Category: SL User Group Meetings

2019 SL User Groups 20/2: Content Creation summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

Grauland; Inara Pey, March 2019, on FlickrGrauland – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, May 16th 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.

New Viewer Release Notes Pages

The Lab’s RC viewer releases / updates all have shiny new viewer release notes pages on the web. These move the notes away from the old wiki pages, and into a new format that provides:

  • The release notes can be accessed via a new home page, with links to recent SL viewer releases – that is, the current RC viewers.
  • The release notes for a specific viewer, with new icon links to its respective download versions (Windows 64 / 32-bit and Mac OS).
  • There are also links to support information: a new Repositories overview page; an explanation of the viewer version numbering system; a link to the Viewer Support Policy.
  • A significant change is that many of the Jira links in a release page reference the public Jira bug reports, rather than the Lab’s internal MAINT clones. This should make specific bugs addressed in an update more visible to interested users.
  • These pages can also (for the time being at least) be accessed from the existing Alternate Viewers wiki page, when clicking on the release notes link for a specific RC viewer.

 

The new format viewer release notes pages for SL release candidate viewers (using the EEP viewer as an example)

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

  • The EEP viewer updated to version 6.2.3.527250 on Thursday, May 16th. This update should include a number of bug fixes and shader updates that will hopefully improve things “considerably”.
  • Graham Linden continues to work on the remaining shader / graphics issues.

Animesh Follow-On

  • Vir continues to work on adding visual parameter support to allow shape adjustments to be made to Animesh.
  • This work has new reached a point of being able to store visual parameter information relating to Animesh objects, and to be able to send it to viewers.
  • The next stage of the work is to get to get the viewer to understand what it is supposed to do with these messages.
  • Vir hopes to have an internal prototype for this running in the next few days. If successful, this should pave the way towards a project viewer being made available down the road.
    • It will initially focus on using list-based LSL input to set individual shape parameters.
      • These will probably be throttled to prevent over-use (e.g. to prevent the capability being used as a high performance cost alternative to animation).
    • Once this is working that shapes can potentially be added for manipulation.
    • Obviously, this will require simulator updates to be able to support the LSL commands, as well as the updates required for the new message types, etc.

Animesh as NPCs

  • There has been a lot of forum discussion on using Animesh as non-player characters (NPCs).
  • A limitation here is that a decent-looking NPC, suitably clothed and ready for use can too often have a huge LI (into the 100s).
    • Part of the problem is that until Animesh,  is there was no real incentive to optimise rigged mesh, as being worn by an avatar, it never really had a “Land Impact” per se, and a lot of clothing has an “insane” triangle count (e.g. 21,000 for a tank top).
    • As Animesh calculations do try to allow  for the cost of rigged mesh, such high triangle counts are (simply put) converted in LI, driving up the LI for any Animesh character on which it is used.
  • It is hoped that as the ARCTan project comes to pass, it will offer some form of incentive that will encourage those clothing makers who may not consider optimisations to do so, which will help improve things for both Animesh using wearables and also help reduce some of the performance overhead overly complex avatars can cause.
  • Another alternative would be to (at some point) extend Bakes on Mesh to include Animesh objects, allowing them to be clothed using system layers.
  • In the meantime, the suggestions is that those wishing to create NPCs perhaps consider doing so entirely in Blender (or similar), and not rely on using clothing and attachments that might be available in-world as a means of clothing / equipping them.

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

  • There is a simulator change pending. This includes a means of accessing BOM UUIDs.
    • These were changed in the last back-end update as a result of underlying asset property issues. If there is BOM content using the old UUIDs, this will have to be updated.
    • The simulator update is intended to allow access to the texture UUIDs without having to do so numerically, as is currently the case. This should re-enable the ability to access them via their name abbreviations.
  • There is also a further Appearance Service change pending, designed to correctly handle tattoo layer with partial transparency (currently, if a tattoo with partial transparency is sent for baking via the new BOM channels without any underlying opaque layer, then the alphas are not correctly resolved).

2019 SL User Groups 20/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

La Virevolte; Inara Pey, March 2019, on FlickrLa Virevolte – blog post

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, a deployment thread had yet to be posted however:

  • There are no deployment to the SLS (Main) channel on Tuesday, May 14th, leaving regions on that channel on server maintenance package 19#19.04.25.526669, primarily intended to correct the simulator-side EEP regressions that resulted of the roll-back of Thursday, April 18th. This update also includes a number of other internal fixes.
  • On Wednesday, May 15th, the three RC channels should be updated with two new packages:
    • BlueSteel and LeTigre should be updated with server maintenance package 19.05.01.526856, but not details are available at the time of writing.
    • Magnum RC will also be updated, but again, no details are available at the time of writing.

