Category: SL User Group Meetings

2024 SL SUG meetings week #9 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Oblivion, January 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 27th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. No video this week, I’m afraid.

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):
  • They 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

  • No SLS Main channel deployment on Tuesday, February 27th, but the simhosts were restarted.
  • Wednesday, February 28th will see the Gingerbread RC update (containing llComputeHash(), llGetCameraAspect(), llGetCameraFOV(), llGetNotecardLineSync() and llWorldPosToHUD() ) re-deployed  to the Bluesteel RC, together with Ferrari and Preflight. It includes a fix for the issue of scripts being prevented from restarting when crossing into regions running on the update.

Upcoming Simulator Release

  • The simulator update to follow Gingerbread remains  Hearts & Flowers, which will likely be deployed in the next couple of weeks. This mostly comprises internal (non-user visible) updates, together with two notably user-visible additions:
    • llSetLinkSitFlags/llGetLinkSitFlags – allow you to adjust the sit flags for a prim. It supports the existing two SIT_FLAG_ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPT_ONLY.
    • At some future point, SIT_FLAG_HIDE_AVATAR should also be added, so you don’t need to play an animation that squishes the avatar so they aren’t visible in something like a very small vehicle.
    • A feature for estate managers that will allow them to schedule automatic region restarts.
    • A new constant in llSPP PRIM_SIT_FLAGS it will contain all the sit flag information, (including ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPTED_ONLY (the two older constants will still be available).
    • A new capability to load item inventory lists via HTTP (so items with large contents will load faster when accessed, although this will require a viewer update as well).
  • The next update after that will likely be called Spring Break. This might include notecard searches.

Viewer Updates

No changes at the start of the week:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version 7.1.3.7983616888, February 22, 2024.
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7821226606, February 20, 2024.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7878383867, February 15, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.3.7721015131 , February 14, 2024.
    • Maintenance Y RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history), version 7.1.3.7790341084, February 9, 2024.
  • Project viewers:

Game Controller Update

  • Leviathan Linden is still working on trying to get the viewer’s Flycam capability (SpaceNavigator) with the new GameControl logic rather than old system.

Region Crossings

  • Monty Linden is working on the region crossings code (both physical region crossings and all that goes into them when vehicles, etc., are included, and teleports).
  • There has also been independent and on-going investigations by users into crossings. Some of the more recent has been around the issue of the EstablishAgentCommunication (EAC) event between the simulator and viewer (see this forum post for specifics).
  • As it turns out, the server engineering team have been working on an entire simulator to address EAC, which is seen as both problematic and potentially hiding other bugs in the code – and potentially causing issues for the SL Mobile app.

In Brief

  • The Sever Team has a new member – Pepper Linden.
  • There is an upcoming fix to go into a simulator maintenance release for the detach bug stopping all animations started by other attachments or sit objects – see github issue BUG-225288.
  • A further confirmation that the client-side scripting environment will be Luau, a Lua VM implementation developed by Roblox.
    • Note that this project does not encompass delivering client side scripts from inside SL simulator; it is purely viewer-side. Any such capability is seen as being so far down the line as to not be on the roadmap, although the use-cases for such interaction were noted.
  • Rider Linden is looking at llCloseDialog, allowing a script close a dialog that it had previously opened.
  • A general discussion on Experiences – extending the scope of possible controls (not on the immediate roadmap) and making the Join Experience dialogue lees frightening / off-putting to users.

† 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 #8 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grauland, January 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 20th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and 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):
  • They 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

  • No SLS Main channel deployment on Tuesday, February 13th, but the simhosts were restarted.
  • Wednesday, February 21st will see the Gingerbread RC update (containing llComputeHash(), llGetCameraAspect(), llGetCameraFOV(), llGetNotecardLineSync() and llWorldPosToHUD() ) rolled-back from the Bluesteel RC channel simhosts.
    • This is due to a bug found over the weekend which prevents scripts restarting when crossing into a region on the Bluesteel channel. It also means the 32 sensors return count (responsible for the issue) will be pulled from Gingerbread, and will be moved to the upcoming Hearts & Flowers simulator update, once Gingerbread has been rolled to the rest of the grid.

