Category: SL User Group Meetings

2018 SL UG updates #24/3: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Woods Club; Inara Pey, June 2018, on FlickrWoods Club – blog post

The majority of the following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, June 15th 2018. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

SL Viewer

  • The Pálinka  Maintenance RC updated to version 5.1.6.516459 on Friday, June 15th.
  • The Bakes on Mesh project viewer updated to version 5.1.6.516270 on Thursday, June 14th.

The rest of the current SL viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 5.1.5.515811, dated May 31, promoted June 1 – formerly the Love Me Render Release Candidate – 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):
    • 32-bit Windows Unloop RC viewer, version 5.1.6.515965, dated June 5 – specifically for 32-bit Windows users caught in the 64-bit install loop (see here for more). Otherwise, the viewer is functionally identical to release version 5.1.5.515811.
  • 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.

[13:07-13:30] The 360 snapshot viewer has been stalled pending other work (such as support for uploading 360 images to Second life Place Pages) and for resources to work on it – but it has not been forgotten.

Upcoming Viewers

  • [4:15-4:36] Voice update: there should be a new Voice RC viewer arriving, hopefully in the next two weeks. This will contain a new SL voice updated from Vivox.
  • [5:56-6:26] Texture caching: a project viewer re-working texturing caching should be appearing soonTM. This viewer (and the work related to it) is currently on hold pending the Environment Enhancement Project (EEP). When it does appear, the Lab is confident it will make a noticeable improvement to viewer performance.

Animesh Mini-Update

Please refer to my CCUG meeting summary for more on the status of Animesh.

[0:24-2:46] The Lab is aiming to try to get Animesh deployed to a release candidate channel on Agni (the Man grid) during week #25 (week commencing Monday, June 18th, 2018). It is not 100% certain there will be a deployment but, according to Oz, if it does go ahead, it will likely be a part of the RC deployment to the BlueSteel channel. Region holders wishing to test Animesh can request their region be moved to the required RC via a support ticket.

Note that the viewer supporting Animesh will remain at project release status for the time being.

[38:28-42:40] discussion – voice and chat of the Animesh 90-degree rotation issue. Again, all see my CCUG meeting notes, linked to above.

Region Crossings

[4:42-5:50] Work on trying to improve region crossings on the simulator side of the equation is continuing. The messaging changes as a result of this work  are being ported to the SL viewer, and should appear in a future Maintenance branch of the viewer, although the messaging updates themselves are not expected to have any real effect on improving region crossings from a viewer perspective.

The simulator changes are being handled one at a time, and will be appearing in simulator RC updates over the course of the next few months.

In the meantime, and as reported in my Simulator User Group updates (see here for an example), user Joe Magarac (animats) has developed a viewer-side update to help correct some of the region crossing issues within the viewer, particularly in relation to “partial unsits”. His work is likely to be featured in the upcoming Firestorm release, and I’ll have more on that in my review of that release. It’s not clear if these changes have been contributed to the Lab (or if they would be accepted if they have).

Global Experiences

[14:58-17:45] There have been concerns that the roll-out of grid-wide experiences will mean automatic opt-in to such activities, rather than consented opt-in. This will not be the case: grid-wide will function the same as current region / parcel experiences – consent will need to be granted via a dialogue box. Only experiences developed by Linden Lab may have automatic opt-in, although none of the Lab’s experiences to date use this, and there are currently no plans to deploy any that do.

The only difference with grid-wide experiences and current experiences is that the land owner doesn’t have to explicitly allow grid-wide experiences (it will – I understand – instead be a case of land owners opting out of grid-wide experiences if they don’t want them on their land).

There has also been a request to make experience dialogues when requesting the ability to take control to be friendlier  / more informative on the grounds that people are scared of them.

[23:30-37:00] There is an extended discussion (mostly text) over unintended consequences of experiences when combined with tools such as avSitter (and / or RLV), and the potential for abuse. This includes a discussion on how to make it easier for users to discover what is acting on their avatar through the viewer UI (and the problems in trying to do so).

