Category: SL User Group Meetings

December 2024 SL Web User Group summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby
The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday December 4th, 2024. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available. Table of Contents

Meeting Overview

  • The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), the forums.
  • As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
    • On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
    • In both Voice and text.
    • At this location.
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

General Update

[Video: 1:59-3:59 and 6:18-8:45]

  • Marketplace UI: work on updating the marketplace with a new user interface is described as being in the final stages of internal testing and thus “very close”.
  • Second Life Dashboard (secondlife.com): this is also being updated to a new design, and there is a chance it may be deployed in the next month / during January 2025.
  • Web Log-in and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): this is ongoing work to update the Second Life web log-in splash screen to a new design which will will work better on all devices, and will support MFA.
  • Marketplace MFA: work is continuing on adding MFA to the Marketplace.
  • Also in the works:
    • Changes to Linden Home store, adding some UI updates.
    • Updating the Second Life web maps – described as “still in early design”. Some of this work was mentioned in the November meeting – also see below.

Single Sign-On

  • [Video: 5:28-5:58] The subject of single sign-on (SSO) – allowing a user to log-in with a single ID to several related but independent services (e.g. SL dashboard, the Marketplace, (possibly) the viewer, etc.), just once (and possibly with unified authentication factors) Has often bee requested  – and looked at – by the Lab. In response to SSO being raised at this meeting, Sntax Linden responded:
SO and Federated login is something we have been looking at doing in the future. The MFA on web login and marketplace will just be reusing the existing MFA we have on viewer and mobile.

Gifting Marketplace Items

[Video: 7:09-8:45 and 11:44-24:06]

  • This has been discussed at past meetings. Gifting is seen as confusing for some (having the Add to Cart as Gift and Buy Now buttons so close together suggests Buy Now must be clicked when gifting); plus the Shopping Cart is often used as a means of storing things people might be interested in purchasing, but as gifting is tied to it, carts must be cleared of anything stored therein.
  • As such, requests have been made for a direct means of gifting items in a manner similar to the Buy Now button (e.g. an “Gift Now”) button.
  • Commenting on this,  Juniper Linden said:
We do have some updates to the gift UI coming out soon-ish; minor changes to that flow that might be better but nothing like “gift now”
  • Sntax indicated the MP team will get to gifting as soon as they can.
  • The basic requirement for this was seen as a simple button within listings, per above.
    • However, maintaining the ability to still add gifts to the cart as an option was also seen as useful – so having the “Gift Now” button present the current steps for gifting (enter recipient’s name + an optional message) followed by options to send the gift directly or add it to the Shopping Cart was seen as the optimal solution.
  • The main pressure from the meeting was to have some form of “band-aid” solution for direct gifting, and then refine things after-the-fact. This was seen as the preferable course of action.
  • This conversation also spiralled into use of legacy (user) names over Display Names and mis-gifting people.

Second Life Web Maps

[Video: 28:09-54:59]

  • As noted above, LL are looking at updating the Second Life web maps (https://maps.secondlife.com/), and to this end, a series of questions were asked on the functionality they provide:
    • Do people use the web maps or just the in-viewer World Map. Probably fair to say the if a broad audience were asking, there would be a reasonable split between “viewer” and “both”.
    • Is the Create Your Own SLurl option in the viewer World Map a useful option?
    • Do people use the Destination Guide element of the web maps to find places?
    • Do people use the Search option on web maps?
A Second Life web map (https://maps.secondlife.com/) showing: 1. the Create Your Own Map Link option (opens a dialogue box), 2. search bar option and 3. the  Picks Destination Guide 
  • That those at the meeting assumed that these questions were focused on the viewer’s World Map (with ensuing confusion as to the Search and Destination Guide questions) is possibly indicative as to how often the web maps are directly used (although eight people at a meeting is far too small a sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions).
  • Web Maps are frequently used, however – and possibly without people realising they are a map system – when clicking on SLurls included in things like blog posts, etc., in order to locate and teleport to the region / location in question.
  • The above spread to a discussion on sharing SLurls and how people go about it (including the misconception that the viewer World Map does not allow for the copying / creation of SLurl, despite the large button at the bottom of the Map legend).
  • A request was made for possible information to be added to the SL maps. Replies focused on the viewer World Map and included:
    • A “show rez zones” option.
    • A “show Set Home locations” option to help new users to find regions where they can set their home position.
    • Ability to find out more about  location via the map. Fore example, clicking on a location on map.scondlife.com gives a default dialogue (which LL have stated will be updated to actually reflect the region information) – having this available for regions / parcels on the viewer World Map was suggested (on a mouse-over hover?).
    • Whether or not a location is open to public teleporting  / a user’s ability to teleport (e.g.  whether there is a minimum age set for access, or access is controlled by having Payment Information on File).

