Category: SL User Group Meetings

2022 SUG meetings week #30 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Making Memories, June 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 26th, 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

No deployment plan notes were available on the forums at this time of writing this update.

  • On Tuesday, 26th, and in an extended deployment period, simhosts on the SLS Main channel were updated to simulator version 573176, comprising infrastructure updates.
  • On Wednesday, July 27th, all RC channels will be restarted, with those simhosts currently not on it also being updated to simulator version 573176.

The hardware configuration changes being introduced are intended to improve the deploy strategy and automate some operational tasks going forward; there’s no changes that might impact runtime performance.

This means that the anticipated new scripting items (llSetEnvironment and llReplaceEnvironment and a new flag STATUS_DIE_AT_NO_ENTRY will now not be deployed until week #31.

  • llSetEnvironment and llReplaceEnvironment are for EEP, and work across a region, they cannot be applied to single environments set by altitude.
  • STATUS_DIE_AT_NO_ENTRY will behave like STATUS_DIE_AT_EDGE but for when an object enters a parcel, and will eliminate the “can’t move object to” popup if an object with copy perms has the flag set to TRUE when it attempts to enter a no-entry or full parcel.
    • This should mean creators can make bullets, undulating worms and whatnot that do not result in spam) which will behave like STATUS_DIE_AT_EDGE but for when an object enters a parcel), won’t be deployed to any RCs until week #31.

Those wishing to test these functions can one so on the regions Jigglypuff, Flareon and Mauve on Aditi).

Available Official Viewers

No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the current crop as:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Profiles RC viewer, version 6.6.2.573372, July 21.
    • Izarra Maintenance RC, version 6.6.2.573282, July 20.
    • Nomayo Maintenance RC (Maintenance N) viewer, version 6.6.2.573023, July 11.
    • Maintenance Optimisations RC version 6.6.2.573065, July 7.
  • Project viewers:
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21.
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
    • Copy / Paste project viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

  • More general discussion on region crossings, larger region sizes, altering ground level to allow for deeper oceans (i.e. below sea level = negative values). This also touched on BUG-227303 “collisions makes a script stop running and revert its mono status”, which the Lab is apparently in the process of picking up.

2022 SUG meetings week #29 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Lost Gardens of Pompeii, June 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 19th, 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

No deployment plan notes were available on the forums at this time of writing this update.

  • There was no deployment for the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, July 19th, leaving all servers assigned to the channel on the crash fix deployment of Friday, July 8th (version 573149). However, the simhost servers were restarted.
  • On Wednesday, July 13th, the LeTigre RC simulator version 573176 (joining BlueSteel), intended to help future deploys work better. Simhosts on the remaining RC channels will be restarted without any deployment.
  • This means that BUG-232324 “Add STATUS_DIE_AT_NO_ENTRY Object Status” will now not be deployed until week #30. In the meantime, the functionality will be available for testing on Aditi’s Jigglypuff region “by the end of the week”.

Available Official Viewers

No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the current crop as:

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29 – 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).
    • Nomayo Maintenance RC (Maintenance N) viewer, version 6.6.2.573023, July 11.
    • Maintenance Optimisations RC version 6.6.2.573065, July 7.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.

In Brief

  • There was further discussion on the issue of overflow object return (as opposed to Autoreturn) and locked objects following the filing of Feature Request BUG-232368 “A “Locked” object should resist being returned, and change how objects are returned”, which also involved the return of coalesced objects, handling of No Copy objects in coalesced returns, etc. Please refer to the video below.
  • There there been an uptick in HTTP 499 (timeout) errors between in-world objects and external servers.
  • Please refer to the video below for the full meeting.

2022 SUG meetings week #28 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Wylde, May 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 12th, 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

For the latest updates and news, please refer to the simulator release thread in the forums.

  • There was no deployment for the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, July 12th, leaving all servers assigned to the channel on the crash fix deployment of Friday, July 8th (version 573149).
  • On Wednesday, July 13th, the Ferrari RC will be upgraded to simulator version 573176 (joining BlueSteel), intended to help future deploys work better. Simhosts on the remaining RC channels will be restarted without any deployment.

Available Official Viewers

  • The Nomayo Maintenance RC (Maintenance N) viewer updated to version 6.6.2.573023, on July 11th.