In Brief

  • [3:28-3:58] https move – work is progressing on moving all of the SL web services to https: – however, this work has been more of a background task of late while the web services team work on other projects. So, not time frames on when the various services still to be moved will do so.
  • [8:44-9:58] SL wiki edit rights / JIRA comments rights: because of issues with spam bots, etc., both the SL wiki and the SL JIRA has been locked from casual editing (wiki) / making comments on reports (JIRA).
    • If you have a valid need to edit SL wiki pages, submit a support ticket with a request for edit rights. All requests are reviewed and access granted on the outcome of said review.
    • If you have a valid reason to want to comment on SL JIRA reports, you should e-mail a request with your SL user name and why you are requesting access to letmein-at-lindenlab.com.
    • Note that the JIRA lock does not prevent people from raising JIRA bug reports and feature requests.
  • [22:48-23:28] The Read Off-Line Messages Capability: there have been a couple of issues in handling Friend and Group requests received while off-line. These are being addressed server-side, and it is hoped the code will be with QA in week #25 (commencing Monday, June 18th, 2018), and will hopefully be deployed shortly thereafter.

 

2018 SL UG updates #24/2: CCUG meeting summary w/audio

Posted on by Inara Pey

MindPillars, a Scottish themed Sim; Inara Pey, May 2018, on FlickrMindPillars, a Scottish themed Sim – blog post

Updated on June 15th: to include planned RC channel for Animesh deployment – see notes below. 

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on  Thursday, June 14th, 2018 at 13:00 SLT.  These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Note that the audio presented here may not be in the exact order of discussion during the meeting; as subjects were at times returned to following their initial discussion, I have attempted to bring together key points of discussion by topic / subject matter. Also, please note that audio drop-out when Vir is speaking appears to be an ongoing problem at his end.

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

It now appears that Animesh could be arriving on the server-side release channels on the main (SLS) grid as early as week #25 (week commencing Monday, June 18th, 2018). There are caveats to this: the status of issues with the viewer being one of them – there are certain issues the Lab is focused on, which they would ideally like to have some fix / workaround in place for prior to deploying the Animesh simulator code to Agni.

Update: At the TPVD meeting on Friday, June 15th, Oz Linden indicated that if the Animesh simulator code is deployed to an RC in week #25, it will most likely go to BlueSteel.

Current Viewer Issues

Encroachment / Position / Offsets: this is to ensure that the visual position of an Animesh object is not too far offset from its position as calculated by the simulator (e.g. using things like animation offsets to alter the visual position of all or part of an object). The fix for this is to force the bounding boxes for all joints and the meshes attached to them to remain within a specified distance – most likely 3 metres, although this is still TBC – from the location where the simulator has calculated the object should be.

This update should be in the next update to the Animesh project viewer, and will also utilise new infrastructure on the back-end to allow smarter tracking of the bounding boxes for rigged meshes. This be being done by tracking bounding boxes on a per joint basis, and then transforming them. While it can take a “noticeable” mount of time to do this, Vir’s belief is that it doesn’t unduly impact performance, although if it does become an issue, it may be re-thought.

Concerns were expressed that this would limit the scaling of Animesh creations. Vir states this shouldn’t be the case – the restriction is not ties to scale, but to position. So, for example, a dragon could still be 60 metres in length / height,  but the encroachment fix would mean where it appears in people’s viewers cannot be offset more than 10 metres from where the simulator calculates its actual position to be as a static mesh.

Z-Offset Height Setting: until now the z-offset height setting that can be specified when uploading a mesh to Second Life has been ignored when using meshes with it set to Animesh objects (the offset only works when the mesh is attached to and avatar).

It is hoped an update to fix this will be in the next project viewer update, which should appear before the server-side Animesh code arrives on an Agni RC channel.

Rigged Mesh Level of Detail / Bounding Box Issues: (BUG-214736) – Essentially, attachments on avatars swap their LOD models as if they were scaled to the overall avatar bounding box.

This is a long-standing issue which Graham and Vir Linden are working on, but a fix is unlikely to be available prior to Animesh arriving on Agni.

Broken Rotations Issues:

  • In one (BUG-139251), when some static mesh objects are converted to Animesh, the visual mesh is rotated through 90 degrees when seen in the Animesh viewer, but the physics mesh isn’t, leaving it perpendicular to the model. This is possibly an orientation issue, with the viewer expecting the mesh to be aligned to +x=forward – which not all mesh modelling tools follow.
  • The second problem is that when linking a series of objects into a single Animesh, then are visually located where the avatar skeleton supporting them is located, but the physics shapes remain in the original location of the objects prior to linking / converting.