General Discussion

  • The last 10 minutes of the meeting focused on issues around links to outdated videos on web properties such as Where Next? the Support portal, etc., and the potential negative impact they have on new users / incoming new users.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, January 8th, 2025.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #49 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Soulstone, October 2024 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • On Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were updated to release 2024-11-25.12013542687.
  • On Wednesday, December 4th:
    • The BlueSteel RC is due to be restarted with no deployment.
    • The remaining RC channels will see a “small” update to the Barbeque (BBQ) updates, presumably bringing them to parity with the version of BBQ currently on BlueSteel.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

Apple Cobbler currently remains in testing on Aditi (regions of Mauve and Jigglypuff for those wishing to test), but is now due to start an initial deployment to the BlueSteel RC in week #50 (commencing Monday, December 9thm, 2024). Apple Cobbler includes:

  • llTransferOwnership which enables a prim give itself to a new user (subject to owner permissions already set). The version on Aditi has been updated. To quote Rider Linden:
The prototype for llTransferOwnership has changed slightly. There is a new list parameter tacked to end. It does nothing at the moment, but I’ve got plans to add a few things there early in the New Year. The wiki has been updates with the new data. You will need to recompile any test scripts you might have had. [Also]  For llTransferOwnership, I’d like to add an exclusion list (transfer the item and all its contents EXCEPT for these items).  
  • An extended llGiveInventory to allow for a destination folder (system folders + RLV/a) to be specified as well (+ the use of a parameter list, so further options can be added in the future).
  • llMapBeacon – like llMapDestination, but a) does not necessarily open the map window; b) can optionally open the map, with or without focus. This will also require a viewer update.
  • A new function for detecting attachments. If it is running with an experience it will be able to detect HUDs that also have scripts with the same experience (e.g. to ensure the correct HUDs are being used – this will not allow anyone to script to find out all the HUDs someone is using).

Following Apple Cobbler, the next simulator update is code-named Banana Bread, but its contents have yet to be defined. However Rider Linden conducted a quick poll on what those at the meeting might like to see included. – please refer to the video (29:48-35:32).

SL Viewer Updates

No updates to start the week with the current official viewers:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.12041172537, November 27.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain;  additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
    • UI Optimisations.

2K Bakes On Mesh (BOM)

Pepper Linden provided this update:

We were hoping to get 2K BOM out by the end of November [as] its been stuck in QA a while now. Unfortunately, an issue came up recently where the viewer wasn’t properly showing the lower resolutions for avatars that weren’t close up (e.g. far away). So a fix had to be made on the viewer for that (we were seeing VRMA use double for highly complex avatars with dozens upon dozens of wearables). 
There’s a few other minor things that came up, but they should all be addressed very soon [but] unfortunately I have no idea when 2K BOM will make its way here at this time, though as soon as I know, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.

