Category: TPVD / Open Source User Group

2016 SL project updates 34 (2): TPV Developer meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Arranmore; Inara Pey, August 2016, on Flickr Arranmore – blog post

The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August 25th. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, and references to it are indicated through the use of time stamps in the paragraphs below. My thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

This is not intended to be a transcript of the entire meeting, which featured discussions of some situations specific to individual region rather than SL as a whole. However, key discussion points have hopefully been highlighted.

Server Deployments

There were no scheduled deployments for week #34.

SL Viewer

Release Candidates

[00:15] Both of the current release candidates – the VLC Media Plugin replacement for Windows and the Visual Outfits Browser viewer, have elevated crash rates. Each is liable to receive a further RC update in week #35 (week commencing Monday, August 29th).

[00:53] There will be a new Maintenance RC viewer appearing as well.

64-bit Viewer

[00:58] Progress is being made on the 64-bit versions of the viewer, and these are expected to surface (Windows and Mac) as project viewer quite soon.

Bento Project Viewer

As noted in my Bento update #24, the Bento project viewer was issued in what is hoped will be the final project viewer iteration before it progressed to Release Candidate status. Version 5.0.0.318969, released on August 25th, includes the following updates among its changes:

  • The latest viewer updates body size less frequently (starting / stopping an animation) so vertical height repositioning should be less jarring.
  • During mesh upload, SLM files are by default not created and not used. This can still be overridden by changing the debug setting MeshImportUseSLM
  • The show bones display has been modified to use colors differently, distinguishing between joints that are skinned to, joints that have position overrides defined, and all other joints.
  • Animation of collision volumes has been fixed.

Voice Updates

[02:17] The voice updates are progressing, but is not expected to appear in a project viewer soon due to some remaining issues which need to be resolved.

[03:56] There are some server-side voice updates currently on Aditi undergoing test. When these will be moved to the main grid is subject to further discussions with Vivox, which are due to take place in the forthcoming week. When these updates are enabled on the main grid, they will be gird-wide.

[33:10] Oz offered a reminder that in-world / region issues are unlikely to be related to / cause Voice issues in the majority of cases where the latter are being experienced, as the only way the simulator and its host server are involved in voice is when a user is initially connecting to Voice (the simulator provides the channel addresses to the viewer). After this, all communications are between the viewer (via the SLVoice plugin and the Vivox voice servers.

[34:10] As a part of the ongoing work to better monitor and control Voice, the Lab will be introducing improved logging on exactly what the viewer is doing when connecting to Voice.

Exceptions Handling, etc

[02:44] As noted at the last TPV Developer meeting, the Lab is going to be making some source code changes, including a clean-up of asserts in the viewer and how exceptions are handled (the latter to try to prevent the viewer crashing as a result of encountering an exception), and further rendering pipeline clean-up. These will be showing up in a project viewer at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Accessing Crowded Regions & Increasing Max Number of Users Per Region

[08:30] Trying to access a crowded region for an event is often a matter of pot luck. when full, you have no real choice but to get re-trying via teleport or crossing  a region boundary. As a result, the Lab has frequently been asked to add some form of access queuing system to regions.

While a queuing system has been considered, the Lab feels it brings with it may questions around how it work to present an optimal solution for users. As such, while they are open to proposals for a queuing system, optimally, they’d rather work towards trying to increase the number of avatars regions can support. This is something also being looked at from time to time (see my May 27th, 2015 SL project update as an example), although there is no work actively being carried out on it right now.

Abuse Report Categories

[17:00] As indicated in my last TPV Developer meeting update, the Lab will be introducing a new region capability to handle abuse report categories. Once implemented, TPVs will be able to adopt the use of this capability, rather than having abuse categories held within the viewer, where they may get out-of-step with the categories supported by the Lab.

