Category: V7 Style

Lab releases SSA / AIS project viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Tuesday February 4th, Linden Lab released the new Server-side Appearance (SSA) / Advanced Inventory System (AIS v3) Sunshine project viewer – version 3.6.14.285190.

The SSA "polish" / AIS v3 project viewer was released on February 4th
The SSA “polish” / AIS v3 Sunshine project viewer was released on February 4th

The SSA updates in this viewer primarily comprise:

  • Stability and performance improvements for SSA: retry logic, removal of redundant requests, detecting various appearance stuck conditions
  • Code cleanup with the removal of a lot of code related to the old client-side baking framework
  • Bug fixes, mostly appearance-related.

The AIS v3 updates require server-side updates to be deployed as well in order to be used. Once this has been done, users should note improved the reliability of outfit changes, including speed of changes and a further reduction in the failure rate experienced when changing outfits.

There is no current release date for the server-side support for AIS v3, and there will likely be further testing prior to a deployment being made; the Lab has actually been waiting for more TPVs to produce test viewers with the AIS code in order for this to happen. Hopefully, with the code now in a project viewer, more TPVs will be in a position to build test viewers for this purpose.

However, anyone wishing to specifically test the AIS v3 code, particularly if they have been experiencing outfit change issues, might want to try the project viewer on the four SunshineTest regions on Aditi.

Related Links

Lab issues Fitted Mesh release candidate viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update January 22nd: As per the comments below, Oz Linden has posted the correct region restart sound to STORM-1980, and the sound is now included in the boday of this report.

On Thursday January 16th, Linden Lab issued a release candidate version of the Fitted Mesh viewer. Given the changes made to the avatar skeleton, the  release sees the viewer’s release number increment by 1, so the Fitted Mesh RC is version 3.7.0.285178.

The upgrade of the project to a release candidate status had been expected to come relatively early in 2014, given that Oz Linden gave a “last call” for issues in which he indicated that a release candidate would be forthcoming “after the holidays”. Speculation that the RC was at the status of Real Soon NowTM was heightened at the Open-source Developer meeting on Wednesday January 8th, when Oz further revealed that as far as the Lab was concerned, there were no further outstanding issues.

It is currently not clear as to how long the viewer will remain as a release candidate prior to promotion to the de facto release viewer.

STORM Contributions

As well as the Fitted Mesh updates, the new release candidate includes a number of open-source contributions from Jonathan Yap and Ansariel Hiller.

Jonathan’s contributions notably include the following, but please refer to the viewer release notes to see all of them:

STORM-1975: IM windows occasionally report false typing status – an annoyance to many for some time has been the situation whereby, during an IM conversation, the recipient of an IM will see the “…. is typing” message (where “…” is the other person’s name), even though the other person isn’t actually sending a message. This update should fix this issue.

STORM-1980: Region Restart Warning Changes – described in the release notes as “World-shaking improvement to region restart warnings”, STORM-1980 is designed to improve the awareness of region restarting message and add a default region restart sound. The sound is designed to be played automatically by the viewer on receipt of a region restart message, adding an additional warning of an approaching restart (for those with their viewer’s sound on!).

STORM-1981: Changes to Tracking Beacons – alters the behaviour of three types of tracking beacon: the avatar tracking beacon, the landmark tracking beacon and the beacon shown as a result of clicking on the map. Under these changes:

  • Beacons begin at a height of 0 metres and extend up to the maximum unassisted flight ceiling (5,020 metres)
  • The beacon colour is blue from 0 metres to the base height of the object being tracked, and red from 5,020 metres down to the height of the object being tracked
  • Users can optionally set the beacon to pulse towards the target object using the CheesyBeacon debug setting (Advanced->Highlighting). The blue beacon will pulse up towards the object, the red beacon will pulse down towards the object.

Ansariel provides two contributions in this release aimed at fixing a couple of issues in the UI:

  • STORM-1979: Groups count in groups list does not display if the floater is resized
  • STORM-1984: Mousing over UI elements does not make them light up.

Related Links

Kokua Mac test viewer: request for assistance

Posted on by Inara Pey

kokua-logoOn Saturday January 11th, Nicky Perian announced a test version of a Mac build of Kokua is now available, and has also issued a call for assistance from Kokua / Mac users.

The blog post reads in part:

Several hours ago the first Mac build completed and I logged on to Second Life beta grid, Aditi. Rebranding from Second Life to Kokua is needed. If there are Mac users that would like to help in this area please respond and I’ll help set up a build environment on your system. I would like Mac users to test and provide look and feel opinions as comments to this post. If there are bugs please report them to our issue tracker.

Having a Mac build of the viewer has been one of the more popular requests made to the Kokua team, so if you have a Mac system and are willing to help out test-driving the new Mac build and reporting back both opinions (via the Kokua blog post) and on any issues you discover (the latter via the Kokua issue tracker, as indicated above), please download the viewer from the Kokua nightly builds directory.

