Category: SL User Group Meetings

2018 SL UG updates 45/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Florence Bay; Inara Pey, September 2018, on FlickrFlorence Bay – blog post

Server Deployment Plans

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

  • On Tuesday, November 6th, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server release 18#18.10.25.521081, previously deployed to the BlueSteel and LeTigre RCs, and comprising internal logging fixes. It is hopped that these updates will help with some crashing, particularly some regions that get into a crash loop.
  • On Wednesday, November 7th, 2018, the RC channels should be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel and LeTigre will update to server maintenance package 18#18.11.01.521328, comprising a fix for Animesh land impact calculations – see below.
    • Magnum should be updated to server maintenance package 18#18.11.01.521329, also comprising a fix for Animesh land impact calculations – see below –  and also internal logging fixes.
    • Snack should also receive another iteration of simulator EEP support, release 18.11.02.521379.

RC Land Impact Calculation Revision

The Land Impact update being deployed to the RC channels is to correct an error in the Animesh code. In short, if an Animesh object has a conventional prim as its root, the required 15 LI for the Animesh skeleton is not applied.

This 15 LI is an aggregate value for Animesh arrived at during testing Animesh performance across a range of systems. It has also been subject to some alarmist blog posts about unexpected prim returns, but given Animesh products are not generally available as yet, this is unlikely.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates from the Lab at the start of the week, leaving the various pipelines as per the end of week #44.

  • Current Release version 5.1.9.519298, dated September 5, promoted September 26. Formerly the Rakomelo Maintenance RC viewer – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer, version 5.1.10.520686, October 30.
    • Animesh RC viewer, version 6.0.0.520636, October 18.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 5.2.0.520057, September 28.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.9.519462, September 10. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518751, released on August 20.
  • 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.

In Brief

HTTP “throttles”: there have been questions on what any  throttles on incoming / outgoing HTTP communications might be. In reply,  Simon and Oz Linden stated:

We don’t want to block any “reasonable” use of http in with throttles, for whatever that really means. Don’t expect to write anything fast and high-load with http in, however. I’d just generally say “keep it slow”. I think the original idea for http in (and out) was it was going to be web-page speed, not a twitch game.

– Simon Linden

The amount of impact incoming http has can also vary depending on what else is on the system your region(s) are shared with (which you can’t easily determine). We have had times when we have asked users to modify how they use http-in to prevent problems.

– Oz Linden

Key binding: there have often been requests for broader / more configurable options for key binding within the viewer / SL, a subject raised at the meeting, with Oz Linden again commenting:

I have a standing offer to accept a contribution that will provide a complete key binding editor for the viewer.

Scriptable UI: another long-standing request is for a more scriptable UI for SL.  This could help with a range of capabilities – such as the viewer taking over actions that are currently dependent on simulator intervention, which and slow things down. However, viewer-side scripting support brings within it a number of issues – such as the code being unprotected, for example. So, not something liable to happen in the foreseeable future.

2018 SL UG updates 44/2: TPV Developer meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Zone One; Inara Pey, September 2018, on FlickrZone One – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, November 2nd, 2018. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

This was again a short meeting.

SL Viewer

The EEP project viewer updated to version 5.1.10.521312 on November 2nd, 2018. Otherwise, the current viewer pipelines remain unchanged since my initial week #44 update:

  • Current Release version 5.1.9.519298, dated September 5th, promoted September 26th. Formerly the Rakomelo Maintenance RC viewer – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer, version 5.1.10.520686, October 30th.
    • Animesh RC viewer, version 6.0.0.520636, October 18th.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 5.2.0.520057, September 28th.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.9.519462, September 10th. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518751, released on August 20th.
  • 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, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Animesh

It is likely – but not certain – the Animesh RC viewer will be the next viewer to be promoted to de facto release status, being slightly ahead of the Bugsplat RC viewer in terms of readiness for promotion.