Upcoming Simulator Release

The simulator update that will be following Gingerbread will be Hearts & Flowers (probably named for the time of year!). This mostly comprises internal (non-user visible) updates, together with two notably user-visible additions:

  • llSetLinkSitFlags/llGetLinkSitFlags – allow you to adjust the sit flags for a prim. It supports the existing two SIT_FLAG_ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPT_ONLY.
    • At some future point, SIT_FLAG_HIDE_AVATAR should also be added, so you don’t need to play an animation that squishes the avatar so they aren’t visible in something like a very small vehicle.
  • A feature for estate managers that will allow them to schedule automatic region restarts.
  • A new constant in llSPP PRIM_SIT_FLAGS it will contain all the sit flag information, (including ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPTED_ONLY (the two older constants will still be available).
  • A new capability to load item inventory lists via HTTP (so items with large contents will load faster when accessed, although this will require a viewer update as well).
  • The 32 sensor count capability, mentioned above.

Rider Linden summarised what he plans to achieve in future simulator updates by saying:

I’ll give a Reader’s Digest version. I’ve split up a lot of the work that’s proposed into bite sized pieces and gotten it onto my schedule. (Right after I fix the sensor issue) I’m probably going to start with a couple of pieces of very low hanging fruit. llGetHealth() and fixing the issue where health is not transferred on a region crossing. 

Viewer Updates

glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer (bug fixes, etc.) updated to version 7.1.3.7821226606, on February 20, 2024.

The rest of the official viewers in the pipeline remain as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7878383867, February 15, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC (usability improvements), version 7.1.3.7721015131 , February 14, 2024.
    • Maintenance Y RC ( My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history), version 7.1.3.7790341084, February 9, 2024.
    • Maintenance-W RC (bug and crash fixes), version 7.1.3.7701974306, January 31, 2024.
  • Project viewers:

Jira End-of-Road

  • All bug reporting/feature request submissions are now transferred to Canny / Github, with the URL for the Second Life Jira now automatically redirects to the Canny Second Life Bug Reports page.
  • Public bug reports (and feature requests) filed via Jira are mostly archived on Github.
    • Due to the different permissions environments within Jira and Github, there are some edge cases which have yet to be archived.
  • Note that any ticket that previously had restricted access e.g. (Linden Only / Originator + Lindens) is not part of this archive.

Game Controller Update

  • Leviathan Linden is working to get an updated viewer this week. Hopefully it will include:
    • Support flycam with new GameControl measurements.
    • Get custom mappings to save to / load from settings.xml.
  • Both of these will bring the code “pretty close” to where he want sit to be for submission to the viewer dev team.
  •  If a new installer is available for download, Leviathan announce it in SL Discord #scripting and also in SL Sports #vehicles.

In Brief

  • A general discussion on the new notecard capabilities within the Gingerbread update, and the results of testing them on Bluesteel regions.
  • Region crossings:
    • User-generated documentation on region crossings and their behaviour is being written-up on the SL wiki.
    • Monty Linden has been untangling results from internal testing, trying to understand what’s part of region crossing and what’s just bugs/mis-design in other areas. He describes his work as “looking good” by potentially requiring further pile-on tests.
    • He has also been trying to simulate massive simultaneous region crossing using libremetaverse.

† 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 #7: SL CCUG & TPVD summaries + Lua(u) scripting; Jira Archive

Posted on by Inara Pey
Timeless Seasons, January 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, February 15th, 2024, and the chat log transcript and video of the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, February 16h, 2024. My thanks as always to Pantera for recording the TPVD meeting and providing the video, which is embedded at the end of this article.

  • 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 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  the third or fourth Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre.
  • In regards to both meetings:
    • Dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.
    • Commence at 13:00 SLT on their respective dates.
    • Are conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
    • Are open to all with an interest in either content creation or viewer development.
  • The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of either meeting.

