On Tuesday, March 22nd, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the improved server maintenance project previously deployed to the three RC channels. This comprises server script fixes (not LSL changes) and internal improvements.
There are no planned deployments for the RC channels for week #1. However, there will be a new RC deployment in week #13 (week commencing Monday, March 28th). the Slow-down in updates remains due to ongoing infrastructure and OS updates occurring across the servers.
SL Viewer
Current Release Viewer
As noted in my last update, the most recent Maintenance RC was promoted to the de facto release viewer on Thursday, March 17th. What I didn’t mention then, and should have done, is that this viewer, version 4.0.2.312269, includes the Lab’s fix for issues of Calling Card duplication.
This means that anyone using as version of the official from this version forward should no longer have issues with calling cards being duplicated, although an initial deletion of cards may be required to clear away any current duplicates with the Calling Cards inventory folder (and any sub-folders within it).
There have been no further updates to the official viewers so far this week, leaving the list of RC cohorts and project viewers as:
Current RC cohorts:
HTTP updates and Vivox RC viewer, version 4.0.3.312684, dated March 18th
Quick Graphics RC viewer, version 4.0.2.312297, dated March 11th, providing the new Avatar Complexity options and graphics preset capabilities
Current project viewers:
Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions) viewer, version 5.0.0.311861, dated March 2nd
Oculus Rift project viewer, version 3.7.18.295296, dated October 13, 2015
Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8, 2015.
Aditi Inventory Syncing
The new process for syncing inventories between Agni (the main grid) and Aditi (the Beta grid) is now live.
This means that, going forward, a user’s Aditi inventory will no longer be overwritten when they change their password and log-in to Aditi, nor will a password change be required to trigger an Aditi inventory sync.
Instead, anyone logging-in to Aditi will automatically have their inventory copied from Agni to Aditi a part of a new process (run at about 06:00 SLT each day). This will happen each time a persona logs in to Aditi, unless their inventory is already flagged for copying, and instead of overwriting a person’s existing Aditi inventory, the incoming Agni inventory will be merged with their existing Aditi inventory, with checks to avoid unnecessary duplication of items each time this occurs and to ensure thing like Trash contents and COF aren’t copied as well.
There does appear to be a possible issue with the syncing, however, with some reports that textures and snapshots unique to Aditi inventories may be getting deleted as a part of a merge between the two. Further investigation is being carried out to see if this is actually the case.
There was no planned Main (SLS) channel deployment / restart for the week. On Wednesday, March 16th, the three RC channels were updated with an improved server maintenance project comprising script fixes and internal improvements. The lack of recent deployments remains down to ongoing infrastructure updates occurring across the Lab’s simulator servers.
SL Viewer
On Thursday, March 17th, the Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.0.2.312269, was updated to the de facto release viewer. This viewer does have an issue with invisiprims, which the viewer renders as solid objects with invalid textures, rather than leaving them transparent, as intended, whether or not ALM is enabled (ALM having previously “broken” invisiprims) – see BUG-11562.
On Friday, March 18th, the HTTP / Vivox viewer was updated to version 4.0.3.312684, which I assume is a rebuild based on the new release viewer, potentially marking this viewer as the next-in-line for promotion (subject to updates with the Quick Graphics RC).
Aditi Inventory Syncing
The new process for syncing users’ Aditi inventory with their Agni inventory has not gone live as anticipated. however, all things being equal, it will be deployed in week #12. This means that, going forward, a user’s Aditi inventory will no longer be overwritten when they change their password and log-in to Aditi, nor will a password change be required to trigger an Aditi inventory sync.
Instead, anyone logging-in to Aditi will automatically have their inventory copied from Agni to Aditi a part of a new process (run at about 06:00 SLT each day). This will happen each time a persona logs in to Aditi, unless their inventory is already flagged for copying, and instead of overwriting a person’s existing Aditi inventory, the incoming Agni inventory will be merged with their existing Aditi inventory, with checks to avoid unnecessary duplication of items each time this occurs and to ensure thing like Trash contents and COF aren’t copied as well.
Other Items
Created Agents for SL?
Lucia Nightfire filed an interesting feature request, proposing the use of created agents in SL. A created agent is essentially the same as regular avatar or bot, but without an internet connection to the server. Created agents have an object-style inventory, and can attach things in a similar manner to regular avatars. Such an approach could allow the development of pets, breedables, ridables, NPC’s, monsters, game enemies, all without the associated cost and complexity of using other means of achieving the same result. See BUG-11368 for more.