As per my last Animesh update, a simulator bug has been found. In short, if an Animesh object has a conventional prim as its root, the required 15 LI for the Animesh skeleton is not applied. This 15 LI is an aggregate value for Animesh arrived at during testing Animesh performance across a range of systems. It has also been subject to some alarmist blog posts about unexpected prim returns, but given Animesh products are not generally available as yet, this is unlikely.

The fix is now working through the simulator release cycle.

Bakes On Mesh

As noted in my initial week #44 update, the Bakes On Mesh project viewer updated to version 5.1.10.520711 at the start of the week. Simulator support for the service should now be grid-wide. However, as reported in my most recent Content Creation updates, the Bake Service itself is still awaiting update.

Non-HTTP Asset Fetching / UDP Path Deprecation

Vir referenced the deprecation and removal of simulator code support for UDP asset fetching. This means that from around January 6th, 2019, any viewers still fetching the affected asset types via UDP will not longer work correctly.

The specific asset types affected by this change are: system body parts, system clothing, gesture, animations, sounds, landmarks and textures (textures have been HTTP for some time, along with mesh and avatar appearance, but the UDP support for textures has thus far not been removed from the simulator).

A region will be set-up on Aditi without the code to allow TPVs to test against it ahead of the switch-over.

TPV Developer Meetings to Year End

There should be three more TPV Developer meetings prior to year-end:

  • November 16th 2018
  • November 30th, 2018
  • December 14th, 2018 – although this is subject to further confirmation.

2018 SL UG updates 44/1: Weekend issues

Posted on by Inara Pey

Little Havana; Inara Pey, September 2018, on FlickrLittle Havana – blog post

Unfortunately, the clock change in the UK / Europe meant I was unable to make the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, October 30th.

Server Deployment Plans

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

  • There was no deployment to the SLS (Main) channel on Tuesday, October 30th, nor was the channel restarted. It remains on server release 18#18.10.04.520268, comprising internal fixes.
  • On Wednesday, October 31st, 2018, the RC channels should be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel and LeTigre will update to server maintenance package 18#18.10.25.521081, comprising internal logging fixes.
    • Magnum should be updated to server maintenance package 18.10.25.521075, also comprising internal logging fixes.
    • Snack will be updated to EEP release 18.10.24.521013.

SL Viewer

There have been two SL viewer updates to start the week:

The remaining viewers in their pipelines remain unchanged from week #43:

  • Current Release version 5.1.9.519298, dated September 5th, promoted September 26th. Formerly the Rakomelo Maintenance RC viewer – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Animesh RC viewer, version 6.0.0.520636, October 18th.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 5.2.0.520057, September 28th.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.9.519462, September 10. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518751, released on August 20.
  • Project viewers:
    • Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) viewer updated to version 5.1.10.520819, on October 19th.
    • 360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.6.515934, June 6th.
  • 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, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Weekend Issues

Shug Maitland kept an eye on the ups and downs of log-ins during the DDOS attack via https://etitsup.com/slstats/ through Sunday, October 28th, 2018 and into the early hours of Monday, October 29th, sending me this above capture

As most are aware, Sunday saw some significant issues with Second Life, with users in particular have log-in issues.

It appears the problems were directly the result of a prolonged / vicious distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack, as April Linden confirmed in the forums, stating:

Heya Folks.

I can confirm it was a DDoS attack, and yes, the folks on my team had a rough weekend.

We do our best to fight DDoSes, but this one took quite a bit more effort than normal.

I’m sorry people’s plans got interrupted over the weekend. It was a rough weekend for all of us… including those of us on this side of the grid, too.

I’ve no idea if there will be a more formal blog post on the matter or not.

2018 SL UG updates 43/2: CCUG summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Alexa Linden’s Funky Love EEP sky

Animesh

Project Summary

The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and server-side changes.

Resources

Current Status

Land Impact: a simulator bug has been found that is being fixed. In short, if an Animesh object has a conventional prim as its root, the required 15 LI for the Animesh skeleton is not applied. This LI is an aggregate value for Animesh skeletons during testing Animesh performance for a defined set of test Animesh objects across a range of systems.

