but withing the browser tab, as has been done with the Avatar Picker, leaving the in-world view unimpeded.
An example of a viewer toolbar button (Avatars) causing the Avatar Picker to be displayed within the browser tab, but outside of the Second Life viewer window, leaving the latter unencumbered.
A general discussion on helping new users understand customising their avatars – from providing freebies suitable for the bodies in the Avatar Welcome Pack in placing such as the Welcome Hub and locating these together with the teleports to the changing rooms; providing additional help and information boards, etc., within the changing rooms, offering new users a “home space” where they can go to change (much like Sansar had / has), etc.
Offering some form of recognised changing room area where new users could experiment with avatar dressing / customisation was seen as advantageous on several levels:
It has a familiarity with the way we go about trying clothing in the physical world, and thus is a comfortable environment.
It could be used by a new user and a mentor or friend, so the latter can give support and lessons without interruption.
It can save on unintended embarrassment (e.g. having a fatpack for multiple different bodies and accidentally wearing everything).
A broader discussion on how to offer new users more of an experience in Second Life – should they be prompted / directed on the basis of interest, or should it be free-form? Should users be provided with lists of Groups which share their interests? How can this be done?, etc.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. The notes were taken from my chat log of the meeting. No video this week.
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.
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
There are no planned deployments to any channels this week, only restarts (RC channels subject to confirmation at the time of the meeting).
The back-end work which had stalled simulator updates over the last few weeks is now coming to an end.
Second Life Project glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – No Change.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 – No Change.
In Brief
The subject of holding the meeting every other week was raised again, somewhat supported by those who have only been attending since the simulator release cycle had been put on hold. The majority still favoured a weekly meeting, with the chair possibly rotated between those Lindens who regularly attend.
Leviathan Linden:
His work to try to fix the “sometimes not all content shows up at login” problem is awaiting review. If it passes, it could be in the next simulator update (Fig Newton / Fig Pudding – whichever name is now en vogue).
Has an idea as to what might be causing missing content on sim crossing and inter-sim TPs, but needs time to dig into it and try to come up with a solution.
Also hopes to finish working on a slight speed-up of the code that generates full object updates so that SLua scripts don’t seem slow when processing such updates.
Further noted that reports that the new version of Firestorm causing the server to suffer low FPS (45 → 35) for 1 – 4 seconds, every 60 or 90 seconds when driving a vehicle might also be related to object update issues, although he has yet to carry out a detailed investigation to determine a) if it is real; b) what might be causing it.
Monty Linden:
Has been tracking down the cause of the issue of corrupted Linden grass on and simulator restart (see this report as a reference).
Is doing some maintenance work on the Key Value Pair (KVP) store (associated with Second Life Experiences), but noted there are currently no plans for more in-depth work on the KVP store at present, although some plans are being considered.
Responding to
Allow llHTTPRequest to request application/x-ndjson, noted it would have to be reviewed and that LL’s http library insists on interpreting response bodies even though it shouldn’t (e.g. can’t do ‘Range’ if a fragment of json or other structured language is to be returned).
A request was made for a native HTTP library for SLua, with Leviathan Linden noted there would probably be no special path for SLua http; rather, the plan is for any custom script callback operations to be uniform across the various script engines.
A further discussion on issues of people being being able to select non-owned vehicles / having a scripted ability to report when someone else touches a person’s vehicle / attempt to interfere with vehicles.
A further discussion on SLua capabilities, with a comment from Leviathan Linden that Rider Linden (on vacation) and Harold Linden (not available for the meeting) would likely be better placed to answer in detail.
† 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.
Semina: The Interactive EP Experience, Silent Melody, April 2025 – blog post
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 17th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. The notes were taken from my chat log of the meeting. No video this week.
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.
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
There are no planned deployments to any channels this week, only restarts.
The stall in simulators releases should be ending soon. It has largely been the result of:
Mainly a back-end move from one cloud asset store to another.
Coupled with continuing work on setting up github actions to build, store, deploy the various bits and pieces that run the SL backend services.
Second Life Project glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – No Change.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 – No Change.
In Brief
Rider Linden raised the idea of shifting the Simulator User Group meeting to once every two weeks.