SL Viewer

  • The de facto release viewer was rolled back from the Teranino Maintenance RC release viewer, to the EAM viewer, version 6.2.0.526190, originally promoted on April 17th, 2019.
  • The Teranino Maintenance RC was re-released as a Release Candidate cohort on Monday, May 13th as version 6.2.2.527198.
  • The Love Me Render viewer updated to version 6.2.2.527021 on Monday, May 13th, 2019.

The rest of the current SL viewer channels remain as:

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • EEP RC viewer version 6.2.0.526104, dated April 11th.
    • Bakes on Mesh RC viewer, version 6.1.1.525409, dated March 26th.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29th November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

Network Maintenance

The first tranch of network maintenance announced last week has, according to the Grid Status page on the web, now been completed. This work included a period of time over the night of May 13th / 14th (US / EU) when Second Life log-in were disabled.

Commenting on the work, Simon Linden said, “Last night’s work isn’t anything that will be repeated … hopefully ever.”

While the core of the work has apparently been completed, Oz Linden noted there could be some final testing overnight on May 14th/15th, stating, “They’ll be doing some more testing tonight, but we don’t expect it to be (very) long or disruptive.”

Teleport Fail Issues

I’ve identified 3 different ways TPs could fail and I _believe_ I fixed those on the beta grid. Your help is really appreciated because the last time “someone” tried to fix things didn’t go well.

Simon Linden, SUG Meeting, May14th.

While the recent server-side deployment may have seen teleport success rates have returned to the levels witnessed before the recent “troubles”, the Lab continues to dig into problems, as per Simon’s comment above. To this end, those attending the SUG meeting were invited to a further test session, this one on Aditi (the Beta grid), to see how well his fix works. Expect an update following the next SUG meeting.

2019 SL User Groups 19/2: Content Creation summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

Ukivok; Inara Pey, March 2019, on FlickrUkivok – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on Thursday, May 9th 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

  • The next viewer RC update is “close”. This should:
    • Include a batch of shader updates that will hopefully improve things “considerably”.
    • Be merged to the current LL release viewer (version 6.2.1.526845 at the time of writing, promoted May 7th).
  • An issue of late has been that of new bugs popping up as existing ones are dealt with.
  • A recently noticed issue has been with day cycles – cloud scrolling across the sky will suddenly “hiccup” slightly in their motion, rather than scrolling smoothly throughout.

Animesh Follow-On

  • Vir continues to work on adding shape support (or similar) to Animesh, specifically on the infrastructure requirements for being able to send slider parameters for Animesh objects to and from the viewer.
  • No decision has as yet been made to whether to offer full body shape support or to use individual parameters, but the underpinning infrastructure requirements for both are more-or-less the same.
  • The focus is therefore on developing the infrastructure (messaging, etc), to a point where both can be tested as a decision made on the basis of that testing.

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

  • There is a simulator change pending. This includes a means of accessing BOM UUIDs.
    • These were changed in the last back-end update as a result of underlying asset property issues. If there is BOM content using the old UUIDs, this will have to be updated.
    • The simulator update is intended to allow access to the texture UUIDs without having to do so numerically, as is currently the case. This should re-enable the ability to access them via their name abbreviations.
  • There is also a further Appearance Service change pending, deigned to correctly handle tattoo layer with partial transparency (currently, if a tattoo with partial transparency is sent for baking via the new BOM channels without any underlying opaque layer, then the alphas are not correctly resolved). This is with the Lab’s QA team.
  • There are no BOM-specific updates pending to the RC viewer, but this will, as per the Lab’s viewer release policy, be updated to maintain parity with the latest release version of the viewer (6.2.1.526845) at the time of writing.
  • Given the overall status of BOM and EEP, it would appear likely that BOM could be promoted ahead of EEP as a released project and viewer.

2019 SL User Groups 19/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

A L T I T U D E; Inara Pey, March 2019, on FlickrA L T I T U D E – blog post

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news.

  • On Tuesday, May 7th, the SLS (Main) channel updated to server maintenance package 19#19.04.25.526669, primarily intended to correct the simulator-side EEP regressions that resulted of the roll-back of Thursday, April 18th. This update also includes a number of other internal fixes.
  • On Wednesday, May 8th, the three RC channels should be updated with server maintenance package #19.05.01.526856, comprising internal fixes.

SL Viewer

The Teranino Maintenance RC viewer updated on Friday May 3rd, to version 6.2.1.526845. This viewer was subsequently promoted to de facto release status on Tuesday, May 7th.

