Category: SL User Group Meetings

2022 SUG meetings week #42 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Green Acres, August 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 18th, 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.

Server Deployments

Please see the forum deployment thread for the latest updates.

  • On Tuesday, October 18th, the Main SLS and Events channels were updated with server release 575585.
    • This release should contain two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.
    • In addition, a slight change to the simulator code may help with the issue of people’s on-line / off-line status not being properly reported. It  is not an actual fix for the problem, but LL would like feedback as to whether people are seeing an improvement. See : BUG-232037 for more information on the issue.
  • On Wednesday, October 19th, the simhosts on the RC channels will be restarted but remain on simulator release 575585.

Available Official Viewers

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – 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 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
  • Project viewers:
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.575529,  October 12.
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Local KVP / “Linkset Data”

From the server deployment thread:

We have a new feature build on Aditi for a new feature called Linkset Data. This feature works similarly to Experience Key-Value store, but the data lives with the object that sends and receives the data. Only scripts in the same linkset will be able to read the data written with this feature. For more details, see the in-progress wiki pages https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Linkset_Data. You can try out the new LSL functions related to this feature at the following Aditi Mainland regions:
  • Blake Sea – Arabian ; Blake Sea – Atlantic ; Blake Sea – Beagle ; Blake Sea – Binnacle ; Blake Sea – Black ; Gothlauth ; Jigglypuff ; Mauve ; Moonberry ; Sapas ; Smithereens
We’re looking for feedback on this new feature including bugs and input on anything that might be missing or not work the way you’d expect. Please file a BUG Jira in all of those cases

This work is currently with the Lab’s QA team, and if cleared, could be a part of an RC channel deployment in week #43 (commencing Monday, October 24th, 2022.

These upcoming release sparked a conversation on data storage and access – please refer to the video for details.

In Brief

  • BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” – LL believe that have a “handle” on the where the issue is originating, but there has been no time to take a deep dive into the actual cause as yet.
  • Further discussion on making multi-region crossings by vehicle more robust.
  • A general discussion on lighting.

2022 Puppetry project week #41 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Puppetry demonstration via Linden Lab – see below.  Demos video with the LL comment “We have some basic things working with a webcam and Second Life but there’s more to do before it’s as animated as we want.”

The following notes have been taken from chat logs and audio recording of the Thursday, October 13th Puppetry Project meetings held at the Castelet Puppetry Theatre on Aditi. These meetings are generally held on alternate weeks to the Content Creation User Group (CCUG), on same day / time (Thursdays at 13:00 SLT).

Notes in these summaries are not intended to be a full transcript of every meeting, but to highlight project progress / major topics of discussion.

Project Summary

  • Previously referred to as “avatar expressiveness”, Puppetry is intended to provide a means by which avatars can mimic physical world actions by their owners (e.g. head, hand, arm movements) through tools such as a webcam and using technologies like inverse kinematics (IK) and the  LLSD Event API Plug-in (LEAP) system.
    • Note that facial expressions and finger movements are not currently enabled.
    • Most movement is in the 2D plain (e.g., hand movements from side-to-side but not forward / back), due to limitations with things like depth of field tracking through a webcam, which has yet to be addressed.
  • The back-end support for the capability is only available on Aditi (the Beta grid) and within the following regions: Bunraku, Marionette, and Castelet.
  • Puppetry requires the use of a dedicated viewer, the Project Puppetry viewer, available through the official Second Life Alternate Viewers page.
  • No other special needs beyond the project viewer are required to “see” Puppetry animations. However, to use the capability to animate your own avatar and broadcast the results, requires additional work – refer to the links below.
  • There is now a Puppetry Discord channel – those wishing to join it should contact members of LL’s puppetry team, e.g. Aura Linden, Simon Linden, Rider Linden, Leviathan Linden (not a full list of names at this time – my apologies to those involved whom I have missed).

