Category: SL User Group Meetings

SL project updates week 20/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Crystal Garden Estates, Quararibea Cordata Island; Inara Pey, May 2017, on Flickr Crystal Garden Estates – blog post

Server Deployments

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

  • There was no Main (SLS) channel deployment or restart on Tuesday, May 16th.
  • On Wednesday, May 17th, the three RC channels should be updated as follows:

Simulator Operating System Update

The build of the simulator code using an updated version of Linux was initially deployed to LeTigre in week #19. However, it was rolled back on Thursday, May 11th and replaced with the server maintenance package originally deployed to the Magnum RC channel that week. The reason for this can be found in BUG-100667, “Krafties HUD does not work on LeTigre regions only”. The BlueSteel deployment should hopefully correct this issue.

SL Viewer

The Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer was updated to version 5.1.0.505089 on May 11th. If you’re on a 64-bit version of Windows, make sure you click on the correct download link to avoid receiving the 32-bit version.

On Friday, May 12th, the Maintenance RC viewer, version 5.0.5.326168 was released. This viewer includes improvements to Trash purging behaviour designed to assist with avoiding inventory losses and the new UI controls for the new parcel access overrides – both of which have been previously noted in these updates, with the latter being deployed to LeTigre this week.

The new Trash purging warning, giving a count of the items about to be permanently deleted from the trash folder – one of the new behaviours in the Maintenance RC viewer designed to help combat accidental inventory loss through Trash deletions

In addition, the Maintenance viewer has additional fixes and UI improvements, including a contributed feature which allows users to search and replace asset links in their inventory. This should greatly simplify updating links related to a product when it has itself been updated. The default media playback volume has also been reduced, in keeping with recent requests from some Community Gateways.

Outside of these two viewers, there have thus far been no other changes to the viewers in the pipeline, which remain as:

  • Current Release version: 5.0.4.325124, dated April 3rd, promoted April 19th – overview
  • RC viewers:
    • Voice RC viewer, version 5.0.5.325998, re-released on Friday, May 5th
    • Project AssetHttp project viewer, version 5.0.5.325940 dated May 4th
  • Project viewers:
    • 360-degree snapshot viewer,version 4.1.3.321712, dated November 23rd, 2016
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Terrain Issues

The golfing community has noticed an apparent behaviour change affecting wither the terrain or scripted golfing systems. The change manifests in a number of ways, for example: indicators which should only be triggered when a ball registers as being in Linden Water triggering when the ball is on land; golf balls apparently penetrating the terrain and being marked as deep under it; balls hitting prim objects and bouncing wildly, etc.

The problem has been noted a multiple golf course and appears to affect all popular golf systems – those by Fa Nyak or Cowley, for example. The issues have been around for about 5-6 weeks, and reports are that they are getting worse. They don’t appear to be linked to issues of “lag” either in the viewer or at the simulator end (e.g. due to the volume of avatars in a region), as the problems can pop-up with just two people playing a round; they are also somewhat inconsistent and difficult to deliberately reproduce. A JIRA has been requested on the problem to help the Lab investigate.

SL project updates 19/2: NEW projects – supplemental animations and animated objects

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Kubrick Rooms – blog post

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group meeting, held on  Thursday, May 11th, 2017 at 1:00pm SLT at the the Hippotropolis Camp Fire Circle. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Audio extracts are provided within the text – although please note, these are not necessarily presented in the chronological order in which they were discussed in the meeting. Rather, I have tried to place a number of related comments by Vir on specific topics together – project scope, constraints, etc., where in the meeting they may have been discussed / reiterated at different times. Medhue Simoni recorded the meeting, and his video is embedded at the end of this report for those wishing to following the discussion chronologically. My thanks to him for the recording.

The meeting held two major announcements: supplemental animations and animated objects, both of which are being loosely referred to under the umbrella of “animation extensions”.

Supplemental Animations

This is an idea to overcome issues of animations states keyed by the server-side  llSetAnimationOverride() conflicting with one another. This problem has been particularly noticeable since the arrival of Bento, and a typical example is that an animation to flap Bento wings, if played to have natural wing movement while walking, results in a conflict with the walk animation, causing the avatar to slide along the ground.