What’s now interesting is that the request has been accepted by the Lab. This doesn’t mean it definitely will happen, but it means they are at least interested in considering the potential of the idea.
There is no planned Main (SLS) channel deployment / restart planned for the week. On Wednesday, March 16th, the three RC channels should be updated with an improved server maintenance project comprising script fixes and internal improvements.
The lack of recent deployments remains down to ongoing infrastructure updates occurring across the Lab’s simulator servers.
SL Viewer
It is anticipated that an RC viewer – mostly likely either the current Maintenance RC or the HTTP / Vivox RC will be promoted to the de facto viewer this week. However, at the time of writing, the list of official viewers still stood at:
Current Release version: 4.0.1.310054, dated January 15th – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer
Release channel cohorts:
Quick Graphics RC viewer, version 4.0.2.312297, dated March 11th
Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.0.2.312269, dated March 10th
HTTP updates and Vivox RC viewer, version 4.0.2.312094, dated March 9th
The following notes and audio were taken from the weekly Bento User Group meeting, held on Thursday, March 3rd at 13:00 SLT on Aditi. For details on each meeting and the location, please refer to the Bento User Group wiki page.
Note that this update is not intended to offer a full transcript of the meeting, nor does it present the discussion points in chronological order. rather, it represents the core points of discussion to Project Bento, grouped together by subject matter were relevant / possible, together with any additional discussion on potential future projects the Lab might be willing to examine for possible adoption in the future.
Skeleton and Viewer Status
Bento viewer work is now focused on finalising the new skeleton, working on bug fixes and investigating hooking the new skeleton into the appearance sliders where is can be done.
It’s anticipated that there will not be any further significant changes to the bones within the skeleton, although there has been some discussion on adding a couple of extra bones into the “hind” limbs. Content creators are therefore being encouraged to develop new test models utilising the skeleton, as available in the current project viewer (version 5.0.0.311861 at the time of writing).
A couple of issues have come to light with the additional bones. In the first, the alternate eye bones weren’t quite lined up with the original eyes, and this is being fixed. There also appears to be some issues arising from the inclusion of additional spine bones, which is discussed below.
Appearance Sliders
The Lab has been investigating the potential of modifying the appearance sliders (controlled through the avatar.LAD file). This means taking some of the sliders that are based on morphs which deform the default avatar, and allowing them to also be utilised by the Bento skeleton when an avatar mesh employing the skeleton is worn. This work looks “promising”, although the number of sliders means that it is unlikely all of them will be dual-purposed in this way. However, as a part of this work, the Lab will be addressing the slider bugs which have been reported against the latest Bento skeleton as well.
Vir discusses the current status with the Bento skeleton and project viewer
Attachment Points
Some additional attachment points were added specifically for use with the new skeleton, and consideration is being given to adding some more (such as to the new “hind” limbs – which can be used for a variety of purposes other than “just” hind legs, as noted in my last update). Currently, no clear preference for extra attachment points has been expressed by content creators working on Bento. One group of suggested attach points put forward in the meeting was for rear left leg and rear right leg (upper and lower). rear hip, rear groin, rear left foot, rear right foot, and rear back (for rideable centaurs/saddles).
Responding to this Vir indicated some of these may already be possible, and that others such as those for the hind legs / back are hard to determine as the joints are repositionable,. The suggestion for catering to some of these bones might be to reposition existing attachment point to suit, or the possible inclusion of a new hip root attachment point for the “hind” bones root.
The question was also raised on whether attachment points are lag producing in the same way joints can be. Vir indicated that lag isn’t really an issue with attachment points on their own (although animating them can obviously add an overhead). However, there are other issues with regards to UI / menu management which can make additional attachment points a problem.
For example, there is only a single menu structure available for selecting an attachment point for an item directly from inventory. So the more attachment points added, the more unwieldy the menu gets. The same issue isn’t so apparent when attachment an object from in-world, where the code allows for sub-menus to be added.
The inventory attachment point menu (left) is currently monolithic in nature, making it unwieldy when adding further attachment points, such as for Bento. Things are easier on the in-world attachment menu allows for easier addition of attachment points through sub-menus (right) – click for full size, if required
Another limiting aspect with attachment points is that there is a hard limit on the total number of joints which can be used (thought to be 255). so if an attachment point was added to every bone, this would likely be exceeded, so things like an attachment point for every finger would probably be out of the question.