Bugs, Feature Requests and Code Submissions

  • For those experimenting with Puppetry, Jiras (bug reports / fixes or feature requests) should be filed with “[Puppetry]” at the start of the Jira title.
  • There is also a public facing Kanban board with public issues – those experiencing issues can also contact Wulf Linden.
  • Those wishing to submit code (plug-ins or other) or who wish to offer a specific feature that might be used with Puppetry should:

Further Information

Meeting Notes

New Viewer Version – 6.6.3.575529 Dated October 12th

  • This viewer uses a different, more efficient data format sending updates up to the region, and from the region to viewers.
    • The new and old formats and viewers are not compatible; someone on the new project viewer will be unable to see puppetry rendered for someone using the older viewer version, and vice-versa.
    • It is hoped that severe breakages between viewer versions like this will be avoided going forward, but this change was deemed necessary
  • This viewer also a crash (deadlock) fix, and puppetry animations should fade in/out when starting or explicitly stopping (animations may stop abruptly should the LEAP plugin crash, or the data stream is lost, etc.).
  •  Those self-compiling viewers with the puppetry code should ensure they are pulling the updated code from the  6.6.3.575529 (or later as new versions appear) repositories.

Protocol Overhaul

Leviathan Linden Linden noted the project team is going to overhaul the Puppetry/LEAP protocol.

  • The intent is to replace all the current LEAP commands (“move”, “set_this”, “set_that”, etc.), and replace with just two commands: “set” and “get”.
  • On the “set” side:
    • It will be possible set avatar joint transforms, or specify IK targets, and also set various configuration settings as necessary.
    • These set commands will be “incremental” in nature (so that changes can be made to reach the final state), and once set, they stay at the defined value until modified, cleared, or the plug-in “goes away”.
  • On the “get” side:
    • get_skeleton and any other get_foo commands (if used) will be replaced with {get: [skeleton, foo, …]}.
    • A message will be generated and set back to the viewer making the Get request, but the form of the message is still TBD.
  • Meanwhile, the viewer will only do IK for your own avatar, and will transmit the full parent-relative joint transforms of all puppeted joints through the server to other viewers, and LL will make it possible for a plug-in to just supply full parent-relative joint transforms if desired (e.g. no IK, just play the data)
  • This overhaul will also provide:
    • A way to move the Pelvis. This will include both a pre-IK transform (which is just setting the Pelvis transform) and also a post-IK transform, in case the avatar is to be moved after setting all the joints.
    • A “terse” format for the LEAP/Puppetry protocol to simplify some “set” commands to reduce data going over the LEAP data channel. It will be possible to mix these “terse” command with long-form explicit commands.
  • Leviathan plans to break all of this work down into a set of Jira issues and place them on the kanban board for ease of viewing.

The overall aim of this overhaul is to make the protocol more easily extendible in the future.

To the above, Simon Linden added:

The data stream is radically different than what we started with. Essentially your viewer will do the work for your avatar: send[ing] all data needed for your puppetry animations [so] the people seeing you just have to use those positions – no IK or significant processing. That should help out in the long run with crowds 

Example Script

Simon Linden has produced a simple example script that is pushed to the Leap repository:

  • It reads a JSON file and sends that puppetry data to the viewer.
  • Using it, is is possible to edit some values, save the JSON text file, and see bones move as an example of doing so.

In Brief

  • BUG-232764 “[PUPPETRY] [LEAP] Puppetry should be able to ‘Get’ and ‘Set’ avatar camera angle” has been raised to go with the protocol overhaul, and while it has yet to be formally accepted, has been viewed as a good idea by the Puppetry team.
  • Puppetry does not support physics feedback or collisions as yet, and work for it to do so is not on the short list of “things to do next”
  • There is currently an issue of “near-clipping” within a a first-person (e.g. Mouselook) view and using puppetry (so, for example, holding a hand up in front of your avatar’s face in Mouselook results in the hand being clipped and now fully rendering). This is believed to by an artefact of the viewer still rendering the head (even though unseen when in first-person view), and this interfering with rendering near-point objects like hands. The solution for this is still TBD.