The recommendation here (for the time being) is that Animesh objects should have a non-mesh root object, and associate any physics representation to that non-mesh root object.  This should hopefully eliminate the current issues and help ensure that any mesh being propelled via scripts in the root object will move in a predictable manner (.i.e. moves forward when driven forward by a script).

Other Issues

Additional bugs: the above are not the only bugs being looked at, but they are the ones causing the most concern due to the risk of behavioural issues / changes they might cause, together with perceived content breakage, when Animesh starts being deployed to the Main grid. Other issues, which are not seen as having so direct an impact will continue to be looked at ad hopefully resolved as Animesh is tested on the Main grid, together with any other issues which may come to light.

GLOD: there is concern that the global LOD values set by the mesh uploader when creators don’t specify their own custom LODs incorrectly encourages poor optimisation, by rewarding those so decrease the calculated LOD values with lower LI post-upload. The feeling is that the reverse should be true. It’s anticipated that Project ARCTan should help to address this.

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 server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, and may in time lead to a reduction in the complexity of mesh avatar bodies and heads.

This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing baking service.

Resources

Current Status

A new Bakes on Mesh project viewer arrived on Thursday, June 14th. Version 5.1.6.516270 includes the new “universal” wearable types corresponding to the 5 new bake channels. These are:

  • LEFT_ARM_TATTOO – bakes to the mesh left arm.
  • LEFT_LEG_TATTOO – bakes to the mesh left leg.
  • AUX1_TATTOO – creator definable layer / channel.
  • AUX2_TATTOO – creator definable layer / channel.
  • AUX3_TATTOO – – creator definable layer / channel.

Note that none of these additional wearables can be applied to the system avatar mesh; which continues to use the original six bake channels.

It’s also not clear if alpha layers can mask these new channels at present. If not, that Vir agrees it is something that should be looked at.

Other points of note:

  • There are no plans to extend Bake on Mesh to allow the use of wearable on non-wearable objects. This is because Bakes on Mesh uses the avatar bake service, which is not geared to apply wearables to in-world objects sans an avatar shape.
  • There is no time frame for Bakes on Mesh deployment at the moment; the project is still in the process of being developed, tested and refined with the help of content creators.
  • There is no updated on any form of scripted control for Bakes on Mesh. It hasn’t been ruled out, but no work is currently being done for scripted support.

In Brief

  • Mesh uploader cost formula / calculations: there have been requests to offer a clearer explanation of mesh cost calculations through something like a clarified wiki page. In terms of Animesh, providing guidelines on potential cost is difficult, as the actual conversion of a mesh to an Animesh takes place post upload.
    • One suggestion to help estimate Animesh costs is to add an Animesh model type to the drop-down list of object types in the mesh uploader.
  • Bento .BVH animation issue: the .BVH format allows for custom joint names for animations in addition to the default joint names. One such custom schema is to prefix joint name with “avatar_”. However, it has recently come to light that while the use of “avatar_” on pre-Bento joints works, trying to upload animations using any of the Bento bones prefixed with “avatar_” results in either an error message on upload (the SL viewer) or the animations uploading, but then being ignored on playback (tested with Firestorm). A JIRA bug report has been requested for this.

2018 SL UG updates #24/1: Simulator User Group meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Italian Village of Ciampi, Italy; Inara Pey, May 2018, on FlickrItalian Village of Ciampi, Italy – blog post

Server Deployments

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

  • There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, June 12th 2018, leaving the channel running server maintenance package 18#18.05.25.515749, containing internal fixes and server-side support for the upcoming new Estate Management ban list management changes.
  • On Wednesday, June 13th, the three main RC channels – LeTigre, BlueSteel and Magnum – should be updated with a new server maintenance package, 18#18.05.30.516064, comprising:
    • Additional work to support localised Abuse Report categories.
    • Improvements to object updates as part of ongoing performance improvements.
    • Removal of the logging of a trivial message.
    • Internal fixes.
    • Note that the majority of this updated is the same as 18#18.05.30.515812, initially deployed on Wednesday, June 6th, and subsequently rolled-back.