In Brief

Please refer to the video below for the following:

  • Leviathan Linden implemented a fix to llModPow(), noting the older implementation was inefficient and that with the update, it should now run faster under the hood.
    • It was noted the one second sleep requirement made the function fairly unusable, and Leviathan noted it could now be relaxed, and will aim to do that as a part of the Banana Bread simulator update.
  • Further discussion on  llTransferOwnership().
  • A general discussion on Combat 2.0 updates.
  • A note that Monty Linden has been put on to poking at why avatars take time to load / de-cloud.
  • A discussion on media support and Media on a Prim (MOAP) / CEF.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #48 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Les Bean at the Salty C, September 2024 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 26th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from the chat log and Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • On Tuesday, November 26th, 2024, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were restarted without no updates.
  • On Wednesday, November 27th:
    • An updated version of the Barbecue simulator update should be deployed to the BlueSteel RC. This includes: support for “alpha-gamma” which will allow an object owner to adjust some of the PBR alpha values that were impacting legacy things like hair; llSetAgentRot; a new warning on receiving direct IMs from Scripted Agents (“registered” bots). Rider describes this as “Bot confessions”: with IM sessions with bots there will be a warning sent to the receiver that they are having a conversation with a bot. Also, for viewer developers, there will be a bit of metadata attached to the IM_NOTHING_SPECIAL that indicates the sender is a bot.
    • The remaining RC channels will be restarted.

Apple Cobbler Update

Currently in testing on Aditi ( regions of Mauve and Jigglypuff for those wishing to test), and includes:

  • llTransferOwnership which enables a prim give itself to a new user (subject to owner permissions already set).
  • An extended llGiveInventory to allow for a destination folder (system folders + RLV/a) to be specified as well (+ the use of a parameter list, so further options can be added in the future).
  • llMapBeacon – like llMapDestination, but a) does not necessarily open the map window; b) can optionally open the map, with or without focus. This will also require a viewer update.
  • A new function for detecting attachments. If it is running with an experience it will be able to detect HUDs that also have scripts with the same experience (e.g. to ensure the correct HUDs are being used – this will not allow anyone to script to find out all the HUDs someone is using).

SL Viewer Updates

No updates with the current official viewers:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11750364439, November 12.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain;  additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
    • UI Optimisations.

In Brief

Please refer to the video below for the following:

  • There appear to still be issues around the llTransferOwnership function, which is available for testing on Aditi. See: llTransferOwnership() returns -6 when flag 0x4 is used inside a full-perm-for-owner object.
  • A request to fix the long-standing (18 years!) to fix the issue of Modify becoming No Modify on being taken back to inventory if they have a things like No Mod script in their contents (the script should maintain its no Mod permissions, and the object should retain its Modify permission and not inherit No Mod from the script, etc.) as part of the work in tweaking permissions for llTransferOwnership() was seen as “out of scope” for this work.
  • A discussion relating to sitting height and a possible change in behaviour resulting from the fix for the recent “hovering on logging-in” issue affecting system shoe height adjustments (and whether the mentioned sitting issue is  / is no a bug) – see Sitting height is now affected by system shoes.
  • A further discussion on region crossing and attachments and potential issues.
  • Further discussion around people being able to opt-out of the extended llGiveAgentInventory() capabilities so as to avoid things being dropped “anywhere” in their inventory.
    • This saw a re-hash of the idea that all items – whether received via the Marketplace, of in-world transfer, should go to a single, dedicated system folder clearly named, and then to sub-folders within it (e.g. “From Marketplace” and “In world”).
    • The above would help prevent a lot of confusion for newer users, as everything then receive goes into *one* system folder and they can find it). I would also allow users to retain better control over their inventories in terms of where items received finish up. However, it risks breaking functionality such as #RLV (which is in the process of being adopted by LL for their viewer).
    • The discussion also included a request that users be given an override to llGiveAgentInventory(), so that they can set the destination folder on being offered the item(s).

 

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 week #47: SL CCUG & TPV meeting summaries

Posted on by Inara Pey
Silent Melody, September 2024 – blog post †
The following notes were taken from:

  • My chat log & the live stream video (embedded below) of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting of Thursday, November 21st, 2024.
  • My chat log and Pantera’s video (embedded towards the end of this article) of the Third Party Viewer Developer’s Meeting (TPVD) of Friday, November 22nd, 2024.
Table of Contents

Please note that:

  • This is not a full transcript, but a summary of key topics.
  • “[Video]” time stamps refers to the CCUG meeting livestream recording;  “[Pantera]” refers to the TPVD meeting video provided by Pantera.