There is also a reminder in the meeting that abuse situations should be reported ASAP after the event, so that the Lab can refer to the related simulator logs during investigations, and that there is a L$10,000 bounty payable on SEC JIRAs which identify actual or potential abuse vectors  / exploits which the Lab can act upon to close.

AMD Graphics Issues

[26:10] Many users with AMD GPU (notably the RX400 series) have been experiencing glitches and “tears” appearing in their world view  – see BUG-20057 and FIRE-16829. User Hurana Ugajin reports she is having a dialogue with AMD on the issue, and a solution may be forthcoming soon. When / if available, a request has been to post it to the SL technology forum.

Region Resource Allocations

[36:19] A question is asked on whether it would be possible to allocate simulator resources (script usage, etc), on the same basis as object land impact – thus allowing resources to be assigned / capped by parcel size, etc.

The Lab does not believe this can be done without significant changes to SL, as a lot of the underpinning resources are not location-based (e.g. scripts are run on the basis of where they are). Instead, the Lab is focused more on penalising individuals for excessive use of resources (e.g. if you run a script which abuses resources in a region, all your active scripts are throttled, not just the offending script). Such abuses can also be AR’d by those noting them.

Other Items

Aditi Access

[04:42] Some users are apparently being told that in order to access Aditi, they require Payment Information On File (PIOF) and to have completed a tutorial. These are actually part of the requirements to be able to upload mesh. No special requirements are required to access the beta grid other than your user name and password.

There is , however a problem with new user accounts not showing up on Aditi when they should, and a request has to be passed to support to enabled them. This is down to changes in how the Lab is handling account data, which has left Aditi in a state of flux, but a fix for this is in the pipeline.

Account Management

[06:22] The account work mentioned above is part of ongoing back-end work the Lab is carrying out related to personal data is handled and stored even more securely, and help resolve some account management issues. One outcome of this will be a single change to a user’s password will be applied pretty much immediately to both Agni and Aditi.

Large Texture Over-Use

[43:40] A continuing problem in SL is the over-use of large (1024×1024) texture on every surface, no matter how small. While this is a bad content choice, it has been suggested that to discourage this, LL should consider charging differently for different texture sizes. This has been discussed by the Lab, with the admission that given the already low cost for uploads (L$10 per item), there is a certain lack of conviction that introducing a nominal fee scale based on image size will do much to discourage the practice.

Avatar Complexity Calculations

[48:18] As noted at the last TPV Developer meeting, the Lab will be carrying out further refinements in how Avatar Complexity is calculated. A suggestion put forward at this meeting is that as well as having a per avatar limit, if a scene-wide limit could be defined / set. This is viewed as an “interesting” idea.

2016 SL project updates 32 (2): TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

Eclectica – Mystica – blog post

The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August 12th. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, and references to it are indicated through the use of time stamps in the paragraphs below. My thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

Server Deployment – Recap

There was only a Main (SLS) channel deployment this week. This saw the roll of the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC’s in week #31, on Tuesday, August 9th. This comprised internal fixes and an update to prevent BUG-37573.

SL Viewer

Release Viewer – Texture Handling Fixes

[0:35] The Maintenance RC viewer release on Monday, August 8th gained a rapid promotion to the de facto release viewer on Thursday, August 11th. Version 4.0.7.318301 (dated August 8th).

This viewer includes a number of fixes in the image pipeline (e.g. fixes for “bad” textures – those texture files which have invalid data in them). Also included is a fix to prevent the viewer crashing when you system runs out of main (not GPU) memory while  attempting to load a texture file. Instead, the viewer will substitute a plain grey texture. So, when you start to see grey everywhere instead of expected textures, it’s time to restart the viewer. This may be a pain to look at, but it is considered preferable to having the viewer crash at a potentially inconvenient moment.

[1:35] The Lab intends to move along similar lines for other issues within the viewer which can result in a hard crash, and also go through cleaning-up how exceptions are generated and caught by the viewer, and this work should be appearing in the next but one Maintenance RC update. The overall goal is to improve the image pipeline and some other points in the viewer where a relatively low-level thing results in the viewer crashing. Some of this work might also help prevent attempts to deliberately crash other viewers using textures.