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

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29 – no change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.

In Brief

  • The PNG-instead-of-jpg200 images issue and the “fallback” use of UDP messaging via the simulator for texture data fetching was covered in brief – both are outlined in more detail in my TPVD week #27 meeting summary.
  • The question was asked whether – should the need arise for an automated return of items within a region / parcel due to overflow – there is an implied hierarchy in which items are returned (e.g. are “unlocked” items returned before “locked”?
    • LL does not believe there is any differentiation between unlocked or locked objects when it comes to an automated return, but this will be confirmed at the next SUG meeting.
    • There are other potential factors involved in the selection of items to be returned in these circumstances which may come into play that could complicate which items are returned.
    • The purpose of the question was to ascertain a way of minimising damage in a region where a griefer manages to trigger the return of objects.
    • The question sparked a broader conversation on returned objects (particularly as coalesced packages) across much of the rest of the meeting – please refer to the video.
  • BUG-231802 “Prevent vehicles from entering parcels their riders cannot access”, together with providing a means for a viewer to request all active ban lines within a region, is said to be “queued” for work to commence on them – although no coding has started as yet.
  • BUG-232324 “Add STATUS_DIE_AT_NO_ENTRY Object Status” is described as being in the next maintenance simulator update.
  • There is a discussion on map tile texture UUIDs and surfacing them so that tools similar to those used by the (3rd party) Grid Survey tools could make use of them.

2022 TPVD meetings week #27

Posted on by Inara Pey
Village of Ahiru, April 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this piece, my thanks to her as always for recording the meetings) of the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting on Friday, July 8th, 2022 at 13:00  SLT.

Please note that this is a summary of the key topics discussed during the meeting and is not intended to be a full transcript of either. However, the video does provide a complete recording of the TPVD meeting, and timestamps to the relevant points within it are included in the notes below.

Available Viewers

[Video: 0:08-2:30]

  • Maintenance Optimisations RC version 6.6.2.573065 issued on Thursday, July 7th, This viewer:
    • Incorporates the Build Copy / Paste capability (also found in the Copy / Paste Project viewer).
    • Assorted UI improvements / clean-up (e.g. such as with the Build Edit folder).
    • Apparently includes the ability to hide the World Map Legend
    • Is likely to be fast-tracked to release status “in the next couple of weeks”.

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

  • Release viewer: version 6.6.1.572458 – formerly the Maintenance M(akgeolli) RC viewer, promoted June 29th.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Nomayo Maintenance RC (Maintenance N) viewer, version 6.6.1.572179, June 1.
  • Project viewers:
    • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.571296, May 10.
    • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.

General Viewer Notes

  • Following the promotion of the Maintenance Optimisation RC viewer, the focus will be on the Legacy Profile viewer to get that to RC status.
  • There are some crash-on-exit issues with the official viewer the Lab is attempting to fix.

RequestImage UDP Message

[Video: 2:50-4:44]

  • Since 2015, assets have been delivered to the viewer via HTTP using CDN capabilities.
  • However, the RequestImage UDP messaging capability for delivering textures has remained in place on the simulator, and it has been noted that some viewers continue to use it directly or as a fallback, requiring the simulator to carry out checks with the CDN service when textures cannot be found.
  • LL would like to completely remove all reliance on the simulator for texture fetching / checking, and have everything via HTTP and the viewer / asset system / CDN.
  • To this end the RequestImage message will be deprecated and removed “very soon”.
  • Viewer that us (or actually rely on) it are therefore asked to ensure they only use the HTTP route.
  • [Video: 6:55-7:24] Going forward, the simulator code will track deprecated messaging that TPVs may or may not be using, allowing LL to them TPV where such message paths are still being used and which have been earmarked for removal from the simulator.

In Brief

  • [Video 5:42-6:25] A bug introduced into one of the upload paths this week resulted in the CDN service delivering PNG data in place of JPEG2000 (primarily for profile pictures), which resulted in some viewers experiencing clogging of their texture processing pipes. This issue has now been fixed.
  • As a part of general discussions, Alexa Linden indicated she’d like to start reducing the time it takes for code contributions from TPVs and third-party developers to be integrated into the core SL viewer code. This includes receiving reminders about old code contributions that may have fallen by the wayside.

