Category: SL User Group Meetings

2023 SL SUG meetings week #2 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Le’eaf and Tinsel Café, Heterocera – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 10th, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, January 10th 2023, the simhosts on the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator version 576542.
  • On Wednesday, January 11th, 2023, the simhosts on the RC channels should see the deployment of the ability to to play 30-second sound clips and the new sound functions llLinkPlaySound, with llLinkStopSound llLinkAdjustSoundVolume and llLinkSoundRange which allow sounds in child prims of a linkset to be played without the need for a supporting script.

It is hoped that week #3 will see a deployment of an RC simulator update comprising custom HTTP headers (total space for headers will increase to 4k and the limit on the number of headers will be dropped), and new cryptographic signing utilities – potentially llHMAC (per BUG-233005) and llSignRSA and llVerifyRSA (per BUG-233009). These updates will be available for testing on the Juggly Puff region within Aditi (the beta grid) during the rest of week #2.

Available Official Viewers

This list reflects the current status of available official viewers at the start of 2023:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576863 Monday, December 12, 2022 – 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 (Q)uality RC viewer, version 6.6.9.577418, January 4, 2023.
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.9.577251, January 4, 2023.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.577157, December 14, 2022.
      • This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

  • An update to Linkset Data to fix the sorting for LSDFindKeys is being targeted for a maintenance release in early February. Further LSD updates and fixes are being considered, but Rinder Linden would like to get this update out ASAP, rather than waiting to bundle it with other LSD updates.
  • BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” – LL may have a fix available by earlier March.
  • BUG-233107 “Objects failing to render is happening more frequently of late” – is still believed to be an Interest List issue, although that code has not been directly touched in a while. One theory is the server is unsubscribing users from certain objects for reasons unknown (and which would impact entire linksets were the root to be unsubscribed). However, further investigation is required.
    • This issue leads to an extended discussion on passible causes and on the Interest List in general – please refer to the video below.

 

2023 week #1: SL CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Mullein Woods, November 2022 – blog post
The following notes were taken from m y audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, January 5th 2023 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and their dates and times can be obtained from the SL Public Calendar; also note that the following is a summary of the key topics discussed in the meeting and is not intended to be a full transcript of all points raised.

Official Viewers Status

  • On Wednesday, January 4th, 2023:
    • The Maintenance Q(uality) RC viewer updated to version 6.6.9.577418.
    • The Performance Floater / Auto-FPS RC viewer updated to version 6.6.9.577251.
  • Both the VS 2022 Build RC viewer and the LMR6 project viewer have been withdrawn.
This leaves the rest of the currently-available official viewer as:
  • Release viewer: Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576863 Monday, December 12, 2022.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.577157, December 14, 2022. Note: this viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

Inventory Enhancement Project

Linden Lab is looking to enhance the Inventory system.
  • The first element of this work is to be the addition of a fixed-resolution thumbnail preview capability, allowing users to see a small image of a given object (where this makes sense – so the likes of note cards and scripts would be excluded) within inventory, with these thumbnails either being of individual items or entire folders.
    • The first phase of the work is determining how to generate the thumbnail images and ensure they maintain an association with the objects to which they are related (e.g. so if an item is sold or transferred to another user, the thumbnail goes with it).
    • Once this has been decided, the next phase will be to build-out the UI so that such thumbnails can be viewed from inventory.
    • This work will not replace the Outfit Folder image capability nor will it prevent creators from including high resolution images with their products if they wish.
  • Once the thumbnail preview work has been completed, it is possible the Lab will look to further enhancements to inventory management. One future enhancement under consideration is support for folders to be included in the Contents inventory of individual objects.

glTF Materials and Reflection Probes

Project Summary

  • To provide support for PBR materials using the core glTF 2.0 specification Section 3.9 and using mikkTSpace tangents, including the ability to have PBR Materials assets which can be applied to surfaces and also traded / sold.
  • To provide support for reflection probes and cubemap reflections.
  • The overall goal is to provide as much support for the glTF 2.0 specification as possible.
  • The project viewer is available via the Alternate Viewers page, but will only work on the following regions on Aditi (the Beta grid):  Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • Please also see previous CCUG meeting summaries for further background on this project.