This was considered fine *if* there were not a lot going on – and with the exception of last few weeks and the end-of-year slow-down, this generally isn’t the case.
Most of those at the meeting expressed a desire to keep it on a weekly basis, with one suggestion that if there is not a lot to discuss during any given meeting, it is brought to a close early, rather than always trying to spin it out to an hour.
Another suggestion – from Leviathan Linden – would be to keep the meeting to once a week, but alternate the Linden chairing it (so not always Rider Linden).
A discussion on a Canny requesting the ability to trigger animations by UUID: how / good bad the idea might be; the need to respect content rights (e.g. the The animation asset and the actively playing animation needing separate UUIDs).
No conclusions were drawn at the meeting.
The above got folded into a discussion on increasing regions sizes, based on this idea, and on a further discussion on UUIDs as a means of storing outfits to “save links” in inventory, uses for “wardrobe2 systems such as CTS, etc.
LSL functions to adjust parcel settings was raised and received positive responses from meeting attendees & Lindens (with a due discission on permissions and preventing idiots maliciously using scripts to bugger with other people’s land.
† 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.
TheNest: Sunbird Featherwish, April 2025 – blog post
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. The notes were taken from my chat log of the meeting. No video this week.
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.
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
There are no planned deployments to any channels this week, only restarts.
The Preflight RC will likely get a WebRTC update in the week; the simulator version won’t change but the service will be different – the release includes a fix for a file descriptor leak that lead to crashes. This does not require any viewer-side updates.
Second Life Project glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – No Change.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 – No Change.
In Brief
Parcel boundaries:
a long standing issue is that of people (mostly on Mainland) unexpectedly hitting parcels that are closed to public access (e.g. because the parcel edges onto a public road), and the ensuing confusion of getting bounced / losing the vehicle they are on, etc.
Rider Linden is hoping to be able to take another look at this in the near future, in terms of making such events less chaotic.
Just to remind people … the parcel bounce is for vehicles entering a parcel. It would check the permissions of all sitters and deny entry if any one sitter couldn’t enter. Essentially it would “bounce” the whole vehicle.
The response from those at the meeting was generally positive to this, in that it would end the situation of avatars being unseated from a vehicle which might still be able to enter / pass through the parcel.
SLua event handling proposal is being worked on – but exactly what this means could not be specified at the meeting.
A general discussion on mesh, mesh physics, uploads and decomposition, which appeared largely driven by a user seeking clarification, which strayed over into the realm of region crashers.
The subject of possibly deprecating pathfinding on the simulator (and potentially removing Havok from the viewer, allowing for an alternation for mesh decomposition came up at the meeting: see the In Brief section of my TPVD Meeting Summary for week #23 2025, for more.
In addition, Leviathan Linden indicated that pulling “some” Havok dependencies from the viewer could make it easier for physics engine updates.
The led to a lengthy discussion on how pathfinding might be replaced, concerns from those who are using it, with no definitive solutions.
† 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.
The following notes were taken from my chat transcript + the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this summary) of the Third-Party Developer meeting (TPVD) held on Friday, June 6th, 2025. My thanks to Pantera as always for providing it.
Meeting Purpose
The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are generally conducted in text chat.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.
Chat Mentions (Early Support): Type @ then pick a name. To follow: audible alerts and highlight colour pickers. This does not support generic mentions such as @everyone or @here.
My Outfits subfolders: now supports the use of subfolders.
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 glTF Mesh Import, version 7.1.14.15361077240 June 2 – NEW.
This is an early Alpha release with some of the rough edges and already resolved many bugs and crashes, although more are to be found, together with general feedback from the community. Please read the release notes if you intend to test this viewer.
Second Life Project Lua Editor Alpha (Aditi only), version 7.1.12.14888088240, May 13 – No Change.
glTF Mesh Uploader
The GLTF Mesh Uploader will be the next viewer release, although it doesn’t as yet have a new-format version number.
It is now available on the Alternate Viewers Page (and the version current at the time of writing is linked-to above).
The initial release is regarded as a “pretty rough cut”, with fixes already streaming into the code branch such that there is likely to be an update within the week.
Those trying the initial release should be aware that rigged mesh import in particular is in an “iffy state” for some of the more complex avatars.