Meeting Purpose

  • The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work. This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
  • The TPV Developer meeting provides an opportunity for discussion about the development of, and features for, the Second Life viewer, and for Linden Lab viewer developers and third-party viewer (TPV) / open-source code contributors to discuss general viewer development. This meeting is held once a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • Dates and times of both meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.

Official Viewer Status

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11750364439, November 12.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain;  additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
    • UI Optimisations.

Mobile Notes – CCUG Meeting

[Video: 45:24-47:42]

  • Adding PBR support to SL Mobile is on the roadmap, with ah hoped-for target of some time in Q1 2025 (Jan-March).
  • SL Mobile voice support is experimental, and utilises WebRTC.

CCUG Meeting

Graphics Team Work – General Recap

[Video 0:28-5:31 and 25:04-32:33]

  • Core focus remains on performance work and will remain so until “everyone is happily on PBR-enabled viewers.”
  • Hope is still to have ExtraFPS promoted to release status by the end of 2024.
    • This viewer should see some “significant [performance] improvement” on certain types of hardware – e.g. the Intel HD4000 series (launched May 2012), which is “remarkably popular” among SL users.
    • This work is focused on developing a “classic” mode (also known as a “potato mode” which will see various rendering options disabled (e.g. HDR, Tone Mapping, Reflection Probes, the Emissive channel) to render SL more in keeping with its pre-PBR appearance when running with ALM enabled (aka Deferred Rendering).
    • To achieve this and ensure decent frame rates, comparative benchmarking is being carried out:
      • If an older GPU runs a non-PBR viewer at a higher FPS with ALM enabled than with it disabled – then the aim is to try to match or better that FPS when the same hardware is running a PBR viewer. Or;
      • If an older GPU runs a non-PBR viewer at a higher FPS with ALM disabled (thus using the old Forward Renderer)  – – then the aim is to try to match or better that FPS when the same hardware is running a PBR viewer, but with ALM-like graphics fidelity.
    • A major element of this work is to get older harder performance back up without creating a rendering schism through the re-introduction of something like Froward Rendering.
  • This work is being carried out alongside “various end of year this and kick-off the next year things.”
[We’re] doing our level best to ensure everybody who can use Second Life on Firestorm 6.6.17 can upgrade to some version of 7.x [PBR] without suffering negative consequences. That’s what we’re doing; we’re chasing all the crashes that we can and all the performance issues that we can. 

– Runitai Linden.

  • [Video 33:28-35:10] A reiteration that a lot of the issues impacted older / lower spec systems are not PBR-related per se (they just happen to have been surfaced within PBR-enabled viewers). Rather, they are the result of things like running out of VRAM due to the updates made to the texture streaming system.
    • Where issues have been due to PBR (e.g. exceptionally heavy PBR in-world builds) there are additional optimisations that are being done.
    • A point to remember here is that PBR is a part of the glTF 2.0+ specification which LL are adopting – and glTF is designed to support a very wide range of hardware, including mobile ‘phone upwards, and so is not itself particularly resource-intensive.
  • Until now, issues with the quality of water reflections on PBR viewers has not been seen as a priority to fix, as it is not performance related and has thus been “taking a back seat” in the queue of fixes. However, if it is seen as a significant issue that prevents users from moving to a PBR viewer, this might be reviewed.

Texture Blurring and downscaling

[Video: 6:54-14:25]