Status

  • The focus remains on bug and regression issue fixing within the viewer and quality of life improvements, particularly as in wider grid testing, it has been found the PBR viewer can only generate single-digit FPS in some regions.
  • Screen Space Reflections (SSR): Geenz Linden continues to work on integrating SSR into the PBR viewer, but is encountering issues.

Animation System Enhancements – A Discussion

In response to requests for the animation system to be improved (e.g. via CCUG meetings, as a result of the Puppetry project, etc.), Vir Linden asked those at the meeting to state what they see as the most important changes / updates they would like to see. Responses included those expressed at the Server User Group meeting earlier in the week:
  • A procedural animation system to allow creators / users to set the rules of how avatars walk, run, jump; their timings, how animations play priority wise and mixing wise in the series, all able to be packaged up into an item – it has been suggested that whilst “old” the SL is well-placed to be folded into a procedural animation system.

  • Improved animation formats and easier means of animation import into Second Life.
  • The ability to dynamically set animation priorities for more fluid animation integration (e.g. when you are holding and pointing a gun, you continue to point it as you walk, rather than the avatar’s arm dropping to a walking animation when moving).
  • Viewer-side animation editor.
  • Better support for inverse kinematics.
  • Collaboration between the Puppetry team, the glTF team and any animation project to ensure consistency of decision-making about formats, proper LSL support / calls, etc.
This discussion covered a lot of ground, including the potential for the implementation of an “animation 2.0” system which could potentially operate alongside the existing system (much like PBR materials and “legacy” materials); the benefits in greater adherence to emerging standards – particularly in the area of avatar / skeleton formats and capabilities, and the fact that SL is both well-placed to be a part of defining those standards whilst also being hamper by the fact the existing SL avatar format is a niche product / approach, and more. However, the two key points of the discussion might be summarised as:
  • Changes to the animation  / avatar systems are not projects the Lab is working on at present.
  • However, the it demonstrates that, as with recent projects, the Lab is looking seriously at enhancing SL and moving it towards more readily understood standards. As such, it is taking the time to ascertain options that are exciting to creators an users and which might be seen s benefiting the platform and its future growth, and so might be formalised into active projects – and include user engagement where appropriate in their development.
In terms of what might be attempted by way of “small-scale” improvements to the animation system, the viewpoint from LL is that the ability to dynamically set animation priorities and adding scaling support to the animation format are seen as providing users / creators with recognisable benefits.

Next Meeting

  • Thursday, January 19th, 2023.

January 2023 SL Web User Group summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, January 4th, 2023.

WUG meetings:

  • Are held in-world, generally on the first Wednesday of the month – see the SL public calendar.
  • Cover Second Life front-end web properties (Marketplace, secondlife.com, the sign-up pages, the Lab’s corporate pages, etc.).
  • They are not intended for the discussion of Governance issues, land fees / issues, content creation & tools, viewer or simulator development / projects. Please refer to the SL calendar for information on available meetings for these topics.

A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and subject timestamps to the relevant points in the video are provided. Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.

Updates for December 2022

Marketplace Elastic Search Overhaul

[Video: 3:41-5:27]

  • Following recent delays, it had been hoped the MP search updates would be deployed before the end of 2022. Unfortunately, issues with the updates continued to prevent this.
  • The hope is now to have thing deployed as the “first thing” for web-related deployments, hopefully by the end of January 2023.
  • As a reminder: this work is essentially the same kind of back-end update as carried out with Web search a few months ago, with the emphasis on faster, more robust performance, together with new search options, including:
    • Merchant and store names will no long be searched in product searches.
    • Wildcard (e.g. using *) will be possible.
    • Better exact matching against search terms
    • The back-end supports fuzzy matching to better handle typos when inputting searches.
    • There should be a noticeable increase in speed of search results being returned.
  • Once running, these updates will allow LL to add-in the relevance engine AI to the Marketplace search (as a separate API entity to the relevance engine already running on the web search).

