On Tuesday, April 4th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC channels in week #13, comprising a small update to asset metrics stats logging.
On Wednesday, April 5th, the three RC channels should all receive a new server maintenance package which includes a new option in the estate settings which allows parcel owners to override the public access settings for all parcels in the estate. However, this change is pending a viewer update in order to make it visible to users.
SL Viewer
The Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 5.0.4.325124 on Monday, April 3rd. This viewer as a number of updates and improvements, which I reviewed in a recent post (albeit for the earlier version of the viewer).
Outside of this, the release of the LL viewer pipeline remains unchanged:
Current Release version 5.0.3.324435, dated March 13th – snapshots to e-mail hotfix
Release channel cohorts:
Voice RC viewer version 5.0.4.324770 released on March 20th – several improvements to voice
Project viewers:
Project AssetHttp project viewer, version 5.0.4.324828 dated March 30th – This viewer moves fetching of several types of assets to HTTP / CDN – overview
Project Alex Ivy (LXIV), 64-bit project viewer, version 5.1.0.503537 dated March 17th
360-degree snapshot viewer, version 4.1.3.321712 dated November 23rd, 2016 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images – hands-on review
Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.
Region Capacity and Access
On Tuesday, April 4th the Lab announced increases of between 10% and 25% on the number of avatars can enter a region, the exact percentage depending on the region type. These percentages apply to the default maximum number of avatars each type of region (Full, Homestead and Open Space), and to the limit imposed by the region owner. They also include other changes – refer to the official blog post (or my own) for further information.
Commenting on the change at the Simulator User Group meeting, Oz linden pointed out the change was made as an attempt to respond to multiple requests made at the SUG meetings for accessing full regions to be “improved”. Hints were given that the approach might be further refined / updated in the future.
There was no update to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, March 28th, as there had been no RC deployment in week #12. As there had been a deployment to this channel in week #12, it was not restarted.
On Wednesday, March 29th, the three RC channels should receive a new server maintenance package, primarily comprising a small update to asset metrics stats logging.
SL Viewer
The current viewers / candidates remain as:
Current Release version: 5.0.3.324435, dated March 13th – snapshots to e-mail hotfix
Release channel cohorts:
Maintenance RC viewer version 5.0.4.324882 released on March 23rd – avatar rendering and other updates – overview
Voice RC viewer version 5.0.4.324770 released on March 20th – several improvements to voice
Project viewers:
Project Alex Ivy (LXIV), 64-bit project viewer updated to version 5.1.0.503537 on March 17th
360-degree snapshot viewer updated to version 4.1.3.321712 on November 23rd, 2016 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images – hands-on review
Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.
Other Items
Script Editor Minor Bug
A minor, but irritating bug has been noted when working with the script editor. It is described as:
Open a script, select a reserved word, go to “help” > “keyword help”, minimize the wiki, minimise the script. Observe, you can’t open them individually.
The issue repros in both the official viewer and Firestorm, so is likely to be common to most viewers. A JIRA on the issue is expected.
On Tuesday, March 21st, the Main (SLS) channel received receive the same server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC channels, comprising new internal logging output and changes to increase stability and security
There is no planned deployment for the RC channels on Wednesday, March 22nd. As all three were restarted as a part of the week #11 deployment, they will not be restarted.
SL Viewer
Maintenance RC Viewer
A new Maintenance RC viewer, version 5.0.4.324646 was released on Thursday March 16th. This update includes a range of bug fixes (please refer to the release notes) and improvements as per my overview of the release. However, the updates to Avatar Complexity recorded in the release note appear to be absent the viewer / not working correctly. There are:
“We will now remember your choices of whether to render or not render certain avatars. You can set this by right-clicking on someone in-world and choosing Render avatar -> Default / Always / Never” – avatars still revert to Render Normally following a re-log
Your selections can be seen (and changed) in Preferences -> Graphics -> “Exceptions…” (under) Maximum Complexity – this “Exceptions” option does not appear to be in the viewer
We’ve also added a setting to always render your friends, regardless of complexity – also does not appear to be in the viewer.