Issue Updates
Work is continuing on issues of avatar deformation, but as yet there have been no major breakthroughs.
However, problems appea rto have arisen as a result of the new spine bones. In particular, quadruped avatars appear to “dip” their forelegs and shoulders forward when shifting between certain animations. The precise cause is unclear (this may not even be a new issue, just one that is exacerbated by the new bones), but it could be the result of an interpolation issues, an i-k (inverse kinematics issue) or even some issue relating to bipedal animations (a human avatar tends to lean into something like a walk, and this default movement might be affecting thing). However, the larger the quadruped avatar, the more pronounced the up-and-down motion of the forelegs seems to be.
The “scrunching” issue, possibly the result of a missing transform, but apparently related to the inclusion of the new spine bones
This problem is further compounded by a problem whereby if the avatar mesh is animated while ignoring the spine bones, then the avatar can end up being distorted following something like a relog; the spine bones must be keyframed in order for the avatar mesh to remain correctly formed.
One possible explanation for this latter issue is that there might be a missing transform in the hierarchy data, such that the weights associated with a joint are skipped, together with any child joints, causing the model to collapse.
As it is, the model in question, animations, etc., are being passed to the Lab so that they can investigate and test things.
Other issues have also been seen with the additional spine bones, which might be down to order of use or correct alignment, as the method by which they have been implemented, in order to preserve backwards compatibility with the avatar skeleton, is complicated.
The following notes are primarily taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, March 11th, 2016. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report, my thanks as always to North for supplying it, and time stamps in the text relate to this recording.
RC Viewers
[00:00] All three RC viewers currently in the release channel have been updated as follows:
The HTTP / Vivox RC updated on Wednesday, March 9th to version 4.0.2.312094
The Maintenance RC viewer updated on Thursday, March 10th to version 4.0.2.312269
The quick Graphics RC viewer updated on Friday, March 11th to version 4.0.2.312297
All three of these viewers are now showing lower crash rates than the current release viewer, so one is mostly to be promoted at the new de facto release viewer early in week #11 (week commencing Monday, March 14th). [00:50] However, this is unlikely to be the Quick Graphics RC viewer, as there is at least one remaining bug which is in line for fixing prior to the viewer being promoted.
Project Viewers
[01:40] Work is progressing on updating the Oculus Rift project viewer, but problems have been encountered with the latest Oculus SDKs which are proving to be non-trivial to correct. The Lab hasn’t given up, but it does mean any update to this viewer is liable to be a little later rather than sooner.
[02:30] Working is also continuing with the final definition of the Bento skeleton, as well as investigations into hooking the skeleton into some of the shape sliders. This work is liable to see a further release of the viewer with the further skeleton updates before it hopefully moves fully into a bug fixes phase (which could be extensive).
64-bit Viewer Update
[13:21] The lab is making good progress on the Windows and Mac 64-bit versions of their viewer. This has been thanks in part to the work completed in updating the viewer build tool chain during 2014/5. As a result, it is possible that 64-bit project viewers might be appearing in the next few weeks, allowing for an update to the Havok libraries.
TLS Update
[02:58] Beehu Linden requested all TPVs ensure they are able to support TLS 1.2. The Lab is now actively engaged in removing support for all earlier version of TLS (which includes all versions of SSL).
As previously noted, this work is being carried out in respect of compliance requirements. It means that once complete, anyone who is using a viewer that does not have the requisite TLS 1.2 code updates (already in the 4.0+ versions of the official viewer and all viewers utilising the code base from the Lab’s 4.0 viewers) will notbe able to do any interactions with cashier or anything that involves money and Second Life.
The next release of Firestorm, tentatively scheduled for around the mid-week of week #11 will have TLS 1.2 support.
Other News
New Registration API
[06:10] As I’ve recently reported, and Ebbe Linden indicated in his VWBPE address, there has been a delay in the roll-out of the new trial community Gateway programme due to issues with the new user registration API (one of them being a user signing-up through it cannot pick their avatar, they are given either the default male or female Character Test avatar).
These issues are being addressed, and an updated registration API is due to be released later in March or early in April. However, this version will not have the new feature set indicated by Ebbe in the VWBPE address, but will work “better” than the current API.
The new features as indicated by Ebbe are still expected to be released, but will come after this initial update, and currently do not have a firm ETA, although it is not anticipated there will be an extended delay between the initial update and an update with the new feature set.