“Land Ownership Journey”

[Video: 5:31-7:30]

Summary: A complete re-write of every route by which users can obtain and hold land, from Premium (+Plus) Linden Homes, obtaining Mainland (incl. Abandoned Land), and private island regions, and renting from private estates.

  • The first user-facing element of this work – the new Land Portal, a central hub from which to get to all aspects of land “ownership” – will likely be deployed by the end of January 2023.
  • The Portal layout is liable to be a template / proof of concept for overhauling the rest of the Second Life web properties to give them a coherent appearance, make them easier to maintain and add new pages, make SL’s web presence more performant overall and ensure it works on mobile devices as well as desktops / laptops.
  • Once the Portal has been deployed, the focus will shift to the Linden Homes selection pages.

Marketplace Styles

[Video: 56:08-56:55]

  • Work had been expected to resume on Styles (allowing multiple colours, etc., for an item to appear within a single listing rather than each requiring its own listing) following the deployment of the MP Search updates, with the plan for a deployment early-ish in 2023.
  • As the Search updates deployment has been delayed, the work on Styles is currently being “re-prioritised”.

Q&A Summary

  • [Video: 9:41-11:09] Marketplace Refresh / Rebuild:
    • This is still being looked at as a project for development and possible initial deployment in 2023.
    • There are still no firm plans in place as to what will be changed and why, how things will look, etc.
    • Feature requests and suggestions from users and merchants are welcome via the Second Life Jira.
  • [Video: 45:20-End] Marketplace suggestions:
    • LL provide an individual RSS feed to all Marketplace stores for announcing new releases, etc.
      • Whilst not refused as a suggestion, the point was made that implementing and maintaining such a service would not necessarily be easy or direct – as every MP store would require a feed, regardless of whether or not the store owner uses it / people actually subscribe to it via their RSS readers.
      • There is already functionality available for this within the MP via Favourite Stores > Age: Newest First. This gives a thumbnail view of the most recent 4 releases for every store a user has selected as a Favourite, providing something of an at-a-glance view. It is not as proactive as an RSS feed but has the benefit of already being available.
    • A request to include a Date Uploaded field in Marketplace descriptions. This would:
      • Help determine the overall age of a product, allowing it to be better (but not perfectly) assessed against more recent improvements to the platform.
      • If also included in the Favourite Stores summary list, would further help users determine new releases.
      • This is seen as being a part of LL’s wish list for MP improvements.
    • With the move towards supporting the glTF 2.0 specification (initially for PBR materials, but potentially to be expanded to mesh content in general (and eventually possibly animations), these request was made to enable a glTF specific description / search indicator to be added to MP listings.
      • This is something LL has not considered – but given the shift in emphasis involved in glTF adoption, it is something that should be considered over and above the simple “Mesh” definitions in listings.
      • For those unaware, details of the glTF / PBR project work can be found in by CCUG meeting summaries.
    • Requests were also made for:
      • The ability to preview the contents items sold on the MP as boxes – the problem here being the box is seen as just that; a single object, so a means to “access” its contents and then generate a listing them would need to be built.
      • The inclusions of triangle counts / VRAM usage / complexity values for objects and attachments – the problems here are numerous, from how would lists be generated  / populated (e.g. some form of automated analysis of folder / box contents would be required for accuracy),through how should it be presented without “overloading” listings with information, to the question of whether the results would be properly understood by potential purchasers).
    • The ability to add multiple items to a shopping basket, but then select which are to be purchased immediately, and which can be “shelved” for a later purchase (if required), rather than having to purchase everything in the basket.
      • This was also indicated as being on LL’s own wish list of future options for the MP.
  • [Video: 16:28-25:50] Place Pages:
    • Launched in 2017 (see: Linden Lab announces Second Life Place Pages available and Tutorial: creating Second Life Place Pages) Place Pages have never really been utilised or enhanced, which is acknowledged by LL.
    • Currently, there is no clearly-defined use case for Place Pages, although they do have a number of interesting features and capabilities.
    • The think at the Lab at the moment is whether Place Pages:
      • Should be given a degree of work to overhaul them in order to make them more broadly usable, or
      • Scrap them entirely and replace them with something more attractive to users overall – whatever that might be.
    • A perceived attraction with Place Pages is the ability for people to show off / promote their Second Life without necessarily having to have others log-in to the platform – or as a means to encourage them to do so – using tools that might be better attuned to presenting SL through the web compared to “ordinary” website building tools
    • The major reason for not overhauling Place Pages thus far is the fact that they underpin the land auction system.
    • It is acknowledged that given the plans for overhauling the SL web properties in general, there is potential the produce a version of Place Pages with better integration into SL’s web presence, etc.
    • User suggestions for Place Pages are welcome, again via the Second Life Jira.
  • [Video: 27:29-28:02] Communities: a request has been made to expand the range of Second Life communities represented through the Communities landing page (such as the furry community, the sci-fi community, etc). Feature Requests are suggested on these, although it was hinted the number of communities to be rotated on the landing page may be increased.
  • [Video: 34:24-39:00] “Premium a-la Carte”: whilst indicated as something LL would like to do, the idea of an “a-la carte” set of Premium benefits users can choose from and they pay a fee based on their selection, there are significant issues around general maintenance and billing and tracking which options each user has subscribed to.
    • What happens if a user selects option A as a part of their package, but then decides they don’t need it, and  they want to remove it (and its cost) or swap it for one or more other options + their costs? How frequently should this be allowed? How are the changes to track and recognised by the viewer and relevant back-end services? How is billing to be managed?
    • How much work is involved in managing an options list (adding new options to it or remove unpopular items from it, in order to maintain its appeal with users, etc.?
    • How complex any a-la carte system might be was demonstrated by the number of different views expressed in the meeting as to what options might be attractive to different people.
    • There is also the question as to whether an “a-la carte” option is required, or whether the existing Premium  / Premium Plus subscription levels need to be adjusted.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, February 1st, 2023. Venue and time per top of this summary.