The new Voice release candidate viewer, version 5.0.4.324770, arrived on Monday, March 20th. This viewer offers a number of improvements to voice:
Fixes the apparent position of voices in local voice
Improves retry behaviour when there are problems connecting or during temporary connection problems
Logs more detailed information to the Lab for quantifying connection issues
Improves security of the communication between the viewer and SLVoice
Alex Ivy 64-bit Viewer
The 64-bit viewer for Windows and Mac was updated to version on Friday, March 17th. This update should include the following:
An open-source wrapper for CEF called Dullahan (link for those who are curious about the etymology of Lab project names) which will replace llCEF, making it easier to render web content through the viewer
The same versions of Dullahan / CEF and libVLC (audio handling) on both the Windows and Mac builds.
In addition, the 64-bit Mac build now uses MacOS Sierra, and will be backwards compatible as far as OSX 10.9 (Xcode 8). The 64-bit Windows build still uses Visual Studio 2013, and will support Windows 10, 8 and 7. Vista support is TBC.
New Simulator Build
DRTSIM-323 is the channel on Aditi (the beta grid) which is carrying the a new version of the simulator code using the Lab’s latest build of the server operating system. In includes the regions: Fire Ants, Bug Island and Mauve (again, these are on the beta grid).
HTTP Asset Fetching
This is another project on Aditi only at present. As previously noted, it will eventually see the move of the remaining Second Life inventory assets – landmarks, gestures, animations, shapes, sounds and wearables (system layer clothing and body shapes) – to delivery over HTTP and via the Content Delivery Network(s), rather than via UDP through the simulator. Testing is still progressing, and an initially project viewer repository has been offered, but is not currently listed in the Alternate viewer page, as the server-side of the new code is only available on Aditi, as noted.
If you want to test the new capabilities (uploading new assets – particularly sounds and animations and then running them – you can obtain the project viewer (for the time being) from the Server Beta Group meeting agenda page on the SL wiki. Note the links are liable to vanish as the agenda page is updated, and that this viewer will only currently work in testing the new fetching capabilities when logged-in to Aditi.
Other Items
A new feature that aims to improve landowner experience and help premium members in also in the early stages of testing. no details as yet on what it is, but it has previously been hinted at in recent TPV Developer meetings. More details to come, as they become available
There is a general capabilities failure issue which can occur when connecting to region on on Aditi, which prevents users entering the region. It is under investigation, but JIRA reports if you persistent encounter the problem in respect of one more more regions on Aditi would be welcomed.
There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, March 14th. As there had been a deployment & restart in week #10, the channel was not restarted this week.
On Wednesday, March 15th, the three RC channels should all receive the same new server maintenance package, comprising new internal logging output and changes to increase stability and security.
A major reason for the slow-down in apparent server updates is significant effort is being put into SL’s back-end services, much of which lacks any obvious user visibility. As Simon Linden said at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, March 14th, “Second Life needs that stuff for the long haul – we’re working on projects to keep SL going for years to come.”
SL Viewer
There is currently no change to the current official viewer list, which comprises:
Current Release version: 5.0.2.324126, dated March 3, promoted March 6 – formerly a Maintenance RC viewer download page, release notes
Release channel cohorts:
None at present.
Project viewers:
Project Alex Ivy (LXIV), 64-bit project viewer, version 5.1.0.501863 for Windows and Mac, released on January 10th
360-degree snapshot viewer, version 4.1.3.321712, dated November 23rd, 2016 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images – hands-on review
Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.
It is anticipated that the 64-bit viewer will receive an update this week, which should include:
An open-source wrapper for CEF called Dullahan (link for those who are curious about the etymology of Lab project names) which will replace llCEF, making it easier to render web content through the viewer
The same versions of Dullahan / CEF and libVLC (audio handling) on both the Windows and Mac builds.
The 64-bit Mac build now uses MacOS Sierra, and will be backwards compatible as far as OSx 10.9 (Xcode 8). The 64-bit Windows build still uses Visual Studio 2013, and will support Windows 10, 8 and 7. Vista support is TBC.
Second Life Community Platform
The new Second Life Community Platform officially launched on Tuesday, March 14th. You can read my overview of the platform here.
Second Life Places
Second Life Places allows region and parcel owners to create a web browsable page for their location(s) in-world where they can be shared through blogs, websites, etc. Included with each page are buttons to allow visitors to the page to launch their viewer and teleport directly the specified location.
The programme has been in beta since November 2016, and you can read my overview here. However, it appears that beta will be coming to an end in the near future, and the programme will be open to all who meet the criteria for setting-up their own pages.
The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group meeting, held on Thursday March 9th, 2017 at 1:00pm SLT at the the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.