This has led to some alarmist blog posts about prim returns, following a (somewhat sensationalist) forum post on Animesh being delayed by 2 weeks (itself guesswork) on the matter. Given that Animesh hasn’t reached release status, and there are few (if any) commercially-available Animesh objects at present, it’s not unfair to say both the blog posts and the forum thread are something of an over-reaction.

Performance Impact: (see BUG-225584 and forum thread). This is related to the new dynamic bound box used with Animesh. Beq Janus from the Firestorm team has been involved in investigations as to the degree of potential impact, and has discovered a potential baseline performance impact of around 8-10% between an Animesh-capable and non-Animesh viewer, regardless of the presence of Animesh.

The latest update to the Animesh viewer (version 6.0.0.520636 at the time of writing), should mitigate a lot of the performance impact resulting from the dynamic bounding box.

Animesh vs. Avatars: while there will be a baseline impact for Animesh objects, this should be less than the baseline impact seen with avatars, which not only have a skeleton, they also have a shape and appearance elements associated with them. The the complexity of a mesh body to an avatar (with a baselines of around 400 faces, plus mesh clothing, attachments, etc., and avatars tend to be a lot more complex than most considered Animesh should be.

Animesh follow-up: there has been a lot of talk about a follow-up project for Animesh since the project started. These include adding a body shape (allowing Animesh humanoid objects to gain slider support), which is viewed by the Lab as being possibly the preferred follow-on project, although it is acknowledged given the wide variety of arbitrary mesh forms that could be converted to Animesh, slider use might be limited. However, it is unlikely any follow-on project will be an immediate follow-on to the current work, as there are several other projects currently in the pipeline awaiting attention.

Animesh attachments: another long-term request has been to attach objects to Animesh creations. A problem here is that attachments are managed by the simulator-side avatar agent – and Animesh objects do not have an avatar agent associated with them, so they don’t have the back-end support for tracking attachments. This is an issue that needs to be solved before attachments on Animesh can be handled – and even then, there is the question for potential performance impact. Various alternative ideas have been suggested to allow for attachment support n Animesh, but these may also have their own issues, and are unlikely to be adopted.

Animesh “assembling” issue?: we’re all familiar with the way mesh bodies “assemble” when logging-in / teleporting to an occupied region: the various mesh elements stack-up, usually at their default attach points, while some may appear offset or oversized, then the position, rigging, LOD, etc., data is received by the viewer and things “assemble” into an avatar. This behaviour can occur with multi-part Animesh objects as well, and there is a report that sometimes the Animesh “assembling” can leaves parts floating around for up to a minute before “snapping into place”.  Thus far, the problem has only manifested with one creator using the pre-release of the Firestorm Animesh viewer, so it’s not clear whether there is an underpinning issue with Animesh or not.

Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP)

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. Uses a new set of inventory assets (Sky, Water, Day) that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others, and which can additionally be used in experiences. A new set of render shaders to support atmospheric effects such as rainbows, crepuscular rays (“God rays”), better horizon haze and fogging (but will not include rain / snow). The ability to change the Sun and Moon and cloud textures with custom textures.

Resources

Current Status

As per my week #43 SUG update, a simulator update has been updated to fix the issue of racing skies when EEP-enabled regions are seen on non-EEP viewers. In addition, Rider is working on the first pass of the LSL support for EEP.

Bakes On Mesh

Work is continuing with fixing the Bake Service issues. however, as Anchor Linden, the lead for the project, is on vacation, this work will likely remain open until his return.