2023 SUG meetings week #1 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

Tempelhof, November 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023, the simhosts on the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator version 576542
  • On Wednesday, January 4th, 2023, the simhosts on the RC channels should be restarted without any deployment or change to the current release.

Early 2023 Simulator Updates

AS per the previous SUG meeting:

  • I believe the RC deployment from week #50 (with 30-second sound loop support) was rolled back. If so, this is liable to be one of the first simulator updates for 2023 (targeted for January 11th, 2023), and / or possibly an update comprising a number of HTTP updates, including the accounting for custom HTTP headers (total space for headers will increase to 4k and the limit on the number of headers will be dropped).
  • Also early 2023 LSL will be updated with new cryptographic signing utilities: llHMAC (per BUG-233005) and llSignRSA and llVerifyRSA (per BUG-233009). These should be useful for script to script and script to external web service communications. These may be included in the above release.
    • BUG-226463 “llRequestSecureURL() uses self-signed cert” is also “on the radar” but no target date for potential delivery / deployment.
  • Further (unspecified) improvements will be coming to the Linkset Data (LSD) capabilities.

Available Official Viewers

This list reflects the current status of available official viewers at the start of 2023:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576863 Monday, December 12, 2022.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance (Q)uality RC viewer, version 6.6.9.577220, December 16, 2022.
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576737, November 28, 2022.
    • VS  2022 RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576310, issued November 4 – utilises Visual Studio 2022 in the Windows build tool chain.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.577157, December 14, 2022.
      • This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21, 2022.