Mojo’s Wishlist Ideas

[Video: 8:21-pretty much to the end]

There are not currently project, by Mojo Linden continues to seek feedback on them.

  • He reiterated the idea mentioned at the week #27 CCUG meeting of using low-poly bakes to help “increase” visibility across Mainland regions to try an instil a greater sense of scale of the continents.
    • Mojo noted this could perhaps leverage the Map service in some manner (a problem being that the Map service currently doesn’t know about mesh geometry).
    • In raising the Map service, he also noted LL is also aware of the issues within that service that need to be addressed, and that this is really down to determining the optimum time to doe so, rather than having technical reasons why it cannot be improved.
  • He floated the idea of introducing some means of hidden surface removal, particularly for avatars to remove the need for alpha layers, etc., to hide body parts, the idea being to reduce the complexity of avatar rendering.
    • There are edge cases with this – such as an item of clothing with both an “outside” and “inside” texture (such as a lining on a jacket) – what happens to the “inside” texture, does it get culled?
  • He also floated the idea of fully baking the avatar’s appearance such that avatar and clothing are baked as one as a final step of changing appearance, reducing the overall render cost and complexity.
    • It is not clear if this would allow avatar appearance to be changed in “real time” or not (e.g. Sansar bakes avatars, but does so using a separate environment in which to modify an avatar’s appearance).
    • The fact that rigging can be variable between clothing and bodies, etc., might also need to be worked around, as baking would likely require committing to a single set of weights.
  • It is possible the use of baked avatars would allow for an alternative form of avatar impostor for use within large events with a lot of avatars in a single space, the bakes – whilst lower poly than would be the case in less-crowded environments – offering a better visual result than the current impostor system.
  • A lot of technical questions were through out by those at the meeting as to how LL see baked avatars, etc., “working”. However, as Mojo notes, he’s putting ideas forward to see if there is interest in pursuing them rather than presenting any actual projects; as such answers would be sought collaboratively if it were deemed something that should be looked at more formally / in-depth.

Date of Next Meeting

Friday, August 5th, 2022.

2022 CCUG meeting week #27 summary: materials, avatars, general notes

Posted on by Inara Pey
Tilheyra, May 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, July 7th 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.

Materials and PBR Work

Please also see previous CCUG meeting summaries for further background on this project.

Outline of Work

  • Work on an implementation of reflection probes which can be used both with PDR shading and with legacy content.
    • The overall aim of this work is to provide a means to support more physically accurate reflections in SL than can be currently generated (seen as a requirement for PBR support).
    • It applies to both PBR generated content, once available, and to legacy content.
  • Creating a materials type with an associated inventory asset. This will initially comprise the ability to copy a texture entry (with its specific parameters) to inventory, to be followed by initial work to work implement a PBR graphics pipe in the viewer.
  • Normals will likely be MikkTSpace, as per the glTF specification, but work needs to be done to see if supporting this could lead to clashes with the current normal maps rendering. This does mean that current Normal maps will not work on PBR materials.
  • The initially supported capabilities are:
    • RGB albedo + transparency.
    • RGB Occlusion/Roughness/Metalness: R = occlusion, G = roughness; Blue = metalness.
    • RGB emissive.
    • RGB normal (- alpha).
    • Double-sized supported (disables backface calling before issuing the draw call).
    • Two-sided lighting (so if the back of a triangle is visible, it flips the normal around).
  • In addition:
    • There will be an ability to “preview” materials on an item within your own viewer (similar in nature to Local Textures) before actually uploading them.
    • LSL support is still being defined, but should at least allow individual texture UUIDs to be replaced under script control.
    • The approach being taken is to may the system extensible so that further capabilities / plug-ins / options can be added with relative ease in the future.
    • However, Displacement maps will not initially be supported due to not being defined in the core of glTF 2.0; nor will any extensions that are not adopted into the core glTF standard (either glTF 2.0 or 3.0).

Current Progress – PBR Rendering

  • Progress has been made on both the back-end and within the viewer, the latter elements being focused on hooking up EEP to work with PBR.
  • There is currently an issue with Mac OSX due to the cube map being used at present, but this will be addressed.
  • Given the work is still on-going, there is nothing as yet directly visible viewer-wise for users to test (on Aditi).