  • In response to comments about texture blurring, Runitai Linden noted that the viewer will start down-scaling textures as it detects a system is running low on available VRAM.
  • This can result in some scene textures close to the camera remaining blurred until focused / zoomed-in upon.
  • Runitai believes there is more work that could be done as to how the fall-off curve for this works to reduce the need to zoom “right in” on textures doing this in order for them to render properly.
  • He further noted that the old behaviour of just using mouseover on a texture to get it to load is no longer applicable, as that actually caused most of the textures in a scene to load at full resolution, causing a performance hit.
  • In addition, there are still some bugs which can result in the viewer getting the wrong answer as to how much VRAM is available on a system (and start downscaling textures when it may not need to). To check if this might be the case:
    • Open the viewer’s texture console (Develop(er) → Consoles →  Texture Console / CTRL-SHIFT-3).
    • Check Est. Free (top line of the Console display) and compare the number with something like GPU-Z or Task Manager (via GPU option).
    • If the two are very different, then there is likely a bug. Please file a bug report with hardware details (Help → About → Copy to Clipboard and paste info into report).
    • Note that on integrated graphics system, the amount of VRAM usually gets reported as the amount of system RAM, and this is referenced by the Sys Free number in the viewer’s Texture Console. Sys Free also reports based on the fact that the viewer tries to minimise its total memory footprint to under 16 Gb.
  • There is no set “minimum” or “maximum for VRAM with SL; LL are committed to enabling SL to run on GPUs with as little as 2 Gb of VRAM, and it is felt that systems with a minimum of 4 Gb and a Draw Distance of 128 metres should be able to manage most scenes – but this is a very broad rule of thumb; the viewer will continue to use VRAM until it runs out, if necessary – there is no upper limit, although some TPVs do allow caps to be set.
  • When downscaling occurs, it should be a) because VRAM has been used; b) commence with textures in the background / off-camera before moving to those in-view.
  • Note that textures will also be off-loaded from VRAM when SL is minimised  / put in the background, to allow other applications access to VRAM. This can also cause blurring as textures are reloaded when SL is brought back to the foreground and resumes using all available VRAM as best it can.

In Brief

  • [Video: 18:32-21:02] WebRTC: LL are still awaiting more users to move to viewers with WebRTC support prior to disabling Vivox.
  • [Video: 23:31-24:40] Older EEP (e.g. Windlight, they’re that old – such as CalWL) settings can look blown-out on PBR views.
    • LL have been attempted to auto-adjust them, but this has proven subjective in terms of results.
    • Therefore, going forward, work will be limited to trying to make them look like they used to, which is acknowledged as not being great for PBR content, but is the “least bad” in terms of keeping EEP settings people like looking the way people like to see them.
    • Hopefully, this work will be finished in time to be included in ExtraFPS; however, if it misses ExtraFPS, it may be issued as a viewer hotfix.
  • [Video: 39:15-40:10] A note of two long-term risks, graphically speaking, that have to be addressed within SL at some point:
    • COLLADA support: support for COLLADA is waning world-side, and so SL needs an interchange file format that is not dependent on COLLADA. Again, glTF is seen as the best solution here.
    • Similarly, OpenGL support is waning, so SL requires a rendering engine that does not rely on OpenGL [and this has been an on-going discussion for the last couple of years or so].
  • [Video: 40:12-45:10] Land Impact: it has long been acknowledged that the Land Impact calculation needs to be revised; there is both a lack of real incentive within it for creators to optimise their builds, and  it misses some key adjustments for things like large builds. The question here is more when it will be revised – although doing so may not eliminate all the ways in which some people game the system to produce lower LI items, as this is something of a separate issue.
  • A general discussion on glTF and mesh imports (incl. scenes) via glTF. In short, no-one working on things at present, given the focus on the performance issues. The local preview remains available in those viewers with the code – by Runitai reminded people that the preview does not use texture streaming; everything gets pulled in at full resolution – and so VRAM can easily be gobbled up.

TPVD Meeting

Much of the TPVD covered ground already walked during the CCUG meeting. Therefore, the following is thus a summary of additional points discussed. Time stamps reference Pantera’s video, below.

Note the meeting formally ended at around 29 minutes, although the video runs through until just shy of 41 minutes, covering a more generic conversation.