Date of Next Meeting

  • Thursday, October 27th, 2022, 13:00 SLT.

2022 SUG meetings week #41 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Wild Branch Brewing Co, August 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 11th, 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.

Server Deployments

Please see the forum deployment thread for the latest updates.

  • On Tuesday, October 11th, the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator release 574921.
  • On Wednesday, October 12th, the simhosts on the RC channels should receive simulator release 575585.
    • This release should contain two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.
    • In addition, a slight change to the simulator code may help with the issue of people’s on-line / off-line status not being properly reported. It  is not an actual fix for the problem, but LL would like feedback as to whether people are seeing an improvement. See : BUG-232037 for more information on the issue.

Available Official Viewers

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – 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 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.574545,  issued on August 30.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Local KVP / “Linkset Data”

From the server deployment thread:

Coming Soon. We have a new feature build on Aditi for a feature tentatively called Local KVP. This feature works similarly to Experience Key-Value store, but the data lives with the object that sends and receives the data. Only scripts in the same linkset will be able to read the data written with this feature. For more details, see the in-progress wiki pages [COMING SOON]. You can try out the new LSL functions related to this feature at the following Aditi Mainland regions:
  • Blake Sea – Arabian; Blake Sea – Atlantic; Blake Sea – Beagle; Blake Sea – Binnacle; Blake Sea – Black; Gothlauth; Jigglypuff; Mauve; Moonberry: Sapas; Smithereens
We’re looking for feedback on this new feature including bugs and input on anything that might be missing or not work the way you’d expect. Please file a BUG Jira in all of those cases

To the above, Rider Linden added:

The data is stored on the root prim of a linkset and if you link two prims together (each containing LinksetData it will migrate the new non-root’s data up to the the root). The data is accessible to any script running in the linkset [but] it is not visible at all from outside the linkset.

This functionality was the focus of the majority of the meeting, with questions and suggestions coming from those attending. To avoid confusion through summarising questions / suggestions and replies, please refer to the video below, and also see also this forum thread.

2022 week #40: CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sweetwater Valley, August 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from  my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, October 6th 2022 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and their dates and times can be obtained from the SL Public Calendar.

This is a summary of the key topics discussed in the meeting and is not intended to be a full transcript.

Official Viewers Status

No changes through the week, leaving the current crop of official viewers as:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Maintenance 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer, version 6.6.5.575378, October 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.574545,  issued on August 30.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

The Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer includes a merge between the performance improvements from Firestorm integrated with the Lab’s auto-FPS capabilities.

PBR: Materials and Reflections

  • Please also see previous CCUG meeting summaries for further background on this project.
  • Test viewers continue to be made available to those on the Content Creation Discord channel. Requests to join that channel should be made in person at CCUG meetings. I am no longer able (at LL’s request) to furnish such information.
  • Viewer notes:
    • In order to make it clear when someone is working with PBR materials assets, there is an additional option within the viewer’s Build floater which, when selected, will open a dedicated PBR Materials editor, rather than munging the editor controls into the Build floater.
    • This also allows options like Glow (not a part of the glTF specification) to be retained and potentially used as an overlay on PBR materials.
    • Render work has seen the removal of the stencil buffer. This means that those build tools relying on the stencil buffer will be changing or completely going away from the viewer (e.g. the show grid cross-section checkbox, which has been broken for some time).
  • Work is in progress to integrate Linden Water into the new rendering pipe and support reflection probes.
    • This is also seeing some additional work on underwater refraction and on water reflections (e.g. no longer necessarily real-time reflections) so as to lighten the performance load.
    • The changes will mean Linden Water will look a little different as to how it looks at the moment.
  • Additional scripting functionality has been added to the glTF test regions on Aditi to allow the configuring the reflection probes:
    • llSetPrimitiveParams([ PRIM_REFLECTION_PROBE, /*integer*/ enabled, /*float*/ ambiance, /*float*/ clip_distance, /*integer*/ flags ])
    • llGetPrimitiveParams([ PRIM_REFLECTION_PROBE ])
    • Link set variants of these functions should also work. These are the flags you can use in the last parameter:
      • PRIM_REFLECTION_PROBE_BOX` – Flag that determines if probe is a box or sphere.
      • PRIM_REFLECTION_PROBE_DYNAMIC` – Flag that determines if probe will cause avatars to be shown in its reflections
  • Overall, it is felt:
    • That a plan / process is in place to future-proof the work for the additional of further glTF parameters down the road.
    • The test viewer is moving rapidly towards a point where a pubic Project viewer will debut.
  • The aspirational goal for this work is to have the viewer fully released by the end of 2022. However, this is dependent upon feedback and reaction to some of the compromises made, once the viewer gets to project status as a wider audience.

