News is a little light coming out of the Lab on projects right now, although there was a blog post on things made on Monday, February 9th, which I also blogged about. However, new for the start of the week is still a little on the light side.
Server Deployments
There are no scheduled server deployments for the week.
SL Viewer
It had been anticipated that week #6 would see the Tools update project viewer (version 3.7.25.298587) and the Avatar Hover Height project viewer (version 3.7.25.298129) both superseded by a release candidate. However, neither update occurred.
It is possible these updates will occur during week #7; however, for the time being, all of the LL viewers remain as they were at the end of week #6, and as recorded in my Current Viewer Releases page, namely:
Release version: 3.7.24.297623 (January 13th)
Release candidate versions:
Maintenance RC, version 3.7.25.298030 – this has a number of issues associated with it, which may prevent its promotion to the de facto release viewer (January 27th)
Experience Keys / Tools RC, version 3.8.0.298001 (January 14th) – this has been awaiting final server-side updates to the Experience capabilities
Mesh importer, version 3.7.25.298441 (February 3rd) – a number of bug reports have already been filed for this viewer – see the JIRA filter list for details.
Avatar Hover Height, version 3.7.25.298129 (January 21st)
Viewer-managed Marketplace, version 3.7.21.296858 (November 19th, 2014)
Oculus Rift project viewer, version 3.7.18.295296 (October 13th, 2014).
Grid Status Page Relocated
As some have noticed, on Monday, February 9th, the Lab relocated the SL grid status page to a blog address, with a redirect from the “old” URL of status.secondlifegrid.net/.
However, the result has caused some confusion, notably as a result of breakage across sites and links referring to the “old” URL. Even some of the updates on the secondlife.com dashboard users see having been generating 404 errors as a result of the move.
Commenting on the change during the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, February 10th, Simon Linden – who was out of the office when the change was made – said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen with the status page … but we know the shift caused issues … we heard a lot about it breaking things that relied on it. I’m not sure what the solution will be.”
On Tuesday, February 3rd, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package deployed to the three RC channels in week #5, which includes:
a fix for BUG-8247 “[Experience Tools] Issue with llRequestExperiencePermissions() triggering experience_permissions_denied() and XP_ERROR_NOT_PERMITTED_LAND after prior 5 minute no response period.”
Internal improvements for experience tools key-value functions.
There were no deployments to the RC channels for the week.
Following the Main channel deployment on Tuesday, a number of regions reported issues with objects failing to load and render, textures remaining grey, mesh outfits failing to rez / render teleport issues, etc., all of which appeared to be consistent with region capabilities failing on re-start, and thus requiring the affected regions to be manually restarted. As reported by Whirly Fizzle in the forum thread linked-to above, this has been an intermittent problem which has been occurring for over a year.
SL Viewer – Mesh Importer Update
On Wednesday, February 4th saw the release of the Importer project viewer, version 3.7.25.298441. This viewer brings various improvements to the mesh uploader / importer, which are given in the release notes as:
In this viewer we’ve modified the importer to (optionally) improve debug output, perform name-based LOD association, and handle models with many materials.
Using these new features, models with more than 8 unique faces can be imported. Gone are the days of importing complicated meshes in pieces with “some assembly required”. At import, these models are automatically split into pieces so that each satisfy the current face limits for a volume.
The same limitations on LODs and materials remain in place (e.g. your low LOD mesh materials must be a subset of the full LOD materials).
LODs and Physics reps can now be explicitly associated with a given mesh in the full LOD model using name-based matching.
By properly naming the meshes in your lower LOD meshes and physics reps, you can avoid issues with ordering of the meshes within your DCC tool and other material mismatching errors.
An ImporterDebug option has been added to the settings.xml file which, if enabled, causes more information to be output during import than you can shake a stick at. The extra output can be very helpful for diagnosing authoring errors (e.g. violating the material subset constraints mentioned above) and pinpoint what needs to be fixed in the source model for successful import.
Note that project news is a little light this week due to on-going SL planning meetings taking place at the Lab.
The following notes are taken from the Server Beta User Group (SBUG) meeting held on Thursday, January 28th, 2015, and the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, January 30th. A video of the latter is included at the end of the article (my thanks as always to North for recording it and providing it for embedding), and any time stamps contained within the following text refer to both it and the TPV Developer meeting.
Server Deployments Week 5 – Recap
On Tuesday, January 27th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to Magnum and LeTigre
On Wednesday, January 27th, the RC channels should all receive a new server maintenance package comprising an Experience Keys / Tools related fix, and internal Experience Keys / Tools improvements.
It was stated during the TPV Developer meeting that this update saw the support for the Avatar hover Height (AHH) capability extend to all three RC channels, although no mention of it was made in the release notes.
