Category: SL User Group Meetings

2020 Simulator User Group week #25 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Mediterraneo Coffee and Lounge Bar – May 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, June 16th.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for news and updates:

  • On Tuesday, June 16th, the majority of the grid was updated to server release 543337, comprising simulator-side updates that will eventually allow per-region values for Shout, Say, and Whisper distances.
    • Note: Currently these values are read only, and can be accessed via the Sim Console.
  • On Wednesday, June 17th, the RC channels will be updated to server release 543526, comprising further infrastructure updates to support Group chat improvements / support of the cloud uplift work.

Voice Carry Project – Update and Re-Cap

Voices Carry is the name given to the extended chat range project. Once fully deployed, it will allow region / estate owners / managers to set the open chat range on a region (see BUG-228333).

As of the June 16th simulator update, the current values can be viewed via the Sim Console, as noted above.  the command for doing so are: “get chat_range”, “get whisper_range” and “get shout_range”.

General notes on the capability, once fully deployed:

  • It only applies to local chat channel 0, and so it should not impact scripted objects using other chat channels.
  • The distance set within a region will determine which, if any, of any adjoining regions can her local chat with that region.
    • For example, if you are in a region with chat distance set to 50m and you’re more than 50m from any boundary with an adjoining region, then your chat will not be relayed beyond the region.
  • The distance chat is set to within a region will determine how far any chat from an adjoining region will be relayed within it.
    • For example: if a region has a chat range of 20m, and chat is relayed from a neighbouring region with a range of 100m, that chat will only be relayed 20m within the current region.
  • No matter how great the chat range is set within an region, it will never be relayed further than those immediately adjoining it.
    • For example: if a Mainland region has a chat range set to 1000m, chat from it will only be relayed to the (maximum of) 8 regions adjoining it.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the current viewers as follows:

  • Current Release viewer version 6.4.3.542964, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • CEF RC viewer, version 6.4.3.543157, June 11.
    • Tools Update RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543148, June 5 – this viewer is built using VS 2017 / a recent version of Xcode, and Boost.Fiber. It contains no user-facing changes.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543142, June 3.
  • Project viewers:
    • Mesh uploader project viewer, version 6.4.4.543141, June 11.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

  • Extended update deployment roll-times: region owners have noted that the time taken for deployments to roll across  estates has become extended – some regions taking up to an hour to update and restart. LL believe they know what the issue is, but any fix will not be implemented until after the cloud uplift work has been completed.
  • Cloud uplift: work is progressing well, although LL are not revealing which services have been migrated and which have yet to move.
    • Following completion of the uplift, all SL services will initially be in a single AWS regional zone.
    • However, LL expect to eventually have things more distributed across zones (e.g.allowing some simulators to be located closer to where their core audience is located, where there is a clear geographical distribution of users.

2020 SL project updates week #24: TPVD summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lemon Bay, May 2020 – click any image for full size

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, June 12th, 2020. These meetings are generally held every other week, unless otherwise noted in any given summary. The embedded video is provided to Pantera – my thanks to her for recording and providing it. Time stamps are included with the notes will open the video at the point(s) where a specific topic is discussed.

This was another short meeting!

SL Viewer News

[0:10-2:45]

  • The CEF Update RC viewer updated to version 6.4.3.543157 on June 11th.

The remainder of the official views currently in progress are as follows:

  • Current Release viewer version 6.4.3.542964, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Tools Update RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543148, June 5 – this viewer is built using VS 2017 / a recent version of Xcode, and Boost.Fiber. It contains no user-facing changes.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543142, June 3.
  • Project viewers:
    • Mesh uploader project viewer, version 6.4.3.542535, June 3.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • The Love Me Render (LMR) viewer is the next in line to be promoted. This may include a number of high-priority EEP fixes as well, which means the promotion is currently being held until these fixes can be merged into the viewer.
    • These EEP fixes do not appear to include BUG-225784 “[EEP] BUG-225446 regression – HUDs are again affected by environment setting” is also awaiting the Lab.
  • It’s currently not clear what viewer is liable to be promoted after LMR.
  • A further Maintenance RC is in preparation.
  • Both the Mesh uploader and Copy  / Paste project viewers may be in a position to be promoted to RC status in their next updates.
  • The Legacy Profile project viewer still awaits a back-end web change.

In Brief

  • [11:49-20:42], including text chat] A further bug on the EEP list is BUG-226772 “[EEP] Full bright objects are not affected by fog”.
    • This was an issue common to the official viewer pre-EEP although Firestorm had a fix that is regressed by EEP.
    • As an alternative to a rendering fix, a request has been made to implements a viewer-side option to disable full bright should a user encounter the issue.  No statement from LL on implementing this idea  – or not.

