
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 12th 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 meeting is embedded at the end of this summary, my thanks as always to Pantera for recording the meeting and providing it.
Meeting Overview
- The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas.
- These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
- Every Tuesday at 12:00 noon SLT.
- In text (no Voice)
- At this location.
- They are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
- Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Simulator Deployments
- Tuesday, December 12th: the SLS Main channel was re-started without any simulator updates being deployed.
- Wednesday, December 13th: the “Fall Colours” maintenance update should be expanded across all RC channels. This update includes llRezObjectWithParams, llIsFriend, but will not include the game controller updates.
Viewer Updates
On Tuesday, December 12th, the glTF PBR Materials Maintenance RC, version 7.1.1.7173980941, was issued. Among the updates / fixes included are:
- Fix: BUG-234706 “[GLTF] [PBR] Performance unstable / massive performance loss compared to default release”.
- Fix: BUG-234740 “[PBR] [Windows] Scaled/Offset Textures Quality Degrades at Short Distance”.
- Fix: BUG-234632 “[PBR] – Regression – Lossless compression normal map upload via GLTF asset is broken”.
- Fix: BUG-234740 “[PBR] [Windows] Scaled/Offset Textures Quality Degrades at Short Distance”.
- Improvement: “SL-20611 Haze has no effect on local lights”.
- Update: 17 new Materials available via the Library.
- Please refer to the release notes for the full list of fixes / updates / known issues for this release.
Other viewers in the pipe remain as:
- Release viewer: version 7.0.1.6894459864, the glTF / PBR Materials viewer, issued November 17, promoted November 28.
- Release channel cohorts:
- Maintenance V(ersatility) RC viewer, version 7.1.1.7039128750, December 1.
- Maintenance X RC, version 6.6.17.6935636398, issued November 21 – usability improvements.
- Maintenance Y, version 6.6.17.6935642049, issued November 21 – My Outfits folder improvements; ability to remove entries from landmark history.
- Emoji RC viewer, version 6.6.15.581551, August 31.
- Project viewers:
- Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.12.579958, May 11.
Game Controllers
From Leviathan Linden:
I’m trying to provide an updated viewer that allows for keyboard support: send game_control data even if you don’t have a game controller. I hope to have something available for download today, but just got the Mac version to build but it is missing some UI and I don’t know why yet.
What would be new in that game_control viewer are two things:
The ability to map most avatar movement controls (e.g. push_forward, strafe_left, etc) that have keyboard bindings… to game_control axes and/or buttons.
[A] small change where I negate the axis by default on the X-components of the joysticks on your controller. This to make it so that LEFT is in the positive direction [so] if you’ve already negated that channel in test scripts then you will need to remove your own negation.
What is NOT in the new viewer:
Remapping of controller inputs
Arbitrary keyboard mappings to game_control inputs — you can map the “Actions” of avatar movement/control that already have keyboard mappings… to game_control inputs.
Detection of odd game controller hardward — I still have a Thrustmaster HOTUS controller on order but it hasn’t arrived yet. I blame X-mas package traffic jams.
Combat Simulation
- Rider Linden has published his outline document on improving SL’s combat capabilities, which can be found within the combat systems discussion thread on the forums, and is gaining good feedback on it.
- This led to a general discussion on requirements / concerns over conflicts in trying to address multiple combat systems, managing Damage (and the potential for a “damage budget” / sliding scale of damage based on weaponry.
- The new user group for combat systems should be starting up in the new year. For now, please refer to the meeting video for the general discussion, which starts around 18 minutes into the meeting and continues through until the end.
In Brief
- Rider Linden continues to prove himself cool and hip – this week referencing Carl Reiner’s classic neo-noir mystery comedy film Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. At least he didn’t get in T-R-U-B-I-L for doing so.
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.