As the next planned release, it will be merged-up to the Develop branch shortly – so if anyone would like to get some PRs in now would be a really good time to do that.
Test Items
Linden Lab is seeking content content creators who would be willing to contribute items for testing. Specifically, the Lab is seeking:
Rigged meshes only – unrigged content is not required at this time.
Everything from the most basic avatar mesh to complex bento, fitted, etc. meshes, clothing and Animesh is welcome.
However, avatars with onion layers should not be submitted. If possible, merge such avatars into a singular mesh with rigging in order to help simplify the Lab’s debugging work.
Content should be supplied in both glTF and COLLADA.DAE formats, to allow for A/B testing.
Content files should be sent to gltf@lindenlab.com.
glTF Uploader “Phase 2”
A “reunification” of the various asset import flows, focused on under-the-hood work with the import pipeline.
It used to be that assets like sounds, animations, images, etc., were uploaded through a single API when uploaded, but since the arrival of mesh, new asset upload types have diverged from the “common” flow to use their own.
The idea now is to provide a single API to get things from a creator’s computer and in-world to simplify the upload process.
According the CCUG meeting, this work will include an improved preview capability, providing more representative of what creators can expect to see under a set of EEP parameters, etc.
The ability to preview items in-world on Agni (the main grid) prior to upload will not be provided. However, there is still Aditi (the beta grid) for this.
It is also hoped that the import flow can be made easier to understand for existing and new content creators (e.g. providing a better preview; having things laid out in a way that makes potential problems more obvious, etc.).
In Brief
Switching away from OpenGL: this has not been mentioned for a while, and currently, it looks like LL is going to use an existing API abstraction, so as to allow Apple Metal to be targeted as well. The API mentioned was “something based off of NVIDIA’s Slang API” – with a note that hopes of getting “something potato friendly” is low.
However, there has been no firm decision, and alternatives were suggested in the meeting, so things are still up in the air.
Signal Linden requested feedback on the idea of deprecating and removing Navmesh characters / llCreateCharacter (i.e. Pathfinding).
I don’t state the idea lightly, and I understand its low adoption is partially due to a complex and buggy implementation. However, I pulled some data and it appears we have 1,900 navmesh characters across the entire grid. Half of those are ours (Think LL experiences.) There are 6 user-owned regions with more than 10 characters… This is very low usage. I haven’t seen any major merchants release notable content with the system due to its unreliability: but please correct me if I’m wrong.
– Signal Linden
Those at the meeting didn’t object to the idea.
An alternate approach (“more nuanced” as Signal Linden referred to it, once raised) suggested was to leave server-side the functionality in place and just drop the viewer side, until such time as new ways to handle Pathfinding could be developed.
Signal repeated that there are benefits (Pathfinding accounts for a lot of simulator-side code), but that not decision has been made as yet, he is seeking feedback.
The subject of Havok in the viewer was raised (used for both Pathfinding and mesh decomposition), with suggestions to replace Havok with the open source HACD library or VHACD (or similar newer implementation), were this to be done.
A suggestion was made for TPV developers to bring a HACD / VHACD to the viewer as a code contribution.
The above lead to a wider discussion on textures (slightly sidetracked by a complaint over the cost of 2K texture uploads for non-Premium + members), and related issues of texture loads on GPUs with limited VRAM, texture crushing, etc., which continued through the latter part of the meeting.
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
Campwich Forest grounds: location for the Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG)
The following notes were taken from the Thursday, June 5th 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.
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.
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.
Version: 2025.5.550 (Android) – June 4; 0.1.548 (iOS) – June 5, 2025.
Avatar rendering:
A further fix to rotational movement on attachment bones. This will fix some avatars and attachments on avatars.
“Pivot” offsets as well as “pos” offsets are now handled when considering when to ignore a deformer. This should fix a few more cases of avatars rendering incorrectly.
Improvements to the v-stick controller – size, position and visibility.
Addition of a new water shader along with a new setting “Use New Water” that defaults to enabled.
A new setting so you can choose to enable or disable automatic log-in.
The new Settings options for automatic log-in (Settings → General) and to use the improved water rendering (Settings → Developer Tools)
iOS Specific:
SL Mobile now requires iOS 13 or newer
A fix for an intermittent crash when opening Second Life Maps links (release 0.1.548).