  • Supplemental animations will allow additional animations to run alongside the basic llSetAnimationOverride() locomotion graph, requiring updates to the server-side animation code, rather than any viewer updates.
  • The changes will allow for more than one supplemental animation to run at the same time – so you could have wings flapping while walking and a tail swinging – providing the animations are restricted to using discrete sets of bones and do not clash (e.g. the wing flapping doesn’t call on a bone used in tail wagging or walking). If there is an overlap, the normal animation priorities would then determine which animation is played.
  • While the syntax still has to be worked out, it will likely be a call to add a set of supplemental animations associated with a specific state (e.g. walking) on attaching a relevant object (such as wings), and a call to remove the animation set when the item is subsequently detached.

Animated Rigged Objects

The Lab is starting work on adding the ability to animate rigged objects to Second Life – something which has been the focus of ongoing discussions within the Content Creation User Group for the past several months.

General Overview, Initial Limitations – *NOT* NPCs

  • At this point in time, this is not about adding fully functional, avatar-like non-player characters (NPCs) to Second Life.
  • It  is about providing a means to use the Bento skeleton with rigged mesh to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation
  • The project may be extended in the future.
  • It will involve both back-end and viewer-side changes, likely to encompass new LSL commands to trigger and stop animations (held in an object’s inventory)
  • It’s currently not clear if this will involve a new type of mesh object, or whether it will need a new flag added to an existing rigged object type in order for the object to be given its own skeleton. But either way, it will be in the same family of rigged mesh objects which is current available.

  • While these objects may use the avatar skeleton, they are not avatars.
  • They will not:
    • Have any concept of body shape or avatar physics associated with them.
    • Use a Current Outfit Folder for wearables.
    • Utilise any system wearables (body shape, system layers, physics objects, etc.).
    • Be influenced by the shape sliders, or have any gender setting (as this is determined by the shape / shape sliders).
  • They will only be related to avatars in that they have associated animations driving them.

  • Given this is not an attempt to implement fully avatar-like NPCs in Second Life, use of the term “NPC” with them is not encouraged.
  • At the moment, the preferred term is simply “animated objects”.

Performance Concerns

  • There is liable to be two areas of impact for this capability:  in-world land impact, directly affecting the simulator, and a rendering impact on the viewer.
  • Right now, the Lab has no idea how great either might be, but they do mean that what can be supported could be limited (hence a reason for not jumping directly to providing “full” NPC capabilities).  However, it will be something that will be monitored as the project moves forward.

General Q&A

This news prompted a range of questions, which Vir sought to address:

  • Would this mean custom avatar skeletons?  – No, it would use the existing (Bento) skeleton, and attaching it to an animated rigged object. However, joint positions and offsets will be supported, allowing the skeleton to be modified to meet different uses.

  • Will this allow the use of Animation Overriders on objects?  – No. objects would at this stage not have  their own locomotion graph like an avatar does, and therefore would not have any notion of walking or flying, etc. All animations would have to be scripted.

  • Does this mean limits associated with the current avatar skeleton – such as the limit of placing a bone no further than 5 metres from the avatar’s centre via an animation – will still apply? Yes, any limits baked into animation will remain. The idea is for existing meshes and existing animations would be able to leverage this capability. In terms of the 5 metre offset limitation.
  • Could animated objects be attached to an avatar?  – This is not necessarily what is being looked at, which is not to rule it out; rather, the emphasis at the moment is getting things animated independently of avatars. There is also a concern over the potential additional impact of animated attachments to an avatar may have.

  • What happens if a script tried to drive the rigged mesh, rather than the avatar skeleton? – Normally, the scripts driving an avatar are in the attachments to that avatar, so “crossing the beams” is not something the Lab would recommend.
  • Is the Lab using this to help fix Pathfinding? – Not really. Pathfinding has its own set of issues and these are unlikely to be tackled as part of this project.
  • Can the skeleton for an animated object be assigned via script from an inventory object? – This might cause permissions issues.
  • How will a script know which object to animate? – The basic thinking is that the script would be inside the object it is animating (as is currently the case for placing scripts in an object), and so has permissions to animate that object. Using a single script to animate multiple independent objects would be more complicated and require some kind of object ID.
  • Could several rigged objects (rigged the same) be linked and have the same animation played? – Yes; the difference would be the object would be animated with respect to its internal skeleton rather than an actual avatar skeleton.
  • Would it be possible to sit on animated objects? – Possibly; although there might be issues, things might look odd. The Lab hasn’t investigated far enough to determine potential gotchas for this, but the hope is animated objects could work for vehicles.

