Category: SL User Group Meetings

SL projects update week 25 (1): server, SSB/A, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 25

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.

Second Life Server (Main) Channel

On Tuesday June 18th, the SLS main channel received the interest list improvement project which have been previously deployed to Magnum (week 22) and BlueSteel and LeTigre (week 24). This includes:

  • A fix for excessive AvatarAppearance packets being sent to the viewer [in which the simulator would send many unnecessary AvatarAppearance messages to the viewer]
  • A final fix for the “meeroo problem” whereby animations on Meeroos and other animals fail to update correctly when camming around.

Release Candidate (RC) Channels

On Wednesday 19th June, all three RC channels (Magnum, BlueSteel and LeTigre) should receive the server maintenance package briefly deployed to BlueSteel and LeTigre in week 24. to fix a number of crash modes, addresses an issue with neighbouring region visibility, and adds new LSL pathfinding capabilities and object return capabilities:

  • The new pathfinding property CHARACTER_STAY_WITHIN_PARCEL, which can be used with llCreateCharacter() and llUpdateCharacter(), and is intended to help with keeping characters within parcel boundaries – see my week 19 report for details
  • The new object return functions I reported on in week 23, namely llReturnObjectsByOwner and llReturnObjectsByID, are intended to provide an automated means of returning objects to their owners – see my full update on these functions for details.

This package also includes the following:

  • An update to llReturnObjectsByID() to prevent it from returning other objects which are owned by the parcel owner or estate owner/manager
  • A fix for an issue in which LSL HTTP-in scripts would sometimes see the incorrect URL (BUG-2833)
  • A fix for Bug 2850 (Cannot rez objects in Bluesteel and LeTigre parcels which disallow object entry) – which caused this deployment to be replaced by the Magnum RC package in week 24.

SSB/A Pile-on Test Update

Nyx Linden (stock)
Nyx Linden (stock)

On Friday June 14th, a Server-side Baking / Appearance pile-on test was conducted on the main grid (see my report on events). The Lab is still going over the results of the test and all JIRA filed and log files submitted. Giving a preliminary summary of the test at the Content Creation User Group meeting on Monday June 17th, Nyx Linden said:

We actually just recently got through looking at the bug reports that were filed. Things are looking good, if you know anyone who saw anything major during the pile-on test please encourage them to file a bug ASAP if they have not already done so.

The system seemed to work quite well for most people, and we’re looking closely at the people who were having trouble resolving to try to figure out exactly what happened. The baking service was doing fine, there were some other services that weren’t used to that many people changing their outfits that close together (hence some attachments had difficulty resolving, etc). If anyone knows of failure cases for SSA (aside from those reported if you log in with very old viewers), please let us know asap.

The test did not include a minor update intended for the viewer-end of things, or the code change to help avoid SUN-74. However, as mentioned in my last SSB/A update, the former isn’t required prior to SSB/A starting its deployment across the grid, while the safest way to avoid encountering problems with non-maintained viewers  / viewer without the necessary SSB/A updates is to upgrade your viewer. Now.

Viewer News

Materials Processing

The final beta release (3.6.0.277409) performed well over the weekend, with a crash rate “comfortably under” 9%. The code has been merged with the release viewer and is in its final QA testing ready for deployment. Providing nothing unexpected happens, it should appear on the viewer download page as the release viewer very soon.

Viewer Release Process

Work is continuing on the new viewer release process, which may go live later in week 25 or early in week 26. In the meantime, and as reported in week 24, a viewer source repositories page has been produced on the wiki. There is also a further wiki page explaining the release process, although it is still under development. You can find it listed as the Viewer Integration and Release Processes.

The new viewer integration and release process – click to enlarge (image courtesy of Linden Lab)

Note that the new process does not mean there will be multiple versions of the release viewer available for download (although there will potentially be multiple project / beta / release candidate versions available for download).

Should two projects reach a point of being ready to go to a release status at the same time (such as with “project 1” and “project 2” in the diagram above), a decision will be made by the Lab as to which should go first. That viewer then changes status to release, with the code pulled back to the viewer-release repository. The second viewer awaiting release will then merge with the changes and put out a further release candidate, and will then move to a release status from there.

For ease of reference, the viewer download page and the Alternate Viewers wiki page remain the default places for most users to obtain versions of the SL viewer.