In Brief

  • Planar mirrors: if developed, these are seen as being similar to mirrors found in VRChat, etc., where they can reflect the local scene in detail, although at a performance impact.
    • There are potential ways to help reduce the impact – such as by limiting the distance at which a mirror is seen as “active” via the viewer (e.g. if you are within 5 metres, reflections are generated in the mirror; if you are beyond 5 metres from it, no reflections are generated) or by having mirrors touch-activated.
    • Ideally, such mirrors would have a specific function, and not merely another item of set dressing for a scene, and reflection probes will be used for generating environmental reflections (e.g. those seen on the shine of a car body or piece of silverware), rather than trying to make general object surfaces planar mirrors.
    • Note that any of this work would be for a future project, and is not part of the current PBR Materials + reflections work.
  • Custom pivot points: this work is described as currently “stalled out” due to investigations into supporting full hierarchies and similar, which have proven more complicated that first thought – although the benefits of having a full hierarchy is seen as being a major benefit.
  • LOD Clamping, etc. (please refer to my previous CCUG / TPVD summary for background on this: discussions are still in progress, and nothing definitive has been decided as yet. However, enforcing a hard clamp on setting LOD factors (including via the RenderVolumeLODFactor debug) is seen as a potential first step.
    • Were this to be done, TPVs would be given a suitable lead time to encourage creators to make suitable adjustments to their content.
    • This would apply only to in-world objects, although it is recognised avatars are a problem in their own right.
    • The latter have had some amelioration applied, as the Performance Improvement code ignores rigged attachment scaling, and only paying attention to the avatar bounding sphere, so a) LODs should be selected based on the size of the avatar; b) rigged attachments should change LOD depending you your camera distance from them.
    • The above does not apply to rigged meshes with no LODs – so it is possible the Lab will start auto-generating LODs for these in the future.
  • Avatar imposters: SL currently leans heavily on the avatar imposter system to reduce the load of rendering avatars. It has been noted that a preferable route would be to generate mesh proxies for avatars at a distance. However, whilst discussed within the Lab, this is not  – yet – a project.

Next Meeting

  • Thursday, October 20th, 2022.

October 2022 Web User Group: NUX, New Premium level

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, October 5th, 2022.

These meetings:

  • Are held in-world, generally on the first Wednesday of the month – see the SL public calendar.
  • Are usually chaired by Reed Linden, who is the Lab’s Product Manager for the Second Life front-end web properties (Marketplace, secondlife.com, the sign-up pages, the Lab’s corporate pages, etc.).

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 the Last Month

[Video: 4:30-8:04]

Marketplace Search Overhaul

  • This will hopefully be deployed in week #42 (commencing Monday, October 10th, 2022), depending on how it clears its QA pass.
  • The initial deployment includes:
    • Updates to the Elasticsearch infrastructure.
    • Functionality improvements (e.g. better sorting, exact matches, etc).
  • From this is it hoped that improved filtering, etc., can be built-out, and the work on Styles (listing variants) can move closer to deployment.