  • Could animation scaling be used to adjust the size of an animated object? – It might make more sense to add some kind of “global scale” which would allow a skeleton to accommodate itself to the size of its object (rather than the object’s size being defined by the skeleton).

  • Will this allow animated objects to have wearables and attachments? – Not at this stage (although mesh clothing could in theory be a part of a the linkset making-up an animated object).  This is a very focused project at this point: playing animations in-world on rigged objects.

Other Points

  • A suggested name for the animated objects project is “Project Alive” – this might actually be adopted!
  • The are no plans for a blog post announcing the project. However, a mechanism will be provided for people to keep involved and comment on the work, possibly via a forum thread, as was the case with Bento. This might at some point utilise polls to focus down on people’s preferences.
  • The in-world forum for discussing this work will be the Content Creation User Group.
  • Between the 44:24 and 51:10 there is a discussion of adding a prim cube) as the root of the skeleton, allowing it to inherit physics and the abilities associated with a prim, morphing physics, plus using IK (inverse kinematics) with rigged object skeletons etc. Pros and cons of these ideas are discussed – largely in chat.  In short: the Lab are still considering how physics might be handled, although they are unlikely to opt for animated or morphing physics, while IK would also need to be looked at.
  • At present, there are no clear time frames as to how long these projects – supplemental animations and animated objects – will take, or when they will be implemented, simply because they are in their early phases. However, given the supplemental animations are restricted to server-side changes and do not require associated viewer updates, they might arrive sooner than animated objects.

Applying Baked Textures to Mesh Avatars

This remains under consideration, with Vir noting animated rigged objects could add a level of complexity to it, were it to be formally adopted as a project.

 

SL project updates week 19/1: server, group chat

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Mill, Pale Moonlight; Inara Pey, May 2017, on Flickr The Mill, Pale Moonlight – blog post

Server Deployments

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

On Tuesday, May 9th, the Main (SLS) server channel was updated with the server maintenance package previously deployed to the LeTigre RC channel, containing sim logging improvements.

On Wednesday, May 10th, the RC channels should be updated as follows:

  • BlueSteel and Magnum should receive a server maintenance package with “internal updates”
  • LeTigre should receive a server update comprising a new version of the simulator code built using a newer version of Linux. This has previously been on test both on Aditi and the Cake micro-channel. In the words of the Lab, it sees pretty much everything change.

Commenting on the current underpinning server updates the Lab are carrying out, Simon Lab said, at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, May 9th:

We have some internal projects that are pretty big that will occupy us for months at this point.  They’re needed and will help set up SL for a long-term life … it really is investing in the future … Imagine what our back-end systems look like. The design is ancient, it’s been added-on and adjusted for 14+ years. Sometimes we have to stop and do overhauls.

SL Viewer

A Maintenance RC viewer is anticipated this week. However, at the time of writing there have been no updates since the end of week #19, leaving the viewer pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version: 5.0.4.325124, dated April 3rd, April 19th – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer overview
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Voice RC viewer, version 5.0.5.325998, dated Friday, May 5
    • Project AssetHttp project viewer, version 5.0.5.325940, dated May 4th
  • Project viewers:
  • 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.

Group Chat Issues

Group chat on some of the larger groups again seems to be acting up – messages being dropped, people unable to send messages, etc.

Should you encounter repeated  / severe issues with group chat, the recommendation is to file a support ticket with a request in the format of: “group XX is suffering excessive chat lag, please check its server”, where XX is the name of the group itself. All such requests should be passed on to Operations, who will take a look at the server responsible for managing that particular group’s chat sessions.

SL project updates 18/3: TPV Developer meeting; viewer changes

Posted on by Inara Pey

Rustic Retreat – blog post

The notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, May 5th, 2017. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Timestamps in the text below will open the video in a separate window at the relevant point for those wishing to listen to the discussions.

AssetHTTP Viewer

[1:32] As noted in part 2 of this week’s updates, the AssetHTTP RC updated on Thursday May 4th to version 5.0.5.325940.  While the sample of users on this version is small and needs to be broadened over the coming days, the crash rate is reportedly already significantly better than it was.