New Starter Avatars

There was some discussion of the new all-mesh starter avatars (see: SL19B MTL – the Moles (new starter avatars + Linden Homes)), reiterating / stating:

  • This is not a re-working of the avatar system; it is aimed towards providing incoming new users with:
    • A selection of mesh avatars with which they can gain familiarity in terms of using / customising.
    • A supporting ecosystem of clothing / accessories rigged to work with the avatars / existing slider system.
    • A “stepping stone to allow them to more readily move towards more complex mesh avatar bodies / heads.
  • It is hoped that as the system starts to mature, avatar clothing / accessory makers can be encouraged to support these new avatars by providing clothing / accessories of their own (and also adding to their income stream by doing so).
  • There is a concern that the new avatars will be rejected by the existing community, so information will be made available to creators, etc., as the system reaches a point where reliable information can be shared.

In Brief

  • llSetEnvironment (for scripted EEP changes) should start being deployed in an upcoming simulator maintenance updates.
  • Currently, there are no plans to extend materials support to Bakes on Mesh; current materials or PBR.
  • Additional avatar slider discussion:
    • A further request was made for a global scaling slider for the avatar. This was described as being harder to implement that might appear – although not impossible.
      • Part of the problem is the complexity involved in adding a new slider to work within the existing system, and the impact it has on other back-end systems (such as the Bake Service) which then also need to be tested / updated.
      • It is also unclear how the animation graph could be impacted / adjusted to allow for realistic, size-based strides with walking (e.g. so very large avatars don’t appear to be taking disproportionately small steps or tiny avatars are zipping along like they are jet-propelled -although given what is currently possible, it’s not clear if trying to address issues like these would be seen as a requirement by users.
      • As such, while the request has been noted (and has been subject to feature request Jira, it is described as being on the “back burner” of work LL would like to get to at some point.
    • Gender: a request was made to make the Gender slider less of a binary male / female choice. A modification to TPVs helps to provide this – for which LL now has the details – but it would be better to have official support.
  • The inverse kinematics system as a whole is being looked at as a part of the avatar puppeteering (formerly avatar expressiveness) project.
  • Larger prim sizes than 64m: currently not under consideration; however, LL interested in learning more about how-where they would be used, so they might better determine size ranges, etc., and in preventing Land Impact making structures created by large-scale prims becoming unaffordable.
  • Non-physical region surrounds (e.g. by using environment settings to create a 360-degree panorama): still more in the discussion stage internally at the Lab rather than anything likely to be implemented in the foreseeable future.
  • Mojo Linden indicated he would like to be able to give some kind of a representative low-poly bakes that would be vertex-shaded, the idea being to give a greater sense of the “vastness” of Mainland than can be gained from extending Draw Distance (which would also have a viewer performance hit in trying to render everything within DD range). These would then someone “fade away” and be replaced by the “real thing” as an avatar moves towards them, with further low-poly bakes appearing in the distance.
    • This is not an immediate project, but something Mojo would like feedback on, in terms of being something worth time in the LL considering.
    • If this were to become a project, the emphasis would be on the bakes being very low-poly, and the progress from a bake to actual objects would not be seamless.
  • Terrain texture update: this has been previously discussed, but was put on hold as creators favoured PBR support. However, it is something the Lab will be getting back to in the future – with the potential for PBR support to potentially be extended to the terrain as a future PBR project, with possible PBR texture painting (grass, plants, dirt, etc.).
  • There was a general discussion on land: pricing, products, instancing regions (e.g. event / experience regions) being able to spin-up / down regions when in use / not in use.
    • All of these ideas are subject to internal LL discussions, and some have their own inherent challenges (e.g. how do you account for spinning-down regions in which there are scripts running that have an expectation the region will be available 24/7, such as breedables?; how do you offer variable sized regions (e.g. 128mx128m or 1024x1024m) when the system is built around the expectation of a uniform region size (256x256m)?).
    • Beyond ideas being discussed internally and seeking feedback from users, nothing is on the current roadmap in terms of new land products.

Next Meeting

  • Thursday August 4th, 2022.

July 2022 Web User Group: Premium Plus, MP and more

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, July 6th, 2022.

These meetings are generally held in-world on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. They 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.