Official Viewers Status

[Video: 1:40-2:38]

  • On Thursday, February 15th, the Emoji viewer updated to version 7.1.3.7878383867.
  • On Wednesday February 14th, the Maintenance X RC (usability improvements) updated to version 7.1.3.7721015131.

The rest of the current crop of official viewers remains as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance Y RC, version 6.6.17.6935642049, February 9 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
    • Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7701974306, January 31, 2024 – bug and crash fixes.
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7467259489, issued January 12, 2024.
  • Project viewers:

General Notes

  • While there has been a push to get the Emoji viewer promoted, it is currently not clear which RC viewer will be the next to go to de facto release status.
  • GlTF Materials bug fixes will likely be split between the current Main-2 glTF viewer and the Graphics Featurettes viewer (see below).

Lua (or Luau) Client-Side Scripting (Both Meetings)

TPVD – Video: 3:05-17:30]

On February 9th, 2024, Linden Lab slipped out a Tools & Technology blog post announcing they are experimenting with Lua (Portuguese for “Moon”  – hence the logo for the language),  a lightweight, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language designed primarily for embedded use in applications, for client-side scripting capabilities.

At the TPVD meeting [4:44-5:12], it was qualified that LL is actually looking at Luau, a Lua VM implementation developed by Roblox. It is hoped that this will enable the code to be sandboxed from the rest of the operating system.

General Points

  • Among other potential uses, this is seen as a possible means of providing:
    • Better support for, and control of, scripted agents (including automated testing capabilities using such agents).
    • Providing a means of supporting custom UI extensions / plug-ins without having to resort to C++.
    • Adding custom displays to present exiting information in the viewer, etc.
    • At the TPVD meeting [9:28-10:06], Rider Linden noted the Luau code will not interact with LSL scripted HUDs, and should not be seen as a means of viewer-side scripting of LSL HUDs at this point.
  • The capability is not being seen as “replacing” anything, the focus is on extending capabilities and providing creators and general users with more tools they might want to use.
  • There is a  Github repository for the viewer – which is still experimental – which can be used on Aditi (the beta grid) by those interested in testing it.
  • The project is described as “very early stages”, and creators / coders should not “read too much into” the current state of the project.
    • What is in it is a basic proof-of concept implementation designed to see how feasible it might be to pursue providing a client-side scripting option. Commands within the code may change as the capability is being developed.
    • How the API(s) will work and how it will look is still a work in progress, and how Lua can be used / where limits might be applied, etc., is still subject to internal discussion at the Lab.
    • It has also not been decided if the Lua/Luau support will extend to the mobile viewer.

Discussion Points

  • Lua/Luau has been selected because it is a small, lightweight language which is not dependent on the user having to install anything else on their computer in order for it to work.
  • It was suggested at the TPVD meeting that the capability should include the ability to disable it, so that TPVs providing support for their users will not have to try to determine if an issue is part of the viewer code or the result of running a Luau script they are not familiar with.
  • There has already been considerable discussion on Lua (and client-side scripting) via the Second Life Feedback Portal, and concerns raised on issues of permissions, authorship and trust within an environment where script code can make the viewer do arbitrary (and hidden from view) things is undesirable.
    • These have been acknowledged as concerns which will need to be addressed as the work progresses.
    • Plus, it was noted that any use of Lua/Luau with user-generated content will be much further down the road than any initial implementation.

JIRA Archive and Move to Canny / Github (CCUG)

  • Thursday, February 15th, 2024 marked the official switch-over from Jira to Canny / Github.
  • The URLs for the Second Life Jira now automatically redirects to the Canny Second Life Bug Reports page.
  • Public bug reports (and feature requests) filed via Jira are mostly archived on Github.
    • Due to the different permissions environments within Jira and Github, there are some edge cases which have yet to be archived.
  • Note that any ticket that previously had restricted access e.g. (Linden Only / Originator + Lindens) is not part of this archive.
  • Please refer to the official blog post for more, if required.