In the meantime, issues have emerged affecting attachments and the Current Outfit Folder with this release – see BUG-37646 “Attachments get ghosted at login on 4.0.7.318301”; and BUG-37653 “Every time I delete Cache and Relog, my Saved Appearances do not load and I am left as a White Cloud in Second Life Viewer 4.0.7.318301”, for details.

Remaining Viewers in the Release Channel

[4:20] The VLC Media Plugin RC viewer, version 4.1.1.318152 dated July 28th at the time of writing, which contains the LibVLC-based replacement for QuickTime for Windows, is liable to be the next RC that will be promoted to release status.  A new RC version of this viewer, merged-up to the 4.0.7.318301 code, should appear in the release pipeline in week #33 (commencing Monday, August 15th).

[4:32] The plan remains to update the Mac version of the viewer to use VLC as a part of the 64-bit viewer development.

[6:10] The Visual Outfits Browser RC viewer, version 4.0.7.318263 dated August 1st at the time of writing, which allows users to preview images of outfits in the Appearance floater should be updated in week #33 following a merge with the 4.0.7.318301 code. This update will also include a further round of bug fixes for this project.

Project Bento

[7:35] A new project viewer is being readied, which includes bug fixes and which has been merged with the 4.0.7.318301 code. This should hopefully appear in week #33. See my Bento update 22 for more on the project.

Upcoming Viewers

[6:43] A new Maintenance viewer should appear in week #33. This will contain further fixes and improvements, although not the exception handling improvements referred to above.

[7:00] Work is expected to resume on the 64-bit versions of the official viewer in week #33.

SL Voice

[9:45] Work is progressing on Voice, with a further SL Voice plugin update expected from Vivox soon. Oz has been debugging an upcoming project / RC viewer with more Voice fixes – although this isn’t yet ready to be issued.

Avatar Complexity

It has been noted that Avatar Complexity values can fluctuate when seen from different systems, on average by around 5%. This is because it is next to impossible to come up with a single figure that s accurate across all systems, as the calculations have a degree of hardware dependency (GPU, rendering capabilities, etc),

However, the Lab will continue to tweak the calculations to try to make them as consistent as possible, but this will be a gradual process for reasons Oz discussed in the meeting, and which I’ve extracted in the audio file below

A couple of particular issues which have been reported for avatar complexity calculations are BUG-37631 “Rigged mesh with partially transparent texture on it have 4 times higher complexity”, and BUG-37642 “ACI randomly changes (often at login or following a TP)”.

Other Items

Memory Bloat Crashers

[8:50] With the arrival of Avatar Complexity, which provides protection against worn graphics crashers (just don’t set your Maximum Complexity slider to No Limit), it appears that inconsiderates in the virtual world are swapping to use attachments which cause memory bloat in order to crash viewers. There are, for example, attachments which can raise viewer memory to 4 Gb which immediately crasher 32-bit viewers, even if the offending avataris “Jelly Dolled”.

Oz has requested the Lab be supplied with examples, so they can start looking into the matter and hopefully come up with a fix.

Abuse Report Categories

[10:31] One of the possible issues for some Abuse Reports (ARs) appearing to go unanswered is that there are still viewers using the “old” AR categories, rather than the newer categories (as found in the official viewer). This is particularly true where users are still on versions of the viewer which do not have the revised list of AR categories.

To prevent this is the future, the Lab plan to make Abuse Report categories a capability handled by the simulator and downloaded to the viewer. This removes storing the categories in the viewer & having older viewer fail to reflect more recent category updates. It will also make it easier for the Lab to update AR categories to better meet users’ needs. A project viewer will be appearing at some point in the future supporting this new capability.