Grid Status RSS Feed
[07:13] The Lab is updating the Grid Status page RSS feed. This involves a new feed format, and a test URL has been available (http://beta.status.secondlifegrid.net/feed) has been available for those who may poll the RSS feed for updates (e.g. to display grid status updates on viewer log-in splash screens or on a web page, etc) to be able to test they can receive and display the new feed. This work as part of a switch the Lab is making to a new hosting provider for a number of their web services (e.g. the knowledge base).
There is no confirmed ETA as to when the cut-over will occur; the Lab is waiting on feedback from the hosting provider, but the hope is the switch will be made around mid-April, possibly earlier. When it does happen, there will be no need to change any URLs, because the Lab will point their DNS to the new location.
FMOD Studio
[19:30] The Lab has traditionally utilised FMOD (up until its demise) and more latterly FMOD Ex within the sound system for the viewer. However, as a part of the 64-bi viewer build, they may dip into using the full FMOD studio.
There are no planned deployments / restarts for week #10.
SL Viewer
The HTTP / Vivox RC viewer updated to version 4.0.2.311980 on Friday March 4th. This release sees the CURL updated to 7.47.0, together with 10 further fixes and updates over the previous release, included HTTP fixes and fixes with issues within the viewer such as avatar bake fails, viewer crashes, notifications problems, and music stream failures.
The current Maintenance RC viewer updated on Wednesday, March 2nd to version 4.0.2.311770.
As noted in my last Project Bento update, the Bento project viewer updated to version 5.0.0.311861, also on Wednesday, March 2nd, and includes a new version of the Bento skeleton with additional bone sets and other revisions.
Aditi Inventory Syncing
Coyot Linden as he once looked (I need to update my images of him!)
As reported by Coyot Linden at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, March 8th, the new process for syncing users’ Aditi (Beta grid) inventories with their Agni (main grid) inventories is in the final stages of QA testing, and should be deployed either later this week or early in week #11.
I’ve covered on this subject a number of times since it was first noted as being in the works in December 2015, but in short.
Once in place, the new process will not require users to change their SL passwords in order to trigger their Agni inventory being copied over to Aditi. Instead, anyone logging-in to Aditi will automatically have their inventory copied from Agni to Aditi a part of a new process (run at about 06:00 SLT each day)
This will happen each time a persona logs in to Aditi, unless their inventory is already flagged for copying.
Instead of overwriting a person’s existing Aditi inventory, the incoming Agni inventory will be merged with their existing Aditi inventory – so items unique to a user’s Aditi inventory will no longer be lost as a result of their Agni inventory overwriting the Aditi inventory
In addition:
The process will not duplicate items previously copied to Aditi from Agni; however, if an item is renamed or moved to another inventory folder on Agni, it will be copied to Aditi
If an item is deleted from inventory on Aditi, but exists in inventory on Agni, it will be copied to Aditi the next time the process runs for that user
Inventory and folder links will also be copied from Agni to Aditi
Trash and the Current Outfits folder will be excluded from the copy process (the latter to prevent avatars on Aditi ending up wearing multiple outfits).
Other Items
PaleoQuest Banning Issues
PaleoQuest, the Lab’s dino-related quest game which features Experience Keys and which opened in July 2015, has always had some fairly strict rules on what is and isn’t allowed. However, these rules appear to have been recently updated, with the result that a number of users have found themselves banned (or in receipt of a ban warning) where no infringements have taken place (see here, here, and here for examples).
One major cause of recent bans seems to be that the game is confusing HUDs worn by a user when trying to enter the game (or even in the middle of playing the game), with an attempt to wear a “fraudulent” game HUD, resulting in the wearer gaining an immediate ban, together with the following notice:
YOU ARE WEARING AN OBJECT THAT IS TRYING, WITHOUT SUCCESS, TO PASS ITSELF OFF AS A GENUINE PALEOQUEST HUD. THIS BEHAVIOUR IS ASSOCIATED WITH FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN REWARDS IN THE GAME AND IS NOT TOLERATED. YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM PALEOQUEST.
The problem with the bans has been further exacerbated by some who have raised support tickets having their bans reversed with a note that the system will be adjusted, while others appear to have had their tickets summarily closed.
As a result of this, and other issues encountered with the ban system during what is effectively “normal” game play, a bug report as been raised (BUG-11533). Should you find yourself banned from the game or in receipt of ban warnings whilst engaged in “legal” game play, you might want to add the specifics of your situation to the JIRA, and don’t forget to append information about your viewer / system from Help > About (+ viewer logs, if you have them).
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 