SL Viewer
Tool Chain Project viewer
The Lab issued a new Tools Update project viewer, version 3.7.25.298587, on Wednesday January 28th. This viewer has been built using the new viewer tool chain for Windows and Mac builds (which includes the upgrade to Visual Studio 2013 for Windows and, Xcode (5 or 6) for Mac, and the use of the autobuild 1.0 process).
Wiki notes for using the new build tools are in the process of being written / enhanced for self-compilers – please note these are a work in progress. Notes on the new autobuild process can also be found on the wiki.
[06:42] It is anticipated that this viewer will progress through to release candidate status, quite probably in week #6 (week commencing Monday, February 2nd).
Maintenance RC Viewer Issues
Users receiving the Maintentance RC, version 3.7.25.298030, released on Tuesday, January 27th, have reported a series of irritating bugs with the viewer:
BUG-8324 (and duplicate BUG-8333) reports the appearance of the term “nolink>” in numerous places within the viewer – such as toasts and notifications – this issue has been imported by the Lab and a fix is apparently in development
BUG-8331 – some links containing the text secondlife or lindenlab incorrectly open a Place Profile in the Places panel when clicked
BUG-8328 – very jagged pictures created by the snapshot floater
BUG-1028 – the fix for MAINT-2056 “Lots of CURL GET FAILED spam in logs when browsing World Map – Beta viewer only” appears not to have fixed the problem, but rather replaced it with an equally spammy message.
Issues with this viewer can be tracked on the JIRA using this filter.
Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM)
[00:12] Brooke Linden was at the TPV Developer meeting to provide an update on the state of play with the Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM) work, which has been undergoing some beta testing with the project viewer on Aditi.
As a result of this testing, the Lab has been re-visiting the project viewer and incorporating feedback and observations for improvements into it, and are “really close” to having an updated version of the viewer available. When the appears depends on whether the Lab opt to release the updated viewer for limited beta testing on Aditi, or to wait until they’re ready to go with beta testing on the main grid, which is also not too far over the horizon.
The current plan is for more widespread beta testing to commence some time after February 14th (so as not to clash with any Valentines Day sales and promotions merchants may be running between now and Feb 14th), then run the beta for around a month, possibly longer, depending on feedback / issues. After this, VMM support will be deployed as a production tool, and things will move to a migration period which will also last around a month.
All this is still TBC, but a schedule will be posted (presumably via the Commerce / Merchant’s forum) once the Lab has worked through dates and requirements.
Experience Keys / Tools
[03:50] The Experience Keys / Tools project is currently awaiting some final server-side updates to be fully deployed (see the server release notes above). It is not anticipated that the Experience Tools viewer which is currently in the viewer release channel (version 3.8.0.298001) will require any further significant updates, so its promotion to the de facto release viewer is pending the server-side updates.
In the meantime, the Lab has already commenced work on a set of enhancement to the Experience Keys / Tools which will further extend capabilities once they are ready to be deployed.
Avatar Hover Height Project
As noted above, server-side support for the Avatar Hover Height project (see my overview for details) is now on all three RC channels, and the plan is to deploy the server code to the Main channel in week #6 (week commencing Monday, February 2nd). Because of this, the current project viewer (currently version 3.7.25.298129) is liable to be superseded by a release candidate viewer following the server-side deployments for that week.
Now in a project viewer (and soon to be a release candidate: Avatar Hover Height provides a means of adjusting your avatar’s graphical height above the ground / floor / objects, as seen by yourself and others
[18:00] A couple of small issues have been noted with AHH, and which only occur is very specific instances. One is that if an adjustment leaves your avatar floating more than around 1/2 a metre above the ground, an attempt to sit down can result in your avatar going up. In the other, standing on a prim and lowering your hover height into the prim can result in your avatar’s legs buckling as you slide into the prim. On terrain, where there can be limited physical penetration, this can be expected behaviour; but when occurring on a prim, it is suspected that the system may not be accurately assessing your avatar’s position.
[19:38] There have been one or two points of concern raised about the similarity in the name of this function – Avatar Hover Height – causing people to confuse it with the existing avatar hover slider (which will not be retired or removed from the viewer once AHH is fully deployed, as the two capabilities provide different use case solutions). The concerns are being fed back internally at the Lab, and if a name change is thought to be required, it may be slipped into the upcoming RC rebuild for the viewer, or the Lab may opt to wait and see if any confusion does arise.
On Tuesday, January 27th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to Magnum and LeTigre, and which introduced the following changes:
A fix for BUG-8223 “Pictures Fail to Upload and send when Using Email Option from RC Regions”
a fix for BUG-8002 [Experience Tools] Allowed & Blocked experiences are lost with parcel subdivision.
Crash mode fixes
Code clean-up around avatar region crossings.