HTTP Fetching
As I’ve noted in several recent SL project updates, the Lab is shifting the fetching landmarks, gestures, animations, shapes, sounds and wearables (system layer clothing) away from UDP through the simulators and to HTTP via the CDN(s).
The simulator side of the code is already in place on Aditi and awaiting further testing (see here for more). Vir is heading-up the viewer side changes required to support this work, which is now getting “petty close” to being available in a public viewer (most likely a project viewer). I’ll continue to update on this work through my various SL project update reports.
Rendering Costs
Vir has also been looking at the viewer-side rendering costs of various avatar models to improve the overall rendering cost calculations. This is more a data gathering exercise at the moment, but it is hoped it will lead to improved calculations when determining the overall rendering complexity of models, and will likely mean that, for example, the cost of rendering rigged meshes will at some point be updated.
This isn’t directly related to the potential of animating objects (e.g. for non-player characters). While the Lab is apparently still pondering on this as a possible project, it would mean back-end changes to calculate the land impact of avatar models used as NPCs, rather than alterations to the viewer-side rendering cost.
Animation Transitions
There have been, and continue to be, a number of issues with animation playback, some of which appear to be related to llSetAnimationOverride, one of the server-side functions for controlling your animation state. Some of these were reported early on in Bento, which exacerbated some of them (e.g. quadrupeds crossing their forepaws).
Issues can also occur with jump animation states (pre-jump, jump and landing), as has been reported in BUG-7488. For example, During the meeting, Troy Linden and Medhue Simoni pointed to problems: for Troy, it was with respect of an avatar “sticking” in the landing animation, rather than returning to the expected standing animation; Medhue reports issues in general playback, and whether the transitions will actually play correctly.
It not clear if these issues are all a part of the same problem, but feedback from the meeting is being relayed back to those at the Lab poking at things.
Information and Tools
People are still having problems finding Bento information on the SL wiki – such as the skeleton files. This is partially due to the files being on the Bento Testing page. It’s also not easy for new creators to find information on suitable tools (e.g. Avastar. MayaStar, etc.).
One suggested solution (allowing for the wiki currently being locked from general edits) is to have a general SL tools page where the various tools, etc. can be listed with links to their respective websites. This could include free tools: GIMP, Blender, Wingz 3D, etc.), plus tools which are not specific to SL can be used within (e.g. Maya, Zbrush, etc), and then add-ons like Avastar and Mayastar.
Such an approach, coupled with a clean-up of the Bento information, might be suited to being included in an overhaul of the wiki Good Building Practices pages the Lab is working on as and when resources are available. Troy has made a note to take these ideas back to the Lab.
Other Items
Transparency Rendering Cost
There was some discussion on whether the rendering cost of a rigged mesh should remain high if it is set to transparent. Some felt the cost should be lower, and Vir noted that the system avatar has a special UUID for an invisible texture when can reduce the rendering cost of the system avatar. However, rigged meshes may not be subject to this check, which may also depend on how the mesh is made transparent (i.e. via a texture or via the transparency setting). He also noted that rendering as transparent could add cost over rendering a rigged mesh as opaque.
There was some discussion on whether simply having the mesh in memory, whether or not it is rendered, could add to its complexity. Vir indicated that as he’s not precisely sure how things are handled, he’d have a look at the code.
Calling Animation UUIDs via Script without the Animation Residing in Inventory
A question was asked whether it would be possible to have a script call an animation via the animation’s UUID without the animation being physically in the parent object’s inventory. The short answer to this is “no”.
While animations can be pulled from objects with modify permissions and used elsewhere, many items with animations (chairs, beds, etc.), tend to have animations in them set to No Copy, limiting the ability to freely re-use them. If animations could be freely called via script using their UUID, this protection would be eliminated, as anyone with the UUID could use the animation as often as they wished, regardless of whether or not a version of the animation resides in their inventory.
This conversation edged into the issue of people being able to pull Copy permissioned inventory from a No Modify object by opening it; however, that is something of a separate situation, which was not discussed further.
Avastar Status
AvaStar is now at release candidate 4, with RC 5 on its way, which may be the final RC before a release.
.ANIM Exporter for Maya
Aura Linden is re-working the code on her open-source Maya .ANIM exporter. She was originally working on it in Maya’s MEL scripting, which would make it compatible with all versions of Maya.