The reason for the RC channel roll-backs was described by Simon Linden at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, June 12th:

We had some excitement last week as we rolled a new version out to the RC channels, discovered a crasher bug we didn’t catch in testing, and had to revert back to the main version. That was fixed real quick and we’ll get the updated server again tomorrow … It was basically “go to a region with a crowd”; I’m not sure of the exact frequency, but the new code was in sending attachment updates … it probably happened one in a million times. Put that on a few thousand regions and it becomes noticeable.

SL Viewer

The Pálinka Maintenance RC updated to version 5.1.6.516121 on Tuesday, June 12th, 2018.

At the time of writing, the remainder of the SL viewer pipelines are as follows:

  • Current Release version 5.1.5.515811, dated May 31, promoted June 1 – formerly the Love Me Render Release Candidate.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • 2-bit Windows Unloop RC viewer, version 5.1.6.515965, dated June 5 – specifically for 32-bit Windows users caught in the 64-bit install loop (see here for more). Otherwise, the viewer is functionally identical to release version 5.1.5.515811.
  • 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.

Other Items

Client-Side Scripting Discussion

During the Simulator User Group meeting, the discussion turned towards client-side scripting support. This is something the Lab looked at several years ago, with Babbage Linden working on a possible C# implementation. Tis could enable things like scriptable UI elements, eliminating the need for HUDs, etc.

There are practical benefit to such an approach – be it with C# or something like Python; but there are also risk with the potential for exploiting the capability, as Simon Linden pointed out:

There’s also a really ugly trust issue with viewer-side code … do you trust someone so you’ll install their code, with the potential they might look into your inventory and such … we could probably sandbox an interpreter, but yes that kind of thing would have to be locked down, or it is definitely scary if it can read/write files … also preventing a viewer interpreter from loading outside modules … which of course are very useful, but can do scary things.

Also during the meeting, Oz Linden didn’t rule out the possibility of looking at the project again at some point in the future. However, it is important to note that currently, there is nothing on the SL roadmap with regards to this kind of work – or anything like it – at this point in time.

 

2018 SL UG updates #23/2: server and viewer mini-update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Butterfly Beach; Inara Pey, May 2018, on FlickrButterfly Beach – blog post

Server Deployments

the RC deployment made on Wednesday, June 6th (version 18#18.05.30.515812) was rolled by on Thursday, June 7th, leave the main grid running server release 18#18.05.25.515749.

As I was unavailable for the Server Beta meeting, I am unaware of whether or not an explanation for the roll-back was given.

SL Viewer

The following viewers have been updated in week #23:

  • The Pálinka Maintenance RC viewer – to version 5.1.6.515927 on Thursday, June 7th.
  • The 360-degree snapshot project viewer – to version 5.1.6.515934 on Wednesday, June 6th.

Both of these updates are to maintain parity with the de facto release viewer (at the time of writing version 5.1.5.515811, formerly the love Me Render RC viewer, promoted on June 1st, 2018).

As noted in my report here, the Unloop RC viewer, version 5.1.6.515965 was released for 32-bit Windows users only, and to specifically help those caught by the “64-bit Windows install loop” created during the initial promotion of the Love Me Render viewer to release status, which left both 64-bit and 32-bit Windows users only able to download the 64-bit version – see here for more.

The remaining viewers in the current LL pipeline remain as:

  • Current Release version 5.1.5.515811, dated May 31, promoted June 1 – formerly the Love Me Render Release Candidate – NEW
  • 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.

 

2018 SL UG updates #23/1: Simulator User Group meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

ONI Zen; Inara Pey, May 2018, on FlickrONI Zen – blog post

Server Deployments

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

  • On Tuesday, June 5th 2018, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with server maintenance package 18#18.05.25.515749, containing internal fixes and server-side support for the upcoming new Estate Management ban list management changes.
  • On Wednesday, June 6th, the three main RC channels – LeTigre, BlueSteel and Magnum – should be updated with a new server maintenance package, 18#18.05.30.515812, comprising:
    • Additional work to support localised Abuse Report categories.
    • Improvements to object updates as part of ongoing performance improvements.
    • Removal of the logging of a trivial message.
    • Internal fixes.