Similarly, if you are willing to help with rebranding the viewer from Second Life to Kokua (which, as noted above, will require a viewer build environment created on your system which Nicky can provide help with setting-up), do please contact Nicky either directly (via in-world IM or through the comments on the Kokua blog post.

(Please do not leave feedback or offers of assistance on this blog, they may not be picked-up.).

Release Notes

Fitted Mesh: “last call” for issues; release candidate “after the holiday”

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeThe Lab’s Fitted Mesh project viewer has been out for a month, and has seen some good feedback from those who have been trying it out.

Already one update to the viewer has been released, correcting a number of problems, and the Lab has been working with content creators and users who have been providing feedback through the FITMESH project reporting on the JIRA.

However, Lab is keen to start progressing the project in the New Year, and so a “last call” for issues has gone out.

“If you’ve been seeing any issues with the current fitted mesh project implementation, or anything that needs to be added/changed, please make sure that the issues are filed by now, or as soon as possible,” Nyx Linden said at the Content Creation User Group meeting on Monday 16th December.

For those who missed the original announcement, Fitted Mesh is a means by which mesh garments are rigged to the collision bones of the avatar skeleton, allowing them the be resized as the avatar’s shape is changed using the Edit Shape sliders. In essence, it is the same approach as has been seen within Second Life and variously referred to as the “RedPoly method” or “Liquid Mesh”.

The technique uses both the existing bones in the SL avatar and an additional set of bones in order to work, and you can read more on it in my original preview article, if you’re not already familiar with the approach.

Oz Linden, also at the meeting, underscored the “last call”, saying, “To emphasise what Nyx said earlier … get your comments and issues in on Fitted Mesh ASAP so that we can do a release candidate after the holiday break.”

Quite when that release candidate will appear is unclear; there is a lot going on at the Lab, and several projects are likely to be vying for room in the release channel (although some will hopefully go to project viewer status first and give the rest some elbow room).

However, if you have been looking at the current Fitted Mesh viewer and wish to have input to the project, now is very much the time to do so. Similarly, if it is something which has been on your “to do” list, now is the time to move it to the top, or risking seeing your chance ot have input to the project, and influence on the Lab, vanish.

Related Links

Firestorm meeting and Q&A December 14th: video and transcript

Posted on by Inara Pey

firestorm-logoOn Saturday December 14th 2013, the Firestorm team hosted another informal question-and-answer session. While the meeting was recorded, the Firestorm team are aware that many of their users have hearing difficulties, and / or prefer to read text. It is because of this that this transcript has been provided.

When reading it, please remember:

  • This is not a word-for-word transcript of the entire meeting. While all quotes given are as they are spoken in the video, to assist in readability and maintain the flow of conversation, not all asides, jokes, interruptions, etc., have been included in the text presented here
  • If there are any sizeable gaps in comments from a speaker which resulted from asides, repetition, questions to others etc,, these are indicated by the use of “…”
  • Timestamps are provided as guidance should anyone wish to hear the comments in full from any speaker on the video
  • Questions /comments were made in chat while speakers were talking. This inevitably meant that replies to questions would lag well behind when they were originally asked. To provide context between questions and answers, questions in the transcript are given (in italics) at the point at which each is addressed by a member of the Firestorm team, either in voice or via chat.

Please note: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. As such, questions on technical issues relating to Firestorm and  / or project-specific questions cannot be answered here unless one of the Firestorm team drops by.

The TL;DR Summary

The numbers in braces are timestamps which refer to the section of this transcript where more details can be read, and to the section of the video recording where the relevant comments can be heard.

Main Discussion:

  • The next release: will most likely be a stabilisation of the code currently in 4.5.1 rather than introducing major updates, although this is still to be determined. LL have a lot coming down the pipe, which Jessica was hoping would be ready for inclusion in the next release, but that is looking unlikely unless something significant happens to change things [0:00:25-0:02:48]
  • Response to the beta has been good, around 120,000 downloads, of which around 6,000 are for the Windows 64-bit version. A number of people have subsequently reverted back to the 4.4.2 release due to issues. There are significant issues with voice, Mac users have encountered issues arising from Cococa (Mac and Voice issues covered later as well).[0:02:48-0:06:03]
  • Reference is often made to “Linden Bugs”. This does not necessarily mean they are the Lab’s fault; it simply means that the SL viewer has the same issues [0:06:03-0:06:53]
  • Firestorm releases are currently roughly four months apart. Ideally this should be two months, which is a target, but needs to be balanced with the risk of overwhelming the support volunteers (who need to both learn and support new releases). Therefore, it might mean a compromise of a release every quarter [0:06:53-0:09:40]
  • Voice issues: Vivox problem, LL have it as well. Firestorm have a series of videos demonstrating the problem. If a user on FS 4.5.1 beta has the issue, the recommendation is to revert to the 4.4.2 release [0:09:53-0:10:46]
  • The FS Windows 64-bit has been well received and feedback has been positive. Most people are reporting imporved stability rather than improved performance compared to the 32-bit version [0:11:10-0:12:56]
  • Oculus Rift is coming to Second Life [0:13:10-0:15:27]
  • Leap Motion is coming to Second Life – and the Firestorm Team have taken a lead in the integration work with the viewer [0:15:27-0:22:49]
  • Firestorm 4.5.1 beta and Firestorm release numbering explained [0:23:02-0:26:35]
  • Why Firestorm block versions and why Phoenix isn’t currently blocked [0:52:02-0:58:41; 1::0036-1:02:56]
  • Firestorm Q&As qill be monthly from January, alternating between 08:00 SLT and 16:00 SLT month-by–month [1:12:03]

