The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 12th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.
Server Deployments
There was no deployment to the Main SLS channel on Tuesday 12th, April.
Wednesday, April 13th should see the completion of the RC deployment of server release 570305, which was suspended last week. This comprises:
Fixes issues with llRequestAgentData and llRequestSimulatorData sometimes failing after they’ve been called repeatedly.
A couple of crash fixes.
Additional logging around simulator start-up.
Upcoming Server Releases
There are a number simulator releases in the works, including:
One contains some reworking of a few of the internal subsystems, which are now suitable for update now that the tool uplift is completed.
One that contains some long requested additions to llGetObjectDetails and llGetEnv as well as a new LSL function.
llGetObjectDetails will gain a series of new constants: OBJECT_MATERIAL; OBJECT_MASS; OBJECT_TEXT; OBJECT_REZ_TIME (a timestamp); OBJECT_LINK_NUMBER and OBJECT_SCALE.
llGetEnv will gain:
“region_agent_limit”: Current maximum population for this region.
“region_agent_limit_max”: Maximum population setting possible.
“region_agent_unreserved”: Current limit on unreserved population.
“region_agent_reserved”: Current number of spaces reserved for premium.
Further options may be added prior to release.
Two further updates that respectively repairing offline friendship and group offers.
Available Official Viewers
All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:
Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
Project viewers:
Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
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 viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
In Brief
Monday, April 11th saw the SL log-in servers updated. Those running scripted agents may need to check their bots to make sure they are accessing SL correctly.
There were some requests for things like avatar height to be added to llGOD. After looking into it, Rider Linden feels it does not make sense put it there.
Instead, he is adding llGetVisualParams, which will give access to any of the visual parameters that are sent to simulator from the viewer. These will be accessible either by their ID number or the parameter name.
These are the parameters found within avatar_lad.xml.
It was noted that these parameters could be used to auto-size scripted clothing/attachments.
There has been a request made to allow Experience owners who build games using a specific EEP environment to be able to check whether or not all players are using the environment and not “cheating” by using a more advantageous EEP.
Note the request was not to determine what EEP settings a player is using, just as simple “yes / no” on whether or not they are using the game’s EEP settings.
This drew an over-reaction from some that doing so would be a means to “spy” on other users; a statement that at best seems to be a stretch, given the functionality and the fact it would be opt-in.
However, it was also acknowledged by LL that given the viewer is open, there’s a risk things degenerate between attempts to present cheating and finding way to cheat.
The above lead to a broader discussion on games and capabilities within SL, and some of the issues that can be encountered: latency over the Internet, general message handling, etc.
My audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, April 7th 2022 at 13:00 SLT.
The video recording by Pantera (embedded at the end of this piece, my thanks to her as always for recording the meetings) from the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting on Friday, April 8th, 2022 at 13:00 SLT.
These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and their respective dates and times can be obtained from the SL Public Calendar.
This is a summary of the key topics discussed in each 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.
MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
Project viewers:
Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
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 viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
General Viewer Notes
The focus is on fixing the bugs reported on the Performance Improvements RC viewer so that it can be the next viewer promoted to de facto release status. The RC version has been updated but has yet to be issued.
[Video: 30:53-31:55] This viewer also includes a fix for handling object occlusion.
The Performance Floater project viewer includes the auto-FPS capability that is similar in nature to Firestorm’s Auto Tune capability designed to help maintain a given viewer frame rate (see here for more), and the aim is to try to sync these two approaches up before the Lab’s viewer moves to RC status.
The server-side work required for the Legacy Profiles viewer had been deployed, so that viewer should be updated and appearing soon.
Providing the ability to import a glTF file with is single material within it containing all the textures / maps and colour parameters for a given face. Exactly which maps (normal, specular, emissive, roughness, albedo, occlusion, etc.) is still being defined.
When uploaded, the material then becomes an inventory asset.
When the asset is applied to the face of an object, it overrides the texture parameters for that face (diffuse, normal spec maps, full bright, etc.), with the options to edit these parameters in the Build / Edit tool disabled until such time as the material is removed from that face.
However, the face-related options – rotation, repeats per metre, offsets, etc., – would remain accessible.
This approach would faces to be textured under the existing system and have a materials asset applied so that viewers without the new materials code would render the “legacy” texture parameters for the object face, whilst viewers with the updated code would render the settings specified by material.
What is the benefit of this?
It moves SL towards proper support for PBR and the improvements that will bring.
Very simply put from an end-user perspective: it will help add depth to Second Life by improving the way surfaces appear be giving them improved surface texturing, reflectivity, and so on; and it will no longer require end-users fiddling around with textures and normal / specular maps to achieve something; they’ll have a simple asset they apply to (say) a wall, and that’s it.
The first pass of this work will provide support for Adobe Substance 3D Painter, and as such, LL are looking for feedback from creators who use Substance Painter in terms of how they use it, what kind of materials they are creating, and how they would like those materials represented in Second Life, what maps they would ideally like to see supported.
A concern raised with this approach is that glTF does not natively support non-PBR workflows, which is a problem for those who use Substance Painter “non-PBR” (such as clothing creators), and this needs to be taken into consideration.
One route around this is the suggestion that the materials actually be built at import time, rather than just built within Substance Painter and exported to glTF for import.
It was requested that some form of UI element should be added to the viewer to allow material assets to at least be inspected. While this is something that will be provided, it will not be in the first phase of the work.
Rendering for these “new” materials will be entirely separate to the existing rendering path for SL’s existing materials system, allowing for a more “industry standard” approach to be used with the new materials.
Whether or not a fee is to be charged for importing these materials is still TBD (and somewhat complex, if the importer is to support using texture files previously uploaded to SL, rather than having to import them again).
Longer-term the idea is at when PBR support is added, it will only work with these material assets; texture entries will continue to be handed as they are now (as noted above).
PBR itself is a complex issue both technically and in terms of content, and it is already envisaged that it will give rise to differing environments in-world (e.g. locations that are “PBR enabled” and require people to be running viewers capable of supporting PBR).
This is because SL content being what it is, there is no easy way to “PBR-ify” it all, and gain a uniform (or even desirable) result – particularly where content has been designed under the existing rendering capabilities to produce a specific result.
Given the complexities / impact of such a project, LL recognises there is a need to provide the means for ongoing real-time exchange of ideas / gathering creator input.
Neither the CCUG nor the SL forums are seen as a good fit for this kind of interaction.
The preferred option voiced in the meeting was to use Discord as a host. Server details TBD at this time, if this is selected.
From the TPVD Meeting
[Video: 4:41-9:10] It has been pointed out the 30-day validity period for an MFA token seems unusually long, and a request has been made to reduce it.
In particular, testing the MFA code and token refresh when looking at the viewer code is more difficult when the tester has to wait a month between tests and checks / retries.
[Video: 11:54-20:10] Beq Janus and Vaalith Jinn are working on “temp mesh” – a means to preview mesh and rigged mesh in-world without necessarily having to log to the Beta grid and upload there. As per the video, there are some issues (such as the temporary creation of linksets), but overall it is hoped with work will result in a usable capability.
This conversation folds into itself a broader discussion on purely viewer-side rendering (as opposed to rendering asset data coming via the CDN)
[Video: 20:12-25:16] Bandwidth setting confusion: A claim was made the turning up the official viewer’s network bandwidth setting improves texture download speeds for those on faster Internet connections, prompting a request for the default setting being turned up.
Given that the network bandwidth setting is supposedly only for UDP messaging, and all assets, including textures, are transmitted via HTTP via CDN(s), some understandable doubt was cast on this.
While not ruling out changing the bandwidth setting causing a degree of improvement, Runitai’s thoughts on the matter (through looking at the code) fall into two areas:
Any actual delay in texture fetching is more likely to be with some of the background thread handling which has yet to be updated.
It is more likely that issues in texture loading / handling may be related to a number of issues, including a) the viewer mistakenly believing it is running out of VRAM (due to some coding errors) and immediately loading / unloading textures on the background threats; b) changes in how texture are actually downloaded and passed to the decode thread as a result of the move to HTTP that may be having an impact.
[Video: 28:53-29:35] In respect of this last bullet point above, it was indicated that TPVs tend to handle texture decoding, etc., somewhat differently, this is not believed to be an issue. A request has been made for a TPV to consider making a code contribution on this, so that LL can investigate making similar changes.
[Video: 32:53-44:20] Further discussion on texture fetching and the way the viewer code is generally conservative in this area.
[Video: 36:41-41:28] (overlapping with the above)] there is a restatement of the concern that raising the UDP bandwidth setting “because higher is better” could trigger a microburst buffer overrun on the server-side routers were the setting to be raised across all viewers. It is believed the servers are fairly well protected, but this needs to be confirmed by the infrastructure team before any such change is made.
[Video: 25:55-30:48] VRAM detection / use: changes are being tested (on Windows at present) whereby rather than setting a minimum default for VRAM (512 MB, a long-time sticking point for many users), LL are shifting to having the viewer query the operating system as to how much VRAM is free.