Week #23 should see the decommissioning of the RC Cruller channel, established to help those experiencing issues with the use of media URLs for data storage (see BUG-216032). Those affected by the update who are unable to complete their unpacking of data stored in media URLs by the end of the week, should use the deployment thread to indicate how much longer they need.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the current group of viewers in the pipeline at the start of the week, although merges and updates following the recent promotion of the Love Me Render viewer are expected. At the time of writing, the list reads as:

  • Current Release version 5.1.5.515811, dated May 31, promoted June 1 – formerly the Love Me Render Release Candidate – NEW
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Pálinka Maintenance RC viewer, 5.1.5.515527, dated May 21.
  • 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.

Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)

EEP is coming along. There is a possible fix for the back-end issue we were seeing. I’m wiring up some of the UI so that people can start to use it… Just pulled in a couple of the shader updates that one of the other Lindens has been working on.

– Rider Linden, discussing EEP progress, Simulator User Group, June 5th, 2018

Other Items

Region Crossings

I am making small steps … for example, tomorrow’s update has better logging where the target region you cross into is tracking everything and logs when it has re-seated an AV on a vehicle, and sent updates for all attachments … I’m not aiming for a big system monitoring region crossings in real-time, but I’d like to know better stats on how long they take and the failure rate … I know it would look ugly but it really would make sense technically if crossings forced you to stop, get across, then keep going and not estimate movement and all that.

– Simon Linden, discussing region crossings at the Simulator User Group, June 5th, 2018

The last of Simon’s points is something Joe Magarac (animats) has been working with through the use of scripts, as previously discussed in these pages.

llName2Key

llName2Key is one of two new LSL deployed in connection with the upcoming return of Last Names (see this blog post and this blog post for more). It’s been noted that the wiki page (linked to above) lacks proper information (its companion, llRequestUserKey as a wiki page which is also a little brief).

The function should return the Agent ID for the named avatar (based on it seeking the first name or the first name and last name), if the avatar is in the region where the function is run. If the last name is omitted, “Resident” is assumed. However, there appears to be a bug some search criteria work when they should fail (e.g. “Firstname R” (or “@R”) seems to work when “Resident” avatars on a region, when it should fail. A bug report is to be raised.

 

2018 SL UG updates #22/3: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Village of Ahiru; Inara Pey, May 2018, on FlickrVillage of Ahiru – blog post

The majority of following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, June 1st 2018. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

This was another short meeting, with about half of that covering SL projects, which are noted below. The rest of the meeting was more general conversation, and I’ll leave it to the video to cover them. As always, time stamps in the text below will jump you to the relevant points in the video.

Server Deployments

On Wednesday. May 30th, all three primary RC channels were updated to a new server maintenance package, 18#18.05.25.515749, comprising and internal fix (presumably for the unspecified bug which prompted the roll-back of #18.05.14.515432) and the simulator-side support for the updated Estate Management tools.

SL Viewer

[0:52-2:33] The Love Me Render viewer was updated to version 5.1.5.515811 on May 31st, and promoted to de facto release status.

All other viewers in the various pipelines remain unchanged from the start of the week:

  • Release channel cohort:
    • Pálinka Maintenance RC viewer, 5.1.5.515527, dated May 21.
  • 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.

It is likely all of the above will be updated as they are merged with the Love Me Render release.

360 Snapshot Viewer

[27:48-28:32]  The 360 snapshot project viewer has been on hold in part due to two reasons: the prime resource (Callum Linden) was assigned to another project; work on the viewer has been awaiting the development of an interface to allow direct uploads to Second Life Place Pages. In the meantime, the viewer code base is being maintained in parity with release versions of the viewer.

[28:57-29:34] There are also some graphics challenges that need to be addressed is trying to support the necessary high resolutions 360-degree images require couple with the low-end graphics systems many SL users have.

Upcoming Project Viewers

[2:34-3:07] The new project viewer with the updated Estate Management tools (ban list management, etc.) is expected “pretty soon”. This will work with the simulator-side Estate Management updates currently on the RC channels.