However, after encountering some problems, she is now coding it in Python. This means the exporter will only initially work with versions of Maya supporting Python (version 8.5 onwards). It may be that once this work has been finished, Aura hopes to be able to go back and complete the exporter in MEL for older versions of Maya.
Mayastar Update
Cathy Foil will have an update for Mayastar appears shortly. When the .ANIM exporter is available (above), it will be folded in to Mayastar, although it is not exclusively for Mayastar.
Splitting the Avatar Shape into Different Elements
This was suggested some time ago as a possible Bento follow-up as a means of making it easier for users to mix and match heads and bodies by allowing different underpinning avatar shapes for both, which could be worn simultaneously. This was seen as particularly useful for users who are uncertain about customising their form using the sliders, or where creators provide No Modify shape with their head or body product, limiting the suer’s ability to modify one or the other. N definitive proposal has been put together on how this might be achieved.
Supplemental Animations
This was also the subject of early Content Creation meetings with Vir as a possible Bento follow-on project. The idea is to allow “supplemental” animations to run alongside the animation states keyed by llSetAnimationOverride(), effectively allowing them to play together, rather than conflicting with one another as is the case at the moment. This is still be considered, but no work has been carried out as yet.
Next Meeting
As Vir is out of the office in week #11, the next Content Creation meeting will be on Thursday, March 23rd, 2017 at 13:00 SLT.
On Tuesday, March 7th the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC channels in week #9. This includes:
Further improvements to off-line IM delivery when you log in.
Objects that are unable to enter a parcel now generate useful error messages.
IM to Email will no longer turn itself off.
Improved internal logging
Internal server changes.
There is no planned deployment to the RC channels on Wednesday, March 8th, and no restart planned. Wednesday will, however, see a limited deployment to the Snack channel. There are no release notes associated with the deployment.
E-Mail to Snapshots
The deployment of the server maintenance package to the Main (SLS) channel means that at present, the ability to send snapshots to e-mail is broken across the grid. This is because changes made server-side mean that a viewer validation process for e-mails to snapshot will fail, breaking the ability to send them (see BUG-41443).
A viewer-side fix for the problem is on the way, but will take time to reach all viewers, once released.
Server Updates on Aditi
There are two new server versions currently on Aditi which will be making their way to the Main grid in due course.
DRTSIM-323: New Simulator Build
The DRTSIM-323 channel on Aditi contains a new version of the simulator code using the Lab’s latest build of the server operating system. The code is available on a number of regions, including:
Fire Ants
Bug Island
Mauve
(Remember, these are beta grid regions, on Agni (Main) grid regions.).
Commenting on the code, Mazidox Linden said:
We would ask for your help in testing on DRTSIM-323 servers as much as possible, because basically anything you can do in Second Life could be affected. We have a bunch of tests, both user facing a not, that we’re running for this, but we will never test 100% of testable things. It just can’t be done.
So, rezzing objects, building / modifying objects, scripting, testing scripts, uploads – just about anything you can think of needs testing & any noted / reproducible issues JIRA’d.
DRTSIM-341: HTTP Asset Fetching
The DRTSIM-341 channel, which should be deployed to Aditi in the near future, will contain the updated code for fetching landmarks, gestures, animations, shapes, sounds and wearables (system layer clothing) , via HTTP / the CDN(s). The Lab is hoping that people will again be able to help with testing but this will be dependent upon a new project viewer (most likely) appearing which has the necessary viewer-side code as well. There is currently no ETA on when that will appear.
SL Viewer
The Maintenance RC viewer was updated to version 5.0.2.324126 on March 3rd, and then promoted as the de-facto release viewer on Monday, March 6th.
The Love Me Render RC viewer containing rendering pipeline fixes appears to have been withdrawn. This leaves the rest of the viewer pipeline as follows:
Project viewers:
Project Alex Ivy (LXIV), 64-bit project viewer, version 5.1.0.501863 for Windows and Mac, released on January 10
360-degree snapshot viewer updated to version 4.1.3.321712 on November 23, 2016 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images – hands-on review
Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.
Community Platform
The transition to the new Community Platform is still in progress, I’ll have a review of it once things are live.
Deployments Schedule
Speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday, March 2nd, Mazidox Linden briefly described the reason to the current slow-down in server deployments, saying, “As a general note: We’ve had several stability and performance fixes recently. While we can’t be more specific about timelines (or provide further details) they are taking up a large portion of our time to make a better Second Life.”
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 