Also, within the official viewer, appending a snapshot to an AR is to become mandatory, rather than optional, to further help support identify issues and deal with them. Having a picture may not be relevant for all ARs, but for those where it could help in identifying issues, it ensures the picture is provided, rather than ignored.

SL project updates 16 28/2: TPVD meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Holly Kai Park: Art Hill - blog post
Holly Kai Park: Art Hill – blog post

The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, July 15th. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, and references to it are indicated through the use of time stamps in the paragraphs below (note that there were some extended pauses in the meeting where there was no discussion, hence some of the time gaps evident between time stamps, where given). My thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

Server Deployment – Recap

There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, July 12th.

Wednesday July 13th saw a new server maintenance package deployed to all three RC channels comprising “minor internal changes”. One of these sees worn scripts capped at a count of 2500. Attempts to add attachments which take an avatar over this limit should result in the attachments failing to wear.

There is unlikely to be an RC deployment in week 29 (week commencing Monday, July 18th), although the current RC update should be deployed to the Main (SLS) channel.

SL Viewer

[01:04] The Bento project viewer updated to version 5.0.0.317597 on Thursday, July 14th. This viewer incorporates the changes to the head bones and sliders from the test viewer, and also includes an update for some inconsistencies in avatar height as viewed by self versus others. This is most likely the last iteration of this viewer, prior to it moving to release candidate status.

[00:34] The VLC Media Plugin viewer, version 4.0.6.316258 at the time of writing, should be promoted to release candidate status  “shortly”, pending the fix of a rendering bug.  This viewer had also had fixes for some of the media sound issues which were being experienced.

[02:03] The Visual Outfits Browser viewer, version 4.0.6.316422 dated July 1st at the time of writing, is also awaiting a final bug fix prior to being promoted to RC status.

64-bit Viewers

[02:44 and 18:33] A project version for the 64-bit versions of the official viewer should be appearing “pretty soon”. When these do arrive, the Lab plan to offer Windows in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours going forward, and Mac as 64-bit only, pretty much as TPVs support 64-bit already do. IF there is a Linux build, then this will also be 64-bit only. The 64-bit versions will also include 64-bit updates to the Havoc sub-libraries as well.

Linux Support

[10:15] As a part of the discussion on SL Voice (see below), Oz re-interated that the Lab will not be directly supporting Linux, but remains willing to accept contributions from TPVs which do support that platform in order to keep the official Linux viewer up-to-date. This is essentially because the effort involved in maintaining a Linux flavour of the viewer when compared to the very small number of Linux users who actually make use of the Lab’s own viewer (overall, Linux users are thought to account for around 1% of the total active user base, many of whom use TPVs).

SL Voice

Voice on Linux

[03:50] Vivox has, for some time, focused updates for the SL Voice package on Windows and Mac, and have ignored Linux. Unfortunately, a recent update from Vivox changed how random handle values in the protocol between the SL Voice package and the viewer are generated, a change which effectively stopped Voice working on Linux (see BUG-20174).

Unfortunately, Vivox have no plans to update their support for Linux, so this is unlikely to be fixed. Some TPVs have therefore been reverting the SL Voice package for their Linux offerings to an early version. Commenting on this, Oz requested that they do not do this for other flavours of their viewers, and noted that even with Linux is not ideal, as the fix actually helps prevent “people subverting the security of your system in really unpleasant ways.” Rather, the suggested approach is for users to run the Windows viewer or the Windows SL Voice package on Linux using Wine.

Voice Support Updates

[07:12 and 13:05] The Lab is engaged in a programme with Vivox to update much of the Voice support. This will involve a new version of SL Voice “pretty soon”. This initial update should be backward compatible on Mac and Windows, allowing TPVs to adopt it, and will include a new codec which should improve the quality of voice for those using the update.