2020 Simulator User Group week #24 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hotel Del Salto – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, June 9th.

Simulator Deployments

At the time of writing there were no formal simulator release notes, however:

  • There was no deployment to the main SLS channel on Tuesday, June 9th.
  • On Wednesday, June 10th, the same RC deployment will be rolled to all of the simulator RC channels. This comprises:
    • A minor script constant fix (CLICK_ACTION_ZOOM and CLICK_ACTION_DISABLED were missing).
    • The chat range changes for channel 0.

Voice Carry Project

Voices Carry is the name given to the extended chat range project. Once available, it will allow region / estate owners / managers to set the open chat range on a region (see BUG-228333). When considering it, the following points should be kept in mind:

  • It only applies to local chat channel 0, and so it should not impact scripted objects using other chat channels.
  • The distance set within a region will determine which, if any, of any adjoining regions can her local chat with that region.
    • For example, if you are in a region with chat distance set to 50m and you’re more than 50m from any boundary with an adjoining region, then your chat will not be relayed beyond the region.
  • The distance chat is set to within a region will determine how far any chat from an adjoining region will be relayed within it.
    • For example: if a region has a chat range of 20m, and chat is relayed from a neighbouring region with a range of 100m, that chat will only be relayed 20m within the current region.
  • No matter how great the chat range is set within an region, it will never be relayed further than those immediately adjoining it.
    • For example: if a Mainland region has a chat range set to 1000m, chat from it will only be relayed to the (maximum of) 8 regions adjoining it.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the current viewers as follows:

  • Current Release viewer version 6.4.3.542964,, dated May 29th, promoted June 2nd, formerly the FMOD Studio RC viewer – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Tools Update RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543148, June 5 – this viewer is built using VS 2017 / a recent version of Xcode, and Boost.Fiber. It contains no user-facing changes.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.4.4.543142, June 3.
    • CEF RC viewer, version 6.4.3.542757, issued May 27.
  • Project viewers:
    • Mesh uploader project viewer, version 6.4.3.542535, June 3.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

 

2020 Content Creation User Group week #23 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Beguiled Art Gallery and Studio, May 2020 – 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, June 4th 2020 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Unfortunately, Vir was on a replacement computer for this meeting, and the audio quality was exceptionally bad in the early part of the meeting, making comprehension both in the meeting and when playing back my audio recording very difficult.

Terrain

  • LL has long acknowledged that terrain texture quality in Second Life is not overly great by today’s graphics standards.
  • There is no defined project to update terrain textures as yet, but Vir took the opportunity to take feedback on ideas for what might be included. Some of this comprised:
    • Better texture density for crisper textures.
    • Texture layering to allow for roads / paths, etc.
    • Support for higher resolution textures.
    • Splat maps for textures and for normal and specular support.
  • Voxel support was requested, but this is seen as a much larger project than terrain texturing, we Linden Lab to go that route, and it is certainly not something on the cards for the foreseeable future.

Jelly Dolls / Avatar Rendering

  • Vir continues to work on this and has (I believe) a viewer with some of his ideas included available for internal testing or review at the Lab.

Project Muscadine (Animesh Follow-On)

Project Summary

Currently: offering the means to change an Animesh size parameters via LSL.

Current Status

  • Still officially on hold.
  • Attach points support has been requested and could be a “next step”.
  • However, when work is resumed, the emphasis will be on fixing the identified bugs around the LSL parameter setting process

In brief

  • EEP: LL are still looking to correct:
    • Specularity (shininess) issues – see BUG-228781 and BUG-228581. One of these issues is now fixed internally to the Lab, the other is “in progress”. When deployed, should see behaviour return to pretty much how it was pre-EEP, how where the fixes will fit in viewer updates is still TBD.
    • Issues with the environment settings for Mainland. This has proven harder to fix. It appears that the wrong environment settings were baked into the Mainland regions, and the most direct means of correcting this is by manually correcting them.
  • The EEP issues – which arguably show things as they *should* appear, but which in doing so “break” content (hence trying to get the “fixes” in s that assets don’t have to be corrected & re-uploaded, etc.), sparked a discussion on how indicated changes to the rendering pipeline will be handled. Essentially these will be “opt in” for content created after any updates are deployed; old content will be “opt out”, to avoid breakage.
  • Next meeting: Thursday, June 18th, 13:00 SLT.

May 2020 Web User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes are taken from my recording of the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020. These meetings are held monthly, generally on the first Wednesdays of the month, with dates and details of the meetings available via the Web User Group wiki page.

When reading these notes, please keep in mind:

  • This is not intended as a chronological transcript of the meeting. Items are drawn together by topic, although they may have been discussed at different points in the meeting.
  • Similarly, and if included, any audio extracts appearing in these summaries are presented by topic heading, rather than any chronological order in which they may have been raised during the meeting (e.g. if “topic X” is mentioned early in a meeting and then again half-way through a meeting, any audio comments related to that topic that might be included in these reports will be concatenated into a single audio extract).

Account Self-Reactivation

  • Previously, if a user left Second Life and asked for their account to be de-activated, it would require a support ticket to have the account re-activated at a future date, should the user wish to return to SL and to that account.
  • Users can now re-activate their account directly.
  • This is seen as a way to help people returning to Second Life as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 situation to be able to resume using their “old” accounts, rather than having to fully start over without having to soak up support personnel time in re-activating an account.
  • To work, a returning user must know both the account name / password and the e-mail address used to create the account.
  • This method doesn’t replace raising a support ticket for account re-activation, so people can still file a ticket if they do not have all the required information.
  • Details on account reactivation can be found here.

Mobile Client

  • The iOS version is now in a closed alpha featuring some residents.
  • In keeping with the Lab’s plans, this version offers the ability to communicate via IM, and has a basic Friends listing.
  • Further updates will follow  – the next being the addition of Abuse Reporting support and improved management for the Friends list.
  • Once the Lab believe the client has an initial set of functions to make it useful as a communications tool, it will will move to a beta phase and made available to a wider cohort of users for further testing.
  • Work is progressing on an Android client, but it will take time for it to reach a point where it is ready for testing. When it is ready, it will likely follow a similar Alpha / Beta test process to the iOS version.
  • Additional work on SL web properties is also being carried out in relation to the Mobile client.

In Brief

  • The Adult Swim event held in May heavily involved the web team, and similar events are apparently being planned for the future.
  • Name Changes:
    • In response to requests, the list of last names provided on the Name Change page can now be seen by Basic members, so they can review the currently available names without have to upgrade first.
Basic users can now see the list of available last names on the Name Change page, so they can check to see if there is a name they’d like before they upgrade to Premium to use the capability.
    • No indication of how frequently the list of last names will updated, but plans remain to change out names once they reach a certain point of use and / or fail to gain traction and use.
    • There will be a blog post ahead of any update to allow people who what to take a name before it might vanish from the list can do so.
  • Work continues on deploying the updates Second Life logo / font (see Out with the green, in with the blue) across web properties as they are naturally updated for other reasons.
  • There was a reminder that user in Norway and Australia must now pay VAT or GST is now applicable on Linden Lab products services (see VAT & GST on Lab products & services for Norway & Australia).
  • Feature request and bugs discussed:
    • To help with EEP asset merchandising, the following feature request has been filed: BUG-228856 “EEP Category in Marketplace”.
    • BUG-228845 “Marketplace Edit Item Listing loses Image Upload option” has been accepted by the Lab for cloning to their internal Jira system.

2020 Simulator User Group week #23 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Vintage Lace, April 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken at the Simulator User Group meeting held on Tuesday, June 2nd.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the simulator deployment thread for updates.

  • On Tuesday, June 2nd, the RC channels were updated with a server update, version 543116, intended to fix an expired cert that was causing problems with HTTP calls..
  • On Wednesday, June 3rd, and providing there are no issues arising from the above deployment, the same server update will be deployed across the rest of the grid.

SL Viewer

On Tuesday, June 2nd:

  • The FMOD Studio RC viewer, version 6.4.3.542964, and dated May 29th, was promoted to de facto release status.
  • The Mesh Uploader project viewer updated to version 6.4.3.542535.

All other viewer pipelines are as follows:

  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Project viewers:
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9th, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22nd, 2019.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17th, 2019. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th, 2019.

In Brief

  • Parcel EEP settings are still drawing complaints from some who travel over Mainland (particularly by air) who are not particularly enamoured with seeing “their” daytime settings suddenly change. However, there is a simple answer: all they need to do is apply their preferred EEP settings to their avatar before flying, and *presto* they have a constant environment in their viewer for both parcel and region crossings. Simples.
  • Apparently, a rumour has been circulating somewhere that LL are “rethinking” the cloud uplift. In response to being asked if there is any truth to it, Oz Linden replied:

[There’s] no truth to the rumour at all. The only re-thinking we’re doing is how to do it better/faster.

  • Group chat lag still continues to be a problem for some groups – notably those with a large membership. This appears to be related to the volume of message traffic a back-end group chat server is handling, rather than a specific issue within the chat service.
  • Those wishing to test the upcoming changes to nearby chat ranges (channel 0), can do so on Aditi in the following regions: Animesh1, Animesh2 and Snark