Graphics / glTF (CCUG)

  • 2K textures are being looked at. LL is aware that care needs to be taken in consideration of things like memory footprint and performance (particularly for lower-end systems), so there is going to be further analysis before anything is likely to surface within a public viewer.
  • The “Graphics Featurettes” viewer is  approaching Project Viewer status, and includes:
    • Geenz Linden’s work on Mirrors, including his latest updates to the capability.
    • Cosmic Linden’s work on applying glTF materials to terrain.
    • Updates which will allow the glTF / PBR swatch boxes in the Build / Edit floater display previews of the materials being selected, rather than grey boxes.
    • The first series of additional glTF extensions – Index of Refraction.
    • Initial work on 2K textures support.
  • Mirrors: the focus has been on optimisations and performance improvements to try to raise viewer frame rates. Whilst there have been improvements, the work has yet to reach the desired FPS range. Further:
    • There are a range of bugs which need to be resolved.
    • Additional work is also required on the reflection probe selection code for Mirrors, as at times the wrong probe is selected, giving less-than-desirable results.
    • Further visual improvements need to be added to the code, particularly with mirror blending against other reflection probes in the scene.
    • The UX for mirrors still needed to be finalised via the viewer UI team.
  • glTF terrain texturing: the focus has been on bug fixing and improving usability.
  • The nightly builds version of the Featurette viewer is available on Github, but is not suitable for use as a primary viewer, and the capabilities are not supported on the Main grid. As such, this viewer should only be used by those wishing to test the capabilities.
    • When testing, note that in keeping with the “featurette” approach, the capabilities may be hidden behind debug setting flags.
  • The Rumpus Room 2048 region (and neighbours) on Aditi provides back-end support for the Featurettes viewer.

In Brief

  • The CCUG meeting had a lot of WIBNI‡ discussions around inventory and other ideas, some of which are on LL’s “sometime” list, others of which are not under current consideration. As such, these are ignored for the purposes of this summary, but will obviously be covered should they become active projects.

TPVD Meeting

  • It was requested that Emojis have an option to be completely disabled in a viewer, with it being pointed out that it could be potentially confusing for people with visual impairments, particularly in group chat rife with Emoji over-use. LL has no plans for this; some TPVs (Firestorm) are planning on providing such an option.
  • A request was made to provide some form of enforced notification that groups utilising bots to relay group chat outside of SL (e.g. to a Discord server) must disclose they are doing so.
    • The main reason for this is that disclosure of IMs without consent – and group chat is a form of IM exchange – is a violation of the SL TOS, and those joining a group chat might have no idea the conversation is being relayed elsewhere.
    • There are complications with this (what if someone other than the group owner insinuates a bot relay into the group chat? How is that regulated?). But this does not necessarily negate the idea of some form of requirement for those group owners who directly utilise such relay tools.
    • A Canny feedback submission was requested, so the issue could be put before the relevant eyes at the Lab (management and legal) for further discussion.

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.

‡ WIBNI – “wouldn’t it be nice if…”

2024 SL SUG meetings week #7 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Elvion, January 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and 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):
  • They 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

Upcoming Simulator Release

The simulator update that will be following Gingerbread will be Hearts & Flowers (probably named for the time of year!). This mostly comprises internal (non-user visible) updates, together with two notably user-visible additions:

  • llSetLinkSitFlags/llGetLinkSitFlags – allow you to adjust the sit flags for a prim. It supports the existing two SIT_FLAG_ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPT_ONLY.
    • At some future point, SIT_FLAG_HIDE_AVATAR should also be added, so you don’t need to play an animation that squishes the avatar so they aren’t visible in something like a very small vehicle.
  • A feature for estate managers that will allow them to schedule automatic region restarts.
  • A new constant in llSPP PRIM_SIT_FLAGS it will contain all the sit flag information, (including ALLOW_UNSIT and SCRIPTED_ONLY (the two older constants will still be available).