However, further down the road, this programme will include further improvements to Voice security and prevent it being abused, fixing a number of long-standing vulnerabilities. This programme will involve changes to SL Voice package, the viewer, the simulator and the Vivox servers, and due to their nature, they will not be backwards compatible, and viewers not incorporating them – including Linux flavours – will not be able to use Voice(again, running the Windows viewer / Windows SL Voice package under Wine is the suggested route forward for Linux users).

Because of this, the changes will be phased in over a period of time, starting with the viewer changes, and the announcement at the TPV meeting is essentially to put TPVs on notice of what will be happening over the next couple of quarters. Once the viewer  / SL Voice package updates have been adopted by TPVs, the necessary changes to the simulator software and to Vivox’s own servers will be introduced.

Voice Connection Issues

[23:19] BUG-20075 notes an uptick in voice connection failures. These have been noted by the Lab as well, and they are thought to be in part the result of a number of attacks directed at Vivox, which the company has been responding to. The hope is that new monitoring tools within the latest version of SL Voice may help identity further problem areas.

SL Project updates 16 26: Server, viewer TPVD Meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey

It All Starts With A Smile; Inara Pey, June 2016, on Flickr It All Starts With A Smile – blog post

Some of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, July 1st. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, and references to it are indicated through the use of time stamps in the paragraphs below (note that there were some extended pauses in the meeting where there was no discussion, hence some of the time gaps evident between time stamps, where given). My thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.

Server Deployments – Recap

  • On Tuesday, June 28th, the Main (SLS) channel received the same server maintenance package previously deployed to the RC channels, comprising  minor internal changes and Tool Tip/Constant text fixes.
  • On Wednesday, June 29th, all three RC channels received the same new server maintenance package, comprising the following fixes:
    • BUG-11836  Increase max animation size – animation files up to  250Kb can now be uploaded
    • BUG-6035 (non-public) LSL email registration (for receiving email from outside the region) can break without automatic recovery.

Deployments for Week #27

There will only be one deployment in week #27 (commencing Monday, July 4th), this will be to the Main (SLS) channel, promoting the current RC channel package, which due to Monday being a holiday in the United States, will take place on Wednesday, July 6th, rather than Tuesday, July, 5th.

SL Viewer

The Bento project viewer updated to version 5.0.0.317134, on Thursday June 30th. This update includes small tweaks to the avatar skeleton file, but no structural changes, and provides fixes for:

  • SL-426 missing string for left pec, right pec attachments
  • SL-398 issues with system eyelashes
  • MAINT-6380 vertical flicker with some mesh avatars.

Visual Outfits Browser Project Viewer

[03:22] The Visual Outfits Browser (VOB) project viewer updated to version 4.0.6.316422 on July 1st. This could be the last iteration of the viewer as a project release prior to it being promoted to a release candidate status, which might be as early as week #27, pending the outcome of fixes for a couple of issues.

Oculus Rift Project Viewer

[04:19] A new Windows build for the Oculus Rift project viewer, version 4.1.0.317313 was released on July 1st (reported as being with the Labs QA team during the TPV Developer meeting) – see my update article for more.

It is expected that over the fullness of time, this viewer will progress through project and RC releases and be merged into the main viewer. The Lab currently has no plans to maintain it as a separate viewer channel.

Note that this viewer is still specific to the Oculus Rift. Support for the HTC Vive in Second Life is something the Lab “would like to be able to do”, but this viewer does not expressly support the Vive as well. If and / or when the Lab might offer Vive support in SL, and how far that support might go (e.g. will it include support for using the Vive’s room sensors with SL) is an open question at this point is time.

Inventory Messaging Viewer Promotion

[00:28] It appears the inventory messaging viewer, version 4.0.6.315555, is “almost certain” to be promoted to de facto release status on Tuesday, July 5th.

This viewer eliminates deprecated and unused UDP inventory messaging mechanisms from the viewer, replacing them with the current AIS mechanisms. The promotion of this viewer to de facto release status marking the start of a countdown towards the removal of the corresponding back-end support for these old UDP operations, which will most likely take place some time in Q4 of 2016 (final dates TBD at this time).