As an example of the potential improvement this has given, a system with 10 GB VRAM will see the viewer use as much of that VRAM as is available, whereas previously, the viewer would get up to using around 1.5 GB and then switch to texture paging.
Finding a similar solution for Mac system is somewhat more difficult due to the fact the only reliable report OS X provides is on the amount of installed VRAM, not how much may actually be available for an application to use / how much a process is using.
[Video: 45:14-47:16] does increasing the bandwidth setting improve teleporting between region?
Anecdotally, this appears to be the case for some.
However, whether there is a direct correlation between increasing the UDP bandwidth and inter-region TPs improving is hard to prove, although it is possible a message packet related to TPs is hitting the throttle and getting dropped without any attempted re-try.
[Video: 49:11-54:43] custom chat ranges: server-side support for extending chat ranges within regions beyond the default 20 metres (seen as useful for venues hosting meetings, presentations, etc.), was deployed some time ago, but is currently only available on Linden-controlled regions.
Wider availability of the capability has hit some privacy concerns (e.g. people believing their chat is limited to 20m in a public region being overheard by someone on the other side of the region). As such, the capability is awaiting viewer-side updates that make it clear to people entering regions where the chat range has been extended that this is the case.
This information is actually being sent to the viewer (RegionInfo in the RegionInfo 5 block), but the IU to handle it has yet to be added (and TPVs may not have been aware of its availability so they could create their own notifications).
The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, April 6th, 2022.
These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. 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.
Note this is a state requirement, with no money going to LL, and the Lab has tried to structure things so the impact is initially felt by as few in SL as possible.
The Search instance is being upgraded to Python 3 so that it can be hosted by an expert third-party service, who will then manage the update of the instance.
Once this is been done, work will commence on building a Relevance Engine to assist in managing search results.
Future Work
The overhaul of the Destination Guide is still being planned.
The “Land journey” – how to obtain Linden Homes, land via the Land Store through to obtaining an entire private region – is to be overhauled to make it easier for people to understand how to obtain land directly or rent it from others.
The release of Premium Plus has been pushed back until the latter part of May. Then main reason for this is to allow additional time for all the teams involved in managing / marketing / supporting Premium Plus to be ready for the launch.
When released, there will be a pro-rated amount for those on annual subscriptions with 6 months or more of Premium membership left until their next renewal, and renew at their normal renewal date at the Plus rate.
Details to be clarified when Premium Plus is launched.
The overall contents of Premium Plus are locked down, but will be made public at the time of launch. However, it may include (and as noted in my January WUG summary):
A higher amount of free tier than Premium’s 1024 sq m.
A higher stipend.
A higher sign-up bonus.
More group slots.
Lower fees “on certain things” (unspecified).
Where “more” is being offered (e.g. free land tier) it is liable to be roughly double that of Premium (so the stipend will be more than double that of Premium, for example.
Upgrades to Premium form Grandfathered accounts:
Grandfather stipend accounts will receive the “standard” Premium Plus stipend, not a Stipend based on their L$500 Grandfathered status.
[Video: 43:59-45:10] It is not clear at present if Grandfathered accounts would recover their Gandfathered L$500 a week stipend on downgrading from Plus to Premium, or revert to the standard L$300 a week. This will be clarified for the next WUG meeting.
The Lab is looking to gain feedback from users, with a series of questions asked at the meeting, which may well be asked again through the forums as well. These included:
How do you to find things to do in SL? – responses included: opening group chat with the message “I’m bored”; using the Destination Guide; asking friends; using travelogues such as in this blog; visit the What’s Hot section of the viewer splash screen; Tweeted from other SL users.
How did you get started in SL? – responses included: friend already active in SL; seeing one of the SL video ads; seeing people discussing SL on Twitter.
What makes you stay? – responses essentially revolved around creativity of others, ability to explore, opportunities to meet people, a group of close friends, art, building etc.; force of habit.
How familiar with the SL client and finding things you’re looking for would you say you are? – most said they felt they are all reasonably familiar.
What’s the hardest part about finding friends/activities in SL? – responses varied from simply finding other who are willing to engage in conversation through to the rate at which many social spots can be opened and closed (and the reasons for this, which flowed between tier costs and the sheer amount of work involved in day-to-day running of a venue); timezones.
In Brief
[Video 36:06-37:10] BUG-226218 “Ability refund purchases but disallow redelivery on Marketplace” – a feature request that has been accepted for consideration.
The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.
On Tuesday, April 5th, the Main SLS channel simulators were updated with simulator release 569934, which primarily contains a update to support the move of profile information back to the viewer, hopefully allowing the Legacy Profiles viewer (see below) to move forward.