Other Items

  • Animations: there have been multiple requests for improvements to the animation system, including: allowing animation constraints to be set; extending the .ANIM format, animations by .DAE file and support for animation scaling. The Lab is aware of the requests being made, although not formal project has been defined at this point.
  • Morph Targets: there have been requests to allow morph targets within the avatar shape so that the shape sliders can be manipulated via LSL (so an avatar “gorging” itself at a scripted meal gets fatter, as a simple visual example). There are concerns that opening the body shape parameters to LSL manipulation could result in over-use and performance impact (e.g. rapid LSL adjustments to “animate” an avatar rather than using an actual animation), but some ability to allow morph targets is seen as potentially “interesting” – although this is not to say it will become a project.
  • Date of next meeting: due to the start-of-month internal meeting at LL, the next CCUG meeting will be on Thursday, November 8th, 2018.

2018 SL UG updates 43/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Ashemi Reprise; Inara Pey, September 2018, August 2018, on FlickrAshemi Reprise – blog post

Server Deployment Plans

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

  • On Tuesday, October 23rd, the SLS (Main) channel updated to server release 18#18.10.04.520268, comprising internal fixes.
  • On Wednesday, October 24th, 2018, the RC channels should be updated as follows:
    • BlueSteel will apparently remain on server maintenance package 18#18.10.04.520268.
    • Magnum and LeTigre were “TBD” at the time of writing.
    • Note that the deployment information for Snack in the thread (version 18.10.19.520844) is incorrect – see below for more (this may be removed after these notes are published).

SL Viewer

The start of week #43 has seen no change to the current viewer pipelines:

  • Current Release version 5.1.9.519298, dated September 5, promoted September 26. Formerly the Rakomelo Maintenance RC viewer – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Animesh RC viewer, version 6.0.0.520636, October 18.
    • Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer, version 5.1.10.520444, October 11.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 5.2.0.520057, September 28.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.9.519462, September 10. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518751, released on August 20.
  • 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.

Environmental Enhancement Project – EEP

  • The Snack RC channel has been updated with a new EPP release, 18.10.20.520891, which seems to fix the issue of EEP skies looking weird (black skies, fast-moving clouds) when seen on non-EEP viewers.
  • Rider Linden is now working on adding LSL support to EEP.

Aditi Account Set-up Reminder

Given EEP is available for testing on Aditi, a quick reminder on how to log-in to that grid if you have not done so before or in a long while:

  • File a support ticket requesting access to Aditi.
  • Wait for support to confirm your account has been set-up.
  • Log-in to Aditi. This may not give you a full copy of your inventory, however it will flag your inventory for syncing with Agni.
  • Syncing operations are run daily at roughly 02:00 SLT, so if you wait about 24 hours (depending on the time of your initial log-in to Aditi), your inventory on the beta grid should be synced with your Agni inventory.

The EEP testing region is: secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/EEPTesting/247/44/23.

2018 SL UG updates #42/3: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Savor Serenity; Inara Pey, September 2018, August 2018, on FlickrSavor Serenity – blog post

The majority of the following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, October 19th, 2018. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

This is again a short meeting with some lengthy pauses, so the following is a summary of key points.

SL Viewer

[1:54-9:07]

The Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) viewer updated to version 5.1.10.520819 on October 19th.This viewer contains further fixes and tweaks, and the Lab hope to have the viewer on roughly a weekly update cycle through to RC status.

As noted in my week #42 CCUG summary, the Animesh RC viewer updates to version 6.0.0.520636 on October 18th. This leaves the rest of the current official viewer pipeline as:

  • Current Release version 5.1.9.519298, dated September 5, promoted September 26. Formerly the Rakomelo Maintenance RC viewer – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer, version 5.1.10.520444, October 11.
    • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 5.2.0.520057, September 28.
    • BugSplat RC viewer, version 5.1.9.519462, September 10. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.8.518751, released on August 20.
  • 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.