Other Bits

Object Contents Loading

We’re all familiar with using prims as storage for other items (e.g. “boxed” items sold through the Marketplace or using a prim to store items in inventory we don’t frequently use). when a prim has a large number of items in it, there can be a noticeable delay in seeing the contents listed in the Contents tab of the Build floater. In addition, adding objects can be prone to a slow response as well – and can cause problems such as the loss of No Copy items when dropping more objecting into the Contents tab while the system is already copying / adding items to a prim’s contents. I

n terms of the slow loading issue, some have reported times of 30-40 seconds when trying to list the contents of a prim with 100 or so items, and a question was asked at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday June 18th on whether there was any particular reason for this.

Replying to the question, Andrew Linden started with a cautionary note, “Sure, people can create that many items in contents, but I wouldn’t rank it as a good idea.” He then went on, “I don’t know the exact nature of the bottleneck there, but 30 seconds sounds too long. I’m pretty sure it could be sped up, but I’d have to dig around to see why it is slow.”

Kelly Linden then added: “Object inventory transfer from server to viewer uses one of the oldest legacy methods in Second Life. Updating that is probably a good idea but would require a joint viewer and server version change, or some acrobatics on managing compatibility.”

While agreeing this might be the case, Andrew went on, “The UDP protocol should be able to transmit 300 items in much less than 30 seconds. I’ll try to look around to see what is limiting that. However, I should note… I won’t be attending next week. I’ll be on vacation.”

So, there may be further updates on this in the future.

Related Links

SL projects update 24 (5): viewer news: SSB/A, upcoming releases

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server-side Baking / Appearance

SUN-74 – Asset Corruptions With Non-SSB/A-enabled Viewers

I’ve recently reported on the issue of BUG-74 in relation to server-side baking / appearance. This affects some non-maintained viewers which do not have SSB/A support and which might result in some worn modify assets (skin, hairbase and eyes) being corrupted  – see here for details. The issue was finally repro’d successfully by the Lab in week 23. Since then, investigations have been ongoing.

Commenting on the situation during the TPV Developer meeting on Friday 14th June, Nyx Linden said, “we have a technical solution for SUN-74. I have tested it against 1.23[.5], and the old behaviour is no longer reproducing. So hopefully that will mean that once we get it in a place where we can test against Phoenix there should be no more asset corruption.”

Nyx Linden (stock)
Nyx Linden (stock)

It’s not clear when this will happen, but it seems likely the updates will be deployed to the “closed beta” regions where TPV testing of the SSB/A code has been ongoing for the last couple of weeks, and tests will be taken there to ensure non-SSB/A viewers will not be negatively impacted when moving between SSB/A-enabled and non-SSB/A regions during the initial deployment of Server-side Baking / Appearance.

However, this does not mean that people on older, non-maintained viewers no longer need to update to an SSA/B-compatible viewer.

Regardless of the fix for SUN-74. people on non-maintained viewers will start to see increasing numbers of grey avatars around them as SSB/A is rolled out, and will find that others see them as a permanent cloud. So the only way to be sure of being ready for the deployment of SSB/A is – update or upgrade your viewer if you have not already done so.

Additional Viewer Patch

A side effect of the work carried out on this issue is that the Lab will also be producing a small viewer-side patch which is not any kind of “bug fix” for SUN-74, but which will help viewers get their own appearance messages “just a little bit faster” than is currently the case.

While TPVs are encouraged to incorporate the patch once it becomes available, it is not seen as a mandatory requirement ahead of SSB/A being enabled on the main grid. As such, TPVs have been encouraged to integrate the patch once it becomes available and as it best fits their own release schedules.

Grid-wide Deployment

When asked about how the Lab plans to deploy SSB/A server-side at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday June 14th, Nyx replied:

Carefully. Definitely carefully. We are doing a lot of testing, and as most of you know, we’re doing an Agni pile-on [see later in this report] … and we have been doing a lot of load testing and we’re pretty confident we have enough hardware on the back-end to handle the load.

[So] We’re going to start with a small group [of regions] and go to an RC channel, and then more, and then take over the entire grid.

Whether “go to an RC channel” means enabling SSB/A across an entire RC channel (Magnum, BlueSteel or LeTigre) or enabling across a portion of regions on the selected RC channel is currently unclear. That decision doesn’t rest with Nyx, but will be dependent upon on number of factors including how well the initial steps in the deployment go.