The remaining viewer pipelines remain unchanged:

  • Release channel cohorts:
    • EEP RC viewer version 6.2.0.526104, dated April 11th.
    • Bakes on Mesh RC viewer, version 6.1.1.525409, dated March 26th.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29th November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

Teleport Disconnects

Following the deployments of server maintenance package 19#19.04.25.526669, it appears that there has been a significant improvement in teleports, with Simon Linden noting that the “TP crash has been mitigated and success rates are back to what they were months ago.”

This doesn’t mean that the Lab is ceasing efforts on trying to improve teleports and region crossings; rather that the priority of the work over that last few weeks has been on easing the problems people have been experiencing the last month.

Script Processing Issues

As reported in my week #18 SUG summary, there have been numerous reports of script run time issues, with some reporting that problems only started occurring following the roll-back on April 18th, 2019. BUG-226851 outlines some of the problems.

There is no specific update on this, other than the Lab’s engineering team has been asked to put together ways for them to look at script run times and performance grid wide.

2019 SL User Groups 18/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Toshi Farms; Inara Pey, March 2019, on FlickrToshi Farms – blog post

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news.

  • There was no deployment of the SLS (Main) channel on Tuesday, April 20th, leaving all regions on that channel on server update 19#19.04.22.526534 comprising performance improvements (possible fixes for teleport / region crossing issues) and additional internal logging.
  • On Wednesday, May 1st, all three main RC channels should be updated to server maintenance package 19#19.04.25.526669, primarily intended to correct the simulator-side EEP regressions that resulted of the roll-back of Thursday, April 18th. This update also includes a number of other internal fixes.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates at the time of writing this update, leaving the viewer pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.0.526190, formerly the Estate Access Management RC viewer, dated April 12, promoted April 17 NEW. – see my EAM overview for more information
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – 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. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

My.secondlife.com

My second Life has been down since the weekend of April 27/28th, 2019. This has affected all access to the site, the upload of snapshots and in-world web-based profiles.

Linden Lab is aware of the issue, and working to resolve the outage.

Teleport Disconnects

The teleport disconnect issue is now being seen as a race condition,with Simon Linden commenting:

The TP issue looks like a race condition … we “fixed” 3 other bugs and made that worse.

To which Oz Linden added:

And we’ve already put in place a bunch of improvements to our RC monitors to help prevent a similar recurrence (with more coming soon) … Doubtless Murphy will find new ways to avoid our monitors from time to time, but one tries.

The Lab now feel they have investigated the issue and gathered sufficient data around it to be able to perform a post-mortem on the situation to (hopefully) reduce the likelihood of such an occurrence in the future.

Script Processing Issues

This was raised at the April 26th TPVD meeting as well. There have been numerous reports of script run time issues, with some reporting that problems only started occurring following the roll-back on April 18th, 2019. BUG-226851 outlines some of the problems.

As per the TPVD meeting, the Lab are not aware of anything that may have changed to impact script run time (particularly on Full regions); but the problem has been somewhat exacerbated by the issue being bounced between the JIRA and support (note how the above report has been closed, referencing the matter back to support).

2019 SL User Groups 17/3: TPV Developer Meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Authors Point; Inara Pey, March 2019, on FlickrAuthors Point – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, April 26th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. This was a relatively short meeting, with several periods of audio silence and text chat. 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.

SL Viewer

[00:00-01:17] There have been no SL viewer updates this week, leaving the pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.0.526190, formerly the Estate Access Management RC viewer, dated April 12, promoted April 17 NEW. – see my EAM overview for more information
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – 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.

The EAM viewer is awaiting one simulator side update; the next RC viewer likely to be promoted to de facto release viewer will probably be the Teranino Maintenance RC viewer.

Teleport (and Region Crossing) Issues

[1:20-3:35]

Disconnects

  • Major effort has been put into trying to resolve the teleport disconnect issue – hence the multiple deployments this week.
  • In the process of developing and deploying the fixes, the Lab has significantly improved its ability to monitor teleports.
  • This improved monitoring / stats gathering will help baseline teleports for future reference, should further issues crop up.
    • It appears to suggest teleport success rates are now significantly better than prior to the updates being deployed.
    • The added monitoring has no appreciable impact on performance.

Attachment Loss on Teleport

  • Progress has continued with fixes for the issue of attachments coming off / becoming ghosted/ etc., as a result of a teleport / region crossing.
  • It will likely be a couple of weeks before these are deployed server-side, as the Lab will be keeping an eye on the teleport / region crossing disconnect issue to ensure the fixes that have been deployed really do help break down the issues that have been experienced.

Snapshots: Flickr Cap Fail and Withdrawal of Facebook Support

[4:15-5:50]

Flickr Cap Fail

There is an issue with the snapshots to Flickr capability failing see BUG-226826). This appears to have perhaps been an unannounced change at the Flickr / Smugmug end of things, rather than anything the Lab has done, but investigations are still ongoing.