On Wednesday, January 27th, the RC channels should all receive a new server maintenance package comprising:
A fix for BUG-8247 “[Experience Tools] Issue with llRequestExperiencePermissions() triggering experience_permissions_denied() and XP_ERROR_NOT_PERMITTED_LAND after prior 5 minute no response period.”
Internal improvements for experience tools key-value functions.#
BlueSteel will also retain the Avatar Hover Height (AHH) server code with this release
SL Viewer
A new Maintenance RC viewer arrived in the viewer release channel on Tuesday, January 27th. Version 3.7.25.298030 brings with it over 30 fixes and updates to the viewer, ranging from language improvements through build issue fixes to feature requests. Using-facing updates include:
Uniquely identifying URLs for Second Life or Linden Lab domains
Interest list fixes for:
Preventing some prims / items in linksets from being deselected as a result of camera movement
Preventing Intan solo dance animations from ceasing to animate as a result of camera movement
A fix for voice / speak button failing to enable after activating voice on a parcel if it was disabled on entering said parcel
A fix for pixel width and height of the preview is not matched to value of Width or Height text-box in the “Snapshot to inventory” tab
A fix for prim size reverting to default size when scaled down and shift copied
A fix for an avatar’s sitting position becomes corrupted if ALT-SHIFT-S keyboard short cut is used while editing appearance
Feature request: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-T shows up as notice toasts.
One of the changes in the new maintenance viewer allows SL / Lab URLs to be automatically indicated within the viewer – note the icon compared to an URL for an external link
While it is all over Twitter, it’s probably worth pointing out that as well as hiring for their new platform, the Lab is also still hiring people specifically to work on Second Life.
There was no Main (SLS) channel deployment during the week
On Thursday, January 22nd, the RC channels were updated as follows:
LeTigre and Magnum received the same server maintenance package which included a fix for BUG-8223, introduced to all three RC channels in the week #3 deployment
BlueSteel received a server maintenance package which contained the same fix for BUG-8223 and also support for the new Avatar Hover Height capability
SL Viewer – Avatar Hover Height
The Avatar Hover Height project viewer was released on Wednesday, January 21st, however, an issue with the SL wiki means that it currently cannot be reached via the Alternate Viewers wiki page, which is currently showing an out-of-date listing. Those wishing to download the viewer can do so from here.
For details on Avatar Hover Height in general, please refer to my overview.
Other Items
SL Wiki
The ability for users to edit SL wiki pages was re-enabled on Thursday, January 22nd, after an extended period in which they were only editable by Lab personnel. However, whether the two are connected or not, but subsequent to the wiki being opened for editing, a number of pages appeared to revert to earlier versions or became inaccessible (e.g. the Alternate Viewers wiki page reverted to a version from late December 2014, while the pages for the RC channel release notes were replaced by blank pages).
The Lab is obviously aware of the issue, and looking into it.
CDN News
The Lab has been / is testing an additional CDN provider (to Highwinds, whom they currently use). It’s not clear where the testing is going, and when asked about it at the Server Beta User Group (SBUG) meeting on Thursday January 22nd, Simon linden could only say, “it was going to allow a lot more flexibility so we could have different regions on different CDNs … or something similar. It might have been different areas of the world on different CDNs.”
Doubtless, if / when the project moves forward, we’ll get to hear more.
And on a Lighter Note
On Monday, January 19th, people started reporting that an old group logo – Whore Couture – was appearing in place of assorted group’s usual logo, as shown in the image below, taken from BUG-8255, “Whore Couture Logo Appearing on Several Groups”, where the problem was formally reported.
BUG-8255 reported the random appearance of an old SL brand logo – Whore couture – appearing in place of various group’s usual logo
The cause of the problem was later revealed by Soft Linden:
An engineer grabbed a random group’s image as a placeholder and put it in place of an old asset ID that was used as the default image for many groups. It was meant as a temporary measure while he was doing some other texture work. Unfortunately, he didn’t look at the image he selected and I expect he would have chosen plywood instead if he had.
The image has been removed, but it may take some time before that propagates through the CDN and viewer caches.
Don’t worry, we’re not going to let him live this down. In the mean time, we’re building some better process around this.
Coming soon: Avatar Hover Height provides a means of adjusting your avatar’s graphical height above the ground / floor / objects, as seen by yourself and others -see below for details
Server Deployments – Week 4
Due to Monday, January 19th being Martin Luther King day in the USA and holiday for many, the scheduled deployments for the week have been put back by one day.
There will be no Main (SLS) channel deployment for the week, as the server maintenance package deployed to the RC channels in week 3 has resulted in the snapshots-to-email functionality in the snapshot floater failing (see BUG-8223).
On Thursday, January 22nd, and as a result of this issue, the LeTigre and Magnum RC channels will receive a further server maintenance package which includes a fix for BUG-8223.
BlueSteel will also receive the same update, but with additional support for the new avatar height adjustment capability, as noted below.