Viewer Updates

The Maintenance Y RC viewer (My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history) updated to version 6.6.17.6935642049 on February 9th.

The rest of the official viewers in the pipeline remain as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7701974306, January 31, 2024 – bug and crash fixes.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7453691714, January 22, 2024.
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7467259489, issued January 12, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC, version 7.1.1.7088410646, December 7 – usability improvements.
  • Project viewers:

Reminders

Jira End-of-Road

LUA Viewer-Side Scripting

  • On Friday, February 9th, Linden Lab announced an upcoming capability: viewer-side scripting using the Lua scripting language – see Coming soon: client-side scripting with Lua!. Possible areas of use for this capability are test automation, mods/plugins, and potentially supporting things like HUDs.
  • There is a pre-release viewer with the Lua support available on github, but there is little more that the team responsible for Lua is willing to say for the present.

Game Controller Update

  • Leviathan Linden has tweaked the game_control capability so that negated the forward/back directions of the stick axes to align more correctly with local-frame coordinates in SL. Pushing forward is now positive rather than negative.
  • He has also disabled game controller support through the old system (Me Menu –> Preferences Option –> Move & View tab –> Other Devices Button –>) – however, this does not impact 3D SpaceNavigator devices.
  • An updated version of the viewer with the game controller capabilities is now available on Github.

In Brief

  • The meeting quickly turned in part to a further discussion on combat, some of which has already been covered in my summary of the first Combat (Committee) User Group in relation to damage, plus a discussion on cheating using offset, etc. – see that summary for the former and the video below for the latter.
  • The above morphed into a general discussion on making water in SL (Linden and user-defined) as “properly” swimmable (e.g. with natural floating / not zooming into the sky and flying when reaching the water / air boundary, etc.) without the need for scripting  / HUDs, etc.
  • A discussion about raycast results, and making it possible for them to get the texture cords for the area where the ray hit the surface of a face, with the result given in a similar manner to detectedtouchST. A canny feature request was asked for, so that LL can look at the idea.
  • There are reports from some of an uptick in HTTP 499 errors with in-world services communication with external services. Those with specific details of these errors are asked to contact Monty Linden.

† 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.

Second Life Combat User Group: February 8th, 2024 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Credit: Rider Linden

The following notes were taken from the Thursday, February 8th, 2024 Combat User Group meeting (also referred to as the Combat Committee User Group or CCUG, an abbreviation also used by the Content Creation User Group, and which I’ll not be using in these summaries to reduce the risk of confusion between the two). They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript.

Meeting Overview

  • The Combat User Group exists as a forum to discuss improvements to the Linden Lab Combat System or LLCS to better support combat in Second Life.
  • The meetings are the result of a proposal document on improving the native damage system in SL, written by Rider Linden, and which is the focus for both the meeting and any work arising from them.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
    • By Rider Linden, with the support of Kyle Linden.
    • On alternating Thursdays (rotating with the Content Creation User Group) at 13:00 SLT. Meeting dates are recorded in the Second Life Public Calendar.
    • Initially in text, although voice might be included in the future depending on feedback from those attending.
    • At this location.
  • Additional details are available via the SL wiki.

Proposal Responses

  • Rider’s proposal has received broadly favourable feedback, particularly the following:
    • The new region / parcel additions (Damage Limit, Regeneration Speed, consequence of death (e.g. teleport victim home as per current LLCS or to a telehub  / landing point or take no action).
    • The proposed new on_damage event (and notably the damage adjustment capability to account for intervening elements which may result in less severe damage being caused).
    • The new Region Combat Event Log (details still to be finalised).
  • The idea of having region / parcel controls that specifically relate to damage, spawn points, etc.,  were welcomed as they are seen as both allowing core combat elements to be more effectively curated and managed by those managing the region / parcel(s) where the combat is taking place, whilst the LSL events allow the maximum in flexibility for specific purposes.
    • This is seen as important, as it allows weapons creators to continue to choose how they wish to script the operation and capabilities of their weapons whilst allow combat operators precise what those weapons can do in terms of damage, etc.,  within their combat environments, rather than having to rely solely on the scripting within the weapon (or the combat system for which it has been developed).
  • Rider noted that:
    • Accessing and modifying the new region / parcel combat controls might be provided through llGetEnv.
    • The on_damage event is likely to be a difficult element of work, as it marks the first time an event only triggers after it has fired in all relevant scripts.