In light of things like the pile-on test (see the next section) and readying the SUN-74 patch, the Lab remains unwilling to commit to specifying a date by which SSB/A deployment might be expected to start. This is understandable as there is still no guarantee that further issues such as SUN-74 won’t be uncovered as a result of either the pile-on test or as a result of further closed beta testing, which the Lab continues to monitor.

Main Grid Pile-on Test

On Friday 14th February pile-on test was conducted across a number of regions which had been specifically set-up to stress test Server-side Baking with some “real world” avatar numbers. Some fifty or so people turned up for the tests using various viewers with Appearance debugging enabled, including a version of the official viewer which had been pre-set with debugging enabled. The test was in three parts:

  • Baseline testing on regions using the current avatar baking mechanism
  • Testing on regions in the Snack RC channel running a version of the SSB/A code
  • Testing in the “closed beta” region specifically set-up for TPV testing running the SSB/A code

The precise differences between the code on the Snack regions and the code on the TPV test region (the Testylvania Sandbox). Questions were asked in open chat, but the nearest answer which seemed to be given was that the Testylvania region was the one the Lab “cared about the most”.

Testing on the current baking mechanism saw familiar issues of slow clothing / skin rendering and the need to use manual rebakes to try to encourage non-blurred appearances. Things appeared to be a lot better on the SSB/A-enabled regions (I personally experienced no issues in changing skins / clothing layers and found rendering of both fast and error-free, for example). However, some did report issues with rendering, and filed JIRAs / provided log files as a result.

There were multiple reports of attachment rezzing failures as of the asset service coming under pressure as a result of so many outfit / look changes going on simultaneously and in rapid succession. Whether these will see further work undertkaen on the inventory system (some work has already been carried out in a wider context by the Sunshine team), remains to be seen.

Expect more on the tests once LL have had time to chew on the data gathered and review the logs of those who did encounter issues.

Continue reading “SL projects update 24 (5): viewer news: SSB/A, upcoming releases” →

SL projects update week 24 (4): server release update

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deploys for Week 24

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.

Second Life Server (Main) Channel

On Tuesday June 11th, the SLS channel received getting the server maintenance project that was on BlueSteel and LeTigre in week 23, and which is intended to fix a simulator crash mode, and a disconnection issue whereby multiple avatars would be disconnected from a simulator simultaneously, giving the impression the region had crashed when it had in fact not done so, and which also impacted LSL HTTP-in URLs.

Based on data since the deployment, it appears the disconnection issue has been addressed, although there was a report that problems of LSL HTTP-in URLs being dropped, Commenting on this issues at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday 13th June, Maestro Linden said, “I managed to confirm that it was a separate problem [to the avatar disconnection problem] Kelly has looked into it, and we think we’ll have a fix for that soon.”

Kelly Linden added, “I’ve been working on some http-in bugs for the last couple of days. I have some fixes but I can’t guarantee they will be 100% effective. There is more Rube Goldberg in that system than I’d like.”

Magnum Release Candidate Channel

On Wednesday June 12th Magnum received an update to the current interest list changes running on that channel, which addresses two bugs introduced by the project. The bug fixes were for the problem of the text of large scripts failing to display in the script editor for people on lower bandwidth connections,  and a fix for the simulator spamming the viewer with AvatarAppearance messages when avatars were in view and were moving around, also resulting in bandwidth issues.

There have also been reports of an “invisible avatar” problem occurring on Magnum regions since the week 22 deployments. which take the form of avatars in the local vicinity de-rezzing following an in-region teleport, and will only re-appear following a relog. The issue was reported as still be present in week 23, and again following this week’s deployment. So far, the Lab has been unable to reproduce in-house, so investigations are proving difficult. As BlueSteel and LeTigre are now also on the same release (see below) the Lab will be watching to see if there are additional reports of this issue.

BlueSteel and LeTigre Release Candidate Channels

Maestro Linden likes to work-out during meetings
Maestro Linden likes to work-out during meetings

On Wednesday June 12th BlueSteel and LeTigre initially received a new server maintenance project to fix a number of crash modes, addresses an issue with neighbouring region visibility, and which added new adds new LSL pathfinding capabilities and object return capabilities.