 Land Ownership “Journey”

  • 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 element of the land work to be user-facing will be the new Land Portal, a central hub from which to get to all aspects of land “ownership”.
    • The Land Portal is still a development, and in the process of creating it, the team has embarked on building a design system so that the redevelopment of web properties can be undertaken with greater ease in the future.
    • Once available to the public, the Land Portal will thus provide insight into how the rest of secondlife.com will look at the web properties revamp continues.
  • [12:11-13:08] While incorporating private estates / rentals within the new “Land Journey”, the intent is not to manage private rentals, the idea is to make it more obvious to users that they can rent from private estates, how they might do so, and (potentially) provide a means for people to highlight their own available rentals.

Why Overhaul the Web Properties?

Effort is being put into the web properties as many relay on core designs and structures built well over a decade ago, and are thus dated in their look compared to modern websites and are difficult to maintain. The re-vamp is therefor intended to both update SL’s appearance on the web (and make it more attractive to the curious) and provide the means for more functionality and easier maintenance.

Premium Subscriptions – Beyond Premium Plus

[Video: 8:13-12:02]

  • The introduction of Premium Plus has opened the door to potentially having multiple subscription levels, and possibly an “a-la carte” capability (pick which benefit options you’d like, and pay on the basis of that selection).
  • As Premium Plus has been so successful in its take-up, the Lab is looking to deploy what might be the first of further Premium levels by the end of 2022.
    • A formal announcement of what this new level is is be called and what it includes is expected “pretty soon”, possibly late  October  / early November 2022, depending on how the final naming and marketing, etc., decisions go,
    • This is not a level to sit “between” Premium and Premium Plus, but is regarded by the Lab as more of a “side” version,  so levels are not necessary identified by price point but by options.
  • Reed’s view on additional Premium levels is that is the Lab develops ideas and takes feedback, so they will be able to offer choices (including a future a-la carte) that more fully reflect the hopes / wants / needs of users.

New User Experience

[Video 17:29-]

  • The New User eXperience (NUX) has been identified by the Lab’s Executive Team as a major area of focus for the at least next 12 months.
  • Some of the Lab’s work in this are has been previewed in terms of the upcoming “all mesh” New Starter Avatars (see here and here), but LL recognises more work needs to be done within the NUX as a while.
  • incoming suggestions for improving the NUX / user retention at this meeting were:
    • Inclusion of a “Getting Started” option in the viewer (or as an additional to the toolbar button?) to provide access to “approved” Second life You Tube tutorials (perhaps linking to the official Second Life University You Tube playlist?).
    • Introducing an actual “character creator” rather than just sets of starter avatars – this is actually already something the Lab is actually investigating at the moment.
    • Providing an over-the-shoulder camera view within the viewer, rather than / in addition to the current default camera placement.
      • Many already do this via the Camera Presets built-in to the viewer, and using “recognised” offsets such as those long provided by Penny Patton, and some TPVs provide an over-the-should view by default.
      • Doing so has many beneficial aspects to SL (such as the ability to properly scale building interiors) well beyond purely the NUX.
    • Making sure any gateway access points for incoming users have daytime EEP settings.
      • This is perhaps questionable where Community Gateways for specific role-play types (vampire / horror / space) are supposed to be dark – and having even a small area set to daytime might come across as counter-intuitive to incoming new players.
    • Improving the Inventory interface and ease the process of changing outfits, etc.
      • Some work on Inventory is being considered, which may include updates to things like available object icons, etc.. Alexa Linden has also been seeking broader feedback on inventory pain-points existing users experience.
    • Re-engineering the viewer so capabilities are only unlocked as new users visit in-world tutorial areas.
      • A problem here is that people come to SL for different reasons – so how do you ensure that their needs are meet both in terms of allowing them access to any functionality they require that may otherwise be “locked” &  ensure they can get to require required tutorial location(s) with ease?
      • Some also come in as a result of friends, and get hands-on support from said friends – so may not require “formal” tutoring  through dedicated locations – which then become regarded as a PITA in forcing people through them.
    • Providing structured hand-holding at the gateways where questions can be asked and answered – again something LL has re-experimented with, and many community gateways provide.