Comments on the Updates
The avatar appearance fixes were the result of issues around deformers identified too late to make the previous update release. These were related to:
Meshes having embedded deformers which weren’t being handled correctly.
Some of the default deformers which should ignore bone positions being “incorrectly” handled, mainly as a result of “some confusion” within the desktop viewer over which value to read when ignoring deformers, and this had to be replicated in the Mobile app to get it to handle those deformers as expected when compared to the desktop viewer.
With the exception one one possible bug fix, there will now be a pause in avatar fixes and updates while the focus of work switches back towards rendering and merging-in / testing a number of changes and improvements, including how long avatars remain in silhouette (transparent), amount of content displayed, etc.
Water improvements: the water shader has been updated to more closely match the desktop viewer, notably in low-lighting conditions.
A release to iOS in May 2025 added the ability to make Linden Dollar purchases through the App. This includes support for all payment methods supported by Apple.
iOS has received this capability first, as Apple required LL to add it within a certain time frame.
In-app purchases of Linden Dollars is on the roadmap for Android, but LL would rather focus on feature development, particularly given the limited ways in which L$ can be spent through the app at present.
LL acknowledge that in order to be a useful companion app, SL Mobile needs to be able to access all of a user’s conversations (chat), IMs, group messages etc., regardless of receipt when using the app, offline or using the desktop viewer.
As all of the above are currently locally stored by the viewer on the client computer. In order to be available across both desktop and Mobile, some form of cloud storage needs to be considered, which requires he building of an API and the provisioning of security to ensure only the designated user can access their chat and IM logs, etc.
Some cloud storage has been created to handle the same for Mobile, but it is limited.
A further complication is the desire to have users be able to log-in to the Lobby on Mobile without and in-world presence, thus potentially allowing for simultaneous access via the desktop viewer, which would require sharing of chat and histories, etc., between the two in order for them to remain in synch.
As such, the capability is not easy to implement and requires careful consideration, utilising multiple resources at LL (Mobile team, Server team, the teams that own the chat and IM, etc., services). Given this, while it will be coming in the future, there is currently no time-line as to when.
There have been numerous requests for SL Mobile to support maps – both the World map and the Mini-Map.
As both the Mini-Map and the World map serve different functions, both were seen by those at the meeting as being useful to have.
It was also noted that the major reasons given: finding locations and teleporting (World) and seeing who is nearby (Mini), are use cases that do not necessarily require a map in order to be solved, if alternate mechanisms could be provided (e.g. a “nearby people” list).
For provisioning a World map style of solution, one option might be to use the web map system (although, as noted at recent Web User Group meetings, this does need some TLC in its own right), which would avoid the need for in-app map rendering.
Web maps already work with Mobile: use them via the browser on your device and TP links will open in Mobile.
[Video: 21:51-26:25] Continuous log-in – the ability to have a avatar logged-in Mobile all the time, without necessarily appearing as on-line, and able to receive and respond to messages etc.
Seen as positive by those at the meeting, with the caveat that there is the ability to maintain a full chat history, etc., between both Mobile and desktop.
This also included the suggestion of allowing users to save their chat logs, etc., to their own cloud storage and access it from both desktop and Mobile.
[Video: 26:30-28:23] Switching accounts: there have apparently been requests to make switching between accounts on Mobile “easier”.
General consensus was that switching accounts on Mobile is no worse than on the desktop viewer.
A suggestion of having multiple account be able to use Mobile and access the Lobby for messaging purposes would be useful.
[Video: 28:34-29:25] Clarification was given that the Mobile Team are looking at chat/message histories, continuous log-in and switching accounts as a set of deliverables that could be made together in some form, and were looking for indicators that they would be well-received by users.
[Video 33:50-34:55] The Mobile app can (at least for some, myself included) hang when loading the Lobby. The screen will simply freeze for multiple seconds (sometimes into double-digits). There is no clear cause for this, but might be related to network connectivity issues, which are due to be looked at, with those experiencing the problem asked to submit feedback through the app.
[Video: 35:44-37:04] PBR support – this is pending the rendering work, which should help optimise memory use to allow PBR support + one other piece of work. When done should be close to the desktop implementation.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 