Update April 30th: the Flickr cap fail now appears to be fixed. 

Facebook Support

It was announced on Friday, April 19th, that support for uploading snapshots from the viewer to Facebook has now been completely  withdrawn. As such, the viewer-side code is to be shortly removed, with the Lab noting:

Due to continued changes in the Facebook API, as of today the Second Life viewer will no longer be able to support Facebook Connect for sharing your in-world photos and posts.  We apologise for this inconvenience and will be removing the UI from the viewer shortly. We will, of course, be happy to see your SL posts on Facebook going forward, and you can always say hello and check out what’s happening on our official page: https://www.facebook.com/secondlife.

Script Processing Issues

[6:50-13:45]

Issues with script processing have been raised at a number of meetings recently, and were mentioned again at this TPVD.

  • Specifically, it was reported at this meeting that since the April 18th roll-back / update, some Full regions seem to have script run-time capped 12ms, so only around 60% of scripts are run, while some homesteads appear to only run around 20% of scripts..
  • As it was also reported that these affected regions were running OK following the initial deployment of the newer version of the OS, this issue appears to be specifically related to the changes made on April 18th.
  • The Lab is not aware of anything having been changed that might have impacted script run-time.
  • The newer version of the operating system (which is specifically required as a part of preparing the simulators to a cloud-based infrastructure) is due to be further deployed to simulators Agni (the main grid) in week #18. This should provide the Lab with a broader cross-section of simulator running both the older and newer versions of the OS, which will allow a more informed comparison of metrics from the two versions to be made, which could help determine if there is a more broad-based issue with scripts on the newer OS version.

Group Notices to IM

[16:00-22:33]

  • The Lab is considering the possibility of no longer sending group notices to e-mail when a user is off-line.
  • Right now, if IM to e-mail is enabled for when a user is off-line from SL, it will allow both IMs and group notices to be forwarded to e-mail. This can result in message volumes / content being seen as spam.
    • As it is invariably the secondlife.com domain that is linked to such reports, this can lead to it being regarded as a spam site, degrading the ability for secondlife.com to deliver e-mails in general, as e-mail services mark the domain as an originator of spam.
    • This move is therefore intended to make e-mails from the secondlife.com domain for reliable.
    • Although other forms of messaging forwarded to e-mail can potentially add to the problem of spam labelling (e.g. object IMs to e-mail), group notices are seen as by far the biggest cause.
  • No decision on this has been taken either way, but disabling the ability for group notices to e-mail is easier than other options (such as requesting user go through all their groups and disable group notices).
  • Were this change to be implemented, then only IMs would be sent to e-mail; group notices received when off-line would be held until the user next logs-in, as is currently the case.
    • It has been suggested that increasing the limit on the number of messages that can be queued when a user is off-line might ease the blow of blocking group notices being sent to e-mail. While this idea is already under consideration, no decision has been taken either way.

[25:06-26:18] If this idea does move forward, it is hoped that changes being planned to the way SL events work will reduce the need for at least some group messages.

  • No specifics were available on the updates that are being planned for events, but it has already been suggested that the updates include an API to allow events to be properly listed on viewer log-in screens (see feature request BUG-226867).

In Brief

  • [13:58-15:00] Following the release of a video on You Tube by a Lab employee, the question was asked about the Lab’s policy on staff using TPVs. In short:
    • Lab staff must use the official viewer on Lab equipment and/or their official Lab accounts.
    • Lab staff may use any viewer of their own choosing on their own hardware and when using their personal user account.
      • This was actually the case with the video in question: it was filmed and released via a personal account, not an employee account.
  • [31:43 (text)-35:30] Questions continue concerning LL’s support of 32-bit operating systems (it was mentioned that Microsoft will apparently stop supporting 32-bit “with the next [Windows 10?] update”). However, one of the reasons for LL’s continued support of 32-bit Windows is the number of users on less capable / 32-bt specific GPUs.
  • [35:40-36:25] At least some of the EEP regressions witnessed following the April 18th roll-backs / redeployments should hopefully be corrected with the simulator updates due in week #18.
  • [39:36-40:56] It’s often asked when simulator updates aren’t “more thoroughly tested” by the Lab. Simply put, such is the number of Agni (main) grid simulators coupled with the wide variety of ways people use Second Life (think of all the different in-world scripted object, or even all the purpose-built, custom windlights, for example), that replicating it all in a comprehensive test environment simply isn’t possible. Hence why the Lab use the release candidate channels: while testing is carried out (and the Lab is constantly trying to improve its test environments), the RCs provide a further means of “testing the water” before deploying updates grid-wide.
  • [42:39-43:11] video playback support (MP4): work is on the roadmap for this, but the Lab has yet to get to it.