In Brief

2023 – General Goals Set by the Lab

In their Review of the Year, Linden Lab outlined the following goals to be delivered during the year (nor all of which are the responsibility of the server / simulator engineering team):

  • Further performance improvements to increase the quality and visual fidelity of the Second Life experience through the viewer.
  • New LSL functions that improve the quality of life for scripters.
  • Initial deployment of physically-based rendering (PBR)  / glTF 2.0 specification support. This will initially comprise glTF materials support, together with the implementation of reflection probes.
  • Avatar customisation improvements to simplify creating your virtual identity, including inventory thumbnails to give a preview of what individual items are.
  • New user experience upgrades to better fuel retention, engagement, and growth across key parts of the new user journey.
  • New centralised “hubs” to better connect residents to the communities that match their passions and interests.
  • First peek at a world and avatar centred mobile-first Second Life experience.

In addition, Rider Linden is an LSL call to allow the replacement of sub-strings in a string call (e.g. non-RegEx behaviour). If implemented, this might most likely be called either llStringReplace() or llReplaceSubString(). As he was still on vacation at this meeting, it is something that will likely be picked up at SUG meetings going forward.

WIBNIs from Users

The following were suggested as a series of “wouldn’t it be nice if LL could provide” requests. Note these were only suggestions / discussion points not projects / ideas the Lab will necessarily implement in the short or long term:

  • The perennial request for a further focus on region crossing improvements.
  • A suggestion for an enhancement to Linkset Data (LSD).
  • A function which could be applied to Animesh objects to allow them to use the head/eye tracking that avatars use when focused on a target (so, for example, scripted scripted Animesh NPCs would “look at” avatars addressing them).
  • Suggested animation updates:
    • A procedural animation editor to allow creators / users to set the rules of how avatars walk, run, jump; their timings, how animations play priority wise and mixing wise in the series, all able to be packaged up into an item (a further suggestion for the in-development Puppetry project).
    • Improved animation formats and easier means of animation import into Second Life.
    • The ability to dynamically set animation priorities for more fluid animation integration (e.g. when you are holding and pointing a gun, you continue to point it as you walk, rather than the avatar’s arm dropping to a walking animation when moving).
    • All of these are liable to be topics for further discussion during Puppetry project meetings, but initiated a general discussion on animations and animating avatars which took up the majority of this SUG meeting – please refer to the meeting video below.

 

2022 SUG meetings week #51 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Pillars of Hercules, blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 20th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Note: this was a “Winter solstice Party” event, so not a lot to report. The core of any discussions in in the first hour of the video embedded below.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, December 20th, the simhosts on the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator version 576542
  • On Wednesday, December 21st, the simhosts on the RC channels should be restarted without any deployment or change to the current release.

Early 2023 Simulator Updates

AS per the previous SUG meeting:

  • I believe the RC deployment from week #50 (with 3-second sound loop support) was rolled back. If so, this is liable to be one of the first simulator updates for 2023 (targeted for January 11th, 2023), and / or possibly an update comprising a number of HTTP updates, including the accounting for custom HTTP headers (total space for headers will increase to 4k and the limit on the number of headers will be dropped).
  • Also early 2023 LSL will be updated with new cryptographic signing utilities: llHMAC (per BUG-233005) and llSignRSA and llVerifyRSA (per BUG-233009). These should be useful for script to script and script to external web service communications. These may be included in the above release.
    • BUG-226463 “llRequestSecureURL() uses self-signed cert” is also “on the radar” but no target date for potential delivery / deployment.
  • Further (unspecified) improvements will be coming to the Linkset Data (LSD) capabilities.

Available Official Viewers

This list reflects the current status of available official viewers at the start of the week:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576863 Monday, December 12.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance (Q)uality RC viewer, version 6.6.9.577220, December 16.
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576737, November 28.
    • VS  2022 RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576310, issued November 4 – utilises Visual Studio 2022 in the Windows build tool chain.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.577157, December 14.
      • This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

In Brief

Refer to the video below for more information on the following:

  • BUG-227303 “collisions makes a script stop running and revert its mono status” has been filed and lead to further discussion on region crossings.
  • LL is mulling an LSL call to allow the replacement of sub-strings in a string call (e.g. non-RegEx behaviour). If implemented, this might most likely be called either llStringReplace() or llReplaceSubString().
  • The above lead to a more general discussion on LSL and LSL extensions / transpilers (helping to make LSD more accessible), etc.