On Wednesday, April 6th, the RC channels will be updated with server release 570305, comprising:
Fixes issues with llRequestAgentData and llRequestSimulatorData sometimes failing after they’ve been called repeatedly.
A couple of crash fixes.
Additional logging around simulator start-up.
Available Official Viewers
All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:
Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
Where Our Journey Begins, February 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, March 31st 2022 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and their respective 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.
Available Viewers
Current SL viewer pipelines:
Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
Project viewers:
Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
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 viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
General Viewer Notes
There is a general request out that people try the Performance Improvements RC viewer even if they are not in the cohort to auto-receive it as a viewer update.
Additional Materials Support – CCUG Meeting
LL are actively considering expanding the SL materials system to handle materials surfaces (imported in glTF format).
The initial idea is that when done, it will result in a “materials asset” containing all the settings that can be stored in inventory and re-used on object faces.
The primary motivators for this are a) to help people who are creating content in the likes of Substance 3D Painter, so that then can import and then adjust the parameters are required; and b) to act as a foundational step as SL moves towards supporting PBR, as PBR will require additional texture channels, etc., and LL believe this approach offers a means to start holing that additional information.
However, as assets, materials, while copyable / reusable, would not initially be editable in-world when in use.
To start this off, LL are looking to:
Better understand “typical” workflows used by content creators (notably the specific tools creators would like to see supported), and how they might better support those workflows.
Gain feedback on how creators might want to use an expanded materials system.
It is felt that to be of value, the entire SL reflection model would require an extensive overhaul to better support specularity handling. However, LL are still determining overall support for materials, and have suggested specularity could be handled in one of two ways:
The glTF could be adapted to the existing SL texture entry parameter;
Or (seen as preferable) add glTF support to the render engine for materials exactly as they come out of Substance 3D Painter and similar tools, allowing reflection models produced within them to be properly represented.
Support for the latter is already available within the viewer, but is not currently readily accessible for use.
Some form of user group may well be established to help manage discussions going forward and help understand how different tools implement glTF and how creators utilise those tools.
Provision of materials support for Bakes on Mesh is not a part of this work.
In Brief
A lot of general discussion on a number of topics, none of which is currently the focus of any Lab project, including:
“Flexi-mesh”: .a frequent request to have mesh react to physics in the same manner as flexiprims.
Technically this could be made possible by treating the flexiprim physics as part of the skeleton rather than as just a primitive path.
However, there is a real risk that were this to be done, it would break existing flexiprim content.
Currently, there are no plans to touch the flexiprim code; or offer support for “flexi-mesh”. However, if a well-conceived feature request on the subject is submitted, then it might be something that the Lab could look at in the future to see how it might be addressed.
Physics enhancements (e.g. altering the rate at which an avatar sinks in Linden Water so as to be more realistic) – no plans at present to touch the physics system.
There has been a request to completely overhaul the mesh importer to provide a much better means of previewing models prior to upload (e.g. see things like lighting effects, how textures appear, etc.).
Doing so is seen as assisting workflows by allowing models to be previewed without the need to log-in to the beta grid (for free uploads), easing the workflow when working on the Main grid.
Again, shy of a detailed feature request, there are no plans to overhaul the mesh importer in a dramatic way.
BUG-231985 “LL Incoming Damage Cap” is a new feature request to make the SL damage system more flexible to creators of combat, etc., environments / games when damage is a factor (e.g. by allowing a max damage per hit cap to be set for a region / parcel, so that players aren’t automatically “dead” on the first hit).
Setting animation priority via script: frequently requested, but not yet on the roadmap, although LL are aware of the popularity of the request.
The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 29th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.
Tuesday, March 29th: the Main SLS channel simulators were restarted, but without any update deployment.
Wednesday March 30th: all RC channel will be updated with simulator release 569934, which primarily contains a update to support the move of profile information back to the viewer, hopefully allowing the Legacy Profiles viewer (see below) to move forward.
Available Official Viewers
All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:
Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
Project viewers:
Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
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 viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
In Brief
Note: this meeting was another live music event, so discussions were limited. So very little to report.
BUG-231876 “llRequestSimulatorData() frequently and silently fails” – a fix has been developed for this issue and is currently with QA for testing. It had been hoped this would be ready for a deployment this week, but unfortunately this is not the case.
Some have been reporting an issue whereby their Friends list reports all (or most) contacts as off-line when logging into a region the first time after a restart, requiring them to TP to another region entire for a Friends list update, or (if they are the region holder) restarting / requesting a s restart for the culprit region. LL have no information as yet on why this is occurring.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 