In Brief

  • [Video: 14:23-15:33] Marketplace Rebuild:
    • Still planned for a 2023 project.
    • No definitive take on what it might look like, etc.
    • Lab still interested in obtaining feedback from store holders and customers on what they’d like to see incorporated in a new MP / approaches they believe should be taken (e.g. Amazon-like; Daz3D-like, etc.), and where specific pain point lie within the current MP & its presentation.
  • General chat towards the end of the meeting on user retention, content creation, strategies for user acquisition, etc. Please refer to the video for details.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022. Venue and time per top of this summary.

2022 SUG meetings week #40 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Wild Branch Brewing Co, August 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 4th, 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.

Server Deployments

At  the time of writing, there was no published deployment plan for the week.

  • On Tuesday, October 4th, the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator release 574921.
  • On Wednesday, October 5th, the simhosts on the RC channels should receive simulator release 575421, which did not have an release notes available at the time of writing
    • This is the release from week #39, which was ultimately postponed as a result of an 11th hour bug showing up in QA testing.
    • These release should contain two new functions llGetObjectLinkKey (specified under llGetLinkKey) and llSHA256String.

Available Official Viewers

The Performance Floater / Auto-FPS project viewer updated to version 6.6.5.575378, on October 4th.

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

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.4.575022 – hotfix for Crash at ~LLModalDialog() – promoted September 15 – 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 3 RC viewer, version 6.6.5.575257, September 23.
    • Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.5.575055 September 19.
  • Project viewers:
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.3.574545,  issued on August 30.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.

Experience KVP Change

Rider Linden offered a heads-up on a forthcoming change to Experience Key Value Pairs (KVP), which can be used to store large amounts of data related to an experience in-world, and make them accessible anywhere, any time, within the experience. Rider described the changes thus:

We are doing some work on the Experience KVP. The new tech that we are using doesn’t let us easily monitor the number of bytes that have been used be any particular experience. SO the proposal that is on the table is that we change the limit to a number of keys [and]:
    • A field would be tacked on to the end of llCountKeysKeyValue() that would be the allotted number of keys.
    • llDataSizeKeyValue would be changed to return the number_of_keys*4096 (which is the maximum size of the value that a key can store.

– Rider Linden

This sparked a discussion, and those who use experiences – or use the KVP table in an experience for any form of data storage, should refer to the video [29:21-end] in order to gain the full context of the proposed change and the discussion.

In Brief

  • BUG-232037 – “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” has been a bone of contention for many for the last few months, Commenting on the issue, Rider linden there are at least a couple of points in back-end communications where the problem might occur, but it will take time to properly diagnose.
  • Viewer-side: as noted in recent TPV Developer meeting summaries, there is a lot of work going on on the viewer build side of things (move to github for repositories, tool and library updates, etc. Whilst not strictly a part of the SUG meeting, Signal Linden wanted to get a couple of points out for viewer devs to note. One of these points relates to 3rd party code contributions to LL, the other on a library location under the new github structure:
So, some minor early notes wrt to opensource development. We are reviewing our contributor license agreement (CLA) and the process for collecting signatures. Ideally, I’d like for the CLA to be able to be signed in PRs on github. This will take some work with legal, and I don’t have anything definitive yet 🙂
Also, if you are not on the opensource-dev mailing list, the llsd python serialization library has been moved to its own repository; https://github.com/secondlife/python-llsd We are also starting to finally get the PyPI packages updated for autobuild.

– Signal Linden