 

2022 week #50: CCUG and TPVD meetings summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Power up for Charge, October 2022 – 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, December 15th 2022 at 13:00 SLT.
  • My chat log transcript and video recording by Pantera Północy of the Third-Party Developer Meeting (TPVD) held on Friday, December 16th, 2022 at 13:00 SLT. My thanks to her for the video (embedded towards the end of this article).
These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and their dates and times can be obtained from the SL Public Calendar; also note that the following is a summary of the key topics discussed in the meetings and is not intended to be a full transcript of either meeting.

Official Viewers Status

[Video: 1:44-2:13]

Available Viewers

  • On Friday, December 16th, Linden Lab issued the Maintenance (Q)uality RC viewer, version 6.6.9.577220, with several new features and various fixes.
  • On Wednesday, December 14th, the Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer updated to version 7.0.0.577157.
The rest of the current crop of official viewers is as follows:
  • Release viewer: Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576863 Monday, December 12 – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576737, November 28.
    • VS  2022 RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576310, issued November 4 – utilises Visual Studio 2022 in the Windows build tool chain.
  • Project viewers:
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8.
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.576966, December 3.
      • This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.

CCUG Specific

glTF Materials and Reflection Probes

Project Summary
  • To provide support for PBR materials using the core glTF 2.0 specification Section 3.9 and using mikkTSpace tangents, including the ability to have PBR Materials assets which can be applied to surfaces and also traded / sold.
  • To provide support for reflection probes and cubemap reflections.
  • The overall goal is to provide as much support for the glTF 2.0 specification as possible.
  • The project viewer is available via the Alternate Viewers page, but will only work on the following regions on Aditi (the Beta grid):  Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
Status
  • Please also see previous CCUG meeting summaries for further background on this project.
  • The focus remains on bug and regression issue fixing within the viewer and quality of life improvements.
  • There has been a discussion on revising the workflow for setting reflection probes & in providing a debug setting to make things easier to see when manipulating reflection probes.
    • This has been prompted be those testing the PBR viewer setting-up their own reflection probes incorrectly (e.g. by making the probe sphere / cube shiny prior to converting it to a reflection probe – which should NOT be done), failing to achieved the anticipated results and then filing bug reports.
    • It is possible that some of the required workflow could be factored into the UI itself to off a more intuitive sense as to how reflection probes are supposed to work.
    • An alternative to this might be to introduce a new “reflection probe” prim type, which includes all the core parameters – however the additional work and messaging required to achieve this would lead to a further lengthening of the project’s development time.
    • Tutorials to help people get to grips with reflection probes (and, I presume, PBR as a whole are “in the works”).
  • Screen Space Reflections (SSR): Geenz Linden is working on this within the PBR viewer. Whilst a checkbox for SSR has been added to the viewer, there is further work to be done on the integration and rendering sides (e.g. getting SSR to work on water & transparent surfaces).
  • Hardware profiling / optimising the viewer is still on-going (although it is likely that whatever is done, SSR will result in a noticeable performance hit if enabled).
  • [TPV Video: 9:11-10:44] The decision has yet to be made on whether or not to axe the forward rendering (i.e. non-ALM) path from the viewer.
    • This decision is awaiting more information on hardware performance on lower-spec systems using the updated deferred rendering (i.e. ALM) rendering path.
    •  It is known that Mac rendering performance on the PBR viewer is particularly bad, which may be down to a configuration issue.