Viewer Notes in Brief

  • Again, as per my week #42 CCUG summary:
    • Currently, running EEP on the simulator side can result in some strange skies when seen on non-EEP viewers (deep black skies, racing clouds, etc.). Rider and Graham Linden are working to correct this, however, the work involved is a little more complicated than had at first been thought, so there might still be one or two things that continue to “look a little weird” even with a fix in place. Should you enter an EEP region on a non-EEP viewer and experience  odd skies, simply set your environment through the viewer options.
    • [21:06-21:55] It is hoped the October 18th RC update will be the last for the Animesh viewer, and its next update will see it promoted to de facto release status, although right now it hasn’t been available long enough to give a reliable indication of crash rates.
    • The Bakes On Mesh viewer is pending fixes to the Bake Service.
  • Bugsplat viewer: a new version is going through QA that eliminates the need for two viewer icons.
    • This should be the final RC update for this viewer, leaving it in the queue for promotion to release status.
    • The viewer also retains the Breakpad code for those TPVs who wish to continue to use that for bug reporting. However, contributions to this code will be required to maintain it once the Lab has moved to using Breakpad.
  • The Render viewer still has a number of bugs pending a fix before that will be at an RC status eligible for consideration for promotion to release status.
  • The Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer hasn’t yet had enough hours of use against it to judge its possible promotion status.

Non-HTTP Asset Fetching

[10:19-12:45] Again as a reminder: for over a year now, LL has used HTTP via their CDN provider(s) for all asset fetching, avoiding the need for the simulator to handle all asset transfers and associated messaging directly. However, the simulator-side UDP code for some asset types has yet to be removed. This will now happen at the start of January 2019, and means that from around January 6th, 2019, any viewers still fetching the affected asset types via UDP after this date will not longer work correctly.

The specific asset types affected by this change are: system body parts, system clothing, gesture, animations, sounds, and landmarks (mesh, textures and avatar appearance having long been HTTP only).

A region will be set-up on Aditi without the code to allow TPVs to test against it ahead of the switch-over.

Inventory Bug and Inventory HTTP Operations

[13:23-19:06]

Inventory Bug Fix

There should be a fix in the  Spotykach RC viewer for an “obnoxious” bug within the inventory database which, on rare occasions during inventory initialisation, could see a specific UDP inventory operation that isn’t supposed to move folders attempt to do so, as a result of an unknown issue within inventory. This then results in the folders being recorded (and appearing) as items in Trash and at risk of accidental deletion.

Inventory HTTP Operations

Oz Linden has indicated he hopes that 2019 will see all inventory operations move away from UDP in order to make them more reliable, but there is a fair amount of systems work to be done to achieve this, including implementing new HTTP inventory operations.

The current plan is to implement the HTTP functions in the first half of 2019 and switch over to them, then disable the existing UDP operations later in 2019, and eventually remove them from both the viewer and the server.

ARCTan and Texture Caching

ARCTan

[22:18-23:12] ARCTan is the code-name for the project to re-evaluate object and avatar rendering costs to make them more reflective of the actual impact of rendering both, which it is hoped will also help correct some inherent negative incentives for creating optimised content (e.g. with regards to generating LOD models with mesh).

It’s a project that has been on a slow burn for some time, and the current order of priorities for anything involving rendering is EEP first, then the updates to texture caching, then ARCTan. As such, there are unlikely to be any changes to ARC calculations, possible changes to LI for objects before the end of the year. Even then, because of concerns over LI changes, the Lab will approach things cautiously – see here for more.

Texture Caching

[23:12-24:52] The updates to improve texture caching are moving forward. Overall the expectation is that the new method for caching will be a lot more robust in terms of the code, and it could lead to some viewer performance improvements for most systems. Focus should switch to this viewer as EEP matures through RC however, with the holiday season approach, the project may not advance too far before the end of the year, but hopefully a project viewer will surface before the year-end No Change window comes into effect.

Other Items in Brief

  • [9:08-9:38 and 26:32-26:57] The US holiday season is approaching – notably US Thanksgiving and then Christmas, so the cadence of TPV meetings may therefore be changing as the end of the year approaches. The next meeting (November 2nd) will take place, after that meeting frequency will be TBA.
  • [19:41-20:18] Return of last names: progress is being made on updating the back-end services. It’s still not clear if this will be deployed before the end of the year.