  • A recap of the “classic”  / “potato” mode work (get PBR viewers running on lower-spec machines running at the same or better FPS than the hardware can run a non-PBR viewer).
  • Debunking the PBR myths:
    • It is not necessary to run the viewer on Ultra quality in order to view PBR content.
    • LL are not removing support for Blinn-Phong (or “classic” or “legacy”, however you want to call them) materials. PBR is an extension to materials support in SL, not a replacement.
  • A general conversation on Blinn-Phong and PBR Materials, notably in terms of providing the former as “fallbacks” to the latter to accommodate people on non-PBR viewers and prevent them seeing grey / white / plywood surfaces  / features.
  • [Pantera: 9:42-10:42] Some people may experience issues with PBR not just because of computer hardware limitations, but also because of network / router issues (e.g. instead of a single diffuse map, PBR calls multiple maps, resulting in multiple HTTP requests which can cause some routers to choke).
    • To counter this, the “classic / potato” mode LL is developing already doesn’t use the emissive map; if this is shown to work and push up performance, then LL will likely go through as see what other maps might be ignored without compromising the overall visual look of “classic” mode, and hopefully further lift performance in these cases.
  • [Pantera: 15:11-16:45] A reiteration that LL are continuing to work on trying to resolve performance issues, and that anyone experiencing such issues should file a feedback report with as much detail as possible (including hardware information (Viewer Help and use the Copy to Clipboard button and paste info into the report).
    • Specifics are important, as there is only so much info LL can pull from their stats. This is particularly true when terms such as “performance craters” are used, as these are so broad-ranging as to be meaningless.
  • [Pantera: 16:50-20:00] SL viewer’s use of CPU cores and threads: thread usage is variable depending on the number of CPU cores.
    • Those with a specific interest in this, the Steam Hardware Survey is “pretty close” to SL, although SL’s install base tracks “a little closer” to the lower end of hardware, so reduce what is reported in the Steam Hardware Survey 10-20%, and that’s fairly representative of SL.
    • Overall with SL, the main processing loop is single-threaded; texture rezzing and some audio processing occurs on background threads.
    • Runitai Linden has been experimenting with adding threads – such as a dedicated idle thread – and these are showing a “lot of promise”, particularly when Vsync is used.
    • As most GL processes are multi-threaded, hints are sent to things like Nvidia drivers to put themselves into multi-threaded mode.
  • [Pantera: 20:38-25:35] Frame limiters / Vsync: some TPVs use frame limiters to assist with performance, and LL would be interested in receiving a code contribution for one of these.
    • However, it is felt that if trying to limit frame rate to screen refresh, then Vsync remains the better option; whilst a frame limiter is more suited to use in other situations. But, and  depending on the frame rate, Vsync can cause more screen jitter than a frame limiter.
    • In this discussion it was noted that a fix from Apple at the OS level means Vsync with work at 100/120 Hz.
    • It was noted that Firestorm are now defaulting to 60fps with their frame limiter.

Next Meetings

 

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #47 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Mindful Cove, September 2024 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 19th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from the chat log and Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • On Tuesday, November 19th, 2024, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were restarted without no updates.
  • On Wednesday, November 20th the Barbecue simulator update will be deployed to all remaining simulator RC channels. This update includes:
    • Support for “alpha-gamma” which will allow an object owner to adjust some of the PBR alpha values that were impacting legacy things like hair.
    • llSetAgentRot.
    • A new warning on receiving direct IMs from Scripted Agents (“registered” bots). Rider describes this as “Bot confessions”: with IM sessions with bots there will be a warning sent to the receiver that they are having a conversation with a bot. Also, for viewer developers, there will be a bit of metadata attached to the IM_NOTHING_SPECIAL that indicates the sender is a bot.
    • The remaining RC channel will be restarted.

Apple Cobbler Update

  • This will follow the Barbecue deployment in the coming week, and should include:
    • llTransferOwnership which enables a prim give itself to a new user (subject to owner permissions already set).
    • An extended llGiveInventory to allow for a destination folder (system folders + RLV/a) to be specified as well (+ the use of a parameter list, so further options can be added in the future).
    • llMapBeacon – like llMapDestination, but a) does not necessarily open the map window; b) can optionally open the map, with or without focus. This will also require a viewer update.
    • A new function for detecting attachments. If it is running with an experience it will be able to detect HUDs that also have scripts with the same experience (e.g. to ensure the correct HUDs are being used – this will not allow anyone to script to find out all the HUDs someone is using).
  • A preview of Apple Cobbler is available on the Aditi (Beta Grid) regions of Mauve and Jigglypuff for those wishing to test, with the testing carried out thus far having uncovered a range of cases relating to llTransferOwnership.