However, soon after deployment, an issue was found on BlueSteel / LeTigre regions – Bug 2850 (Cannot rez objects in Bluesteel and LeTigre parcels which disallow object entry), which resulted in a rollback which saw BlueSteel and LeTigre updated with the Magnum release package.

“it turned out that if a parcel allowed build but disallowed object entry for your avatar, then your avatar would not be able to rez from agent inventory into the parcel,” Maestro explained at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday June 13th, “And your scripted objects (like the pop-gun) would also be unable to rez. Also, Lucia [Nightfire] reported a tangential issue, which was that rezzing in some group-owned parcels required your avatar to have the parcel’s group active, which is not usually a requirement. These bugs were bad enough that … we rolled BS and LT to the same version as Magnum.”

Fixes are underway for this issue, but it is currently not known if they will be ready for next week’s deployments.

Object Return Capabilities Update

Prior to the rollback on BlueSteel and LeTigre, an issue was noted with the llReturnObjectsByID function, resulting in the function being disabled server-side. “It should be (probably) re-enabled with the next release of that code,” Kelly Linden noted. “However it will have a new limitation – it will no longer be able to return objects owned by the parcel owner.”

“We were concerned about a potential griefing vector if a parcel owner absent-mindedly grants the permission,” Maestro added.

I’ve updated my overview of the new capabilities to reflect this change.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 24 (4): server release update” →

SL projects update 24 (3): New object return LSL capabilities

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update June 12th, 22:40 BST/14:40 SLT: The BlueSteel  / LeTigre deployment which includes these capabilities has been rolled back due to an issue whereby objects cannot be rezzed in BlueSteel / LeTigre parcels which disallow object entry (even if Create Objects is enabled) – BUG-2850. Both regions are now running the week 24 Magnum deployment.

In week 23, Kelly Linden announced new LSL capabilities for the scripted return of objects within a region / parcel.  In making the announcement, he indicated the capabilities would be available “some time in the future”, a comment which appears to have been a little overly cautious, as the new functionality received its first outing on the Main channel in the RC deployments to BlueSteel and Le Tigre on Wednesday June 12th.

The new object return functions are llReturnObjectsByOwner and llReturnObjectsByID, and are designed to be used to enable the automated return of specified linksets to their owners.

The object containing scripts using the functions can either be placed in the land, or worn as an attachment but will only work on land held by the object owner.

The primary aim of these functions is to make for easier clearing of private sandboxes and rental parcels in cases where previous users / tenants may have left objects behind on leaving (thus removing the onus on the land owner to locate and manually return items).  They are not intended as anti-griefing tools, nor are they a “replacement” for the parcel / region auto-return functions.

The Functions

The functions are defined within the BlueSteel and LeTigre release notes as follows:

Additional Notes and Q&A On Capabilities / Limitations

There are also some additional notes which go with the new functions:

  • There are no cases where one of these new LSL calls would return an object that you could not manually return yourself
  • The functions will only work on objects in the same region/parcel as the object containing the script using them. Objects which are returned are coalesced in the recipient’s inventory, rather than being returned as individual objects
  • The functions work if and only if the user would have permission to return the object via the viewer, and it does not handle encroachment
  • To prevent severely damaging accidents the mass returns by owner (llReturnObjectsByOwner) will not work for your own items, items owned by an estate owner or manager or items that are owned by the group the land is ‘set’ to
  • llReturnObjectsByID will not return objects owned by the parcel owner
  • In order to work on group-owned land the object containing the script using the functions must be deeded to the group by the group owner
  • The return capabilities are throttled to a maximum hourly quota based on a parcel’s Land Capacity (under About Land > Object). So, if your Land Capacity is 500, then using these LSL functions you can return up to 500 linksets per hour
    • The throttle is there primarily to prevent a silent war between a rezzer and returner that could impact the back-end servers
    • Even with the throttling, it is anticipated that the functions should be able to return everything on your land within a region in one go, but not necessarily more than once an hour for large-scale returns.

Continue reading “SL projects update 24 (3): New object return LSL capabilities” →

SL projects update week 24 (2): server news

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update June 12th, 22:40 BST/14:40 SLT: The BlueSteel  / LeTigre deployment which includes these capabilities has been rolled back due to an issue whereby objects cannot be rezzed in BlueSteel / LeTigre parcels which disallow object entry (even if Create Objects is enabled) – BUG-2850. Both regions are now running the week 24 Magnum deployment.