Comments and Requests

  • There as some difference in opinion in how much control should be exposed through the simulator, with some noting that implementing too many “combat rules” at the region / parcel level could prove counter-productive and restrictive if used to try to limit “cheating”, particularly given many  / most combat environments have staff well versed in dealing with those trying the cheat. The countering view, as noted above was that better control at the region / parcel level potentially removed reliance of combat meter systems and the need for weapons geared for those systems.
  • Request: make the health  / regeneration capabilities accessible to LSL for setting them, rather than being simulator-side additions (thus allowing for health  / recovery pick-ups or boosts).
    • This is something that Rider hadn’t considered for the first pass of improvements, and something he might consider adding.
  • Request: add a region setting (and / or Edit / Build floater option) to check and enable avatar invulnerability when an avatar is sitting on a object such as a tank or other armoured vehicle, to eliminate the need for additional extra hitboxes using volume detect.
    • Rider noted that the proposed on_damage event would allow for this by allowing a function to be called to distribute a defined amount of damage (e.g. none) to the vehicle sitters. This would not only neutralise damage being passed on for armoured vehicles, it could be used to increase the amount of damage passed on (e.g. as a result of the vehicle “exploding”).
    • He further noted that an upcoming feature (contained within the Hearts & Flowers simulator maintenance update to let a scripter set a flag on a seat to make the avatar non-collide, which will also play into this as well.
  • Request:  allow all the combat stuff to run even on non-damage land (but without TPing people home), to assist weapons / meter developers test their systems even if their in-world workspace is on a No Damage region.
    • This is unlikely to happen, as it opens the door to potential griefing within No Damage regions.
  • Request: allow alterations to avatar speed (e.g. limiting the avatar to walking pace if carrying a heavy / unwieldy weapon), perhaps linked to scripts in the item itself, tied to an experience.
    • Rider noted that avatar speed is something he would like to address at some point; however, it was left out of the current proposal so that it could remain focused on managing damage.
  • Request: allow manual / custom spawn points rather than teleporting the “dead” home  /forcing people to reset that Home Position so as to remain in the combat region.
    • It was pointed out the proposal already has this in the ability to set teleport hubs / landing points – although how this might be managed so that opposing combatants are sent only to their own side’s spawn point might be open to question, unless they are defined by specific group or similar.
    • As an alternative, the suggestion was made to allow a scripted “respawn” prim, which when touched by an avatar automatically set their spawn point it to wherever the prim is located (thus allowing opposing sides to have their own spawn points, which could then be easily relocated as required. This is something Rider indicated he would add to the proposal.
    • It was also suggested that “killed” avatars should have some form of animation triggered on dying, rather than simply being teleported to a spawn point; a) Rider pointed out this is possible in the proposal; b) the suggestion resulted in a slightly off-tangent discussion over how such animations should be implemented.
  • Request: block the use of Mouselook (unclear why) – forcing visual parameters on users is not a popular idea within LL, as it could potentially impact ease of access to the platform for some.
  • Request: allow llGetHealth(key id) for anyone in the region, so you aren’t wasting a charge on someone who’s already at full health. Rider agreed this would be a good addition.
  • Request: allow a damage fall-off for weapons )e.g. a pistol’s ability to inflict damage would drop off over distance more than that of a rifle, while a long-range weapon (sniper rifle, for example) should have very little drop-off over distance.
    • One idea for this has already been written-up in the forum thread for the proposal.
  •  Request: make the combat log readable in real-time via a chat channel, to help deal with issues around people trying to cheat or review disputes. This is actually Rider’s plan for implementing the log, as well as having it recorded.
  • Request: have to combat log automate some of the administration concerns (e.g. someone using a scripted means of “fast healing” or using a weapon that is inflicting unfair damage) and have it alert region / combat admins  and/or force a re-spawn for the offending avatar, rather than waiting for human intervention based on reading the log.
    • Rider felt this is better dealt with via specific scripting, as it would be very hard to determine if someone is actually “cheating” in an given situation. Plus scripting would allow greater use-case refinements than a simulator-side set of parameters.
  • Request: to have something like “llVisualizeRay”, which allows a scripter to define a ribbon particle that traces along raycasts from a raycast weapon as visual “projectiles”, so the weapon does not need to rez actual projectiles – Rider asked that this be submitted in a detailed Canny feature request.
  • There were various thread going on through the meeting discussing armour and armour systems (such as LBA), damage calculations, etc. However, these were primarily being attendees at the meeting, rather than comments or requests directed at Rider Linden for consideration, as so fall outside the scope of these notes.