Project Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer

[2:28] An update to the 64-bit RC viewer is expected to appear on or shortly after Monday, May 8th. This includes numerous updates including 64-bit Havok sub-libraries for Mac and improvements for handling web-related elements.

Following this update, the only anticipated major updates for this viewer will be those related to the new viewer management process, which includes checks to try to ensure Windows users receiving the correct flavour of the viewer (i.e. if you’re a 32-bit Windows users, you should automatically get the 32-bit version of the viewer during updates; if you’re 64-bit Windows users, you should get the 64-bit version of the viewer).  These updates are already being integrated into the viewer for the next update, so it is entirely possible the 64-bit viewer will be updated twice in the coming week.

[3:52] There was a slight mistake with the current version of the viewer which meant people on 64-bit Windows were getting the 32-bit version in error, which led to incorrect stats. This will be corrected with the new update.

[22:32] The Lab plan to update the viewer build instructions on the wiki to reflect this viewer as soon as it goes out as a release candidate viewer.

[24:32] Mac users should note that this viewer does not support OS X versions below 10.9.

360 Snapshot Viewer

[7:05] Given the status of the 64-bit viewer, the Lab is resuming work on the 360 snapshot viewer, although there currently isn’t any ETA on an update to the current version.

Voice Viewer

[2:05] The Lab has resolved the issues found in the Voice viewer RC, with the updated version – 5.0.5.325998 – appearing on May 5th during the TPV Developer meeting.

[17:16] As some fundamental issues with Voice are being addressed with this viewer, the SLVoice plugin that comes with it will not work with older viewers, and the SLVoice plugin from older viewer versions will not work with this viewer. This is a deliberate change and means that TPVs will need to integrate the entire Voice update, rather than just parts of it.

[19:14] This viewer also improves overall Voice connection, by both making connections more likely to succeed in the first place, and by making improvements to the retry / reconnection process. However, particularly aggressive anti-virus packages which fiddle with network connections can still cause Voice connection issues.

[18:35] In difference to previous statements made at the back-end of 2016, the Lab currently has no plans to disable older versions of Voice. However, they might revisit the idea in the future .

Upcoming Maintenance Viewer

A new Maintenance RC viewer should be appearing shortly with a number of updates / changes, some of which were outline in part 2 of this week’s updates, and repeated below for completeness.

Inventory Improvements

[9:26]  To try to help with inventory losses through accidental deletion of objects which have mistakenly been moved to Trash, the Maintenance RC viewer will have the following behaviour changes:

  • The prompt displayed when you have over 5K items in Trash will be amended to show the trash folder when you’re ready to purge it – before you can purge it.
  • Backspace will only delete on Mac systems (as it’s the only option available), it will no longer delete on windows.
  • The purging Trash notification will give you the count of items you’re deleting and will be unavoidable.
  • The “Are you sure you want to delete this thing” warning will be seen at least once per session.

Estate and Parcel Permissions

[10:42] The Estate management floater is to be revised somewhat to make it easier to use, while the Permissions check boxes, etc at estate / parcel level are to be changed to better convey what happens when setting them. In particular, these will address BUG-4994 and see some improvements to access /  ban list management at the region level, so that more than four names are visible in the list. at any one time.

This will only be the first iteration of these changes, and Grumpity linden indicates that the Lab will continue to look at how much more can be done to improve these controls without starting to make things complicated.

This viewer will also include the changes needed to support the improved access controls for regions set to Public Access (see New region and parcel access controls coming to Second Life) – a project known internally at the Lab as Jigglypuff. The server-side changes should be on RC from Wednesday, May 10th.

Limiting the Number of Items a You can ADD from a Folder

[14:18] A new limit has been placed up the total number of items which can be added from a folder at any one time. This is specifically to prevent those situations where someone mis-clicks ADD on a top-level folder – say Clothing – to find they are stuck with the viewer trying to add everything in that folder and every sub-folder within it to their avatar.

Lower Default Media Volume

[16:58] In response to requests, the upcoming Maintenance RC will also have a lower default volume for media playback than is set by the Lab in current viewers.

SL project updates 18/2: server, viewer, inventory loss

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Anthropic Principle – Gem Preiz – blog post

Server Deployments  – Recap

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

SL Viewer

On Thursday, May 4th, the AssetHTTP RC viewer updated to version 5.0.5.325940, which looks to be to addressing further crash issues with the previous RC version.