When it happens, it means than any viewers still reliant on the UDP mechanisms for inventory operations – such as the Lab’s Obsolete Platforms viewer (version 3.7.28.300847) will no longer work.

Maintenance RC Viewer

[03:02] The Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.0.6.316883 at the time of writing, is also doing well in its cohort, and is expected to be promoted “not to far” behind the messaging viewer – so most likely around mid-July, unless anything happens, given the Lab generally likes to leave 2 weeks between viewer promotions.

Project VLC Media Plugin Viewer

[36:23] It is hoped this project viewer (currently version 4.0.6.316258, dated June 15th) should move to release candidate status in week #27. Again, this will be for Windows only, replacing the QuickTime media plugin for the Windows viewer with one based on LibVLC. The Mac viewer will be updated to use LibVLC when the 64-bit version is released.

There have been some issues with this viewer recognising .MOV files in comparison with playing files in a web browser or a VLC client (see BUG-20024), It is believed that this is due to be down to the number of different .MOV formats the VLC plug-in in the viewer can recognise (.MOV essentially has multiple flavours) when compared to other means to play these files.

[44:56] In general terms, the Lab plan to make further media handling improvements with the 64-bit versions of the viewer, unless something significant comes up with diverts resources.

There have also been some questions over licensing of media in .MOV format, commenting on this, Oz said:

[39::08] We  believe our viewer is not going to be violating any licensing terms, and you [TPV developers] will have to make your own judgements about what your viewers are and are not allowed to do. I’m afraid Linden Lab cannot be in the position of providing advice on that.

64-Bit

[15:42] Work is continuing on the 64-bit versions of the Windows and Mac viewers., with Oz again re-iterating that when ready, the Lab will provide the Windows viewer in 32-bit and 64-bit flavours and the Mac versions as 64-bit only (as do most TPVs who support 64-bit). Linux will also be provided as 64-bit only, although this isn’t a focus for the first release of the 64-bit versions, unless the Lab receive suitable Linux contributions to help them along.

Continue reading “SL Project updates 16 26: Server, viewer TPVD Meeting” →

SL project updates 16 22/2: TPVD, Bento, TLS 1.2

Posted on by Inara Pey

Countryside, Habitat Springs – blog post

The following notes are taken from the  TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, June 3rd, 2016. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report, my thanks as always to North for supplying it. Time stamps in the text relate to this recording.

Server Deployments

As always, for the latest information, please refer to the server deployment thread.

  • On Tuesday, May 31st, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the same server maintenance package previously deployed to all three RC channels, which included a server crash fix.
  • On Wednesday, June 1st, all the RC channels were updated with a new server maintenance package, comprising the addition of mnemonic names to be used in LSL scripts when attaching to the new attachment points on the Bento skeleton extensions and minor internal changes.

The next RC deployment, scheduled for Wednesday, June 8th will including further anti-griefing measures, one of which will be if you try to rez a group of coalesced objects which between them have more the 10,000 items within their contents, the rezzing will fail on regions on the RC channels once this update has been deployed.

SL Viewer

Release Candidates

[00:45] there are currently two RC viewers in the release channel:

  • Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.0.6.315551, dated May 23rd
  • Inventory Message RC viewer, version 4.0.6.315555, dated May 23rd – removal of deprecated and unused UDP inventory messaging mechanisms from the viewer

[01:05] The Lab is hoping that TPVs will be picking-up the changes on the Inventory Message RC viewer ASAP, as they are hoping to be able to deprecate and removed the back-end support for the old messaging mechanisms completely as well, so that all inventory operations will go via AIS (Advanced Inventory System).

This will provide the Lab with a single point of enforcement for things like which folders in inventory are mandatory and cannot be deleted; which folders cannot be moved inside other folders, etc), in order to help eliminate points of potential inventory issues users may experience.