SL Viewer Updates

No updates with the current official viewers:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • The above included thought on No Copy permissions, and a potential issue with DFS rezzers.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11750364439, November 12.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain;  additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
    • UI Optimisations.

In Brief

Please refer to the video below for the following:

  • A discussion about this issue with llrezobjectwithparams() (or possible feature, depending on one’s viewpoint) changes properties of no mod objects. The resulted in a wide discussion on permissions and llROWP.
  • The above became wrapped into a discussion on No  Copy permissions. and llROWP extensions, rezzing system ranges.
  • A conversation on object and agent inventory, touching on some of the differences between the two, and where data is relating to objects is stored, with Rider commenting he has ideas for expanding inventory data to obtain things like the length of an animation.
  • A reiteration of Rider Linden’s Combat 2.1: Teams & Respawn proposal.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #46 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Clef des Champs, September 2024 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 12th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript, and were taken from the chat log and Pantera’s video of the meeting, which is embedded at the end – my thanks to her for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Simulator Deployments

  • On Tuesday, November 12th, 2024, the simulators on the Main SLS channel were restarted without no updates.
  • On Wednesday, November 13th::
    • The Barbecue simulator update will hopefully be deployed to all simulators on the BlueSteel RC channel; however, a late-breaking bug in the code may prevent this. Among other things, this update includes:
      • Support for “alpha-gamma” which will allow an object owner to adjust some of the PBR alpha values that were impacting legacy things like hair.
      • llSetAgentRot.
      • A new warning on receiving direct IMs from Scripted Agents (“registered” bots). Rider describes this as “Bot confessions”: with IM sessions with bots there will be a warning sent to the receiver that they are having a conversation with a bot. Also, for viewer developers, there will be a bit of metadata attached to the IM_NOTHING_SPECIAL that indicates the sender is a bot.
    • The remaining RC channel will be restarted.

Apple Cobbler Update

  • This will follow the Barbecue deployment in the coming week, and should include:
    • llTransferOwnership which enables a prim give itself to a new user (subject to owner permissions already set).
    • An extended llGiveInventory to allow for a destination folder (system folders + RLV/a) to be specified as well (+ the use of a parameter list, so further options can be added in the future).
    • llMapBeacon – like llMapDestination, but a) does not necessarily open the map window; b) can optionally open the map, with or without focus. This will also require a viewer update.
    • A new function for detecting attachments. If it is running with an experience it will be able to detect HUDs that also have scripts with the same experience (e.g. to ensure the correct HUDs are being used – this will not allow anyone to script to find out all the HUDs someone is using).
  • A preview of Apple Cobbler is available on the Aditi (Beta Grid) regions of Mauve and Jigglypuff for those wishing to test.

SL Viewer Updates

The ExtraFPS RC updates to version 7.1.11.11750364439 on Tuesday, November 12th.

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
  • Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.11565212741, October 30.
    • Performance improvements: enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain;  additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
    • Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
    • UI Optimisations.

In Brief

Please refer to the video below for the following:

  • Further discussion on llGiveAgentInventory, including but not limited to:
    • A reminder that the  function will not require a viewer-side update.
    • Requests that it should include the option for the receiving user to select the destination folder.
    • Whether or not all items given using llGiveAgentInventory should be forced to default to creating folders only with a defined system folder within inventory (e.g. “Given Items”).
    • Discussion and disagreements over which folders should be available for nomination by a script / which should not.
    • A general discussion on system folder naming (e.g. the misnomer of “Received Items”, suggesting everything goes there, when it is in fact for items received from the MP) which in turn wandered into areas of tagging and hierarchies.
  • Comments on attachment issues (failing to show on others after TP, etc.), Monty Linden reminded people that the recent fix targeted a specific issue (relating to attachments ghosting and similar on region crossings), not “all” attachment related  bugs. He also notes that there is some asset re-prioritization work going on in the viewer which is improving avatar render after arrival.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.