Server Deploys for Week 24

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.

Second Life Server (Main) Channel

On Tuesday June 11th, the SLS channel received getting the server maintenance project that was on BlueSteel and LeTigre in week 23. This is intended to fix a simulator crash mode, and address a disconnection issue whereby multiple avatars would be disconnected from a simulator simultaneously, giving the impression the region had crashed when it had in fact not done so, and which also impacted LSL HTTP-in URLs.

Following the deployment, there was a report that the disconnection issue fix had not fully addressed the problem of LSL HTTP-in URLs being dropped, which was also raised at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday June 11th. The matter has been acknowledged by Kelly and Maestro Linden, who are currently awaiting further information on the problem, although Simon Linden also commented, “I realize a bug Kelly and I were talking about earlier today is that issue, so someone is on it.”

Simulator UG meeting (stock)
Simulator UG meeting (stock)

BlueSteel and LeTigre Release Candidate Channels

On Wednesday June 12th BlueSteel and LeTigre should receive a new server maintenance project to fix a number of crash modes, addresses an issue with neighbouring region visibility, and adds new LSL pathfinding capabilities and object return capabilities:

  • The new pathfinding property CHARACTER_STAY_WITHIN_PARCEL, which I described in week 19. can be used with llCreateCharacter() and llUpdateCharacter(), and is intended to help with keeping characters within parcel boundaries
  • The new object return functions I reported on in week 23, namely llReturnObjectsByOwner and llReturnObjectsByID, are intended to provide an automated means of returning objects to their owners. For ease of reference, I’ve provided a more in-depth look at the capabilities in a separate report. Kelly Linden has also includes some guidelines on the functions in the deployment discussion thread.

Magnum Release Candidate Channel

On Wednesday June 12th Magnum should receive an update to the current interest list changes running on that channel, which addresses two bugs introduced by the project. Providing no further issues are found with these changes, it is likely (but subject to confirmation) that they will be promoted across the grid in week 25.

Commenting on the Magnum update at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday June 11th, Andrew Linden said, “The Magnum channel has two bug fixes. The excessive AvatarAppearance packets [in which the simulator would send many unnecessary AvatarAppearance messages to the viewer], and my final fix for Meeroos; specifically, the problem where it looks like the Meeroo’s animation is busted when you turn around to look at it.”

Going on Andrew’s recent comments, this update is liable to mark the final aspect of server-side interest list work for the moment.

The Magnum deployment also includes a fix for the issue relating to viewing the text of large scripts I reported on in week 23, whereby the text of previously saved “large” scripts cannot be displayed in the script editor for users on slow connections (BUG-2694). This update had originally been targeted at the week 23 deployments, but failed to make the cut then due to some last-minute work being required.

Other News

Group Ban List

Baker Linden
Baker Linden

The group ban list functionality Baker Linden has been working towards in his desire to address JIRA SVC-8127 may soon start to get attention. Commenting at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday June 11th, Baker said:

I am getting closer! I haven’t started work on it directly, but I’m wrapping up the last of the bug fixes related to Mute Lists. I’m writing some new unit tests to test my new functionality … There might be some viewer / other backed server work to do too, but hopefully everything will work so that part will be smooth. But after I finish up this last issue, I’ll be working on group ban stuff. I’ve learned a ton about Django and how to implement it, so I’m hopeful that it’ll be somewhat smooth of an implementation.

Django is a web framework the Lab uses for a number of in-world user-related services, and is the chosen mechanism by which to add the ban list functionality (its use doesn’t mean the group ban function will be web-enabled or anything like that). It is also a tool set unfamiliar to Baker, who only started finding his way around it a few weeks ago.

JSON Wiki Update

New LSL capabilities were recently introduced for the creation and parsing of JSON formatted strings which can used for transferring data between in-world objects and external resources / websites.  The LSL-JSON pages on the Second Life wiki have been evolving over the past few weeks, with the most recent updates occurring on June 10th. If you’re interested in these new capabilities, make sure you take a look at the wiki.