There are concerns over remaining bugs within the AIS system.

[12:14-17:20] BUG-9506, for example, remains open, although a fix which may help in part with in, relating to how AIS operations are threaded in the viewer, in the current Maintenance RC release, together with fixes for both BUG-10391 and BUG-11929. However, it may be that to deal specifically with the likes of BUG-9506, further tests are to be carried out to see if it still occurs on in the Inventory Message RC viewer, and if so, it may be that it might be merged with the Maintenance RC to see if issues can be resolved that way. The Lab will also re-examine what fixes have been recently made and where they reside within the viewer development pipeline.

Oculus Rift Project Viewer

[05:54] The Lab is still working on the Oculus Rift project viewer, but there are still assorted bugs to be dealt with. The time frame for this project viewer, which will support the latest SDKs and the consumer version of the headset, appearing remains as “pretty soon”.

64-bit Viewer Versions

[24:00] Work on the 64-bit versions of the official viewer is still “on hold”.

QuickTime Replacement

[24:09] A version of the viewer without any QuickTime support may be appearing in the next couple of weeks. This is as a result of  Apple deprecating QuickTime for Windows without offering patches for a couple of potentially serious vulnerabilities, leading to the recommendation that Windows users uninstall QuickTime. As a result of this, the Lab has decided to completely replace QuickTime across all flavours of viewer. When made available, it will likely be called the Project VLC viewer, as some of the media handling will be through libVLC

Project Bento

With the move of Bento to the main grid, Bento User Group meetings will now take place at the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle  at 13:00 SLT on Thursdays. Unfortunately, I was unable to make the meeting on Thursday, June 2nd, so there is no dedicated report in this blog for this week.

Bento is now on the main grid for more widespread testing
Bento is now on the main grid for more widespread testing

The male and female avatar skeletons have also been updated to support the most recent changes to Bento, and can be downloaded from the Bento Testing wiki page.

Work is continuing on bugs and issues, such as BUG-11538 (“Front legs crossing on Bento Mesh quad(animal) avatars”), and while new appearance shape sliders have been considered out-of-scope for the current iteration of Bento, issues have been raised with scaling limb sizes when trying to produce avatar add-on, rather than full avatars, which may in fact be in part solved through the use of a set of generic sliders.  Further discussion on these ideas will likely come through the Bento forum thread, and potentially at the in-world meetings.

[05:15] Regardless of thoughts on slider sets and overall project scope, Bento will be progressing at its own pace, rather than trying to meet any specific deadline. There are a number of known issues still to be addressed, and it is anticipated that further issues are likely to be reported now Bento is available for more widespread testing.

Other Items

TLS 1.2

18:25] As per a blog post from the Lab, which I also reported here, users are being advised to update (if necessary) their web browser and their SL viewer to a version that supports TLS 1.2 by June 15th, 2016. After that date, any web browser or viewer that does not should TLS 1.2 will no longer be able to access Second Life cashier services to send, receive, or exchange L$.

The change is apart of the Lab’s efforts to improve its compliance needs for handling money, but some confusion has remained over exactly what will be affected in terms of L$ transactions, which still persists around matters of in-world purchases.  The confusion prompted Oz Linden to comment during this meeting:

I believe that it will affect being able to purchase items in-world and to send and receive Linden dollars to other avatars, because it’s all interactions with the cashier.

So again, if you are using an older version of the viewer, it is essential you check to ensure it is TLS 1.2 complaint before June 15th.

To do this, use the viewer’s built-in web browser to visit How’s My SSL? and check the Version information displayed in the top left of the page. You may also wish to check your web browser as well, if you are using an older version of a browser and wish to ensure you can continue to make SL Marketplace transactions, etc. However, do be aware that some ad blockers can prevent the TLS 1.2 checks performing correctly.