Premium Plus – Quarterly Membership

[Video: 2:55-6:42]

  • There has been what LL regard as a “positive” response to the Premium Plus launch on June 23rd, with take-up being “ahead of the curve”.
  • Quarterly accounts:
    • These were Grandfathered for Premium in 2018 (so those on Quarterly could continue, but those upgrading after the grandfathering could only opt for Monthly or Annual). As such, Quarterly was not listed as part of the original Premium Plus offering.
    • I raised the question through the Meet the Moles session at SL18B (via Saffia as host).
    • Quarterly has now bee added to Premium Plus – but only for those upgrading from Quarterly Premium. If you are not already on Quarterly Premium billing, you will only see the Monthly / Annual prices.
  • Coming soon: the ability to directly pick a Linden Home parcel (one that is available but not part of the allocation system as per my Premium Plus notes) that is currently offered via filing a support ticket will be moving to a web-based ability.
  • Still under discussion / in development for Premium Plus:
    • Reduced mesh upload fees.
    • Premium Plus linden Homes.
    • Premium Plus “VIP areas”.
  • The Premium offering will also continue to be updated.

Future Subscription Levels

[Video: 42:29-end]

  • Are their plans to offer more Premium subscription levels? Plans, no. There is nothing definitive being planned or in the works for further levels of Premium at this time.
  • Are the discussions about / interest in possible permutations of subscription options? Yes.
  • It is certainly true that the system is now set-up to support different subscription offerings if more levels were to be added.
    • This latter point sparked a discussion of what people saw as “ala carte”, which largely came down to people wanting only pay for something specific – such as Linden Home or free tier – rather than picking a range of options – please refer to the video for details.

Name Changes – Pricing Updates

[Video: 4:25-4:45]

Currently being worked on but not implemented at the time of writing:

  • The promised lower cost for Name Changes for Premium Plus.
  • A reduction (unspecified at this time) cost to Premium members, to be introduced alongside the new Premium Plus pricing.

“Land Journey” Refresh

[Video: 7:15-8:20]

  • Work is now in progress for this.
  • Will involve a complete overhaul of obtaining land – from private islands through Mainland to rentals.
  • Intended to be a tool for all who are seeking or selling land.
  • The Lab is open to suggestions as to how the overhaul of the “Land Journey” can better serve land rental businesses across SL – those with ideas should file a Feature Request Jira.

Marketplace

[Video: 8:20-16:36]

  • Work on Marketplace variances (e.g. multiple colour options for an item available from a single listing) was placed on hold as a result of the work on Search and Premium Plus, and so is now Unlikely to be deployed until the autumn / fall period.
  • Currently for the MP, the focus is on taking the work for Search relevance that has been carried out and implementing it within Marketplace search, plus updated capabilities including Boolean searches, exact matching, fuzzy matching, etc., plus better relevance ranking, better filtering, better sorting, support for special characters.

Marketplace Rebuild

  • This was mentioned at the June 2022 meeting as a potential project – rebuilding the Marketplace from the ground up.
  • The project is still in the discussion stage, and feedback is being sought – again please refer to the June meeting notes to see what was discussed and forward ideas to LL via Feature Request Jira.
  • This is a long-term project that will not be ready for ant form of surfacing until some time in 2023 at the earliest.
  • It is possible that as and when roll-out does commence, it will be in stages until such time as parity is reached with the current MP / sufficient store owners have move across, it makes sense to complete a migration and shut down the current MP.
  • Equally, an iterative approach allows any work to be halt and reconsidered if things do not go well / do not meet with a positive response from users.
  • The new MP will be built to support mobile device access.

In Brief

  • No major news on SL Mobile, other than “avenues are being investigated”. Also see Mojo Linden’s comments from SL19B.
  • There have also been discussions on “how to engage” with the core SL product (outside of the Marketplace) via the web. Things under consideration include:
    • Group chat.
    • Inventory access / management – although this is noted as being problematic (e.g. reflecting updates on the web whilst also logged-in).
  • Also in the works are more landing pages to help promote Second Life to potential users / groups who might be interested in using the platform.
  • The future of Place Pages is uncertain. They need attention, but it is not clear how valuable they might be.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, August 3rd, 2022. Venue and time per top of this summary.