2024 SL SUG meetings week #6 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Forgotten, January 2024 – blog post †

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, February 6th, 2024 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and 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):
  • They 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

Viewer Updates

No changes at the start of the week, leaving the list of official viewers as:

  • Release viewer: version 7.1.2.7215179142, formerly the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, issued December 15, promoted January 8, 2024 – numerous bug fixes and improvements – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:.
    • Maintenance-W RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7701974306, January 31, 2024 – bug and crash fixes.
    • Emoji RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7453691714, January 22, 2024.
    • glTF PBR Materials Maintenance-2 RC viewer, version 7.1.3.7467259489, issued January 12, 2024.
    • Maintenance X RC, version 7.1.1.7088410646, December 7 – usability improvements.
    • Maintenance Y RC, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
  • Project viewers:

Reminders

Jira End-of-Road

New Combat User Group

  • The first meeting of the Combat Committee User Group will be held on Thursday, February 8th, at 13:00 SLT, and so will be alternating with the Content Creation User Group.
  • The venue for the meetings will be:  Longfellow/142/255/30. 
  • The initial format for the meetings will be text-only, but this may become a mix of voice / text according to attendees’ preferences.
  • Further details are available on the SL wiki, and the meeting is now on the SL Public Calendar.
  • As I’ve pointed out to Rider Linden having two alternate meetings on the same weekday at the same time called “CCUG” could cause confusion, this UG may be renamed. Apparently the leading contender as an alternative name is “Pugilist Parliament User Group” (PPUG), as the name “Pew-Pew User Group” has already been nixed internally at the Lab.

Game Controller Update

  • A new pre-release version of the game controller updates viewer being developed by Leviathan Linden can be downloaded via Github, although Leviathan is trying to get it listed on the official Alternate Viewers web page.
  • The game controller functions in this viewer will only work on the LeviathanLove, LeviathanLost and KaijuCorner regions on Aditi (the Beta grid).
  • With this update it is possible to remap the “Avatar movement actions” <–> “GameControl Input Channels” via mouse clicks, and it is possible to play with it even if there is no connected controller device. However:
    • Leviathan noted that here are some known oddities in the default mappings between the GameControl <–> Avatar movement actions, which he is hoping to fix soon.
    • If the mappings are customised, they do not currently save to settings as yet, so have to be customised again at the next log-in.
  • This sparked an on-going discussion on avatar movement options (such as having variable avatar speeds when moving  / in accordance with avatar size) which became intertwined with the discussion on animations (below).

In Brief

  • A request was made for a scripted means to sync worn Animesh animations with avatar animations.
    • This sparked a general discussion on animations + limitations of the current SL approach to handling them.
    • Whilst it was noted that there is a rising number of issues / requests related to the animation system, any work would likely be dependent on the glTF project & form a significant tranche of work in its own right.
  • The above segued into various ideas that had been raised within the (still suspended) Puppetry Project.
  • Further details in the video below.

† 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.