In order to further confirm what may “break” as a result of this change, it has been suggested the Lab enable some form of testing on Aditi. This will be looked into.

“Feature Surprise”

[6:35] A further hint of an upcoming “feature surprise” was given at the meeting. I’m assuming this is actually the Visual Outfits Browser, designed to provide a means by which users can store and browse images associated with their outfits in inventory, simplifying the act of identifying an outfit prior to wearing it.

SL project updates 16 20/2: TPV Developer Meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Alki
Alki – blog post

The following notes are taken from the  TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, May 20th, 2016. A video of the meeting is embedded at the end of this report, my thanks as always to North for supplying it, and time stamps in the text relate to this recording.

SL Viewer

The current official viewer status is as follows:

  • Current Release version: 4.0.5.315117 (dated May 11), promoted May 18th – formerly the Quick Graphics viewer with avatar complexity and graphics presets – see Avatar Complexity and Graphics Presets in Second Life for more details
  • Release candidates:
    • Inventory Message RC viewer, version 4.0.5.315019, released on May 16th – removes deprecated and unused UDP inventory messaging mechanisms from the viewer
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions), version 5.0.0.314884 dated May 5th
    • Oculus Rift project viewer, version 3.7.18.295296, dated October 13th, 2015
  • 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.

Release Viewer Issues

[02:40]  There are reports that installing the current release viewer on Mac systems will set the Avatar Maximum Complexity setting (Preferences > Graphics) to “No Limit” on both clean and “dirty” viewer installs. JIRAs have been requested if encountered.

There have also been some reports of the viewer crashing following update. The likely best way to overcome this should you experience it, is to perform a clean install of the viewer.

Oculus Rift

[02:08] Testing of the updated viewer is being carried out. There are still “a few” issues to be resolved, and it is hoped that the update will be available (still as a project viewer) in a couple of weeks.

Project Bento

[08:15] The next iteration of the project viewer may be released in the next week, and while I missed the Bento User Group meeting, I believe enabling the back-end support for Bento on Agni is still planned for week #21 (week commencing Monday, May 23rd).

This version of the viewer includes a “reset skeleton” feature which allows you to fix an avatar which may be rendering incorrectly as a result of joint positions getting scrambled when switching between avatar forms.

64-bit Viewer Project

[01:36] It is hoped that work will shortly resume on the 64-bit versions of the viewer after manpower was diverted away onto other projects and needs.

QuickTime Replacement

[01:37] There has been healthy discussion between the Lab and TPV developers about replacing Apple QuickTime in the viewer. As I noted in April Apple deprecated QuickTime for Windows without offering patches for a couple of potentially serious vulnerabilities, leading to the recommendation that Windows users uninstall QuickTime.

[11:43] As a result the Lab is looking to completely replace QuickTime across all flavours of viewers, and feel they now have a strategy for doing so, which is described as coming along “reasonably well”.  However, it is likely that there will be some QuickTime media types that will never be rendered again (e.g. .MOV format).

Other Items

Viewer Stats

[05:52] The Lab isn’t currently collecting stats on what Avatar Maximum Complexity settings people are using, although they may do do. The can currently collect stats on the complexity of avatars and how many are being rendered as Jelly Dolls.

Voice Drop-Outs

[15:00] Issue with Voice dropping out across SL are still being experienced. As I reported in early April, many of the drop-outs are the result of DDoS attacks aimed at the Vivox services, rather than any issues within SL. The Lab is currently working with Vivox to improve the speed of recovery for voice services once Vivox have recovered their systems from these attacks.

Firestorm Release

There are currently a couple of blockers preventing the release of the next version of Firestorm (which has been merged with the Avatar Complexity code and is currently undergoing debugging as a result of that merge). The blockers are related to the recent HTTP updates, made by the Lab. One is a bakefail issue which is known the the Lab and is being worked on; the other is a  crash on the 64-bit version of the viewer which occurs whenever the voice coroutine is launched.