[5:26-5:42 and 7:20-8:35] Another upcoming project viewer has re-vamped texture caching. It’s hoped this will help with viewer performance. With it, users will be able to define a much larger overall cache size on their computer if they so wish. It is also hoped this work will include improvements to VRAM handling – although a problem here is that some systems incorrectly report the amount of VRAM they have available. Further, providing a recommended setting and assuming users will adhere to that recommendation doesn’t always work.

(There is also a text discussion on caching among games, etc.).

Viewer Camera Presets

[5:53-6:34] This is a contributed project from Jonathan Yap (who was responsible for developing and coding the graphics presets options in the viewer). It will allow users to define their own placements for the SL camera around their avatar (e.g. an over-the-should view, a view from overhead, etc.), which can then be saved and selected / used as required – see STORM-2145.

The work has been stalled awaiting a couple of new controls for manipulating the camera position being implemented. However, it is a project the Lab isn’t going to lose sight of, and it remains on the active project list.

Crash Reporting Changes

[18:18-21:04] The Lab is about to start experimenting with viewer crash reporting, removing the existing Breakpad based crash reporting tools and replacing it with BugSplat, a commercial service. If this works on a trial / experimental basis, the Lab will probably switch to using  BugSplat as their crash reporting mechanism.

Should this happen, TPVs using the current crash reporting mechanism may not want to merge the associated changes to use BugSplat, and continue to use the Brakpad mechanism (or introduce an alternative bug reporting solution of their own – such as Crashpad, regarded as the successor to Breakpad). Those wishing to use the BugSplat code will need their own subscription to the service and update the viewer code accordingly when using it in their own viewers.

From the Lab’s perspective is that dealing with crashes requires the maintenance and use of a lot of historical data which needs to be routinely searched, analysed, updated, etc., and a third-party company that specialises in this kind of work can probably do so and provide the necessary tools a lot better than the Lab can do on its own.

Project ARCTan

[4:24-5:22] This 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. As I’ve previously noted, the Lab is sensitive to the implications of doing this – particularly in the area of Land Impact, and will take steps to avoid disruption (e.g. through object returns) once the project reaches that point in time. (One area of potential impact is sculpties, which currently do not have their render cost accurately reflected in their land impact.)

The Lab has been gathering data as the first step in this work, and is “homing in” on better formulas, although Oz notes there is still a lot of work to be done and the project will be a “long, slow roll-out”. It’s likely that when a project viewer for this work appears (no time frame on this), it will include contributions for jelly dolling avatars with excessive texture use.

Land Auctions and Place Pages

[28:35-2855] The new auction system (users being able to auction their own land holdings will be run through the Second Life Place Pages. This has been a focus for recent work on Place Pages, which has delayed the development of the 360 snapshot viewer interface referenced above.

[30:27-31:47] The auction capability might even be made available (to some degree) in June 2018. This is likely to be just for Linden-owned land to start with, so the Lab can deal with issues without too much disruption / confusion, prior to the service being extended to users with land holdings.

The new user-to-user land auctions will be run through Second Life Place Pages, with Linden-run auctions starting the process off

As Ebbe Altberg has indicated, the plan will then likely to be to allow Mainland land holders auction their land directly to other Premium users, and then expand the ability from there.

The use of Place Pages for auctions means that those wishing to auction their land will need to create a place page for it.

Other Items In Brief

  • [11:32 and 13:30-13:40] Parcel Banning and Object Information: there appears to have been a recent change that means if an individual is banned from a region, they no longer receive information about objects on that parcel – see BUG-216294. This is regarded as expected behaviour. This includes a largely text-based conversation on options for de-rendering objects on other parcels, together with the idea about SL not being a place necessarily intended for isolated living, extending through to [18:10].
  • [22:23-22:47] “Social” tools in the viewer: it’s unlikely the Lab will make any changes to user profiles in the viewer any time soon; back-end work is being considered for group interfaces in the viewer, but this most likely won’t take place until after the cloud migration work has been completed.
  • Fun fact: Linden staff are subject to the same constraints in behaviour and activities when using ALT accounts as when using their official accounts. This means for example, a Linden staffer cannot participate in the upcoming user-to-user land auctions, and improper behaviour will be regarded in the same way as if they were using their official account.