In Brief

  • Mirrors (in some capacity) are described as the “very next thing” the graphics team will commence work on after the PBR / reflection probes work gets to RC status (as Vir Linden pointed out, Mirrors currently require more reflection on how they are to be implemented!).
  • The meeting in places broadened into general discussion on content breakage (and the need, where possible, to maintain the functionality of content users have purchased in expectation of its longevity; the benefits / disadvantages with morph bones versus blend shapes for customising the avatar shape (and the possible routes to an “avatar 2.0”), the need for a better animation system (or even an actual animation system), etc.
    • Much of this was more esoteric in nature at this point in time, although the likes of Puppetry is laying the foundations for broader animation work; as does the glTF 2.0 specification, which is the baseline specification for the PBR / reflections probe work, and will be expanded upon in future projects  – such as with mesh uploads.
    • In terms of animation systems, some of the groundwork is already in place inasmuch as SL already effectively treats morph bones and animated bones as individual animation tracks, offering to potential for this to ne “unwrapped” and moved to a glTF approach to animation management.
  • Some of the above conversation touched on the ideas of market renewal / fragmentation. For example: the introduction of reflection probes offers a degree of market renewal for creators of buildings, skyboxes, etc., through the provisioning of new builds (or new versions of existing builds) leveraging the capability; however, the adoption of an upload schema for fully customised avatar skeletons might lead to greater market fragmentation (how do you ensure, for example, that human animation/pose A will work equally on custom human (style) avatar skeletons W, X, Y and Z, or will they each require custom animations?).

TPVD Meeting Specific

Inventory Thumbnails

[Video: 2:25-7:08]
  • A new project (commencing in 2023) to add thumbnail previews to inventory, allowing users to see a small image of a given object within inventory (thumbnails can be individual items or, if preferred an entire folder).
  • The first phase of the work is determining how to generate the thumbnail images in the first place on a manual or (preferably) automated basis, and then ensure it maintains an association with the object to which it is related (e.g. so if an item is sold or transferred to another user, the thumbnail goes with it).
  • Once this has been decided, the next phase will be to build-out the UI so that such thumbnails can be viewed from inventory
  • It is likely that thumbnails will have a fixed / limited size resolution, and will not be subject to any upload fee.
  • This work:
    • Is not an adjunct (or related) to the Outfit previews currently available in the viewer.
    • Will not prevent creators from including high resolution images with their products if they wish.
    • Will only apply to inventory objects where it makes sense (e.g. textures and notecards would likely be excluded).
    • Is seen as a possible foundational piece to adding new fields to the inventory database, which could open the door to further information fields being added to inventory in the future,

Github Move “Phase 2”

[Video: 7:12-8:18]
  • Following the switch-over to using Github for viewer code repositories on Monday, November 21st, 2022, work is now progressing on “Phase 2”.
  • This is remaining TeamCity operations with Github Actions for viewer builds (so those pulling an official viewer repo will be able to build it directly).
  • This work will also incorporate the rebuilding of those third-party libraries involved in the viewer build process, as and where required.

In Brief

  • [Video 16:10-18:41] LL has been digging into viewer crash rates by operating system, with the note that the number of crashes on the Mac OS appears to be disproportionately high. It is hoped that if the underlying causes can be readily identified, these issues can be subjected to rapid fixing. It was not clear at the meeting if those TPVs supporting OS X are seeing a similar elevated crash rate.
  • [Video 20:40-21:35] It is estimated that the split between viewer operating systems for the official viewer  is roughly:
    • 1-2% Linux (although this does not include running the Windows viewer under emulation on Linux).
    • 6% Mac.
    • The rest: Windows.
    • Firestorm appears to mirror the above.
    • [Video: 35:08-36:10] It is possible the the work on the viewer library refresh will allow LL to look again at the issue of providing a Linux viewer build.
  • The meeting has a general discussion on operating systems, & variants (64-bit vs. 32-bit), etc, and the lack of an official Linux build,
  • A reminder that Microsoft ceases official support for Windows 8 on January 10th, 2023. This means that from that date, Windows 8 will no longer be officially supported by Second Life as a viewer operating system, and LL will not guarantee the viewer will run as expected on Win 8 going forward from that date.

Linden Lab Holiday Closure

A reminder that Linden Lab will be effectively closed (outside of Support cover) from end of business (PST) on Friday, December 23rd, 2022 through until start of business (PST) on Monday, January 2nd, 2023.

Next Meetings

  • CCUG: Thursday, January 12th, 2023.
  • TPVD: Friday, January 20th, 2023.