Avatar Hover Height
Prior to the arrival of server-side appearance (SSA), many TPVs included a capability commonly referred to as “z-axis height adjustment”. Simply put, this allowed the height of an avatar to be adjusted up or down, relative to the ground or to an object they were sitting on, which allowed for a wide range of adjustments to be made (such as when sitting or kneeling on the ground, to prevent the appearance of hovering over it or to more finely tune the avatar’s pose on the ground, or to re-adjust an avatar’s height relative to the ground when using things like dancing posballs, etc, and so on).
This capability was lost when SSA was deployed, and as a result SUN-38 was raised, requesting a means by which greater freedom for avatar height adjustment could be given to users. While the Lab did respond to this request through the introduction of the “Hover” slider in the Edit Appearance floater, it only met a very narrow subset of use cases for adjusting an avatar’s height, and even then would only work with Modify shapes.
In June 2014, a formal proposal was put to the Lab more fully explaining why a height offset capability is required, and offering suggestions on how it might be achieved. As a result of this, Vir Linden has been working to provide such a capability, which is now officially called Avatar Hover Height (AHH), preliminary details of which, together with notes on testing it, can be found on the wiki.
This is now available for testing on Aditi using the new AHH project viewer. In addition, and as noted above, the server-side support will undergo initial deployment to the BlueSteel RC of the main grid on Thursday, January 22nd.
Within the viewer, AHH adds a new option called – wait for it – Avatar Hover Height to the right-click Avatar context menu in the viewer. Clicking on this displays the Set Avatar Height slider / spinner which can be used to adjust an avatar’s height by up to +/- 2 metres from the nominal default height.
Note that this is purely a graphical change – there is no associated change the avatar’s height in terms of platform physics. The slider allows for quite rapid adjustments to be made, while the spinner supports finer manual adjustments of up to 3 decimal places.
The slider allows your avatar’s graphical height to be adjusted by +/- 2 metres from its nominal default
Once adjustments have been finalised, they are sent to the simulator, and then back to all viewers connected to the simulator, allowing your adjusted height to be consistently seen by everyone around you (or that will be the case once the capability is fully deployed; during the roll-out, there will be a couple of caveats, as discussed further down in this article).
The slider works regardless of whether you’re using a No Modify shape, and allows adjusts to seated poses as well as standing poses, and works with poseballs (thus allowing couples dances to be correctly adjusted to prevent one or other partner either floating over the dance floor or being buried up to their ankles in it).
Avatar Hover Height will allow you to fine-tune your apparent seated position relative to an object or to the ground when dancing with a partner, allow you to kneel / lie / sit on the ground correctly, and so on – thus meeting the majority of use cases the Hover slider in Edit Appearance fails to address.
As noted above, the capability can be tested on Aditi right now. You’ll need the project viewer (when available), or you can download the latest version of the viewer from the link given above. You’ll also need to be be on regions which have the necessary server-side support for Avatar Hover Height. These are any region on the DRTSIM-274 channel, and nominally Hover1 and Hover2. Please read the notes on testing (again linked-to above).
Note on Initial Deployment
As AHH requires both viewer and server-side support, a couple of things do need to be noted while it is being tested / deployed:
Until such time as server-side support for AHH is fully deployed, any adjustment you make to you avatar’s height using it will only be effective while you are on regions with the necessary server-side support. If you move to a region without the support, your avatar with revert to its nominal default height above the ground / objects, and the AHH options will be greyed-out in your viewer. However, any setting you have made using AHH will be automatically re-applied when you re-enter a region with server-side AHH support
Until such time as the viewer-side code is incorporated into all viewers, any adjustments you make to your avatar’s height using AHH will only be visible to you and other people using viewers with the AHH code. anyone on a region supporting AHH who is using a viewer without the necessary AHH code will continue to see your avatar at its nominal default height.
Do keep in mind that until the AHH code is fully deployed across the grid, it will only work on regions with the server-side support. Similarly, adjustments made using it will only be visible to others using viewers with AHH support; those using viewers that do not support AHH will continue to see your avatar at its nominal default height, as shown in the image on the right, taken with Firestorm which shows my CTA standing on the ground, rather than hovering over it, as seen in the AHH viewer.
From the rapid testing I’m managed to do with AHH, it appears to work for the majority of cases where some fine tuning of avatar height is required, and offers a suitable level of granularity in adjustment through the spinner (although a suspect most people will perhaps finder the slider adequate for their needs. It will therefore be interesting to see how detailed testing progresses.
Assuming no major issues are found, it would seem likely this update will be one targeted for fairly rapid deployment, at least on the server-side, although the viewer code may take longer to filter through and to be picked-up by TPVs, depending upon what else is in the pipeline.
“The Lost Town” – Square Pegs in Round Holes (Flickr) – blog post
In the mean time, we’re building some better process around this.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 