SL projects update 24 (1): Viewer news – materials, SSB/A, deformer, snapshots

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update: In further tests of the FIRE-9097 “fix” at lower resolutions (e.g. 2650 pixels across), I found it can re-introduce the tiling artefacts in snapshots.

General Viewer News

Materials Processing

The release of an update to the materials beta viewer on Wednesday June 5th (3.6.0.276961) was followed at the weekend by the arrival of a further beta version – 3.6.0.277049 – with accompanying release notes. Commenting on the rapid-fire releases, Oz linden said at the Content Creation User Group meeting on Monday June 10th, “We’re getting close to the end of its beta cycle (or put another way… report your bugs now).”

Snapshot Issues

We’re all aware of the snapshot tiling issue which plagued SL photographers for a good while, which would leave “tiling” artefacts on images taken at higher resolutions than the user’s monitor resolution when running in deferred mode (now known as Advanced Lighting Model). A fix for this issue (MAINT-628) finally reached the public in late 2012, but brought with it some additional issues. On of the most notable of these was the appearance of black rectangles in very high resolution images.

Very high-resolution "black rectangle" issue common to viewers utilsing the MAIN-628 "tiling" fix (image courtesy of Dil Spitz)
Very high-resolution “black rectangle” issue common to snapshots taken with viewers utilsing the MAIN-628 “tiling” fix (image courtesy of Dil Spitz)

This latter problem most recently caused an additional outcry when the LL “tiling” fix was finally incorporated in Firestorm viewer earlier in 2013, with many users incorrectly blaming the Firestorm team for the problem.

Well, for all and sundry, Firestorm users or otherwise, there is some potentially good news on the horizon.

Firestorm image artefact fix: image at 6000 pixels across, saved as JPG (click to enlarge)
Firestorm image artefact fix: image at 6000 pixels across, saved as JPG (click to enlarge)

Commenting on the broader issues reported with snapshots duing the Open-source Dev meeting on Monday June 10th, Oz Linden said:

It looks like there are fixes in the MAINT pipeline for those. I don’t know how soon those will be out… I can try to find out if they have a project build ready.

Additionally, there is further news specifically for Firestosm users. While it is somewhat outside the scope of “SL project news”, it is neverthless reporting here.

Nicky Dasmijn has been working on the problem, and has implemented a fix for the issue (see Firestorm JIRA FIRE-9097), which should correct matters for snaps of up to 4096×4096 pixels without any “rectangle” artefacts appearing or with any regression to issues of tiling, and which may work at high resolutions than that for some.

tile-test-6K_001
Firestorm image artefact fix: image at 6000 pixels across, saved as PNG – note rectangle artefact (click to enlarge)

I tried a very rough-and-ready test of the fix. I found that capturing images up to 5,000-5,600 pixels across with the aspect ratio maintained worked OK for me. Anything around 6,000 pixels across saw JPG images save OK, but rectangle artefacts begin to appear when saving in PNG (see both images on the right)

However, as I’ve recently been experiencing other GPU issues, I’ve been unable to ascertain if the rectangles are down to an issue with the code or simply a matter of my GPU running out of resources when processing PNG images above 5600 pixels across.

The fix is currently in a recent Firestorm pre-release, and will hopefully make the cut for the next formal release. It is currently unclear whether the code has been / will be contributed to LL, and if so, whether they will adopt it or opt to go with their own forthcoming updates (as indicated by Oz in his statement above) or opt to combine it with their own fixes (depending on the nature & scope of the latter).

Future “STORM Project Viewer” Release

There are a number of code contributions which have come via the Snowstorm route which have been queued awaiting a suitable release. These cover a range of additions to the viewer, and example of which is STORM-68 (As a Builder, I want that ability to set default permissions on creation of objects, clothing, scripts, notecards, etc.).

Commenting on STORM contributions in general, and in light of the forthcoming changes to the viewer release process, Oz said, “I’m trying to get all the storm issues merged up so that I can be ready to put out a project viewer as soon as the new viewer version manager is deployed.” Whether STORM-68 (which is apparently seen as “largely good to go”, although it may also require a server-side change), or the fixes for snapshot issues mentioned above will be among them remains to be seen. However, a “STORM” project viewer could well be adding even more features to the SL viewer in the near future.

Continue reading “SL projects update 24 (1): Viewer news – materials, SSB/A, deformer, snapshots” →