All other viewers in the pipelines remain unchanged:

  • Current Release version: 5.0.4.325124, dated April 3rd – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer overview
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Alex Ivy (LXIV), 64-bit project viewer version 5.1.0.504536, dated April 25th
    • 360-degree snapshot viewer version 4.1.3.321712, dated November 23rd, 2016 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images
  • 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.

Inventory Loss Issues

I recently reported on people’s experiences with inventory losses, as recorded through the forums. As a result of both the forum discussion and JIRAs filed such as BUG-100541), the Lab has been looking again at inventory and possible causes of inventory loss. This will be resulting in some viewer behaviour changes  as Grumpity Linden explained during the Server Beta meeting on Thursday, May 4th:

So we are actively looking at the various reports of inventory loss (Quick thank you to everyone who takes the time to file bug reports… It helps!). With this recent wave of reports, it seems like there are a lot of things ending up in trash unexpectedly and we can’t be sure whether there’s an evil gremlin in the machinery or a bunch of accidental key presses. So we’re putting in some viewer changes to at least make the accidental key presses less likely. We’re:

  1. Amending the prompt that comes up when you have over 5K items in trash to show the trash folder when you’re ready to purge it – before you can purge it.
  2. Backspace will only delete on mac, not windows.
  3. [The] purging trash warning will give you the count of items you’re deleting and will be unavoidable.
  4. You’re going to have to see the “Are you sure you want to delete this thing” warning at least once per session.

Also, I’d like to clarify something – a lot of reports we’re seeing come up right now but are actually of past incidents. I think the discussion on the forum(s) has led to an increase in reporting.  which is great because then maybe we’ll finally get a reproducible scenario and find ways to fix.

These changes may not resolve all the issues being experienced, but they may help with at least some, and in creasing people’s awareness of what might be happening in their Trash folder. There is currently no time frame as to when these updates will appear in an RC  / project viewer; I’d assume they would most likely be appearing in a Maintenance RC.

Profile Feed Snapshot Uploads

People are (once again) experiencing issues with uploading snapshots to their Profile Feed. A bug on the matter has been raised – BUG-100516.

SL project updates 18/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Asian Fusion: Oyster Bay – blog post

Server Deployments

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

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the current viewer pipelines to start the week, leaving them as follows:

  • Current Release version: 5.0.4.325124, dated April 3rd – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer overview
  • Project AssetHttp RC viewer version 5.0.5.325825, dated April 27th – This viewer moves fetching of several types of assets to HTTP / CDN – overview
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Alex Ivy (LXIV), 64-bit project viewer version 5.1.0.504536, dated April 25th
    • 360-degree snapshot viewer version 4.1.3.321712, dated November 23rd, 2016 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images
  • 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.

Region Crossings

There have been reports of worsening in vehicular region crossings recently (by coincidence, Caitlyn and I ran into so particularly unpleasant crossings over the most recent weekend). Simon Linden agreed to have a poke at server logs, time permitting, to see if there is any other change in crossing stats. He also mused on the potential impact of mesh bodies and attachments on such crossings, which constitute a considerable amount of additional data (including saving and restoring the state of scripts associated with them.

It was also pointed out that worn mesh attachments bring with them an (unneeded?) physics shape calculation, potentially adding to the load. This prompted a further discussion on whether any attachments should have a physics shape data used or calculated until such time as it is physically rezzed in-world.

As a first point of call, Simon repeated that as time permits, he’ll look into what goes into the region crossing calculations, and have a closer look at attachments physics calculations in general to she what is going on.

What Is the Lab Working On?

Things seem pretty quiet at the moment, but the Lab is working on a lot right now, although much of it is transparent to users, as Oz linden indicated at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, May 2nd:

At the moment, we happen to have a number of projects in flight that are either not good to discuss (security changes), or system upgrades that really shouldn’t be visibly different…. that’s unfortunate, but we’re getting started on (or getting ready to start on) some that will be much more interesting.

The recent changes to land access and control, together with the upcoming changes to allow region / estate staff to better managed Public Access regions are examples of more visible changes affecting users – or will be, once the viewer has been updated to handle the latter; and there a further changes to the likes of region-level ban lists coming down the pipe which will also bring visible changes to the viewer and provide better controls / support for land owners.