Q&A Session:

  • Would it be an option to have different branches for people to download …? – includes discussion on why FS does not have nightly builds and on joining the FS beta testers [0:27:56-0:37:32]
  • Can we hope for more tattoo layers? [0:37:35-0:39:19] – reply includes reference to Linden Lab User Group meetings, the forums in which such questions can be asked
  • Will the new version [of Firestorm] be in 64-bit, and is Fitted Mesh coming? [0:40:00-0:47:40]
  • Why is IM and local chat so laggy in the beta version of Firestorm? (Mac build) – known issue, with both Firestorm (FIRE-12172) and LL JIRAs raised against it [0:47:40-0:49:47]
  • Why will music streaming not work on 4.4.2 with the new Mac OS upgrade? – Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks issue reported under FIRE-10630 There is also a list of Cocoa bugs specific to the Mac build [0:49:47-0:52:02]
  • Dealing with inventory “jump” issues and bug regressions [0:52:02-1:00:36]
  • Are older versions of Firestorm also blocked from OpenSim when they are blocked from SL? – any version prior to 4.4.2 will unfortunately be blocked from OpenSim when blocked from SL. All versions of FS from 4.4.2 onwards can be individually blocked from grids [1:02:56-1:04:13]
  • Has the FS team ever considered working on a mobile Firestorm product? – includes the FS April Fools from 2013, and accessing Firestorm remotely [1:04:16-1:10:17]
  • Has the FS team considered “drawing a line” on how far they’re veer from the LL codebase (e.g. additional feature input, etc.), in order to improve the release cycle and lessen the maintenance overheads? [1:13:20-1:21:01]
  • What drives the FS team to do what they do? [1:21:40]

Continue reading “Firestorm meeting and Q&A December 14th: video and transcript” →

Kokua 3.6.12 released; CtrlAltStudio and UKanDo added to TPV Directory

Posted on by Inara Pey

Kokua Update

Thursday December 12th saw the Kokua team release version 3.6.12.30743 of the viewer. This appears to be a fairly contained update, focused on updating the viewer with the recent SL viewer 3.6.11 GPU Table updates and the 3.6.12 NameUpdater changes. Neither of these involved functional changes to the viewer from LL’s side, but do bring Kokua to parity with the current SL 3.6.12 code base.

In addition, the short-form release notes highlight the following updates from the Kokua team:

  • UI enhancements by Jessica Wabbit.
  • UK-english dictionary added to the spelling checker
  • Removal of packaged PCRE libraries from Linux 64-bit builds as they caused web kit to fail to load on newer Debian based distributions.

The release notes also point out that when the viewer is started for the first time following installation, there will be a notice and link to check graphics drive availability. The Kokua team urge caution if the option is taken to update drivers, as system breakages have resulted in the past. They also point out that the notice is a recommendation to check for updated drivers, not a requirement to update.

Related Links

CtrlAltStudio and UKanDo

The CtrlAltStudio and UKanDo TPVs have both undergone self-certification and have been added to the Third-party Viewer Directory (TPVD).

The associated wiki page for CtrlAltStudio describes the viewer as :

The CtrlAltStudio Viewer has been set up in order to try out and share a number of ideas, the first being stereoscopic 3D display and some initial Oculus Rift support . It is based on the Firestorm Viewer which it tracks closely while adding particular features.

The associated wiki page for UKanDo describes the viewer as:

UKanDo gives a whole new perspective in Second life by using a camera placement adopted by the vast majority of third person video games.

Also includes RLV along with plenty of other useful tools. It won’t have all the gadgets/gizmos a lot of the bigger viewers have, the aim is to keep it as lite as possible with only the fixes, gadgets and gizmos we need to keep the Viewer stable and up-to-date! The Avatar happy! And to aid with building!

(Please note that descriptions are supplied by the viewer developers, not Linden Lab.)

Congratulations to both viewers, both of which I’ve been following in these pages. You can catch-up with them as follows: